Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Serendipity ❯ Progression ( Chapter 4 )

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The temperatures were steadily staying at a point that hovered above freezing, and that necessitated coats and warm clothing.

Lauren skipped ahead, shrewdly studying the rows of trees on either side of her. Heero and Relena walked several paces back, about a foot apart but gravitating towards each other almost unconsciously. If they had been alone it was hard to say if they would have walked closer. They were watching the trees as well, but their attention was primarily on each other. She had always been conscious of his presence, but this was almost ridiculous. Heero's hands were covered with gloves, but they were still too terribly appealing. She wished she had the nerve or the opportunity to reach out and take his hand.

"How about this one?" Lauren asked.

Heero and Relena looked, bemused, at the mammoth tree that the girl stood by.

"That's a bit larger than we agreed on," Heero pointed out.

She pouted briefly.

"It's not that big!"

"Are you sure that tree is taller than you are?" Relena asked blithely, under Lauren's hearing range.

"Fairly certain. Just find one about my size, Lauren, ok?" He saw Relena's eyes light up with the opportunity to poke fun a bit, and decided on a whim to beat her to it. "My height," he amended for Relena's ears, "And about Relena's roundness."

She gaped at him, blustering at his apparent lack of concern with that statement. She pointed a woeing finger at him.

"You just wait. If we get snow tomorrow, you're getting a nice big snowball down the back of your neck."

His smile was, if anything, entirely smug. "It's not exactly a great tactical advantage to let your opponent know what you're going to do beforehand."

She smiled her own secret smile. " I have my ways."

"Seriously though... You know I didn't mean it. You're too skinny to be a Christmas tree... and too short."

If it were possible she looked more insulted by that than the roundness statement.

"You were my height once too, you know."

"I'm not anymore," he pointed out.

"Snowballs," she reminded.

"Chance in hell," he countered, confidence nearly oozing out of him.

How did one counter that? She stared at him, mind buzzing around what all this meant. The conversation had been entirely pointless.

"How's this one?" Heero pointed to beautiful tree just a little taller than himself.

Lauren considered it, moving from side to side. "I like it," she said finally.

Relena smiled, happy with the tree as well, and amused at Heero's obvious relief. It was like Heero to spot the perfect one. They turned back to select it, Lauren rushing them for the promise of hot apple cider, and the decorating that would come after. His fingers reached for hers, twining their hands together as they walked back, and she was content.

***

In the end they had bought more decorations than were necessary. If every light was put on the tree it would have been hard to see the green underneath of it, but Heero was uninclined to have to stop in the middle and rush back for more. Lauren had decided upon an angel for the tree, choosing one of the very predictably blonde haired and blue eyed figures. Heero had been a good sport about wrestling the tree into the house, or as it had seemed occasionally, dancing it in. It was an hour of furniture wrestling, base setting, and light untangling before they could step back and admire the fruits of their labor. The tree began a lurching sideways descent. And it started all over again.

Heero mysteriously begged off from their baking experiments to "run errands." It left Lauren and Relena a good two hours to make messes, and read from Lauren's acquired books as they waited. The time until the services was growing slim by the time he had returned, and Lauren had already bathed and dressed when he walked in the door. He seemed rather mystified as they rushed him off to dress himself, but it seemed to be their prerogative to be antsy: they were female after all.

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The mirror was the recipient of a narrowing of the eyes. Relena had claimed one of Heero's bathrooms a frantic half hour earlier, understanding that, because it was simply how things worked, that she would have more trouble with her hair and face than most any other time.

Her prediction had proven true. It was twenty nine minutes, thirty seconds into the mission for near perfection. It was three hairstyles, seven hairpin pinches, a near missed burn with the curling iron, two cases of smeared mascara, three shades of lipstick, four of eyeshadow, and at least six times frustration had bit her hard and near tears she had almost given up and called it good. It pleased her to see that her perseverance had won out.

At precisely to the second, thirty minutes since she had entered in, a knock came on the door. Heero, nothing but always prompt. When the door opened, instead of him allowing her into the hall, he herded her back into the room and closed the door behind him.

Her face began to heat instantly as he, for lack of a better word, visually examined her. From her curled, pinned up hair, to her stockinged but shoeless feet. It was some packaging, he thought, all fire and shadow. And yet even as he knew how soft the velvet was, still his fingers twitched to touch the skin underneath, feel the warmth that gave true beauty to the otherwise shapeless dress.

"You said half an hour," he said in acknowledgment of her request. "You made it."

Laughter spawned by the times she'd nearly dumped her makeup down the toilet, bubble over, causing her eyes to dance with tears, carefully contained tears, of amusement. "It was a close call, let me tell you."

He had to clench his hands now to keep from reaching out and touching her perfect face, that softly curled hair. "You're just like I'd pictured," he said softly. Except for one thing.

