Desires of
the Heart
Chapter Two
By Zapenstap
The old
florist living within site of City Hall didn’t look up from his bookkeeping
when the little bell above his door rang as a young man stepped into the shop,
but he did take note of him. The young man scanned the blooming garden
with a confidence that created an illusion that he knew exactly what he had
come for, but as the florist watched, he noted the youth’s hesitancy as he took
slow steps in a circle around the store, staring at everything from venus fly traps to the herbs growing in little pots under
the window. The florist knew that what the young man actually wanted was
flowers, for his eyes kept darting to the overflowing baskets of them lined up
behind the desk. Smiling to himself, the florist set his pen on the page
of his hand-written accounts and cleared his throat.
“Can I
help you?”
The
young man took note that he was being addressed, and turned his head and his
feet at once. He had a steady step and a command over his body, despite
the wariness that flickered in his deep blue eyes. He was tall for
someone with clearly some Asian ancestry, and well-built, with a subtle
strength that was evident by the confidence with which he moved and the
sharpness in his eyes.
“I’m
looking for…a gift,” he said, the hesitancy barely noticeable. “Flowers of some kind.”
“For a
girl?” the florist ventured, leaning forward over the desk to fix the flower
arrangement placed there. “What sort of sentiment would you like to
entail?”
The youth
paused more obviously. “I don’t know,” he said at length, hands now in
the pockets of his brown, zip-up jacket. “I just want some flowers.”
The
florist nodded and selected a bouquet of his own judgment, steering away from the
blatantly obvious red roses and instead selecting something more colorful and
of greater variety. He questioned his customer on his liking of dalias, carnations, orchids, and
variety of other favorites before surrounding a selection of pinks, reds and
purples in green fern leaves and wrapping the whole arrangement with white
paper. The young man paid for the bouquet in cash.
The
florist chuckled as he watched him go, musing about this one. There was
always someone every once and awhile with that exact same
expression. The old florist was always delighted when he saw those
customers again, especially if they came in the next time with a pretty girl
and a smile.
******
Relena
sat on the couch with her feet curled up under her, sipping a cup of steaming hot
cocoa and watching the news on television. It was early afternoon and her
lunch break, though the work she did now was so much less than it used to be
that she might spend any amount of time she wished lounging these days, though
she had a meeting today. This room was located in City Hall, a break room
for any of the employees, though since it was an odd hour for lunch (almost 3clock)
is was empty of anyone but herself now.
In her
mind she was going over her plans for the weekend, which included a hike up the
into the mountains with Olivia Jameston, a
bluntly-spoken environmental activist who wanted to point out the
quintessential natural scenes that needed saving if the Vice Foreign Minister
(who had no real authority in any environmental program other than what power
came with her reputation) took the time to appreciate them. Relena was
open to such strange means of lobbying only because she desired to go on a hike
and Olivia was a likeable person.
She
had also gotten a call from Quatre Winner the other
day, the only gundam pilot she really knew well
enough to keep in touch with (except Heero, when he
sometimes stopped by) and had agreed to a luncheon next time she was in L3 on
her normal diplomatic affairs. She believed that both she and Quatre were secretly social creatures who were dismal
failures in executing it. They were both busy and strangely intimidating
people, though from their respective personalities they oughtn’t to have been
the latter. That they were often busy went without saying, of course, but
there was more time for relaxing and living these days then there had been
since before the war. Besides, she liked Quatre,
in the ways that he was similar to her, and she had not seen him in awhile.
At length,
Relena set down her mug and stood up, stretching her back. She had a meeting
today with some Executives businessman who were instrumental in a project she
was involved in regarding rebuilding efforts in the
She
was the first to arrive in the Council Room as she had designed, and for the first
few minutes simply began arranging things the way she would like them. A
few of her office staff promptly brought in the papers she had requested, along
with a few contracts she hoped she would have the opportunity to propose if all
went well. She smiled as she worked, and by the time the executives
arrived, she was standing at the door ready to greet them. Once all the
members were seated, the negotiations began.
It
basically boiled down to the executives wishing to spend as little as possible
with the highest insurance and Relena maneuvering them into larger realms of
investing. She called it investing because she hoped it would be well
worth it, not only for the people whom it would directly benefit, but for the
businessmen as well. She understood that all parties must gain something
significant for the deal to fly, for most people were not simply charitable.
At
half-past four, the negotiations were drawing to a close. In the end,
Relena was commended for her humanitarian efforts as well as her diplomatic
relations. The executives remarked how refreshing it was to deal with so
honest and reliable a person as herself. Relena accepted such compliments with
humble grace and thanked them individually and profusely for their
cooperation. As they rose from their chairs, she rose with them, shaking
hands all around. The edges of her personality that had hardened during
the war when she vied with Romafeller had relaxed
considerably in these peaceful times. It helped that she had already
proved herself, of course, and she knew that these matters were still very
serious, but she had not needed to defiantly condemn anyone in a public speech
for a long time. It was her kindness that shown through these days more
than her strength. Many thought she had herself to thank for that, but
she knew better.
It
was not a surprise when her office staff entered the room as the executives
were still gathering their things; they came in with clipboards and appropriate
smiles, clearing off the table and replacing the coffee, but it was a surprise
when one of them seemed to be Heero.
