Becoming Swan by Maaya
Standard disclaimers apply

Relena POV

---

”Thank you.”

The maid who had handed me a cup of tea, Earl Grey to be precise, nodded towards me with a slight smile on her lips before walking out of the door. Finally in private, I took a careful sip from the cup and smiled at the familiar taste, it warmed me up inside and filled me with a feeling of that I was home, not in a hotel room in London with maids that were too prompt and willing to please the ‘former queen of the world’.

They would probably want to pack up my things, but I had (hopefully) made it clear that I would do it myself, later. The exhaustion I felt from flying from USA to South America, and then to London without resting or eating anything else other than the horrid plane-food must have showed in my face though, as someone had been quick to order me a cup of tea to take too my room and relax with.

I hate it. To not be able to order things for myself, I mean. Not being able to even know the name of the one who ordered me the tea. Not being able to care for myself. I’m pretty sure that if I’d order someone to pick up a handkerchief I dropped; they would arrive and save me without hesitation. Probably with a smile on their lips too.

I feel like I don’t have any control of my life anymore. When you are twenty years old you’d expect a person to be able to be rather independent, or at least expect other people to believe that, how childish you might ever be.

When I was younger, I painted an image of how I wanted to be in my mind. An image of how perfect I wanted to be and how proud I wanted to make my parents for having that nice little girl who were so helpful and willing to please. I read too many cheap books about adventures and mysteries, and beautiful, brave heroines. I was naïve. Very naïve.

It all led me to believe that I was as brave as the characters in those books and that I was so perfect and had that I was fond of adventures.

I wasn’t. Actually, I hated it.

When I was fifteen years old, I met a young boy who lay on the beach, dressed in a space-suit. He was unconscious but woke up before the ambulance (that I had called) arrived. When he woke up, he asked me if I had seen it. At first I didn’t understand what ‘it’ was but after a while realization dawned upon me and I figured that he mean his face.

I felt like I was in the prologue of an exciting book.

It was when my foster father died that I realized that war was not a game, and that the world was cruel. It hit me like a blow and made me feel trapped in people’s expectations of that I would be strong and do was what best for everyone.

I understood that I had been stupid to paint that image of myself and to keep that façade for so long.

With an abrupt move, I stood up and poured the tea out into the small hand basin in the bathroom. It felt like a victory for me to ignore something ‘they’ had given me. A small, childish victory, but a victory nevertheless, and I hung on to that small satisfaction with desperate arms as I watched the brownish liquid disappear.

I’m pathetic, am I not?

I turned around only to be met by the sight of the suitcase still filled with my clothes as it lay there on my bed and I decided to go outside for a while before unpacking it.

Rather than walking through the lobby and probably be followed by a nosy reported, I took the fire escape. It was a small metal stairs that I could reach from the window. Thankfully, it was a window with view over a small alley, not towards the streets. I didn’t like the idea of that hundreds of people would see the vice-foreign minister escaped by way of the fire escape.

I dressed in something rather casual, or at least more casual than the business suits in different colors that I usually wear, meaning I dressed in a light violet skirt and a blue blouse. I let my hair hang loose around my shoulders instead of wearing it in a pony tail at the base of my neck like I usually do.

Perfect.

It wasn’t hard at all to climb down that stair, but a slight wave of dizziness hit me when my eyes fell on the ground below me when I was only halfway down. Firmly determined as I was though, I ignored it and forced my eyes upwards again and didn’t let them drop until I was safe on the ground again.

Of course, they just *had* to place me on the fifteenth floor.

I found myself in the alley between two high buildings. It was dark and also rather dirty, so I emerged from there as quickly as I could but as soon as I was out in the sun light again, something ran into me from the left. We tumbled over each other, desperately trying to keep standing and not knock the other of his or hers feet.

By the time we were ready, I was seeing stars.

“..sorry miss, you okay?” Someone drawled to me in an all too familiar American accent and I couldn’t believe my ears. How big was the chance that I would run into a former gundam pilot during a business meeting in London anyway?

“..ojou-san!?”

Well, now he had recognized me. Sighing, softly so he wouldn’t hear, I looked up at him.

Okay, I can admit that I was surprised at what I saw. It *was* Duo Maxwell, just as I had suspected, but it wasn’t the teenager I remembered from four years ago. He had gone through his puberty all right, and he had hit his growth spurt. He was actually two inches taller than me and his shoulders were broader than I had remembered them to be. The braid was still swaying back and forth behind his back like a living tail and maybe it was just my imagination, but I thought the braid was maybe some couple of shades lighter than before.

