Dates - Part 2 by Maaya
Standard disclaimers apply
Hilde POV
I didn’t have to wait long outside the hotel before I could
see a figure, clad in blue jeans and a tight, white t-shirt, and with
honey blonde hair hanging loose around her shoulders, step out on
the landing of the fire-escape. She paused for a while in which she
seemed to spot me, and a hand came up to wave to me.
I smiled and waved back.
Soon, she was standing on the safe ground again, and I skidded towards
her, feeling strangely light-hearted and happy. “Hi, Rel!”
The object of my affections looked up, surprised and happy at the
same time, it seemed. “Rel?” She asked as we stepped out
of the alley together.
“Yes.” I grinned at her. “Rel. Can I call you that?”
“Of course.” She smiled, but it changed into a giggle
quickly enough. “Should I call you Hil, like Duo does? We’d
become Hil and Rel then.”
Snorting softly, I threw a careless hand around her shoulders. She
had a mix of surprise and satisfaction in her face. “And risk
to be laughed down?”
Relena didn’t reply to that, but I could see how her own laughter
sparkled in her eyes, and I noticed how her lips went upwards ever
so slightly at the corners. I grinned back at her.
My nervousness and bad mood from yesterday evening had vanished into
thin air and suddenly I felt very care-free and happy.
She hauled me out of my thoughts by asking, “Where are we going?”
“Where do you want to go?” I replied back and played
with the hem of my wide, blue t-shirt as we walked down the street
close to each other. I could feel her warmth radiating from her body,
so close was we. Confusion seemed to play a big part of my mind right
then, were we supposed to go as friends of lovers?
“What can you do in London?” She replied and leaned in
a little closer to me.
“Are we going to continue to answer each other’s questions
with own questions?”
“Do you want to?”
“Do you?”
“Wasn’t I the first one to ask?” She said and I
gave up and hit her arm.
“Okay, I loose. Don’t think I can win anything today,
can I?”
“No.” She replied simply, but I could see the smile she
tried to hide by dusking her head. I’ve noticed that she does
that rather often – hide her smiles I mean. Put a hand over
her mouth, duck her head, turn away.. I don’t know why, but
she does that a lot, mostly after teasing someone. It’s if like
she was afraid of hurting someone by smiling.
Since she never answered my earlier question about where she wanted
to go, we just walked around on the streets for a while and window-shopped
and talked. Subject after subject came and disappeared again, but
I swear to God that we didn’t talk about anything deeper than
if ‘Duo pierced his tongue because he wanted it, or because
Heero wanted it.’ Most of it was girlish ramble among friends,
if you get what I mean.
“Oh, God, look at that dress.”
“It’s horrid.”
“I know, but it’s pink..”
“Don’t you dare think about buying it!”
“Did I say I would?”
“Well, no.. but you had that glint in your eyes..”
“What glint?”
“The one from yesterday, when you looked after people who had
seen the cherry-scene.”
“Is cherry-scene a word?”
“Don’t know.”
*******
A while of aimless walking around in London, using the subway if
needed, found us suddenly standing in the middle of Baker Street.
Since I knew a great pub there with wonderful filled baguettes, I
led Relena into it and ordered one each. The only occupants in the
pub were a gang of middle-aged men, who were watching football on
the TV that was tastefully placed in a small corner.
We settled in another corner, as far away from the TV as possible
and began to nibble on our breads, while talking and relaxing.
“Why do I recognize the name Baker Street?” Relena asked
after a moment during which she had been very quiet and thoughtful.
“I know it from somewhere, but can’t remember where!”
I swallowed a large mouthful of bread with lettuce and ham, making
it sound loud and disgusting enough to make even Duo proud. “Let
me give you a clue. Sherlock Holmes?”
For a second, she sat clueless, and I could practically see how the
wheels turned inside her head until she realized what I meant.
“Oh, yes, that’s right – this is where he lived,
right?”
“Not exactly.” I replied and sipped on my coke. “He
lived at 221b, but this is the right street. I think there is a Holmes-museum
further down the street.”
Relena’s eyes lit up and her whole face brightened visibly.
”Really? Can we take a look at it?”
Who can resist such puppy eyes?
I admit that her enthusiasm surprise me – she didn’t
seem to be the type to read good old Sherlock Holmes books, but I
guess that appearances are deceptive.
When we had eaten, we left the pub to find the museum, and it was
harder than any of us had ever believed. When you hear the word ‘museum’
you automatically think about a wide front door, at least three meters
high. I do, and I think Relena does so too because she looked as surprised
as I felt when we saw the small doorway that was supposedly the entry.
I have only read a few stories about Sherlock Holmes and I’ve
seen quite many movies, but the museum was still quite interesting.
It was decorated in old English style and here and there you could
see statues and dolls doing things they apparently did in the books.
It was impressive, and Relena was in ecstasy, bouncing around in the
room like an overgrown schoolgirl – not at all like it was fitting
for the vice-foreign minister.
Her energy passed on to me too and we did probably both look rather
childish as we tried to write in the most ‘English handwriting’
as we signed the guestbook. Don’t ask me how it would look,
because I have no idea.
Just as we were done with the guestbook a woman, dressed like an
old English maid, came up to us.