The floor would have been a handy place for her to have sat if he had touched her then. With her emotions already running high, seeing him clad in formal clothes, her breath was all but leaving her in gasps from taking it all in.

"Sit down for a second, please," Heero requested, pulling out her make-shift vanity chair. She complied, watching him through the mirror even as he watched her. "Close your eyes.

Her curiosity was winning a losing battle against practicality. With her eyes closed, her ears strained to hear, even to the point where she was holding her breath to hear what was happening around her. There was a quiet tinkling sound, the quiet rhythm of Heero's breathing. Her nose detected the fading, to her own detection anyway, scent of her perfume, and subtle undertones of aftershave. That, she thought ruefully, had completely backfired, in the extent that now instead of wondering what he was up to, she wanted to turn and feel his face, freshly shaved and probably slightly damp.

At the first cool touch of metal around her neck, her eyes almost flew open but she held on. She felt a chill race through her as a heavy coolness slithered across her skin to settle weightily in the hollow of her breasts. A necklace? she wondered.

"Ok," he said, his hand falling to her shoulder.

She blinked twice before truly seeing what she was supposed to. It was a choker, two strands that sat cool and heavy against her neck. It crisscrossed delicately, chained top and bottom with slim baguette cut emeralds set in deep silver. At the front of it, right in the middle of her throat was a series of loops, Celtic knots, laid out in mother of pearl. From the loop at the bottom hung a fine silver chain, what she had felt earlier, that drew the eyes to the skin it traced, even as the finery above it drew the eyes up. Her hand was halfway to her throat before she could think. It was perhaps the most gorgeous piece of jewelry she had ever seen, and it was quite possible the most expensive one she had seen not on a rich someone's wife, or in a store display.

"Heero..." He caught her hand before she could raise it far, stooping down and bending his wrist so he could twine their fingers together. She met his eyes in the mirror, her mind swept away by how much of a couple they looked, he in his dark suit, and she in her dress. His expression was one that promised he would take no arguments, no matter what she was going to say.

"Heero, I can't..."

"You can. This is..." He lifted his hand to trail a thumb down the curve of her neck, delicately tracing the edge of the choker. She couldn't speak as he touched her, could barely breathe. "This is a present, a gift, a thank you. It has all of my thanks, all of my appreciation, all of my... Relena, it suits you. Please."

If only he had completed that last thought. What would he have said? Admiration? Gratitude? Love? If it had been anything that could have swayed her into accepting it, it was no explanation, but that quiet "Please." had done far more to his side.

"It's so expensive," she said, already on her way to lusting after ownership of it.

His smile quirked. "Much as I hate to say it, but these gems are one of many. There are countless emeralds out there, waiting to be cut for a necklace or ring. I have no lack of money, and there's only one of you. There's only one, and I..."

Could a person just melt? He had neglected to finish what had promised to be a telling sentence once again. He was offering so much of himself up in this. It should seem odd, not like the man she had known, but hadn't she always knew, suspected, that there was a deeper side to him? That there was playfulness, humor, and even love?

The hand on her neck glided up to cup her chin, guiding her head back until she could look up at him. His lips met hers at an angle and they both compensated for it. The first kiss had been soft, uncertain, and the ones following it full of curiosity and hunger. This differed so in the longing spilled from lips on lips, the sweetness, the passion, the rightness that was sought after. It tingled through her like a hand touching snow, an awareness that had her eyes drifting open, surprised to find his open as well.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, "I've ruined your lipstick."

"That's the second time you've apologized to me after kissing me," she said wryly. "It's really not necessary."

"I'm sorry."

She giggled, a light sound, before digging out her lip dressing tools.

"Lips are the easiest thing to do anyway, so don't worry."

He horned in on her seat, comforted by the feel of her against his side, and captivated as she wiped away the remnants of her previous work, and set out to recoat her lips. He questioned what she did, running the gamut from liner to moisturizer to lipstick to coating gloss. It was a pleasantly slick feeling, the feel of two lips sliding together after her work was done. He blinked at her as she made as if to hand him the wand.

"Would you like to touch yours up as well?"

Looking at himself in the mirror he found himself amused, seeing the pink tinge his lips had taken from their kiss.

"Not a bad job for something unintentional, I must say," Relena said with a chortle. "But I'd have chosen a different color for you. Say... that *is* an idea!"

He finished wiping off his mouth to send her a glare that was riddled with horror. "If you speak a word of that idea to Lauren I'll disown you."

She smiled, gathering her assorted belongings so they could leave.

"Nice earrings by the way," he said offhandedly.

"Thanks," she answered, narrowing her eyes slightly. "I received them in the mail from an anonymous source. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, now would you?"

"That's classified information." He reached to touch the lobe of her ear where the emerald drop hung from, turning abruptly to open the door. "Let's go... before you have to fix yourself up again."

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