He was still wearing black in the form of jeans and a jacket, and his eyes that were now wide of surprise at seeing me, were darker with more blue and grey mixed together with that violet. I admit that I thought he was handsome.

Okay, more than handsome.

“Duo Maxwell?” The surprised gasp went past my lips before I could stop it and I flushed slightly. “What are you doing here? Where’s Heero?”

Now he snorted, probably at the mention of his boyfriend. I realized that he had been expecting me to ask about Heero. “He’s still in USA, working with that Preventers mission.”

I felt how my blush deepened. I kept in contact with Heero, as a friend I might add, and I knew from a long time back that they were together in a romantic way. I never realized until now that I had never met Duo much, only seen him on occasions and almost never talked to him.

I’ve never liked him much. He’s.. well.. so honest, I guess. And he never takes me seriously. He was the one who saw through my perfect façade and he even mocked it slightly back in the old days.

I can forgive, but I cannot forget.

“Oh.” My voice sounded weak, even to my own ears. “Then.. what are you doing here?”

“Visiting Hilde. She works here as a mechanic for the time being. Well, what are *you* doing here, and in those clothes?”

“Am I forbidden to wear these clothes?” I sounded more bitter than intended.

He looked rather surprised. “No, not at all. It’s just..”

“Not my usual style, you mean?” I finished for him and he actually looked slightly embarrassed.

“Well, you know what I mean, don’t you? Sorry.”

Since I decided not to answer him, we stood there in silence for a while before he got impatient and interrupted it.

“You never answered my question, did you?”

“No.”

We were quiet for another moment, during which I realized that I had stains from something brown on my blouse. Inwardly, I swore.

Suddenly, he was ginning and I couldn’t help but grin at the abrupt change in his expression.

“Tell you what.” He said. “Hilde wouldn’t mind if you came along for lunch with us. In fact, she would love it. She often talks about how you met.”

I didn’t really know what to say. In a short moment, I remembered Hilde – the tom-boyish girl who’d stolen data in order to help Duo and the rest of the pilots. A melancholy smile reached my lips as I remembered out short meeting onboard Milliardo’s.. no.. Zechs’ ship. We had understood each other nicely and had not questioned each other’s choices, in words and otherwise. It could actually be fun to see her again, I decided, so I forced the melancholy away from my face and agreed to come with Duo.

*******

He led me to a small café/restaurant with friendly owners. Duo and the girl behind the counter spoke to each other in a way that made me suspect that they knew each other quite well, (although it’s beyond me why he knew someone in London) and it made me feel left out as they laughed at various ‘inside-jokes’ I didn’t understand in the slightest.

I fiddled with the front of my blouse and realized that the stain was from coffee.

Coffee. I never drink coffee, in fact I hate it.

So how could I have a coffee-stain on the front of my blouse?

“Duo!”

My head snapped up just in time to see an older Hilde run over to Duo and practically floor him as she flung herself on to him and hugged him hard. He had to lean himself against the counter so he wouldn’t fall, I’m sure of it.

“Hil!” He exclaimed happily and hugged her tight. “Are you well?”

“Of course I am!”

“Guess who I ran into right now?”

They finally let go of each other and Hilde spotted me.

“Relena-sama?” She asked, surprised.

I smiled politely. “I’m afraid that’s me. Nice to meet you miss.”

“Oh, cut it out please.” She surprised me by saying that and she waved with her right hand. “Just call me Hilde. Can I call you Relena?”

“Hilde and Relena, sounds good.” I smiled once again.

She looked at me strangely before asking. “What are you doing here in
London?”

“Business meeting.”

“Hey!” Duo broke in and glared at me in mock anger. “How come you answered when she asked and not when I did?”

I didn’t know what to answer, but Hilde saved me right in time.

“I was probably much more polite, Duo.” Hilde grinned self-satisfied. “Face it, Maxwell; I’m just sooo much better than you are!”

I swear, by my soul, that Duo stuck out his tongue towards her in a childish sort of gesture. I noticed that he had pierced it, but since Hilde didn’t seem surprised I assumed that he had done it long ago.

Instead, she answered by sticking out her own tongue at him.

“Uhh, shouldn’t we order something?” I, the peacemaker, broke into their tongue-contest with waving hands.

*******

The lunch with Duo and Hilde was.. special, that much I learned.

Their conversations could vary from how many petals an ox-eye daisy really had, to if the new project about building another new L2 colony was a good idea or not – and believe me, there’s a lot between those two subjects to talk about. It resulted in that we stayed there for over three hours.