“Excuse me miss.” She said to me. “Would you like
to have a picture taken?”
Neither I nor Relena understood what she meant, and it must have
showed in our faces because the maid showed us to a small coffee-table
and told us to sit down in two armchairs. I grabbed a Sherlock Holmes
hat that lie on the table and put it on, before grinning towards the
woman who held a camera in her hands now. Out of the corner of my
eye I could see Relena hesitate for a moment before taking a Watson-hat
and put it on, with an adorably happy blush staining her face.
“Interesting Watson.” I told her with played seriousness
and tapped the pipe I’d found beside the hat against my left
cheek, just like I had seen Holmes do in a movie once. “Interesting.”
She giggled, and then smiled at the camera as the maid called us
to attention.
We bought a photo each, to keep as a memory and I still have mine
standing (framed) on the chest of drawers in the living room.
It’s a happy memory, something to treasure with a past filled
of tragic war-events.
After having our picture taken, we looked around in at the various
dolls. I was looking at a man, named Mr. Godfrey Staunton as it appeared
from the sign, who was grieving his dead wife. Relena stood beside
me and studied Dr. Grimsemby Roylott from ‘The Speckled Band’,
a book that I have read. Suddenly I heard a very unladylike yelp,
and the next thing I was aware of was that I held a warm body in my
arms, as Relena seemed to have jumped backwards into me, almost knocking
us both over.
She was nicely warm in my arms and a faint scent from apple(?) came
from her, although I wasn’t sure if it was from her shampoo,
perfume, or deodorant. I noticed that she was slightly shorter than
me and fitted perfectly into my arms.
After a few seconds, she was still there, in my arms, and I wondered
if I was dreaming.
Not so. After almost a minute, she worked herself out of my embrace
and blushed faintly as she pointed accusingly towards the snake on
Roylott’s arm.
“It moved.”
I stared at it for a moment and could then confirm that she was right.
The snake moved its head sometimes and glared with black pearl-eyes.
I couldn’t help it.
I laughed at her.
*******
After the ‘horrifying’ experience at the museum (though
it wasn’t very horrifying in my opinion) we went to a park,
I think it was called Kensington Garden. We walked around on the many
small paths and watched the many dogs that ran around free in the
grass. There were Golden Retrievers, imposing and with golden brown
fur, there were Labradors, swimming in the ponds and there were many
of a special kind I didn’t recognize, but Relena called Pekinese
dogs.
“Still, you wouldn’t have to *laugh*, it wasn’t
all *that* funny.” Relena grumbled and hit the crap out of my
arm. “It’s not *my* fault I wasn’t prepared for
moving dolls!”
She had still not gotten over that I had laughed at her in the museum,
and I don’t think the fact that I couldn’t even say sorry
without grinning helped the matter in the slightest. I knew that she
wasn’t really angry at me; she just muttered on and on about
it to tease me.
I decided to try and make her laugh at me to calm down about it,
though. “I’m so, awfully, terribly sorry ma’am.
What can I do to make up for my horrible crime?”
“Ehh..” She took me seriously and looked around in the
park as if searching for something, and her eyes lingered (in my opinion)
too long on a pond. Just as I was about to break out in cold sweat
her eyes continued to a man who was selling ice-cream.
I grinned. “Want me to buy an ice-cream, ma’am? Strawberry,
chocolate, melon, raspberry..?”
“Strawberry is fine, thanks.”
Why am I not surprised? Hell, she even *look* like someone who’d
like strawberry.
I bought ‘one’ ice-cream and returned to where she was
standing and waiting. One eye-brow rose elegantly (is it a nobility-secret
how to do that or something?) when she noticed the amount of it. “Don’t
you like ice-cream?”
“Of course I do.” I snorted at the mere thought and decided
to be blunt. “Everyone likes ice-cream. I’m just expecting
to eat from yours.”
She blushed. See! Didn’t I tell you that she would do that?
“Oh.” Rel licked at the strawberry ice-cream and lowered
her eyes shyly.
I stared at her red tongue without being able to stop myself. It
curved slightly at the tip to be able to catch some cold strawberry-taste
on it and she let it stay on the ice-cream longer than it was necessary
before picking up a small, small piece and taking it with her into
her mouth.
“Relena.” I whispered quietly, and I couldn’t stop
myself. “Can I kiss you?”
Her eyes flow up to study my face and widened slightly before she
blushed again. “Can’t recall that you asked for permission
yesterday.”
I took that as a yes.
At the same time as I captured her lips with mine, I also brought
a hand up to steady her head when the kiss deepened. She was quite
quick to open her mouth for me, but I remained just a little longer
on her lips, teasing her and tasting the strawberry-redness.
A small sound of pleasure came from her throat when I finally decided
to slide my tongue into her mouth. The taste from strawberries was
stronger there, and it was with reluctance when we parted again and
stared into each others’ eyes.
I suddenly realized that I had an arm around her shoulders, but I
didn’t let it fall as she leaned in close to me anyway. I took
the ice-cream out of her loose grip and tasted it before giving it
back again and kiss her.
“Well, is there an ‘us’ now?” My quietly
asked question didn’t startle her.
“There is.”
I smiled and hugged her close to my body.
“I’m glad.”
She kissed me again.
********
The End
********
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