Not that I complained or anything, I had the press to deal with and a suitcase to unpack back at the hotel after all.

Something that confused me, was that Duo and Hilde continued to order in new food continually during those three hours – they were like bottomless pits and I did also tell them that. They just laughed.

“Well, maybe Duo is, but I’m certainly not.” Hilde grinned and was rewarded with a cherry (from Duo’s pastry) on the top of her nose. Her grin changed into a glare. “That was just sooo childish!”

Maybe it was, but you had to admire Duo’s aim.

Duo ignored her and continued to eat his now cherry-less pastry.

My eyes quickly scanned through the room to see anyone had seen the flying food. Luckily, no one had. My eyes returned to my table-mates and I realized that Hilde was staring at me, incredulously.

She raised one finger to point at me. “Do you know.” She said. “That you just scanned through the room like any gundam pilot who are in an unfamiliar territory?”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, when they search for possible danger?”

“Oh.” I blushed. “I was just looking if anyone had seen Duo throw the cherry.”

Duo snickered down into his whipped cream and small bits from it flow up into his face.

Hilde laughed, but I’m not sure if it was at me or Duo.

The short-haired girl looked at me strangely. I suddenly realized that she had done that more than once during this lunch and I squirmed in my chair until she understood what she was doing and let her eyes drop.

“Jesus!”

Both of us looked up at the same time when we heard Duo’s surprised gasp.

“I have a plane to catch, gotta go, NOW! Bye!”

We watched, rather startled as Duo put on his jacket, grabbed his bag and then ran out of the café. The door fell closed behind him and we stared as it bounced open again and again before finally settling down.

“Strange.” Hilde muttered and looked down at her clock. “I could’ve swore on that his plane don’t leave in at least three hours.”

“Maybe you’re mistaken.” I offered and it was quiet for a while.

Maybe I had laid the blouse on a coffee-stained table once? Yes, that must be it!

I stood up. “I should probably get going too. I have the press waiting for me back at the hotel.”

“Oh, all right.” Hilde stood up too and brushed away some bread crumbles from her lap. “Do you need help to find your hotel? I guess you aren’t very familiar with this town yet.”

I realized that I probably *did* need help and once again I blushed. “Could you..?”

“Yes, of course.”

We went outside together and for the first time I really looked around in London. It was a quite nice town, not too big and not too small. I said this to her.

“Yes, it’s rather good, isn’t it? I like it.” She grinned, before sobering again and looked down at the asphalt in front of her. “Are you okay with Duo and Heero?”

The question took me by surprise. “Yes, I guess I am. I was surprised at first but now I’m okay with it.”

“Me too.” She raised her eyes again. “Did you know that I worked for OZ?”

“You did?!”

“Yes, but then I met Duo and he changed my mind for me.” She smiled fondly. “And I who thought that the hero was supposed to fall in love with the girl he saved.”

“Guess we were both cheated on our heroes, weren’t we?”

“You can say that, yes. What an irony.”

I sighed dreamily. “Fairy tales just aren’t supposed to be true.”

“No.” She agreed. “In this fairy tale the heroes fell in love with each other.”

“And the maidens were left alone to mourn.” I added.

Hilde looked at me strangely again and I shrugged without saying anything. She led me back to our hotel in silence and I glared at the front door in disgust.

“There are probably journalists in there, waiting for me to arrive so they can interview me about whatever they now want to know.”

“About what you said.” She looked at me and I realized that she was slightly taller than me. “The thing about how the maidens were left alone to mourn.”

“Yes?”

“Well, isn’t the best revenge for the maidens to get together then too?”

Then she kissed me.

At first I was too shocked to respond. She was not like kissing a boy, but it was certainly not unpleasant.

In fact, it was rather good.

I kissed back, and she put a hand behind my head to steady me as she deepened the kiss.

Actually, I really, really liked it.

*******

One-sided phone-call heard in an air-port:

“Heero?”

“Wufei, can you please give the phone to Heero?”

“Thanks.”

“Hi!”

“Yes, I’m okay.”

“The plane is leaving in three hours.”

“Oh, I left them alone. It wasn’t hard to find Relena; she was actually climbing down the fire-escape.”

“I don’t know what possessed her!”

“Yes, she went with me to meet Hilde. I think she liked her well enough.”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll call Hilde later when she doesn’t want to castrate me and will thank me instead.”

“Yes, I’ll tell her it was your idea.”

“Yes.”

“Yes. Love you too! Bye.”

*******

The End

*******

On to ´Dates´


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