She
blinked in surprise, doing a double take just to be sure, but it was indeed
him. Heero walked into her meeting on the heels
of one of her office assistants, John Hamrick. John carried a clipboard
and wore a suit and tie. Heero came in a brown
jacket carrying nothing. In somewhat of a profound daze, Relena leaned
back against the windowsill, her slender body curving back, her reports
pressing into the material of her blue vest as she wrapped her arms around
them. Heero’s expression was strange, carrying
the sort of intensity she had been used to seeing during the war, but of a
different kind. His eyes caught her immediately and he smiled in such a
way that she straightened, her body suddenly buzzing.
“Heero,” she said, and realized then that she had
momentarily forgotten about the executives. Quickly she turned to them and
continued her pleasantries where she left off. They smiled as they left,
completely unaware of any lapse in relations. Once they were gone, only a
few staff members remained, going about their business with soft chatter, and Heero, now walking toward her.
“I
just stopped in to say hello,” he said, looking her straight in the face.
He had a beautiful face, she had always thought so, even with all its cares and
hard lines. But then, many of those had been smoothed away. Once Heero moved to the Earth, after his stay with that strange
man who was either his mentor or some lost relation of his (Relena still wasn’t
entirely sure), he seemed almost a different person. And
yet, not so different. He was now becoming the person she had seen
in him all along, the person she had seen glowing strongly beneath the fierce
exterior that had protected and preserved him during the war.
She
smiled at him again and said something conversational, though she wasn’t quite
sure what it was. She kept talking, smiling unconsciously, hugging the reports to her body with one arm now, the other
dangling without use. He replied in kind to her words, and suddenly she
felt his hand touch hers, a gentle and almost unconscious grazing of the
fingers. Uncharacteristically, she jerked back, and then laughed
hysterically. His expression was forcibly smoothed. To cover the
awkwardness of the moment, she immediately invited him to sit down in one of
the chairs at the table, gesturing with the hand he had touched. For a
moment he started to without thought, and then seemed to catch himself.
He
was suddenly very close to her, close enough to where she felt like her space
was being imposed upon, though he was only talking to her in a low, rolling
voice. What was he saying? She concentrated and realized he was
talking about the weather and the walk to City Hall. She nodded, raising
her eyebrows every so often and finding her lips twitching into smiles she
could not stop yet felt were horribly inappropriate.
“So
you’re just stopping through,” she repeated. “On your
way to where?”
If
she hadn’t known better she would have said he floundered. “… I have
things to do in the city. I just thought…”
“No,”
she said hurriedly. “I’m glad you came by.” Her back was
practically pressed against the window. She could feel the chill air from
the cold outside seeping into her shoulder blades, but she felt warm. Her
face must of said something because he stepped hurriedly away, apologizing
nonsensically. Then he took her hand, just like that, his fingers closing
around hers, and walked her back to the table.
She
sat down with something that felt almost like a drop. Heero
merely pulled another chair out with one hand, his eyes straying toward her, no
longer smiling, and then suddenly he looked at the door. Her stomach
turned and her mind made a strange connection between Heero
and a captive wolf seeking escape. He didn’t sit down.
“I
should go,” he said, and did not look at her. His eyes were fastened to the
door, as if something captivating stood there. She looked, but she could
see nothing there. Nothing, her mind mused, except a way out. Her
thoughts floundered, trying to make connections with his behavior. He
likes me. He likes me. She half believed it, and was half
afraid to.
“All
right,” she said. “I haven’t seen you in awhile. I wish you had time to
talk longer.”
“I
know,” he said quickly. “I’ve been thinking about you. I’ll call you. Sometime.”
She
sat with both arms hugging her reports to her chest tightly, sat and watched as
he walked out. The people moving around had ignored them at first, but
now they were watching, watching and speculating. Relena had forgotten
them until just now.
When
she recalled again where she was, Heero was
completely gone, leaving nothing except his last words to even signify that he
had been there. It was, by far, his briefest visit, and the
strangest. She had never felt quite like
that before. She rolled what he had said
over in her mind. He had been thinking about her. A flame burned in
her heart, swelling like golden sunshine, and with it a terrible confusion and
fear.
Lowering
her head over her reports, she bit her lip and tried to keep from shivering or
giggling or wondering. But she couldn’t help it, and gradually became
aware that she was doing all three, though she tried to suppress them.
Her heart felt light as air, like a balloon lifting high into the sky, and she
was certain that if she stood up, she would float.
When
she finally got up and left the room, she wandered down the hall aimlessly,
trailing a hand along the wall, her mind spinning like a top. Her
head was filled with nonsense images of Heero as she
knew him and also as she imagined him. But when she passed the foyer of
the main building, she noticed something strange. In a wastebasket on the
way in there was a bouquet of fresh flowers, the petals still glistening with
sprayed water. In the wastebasket. She
stared at them for several seconds, alone in the open chamber, just her and the
tossed-away bouquet in the trashcan of a large, empty room with tile
floors. She didn’t know what to think.
*****
Heero ran out of City Hall and out into the street.
Once his shoes hit the pavement he slowed to brisk walk, exercising his
muscles, stretching his legs. His hand reached for the cell phone in his
pants pocket and dialed a number he now called when in any kind of distress.
It
was picked up. It hadn’t been for awhile, but respecting his guardian’s
privacy, he did not ask why.
“Hello?
Mandred?”
The
voice that answered was one of the most soothing in the world, a steady, sure
voice that spoke with the authority of power wielded gently for generations.
Heero was still not entirely sure who or what Mandred
exactly was, but he trusted him, and that was enough, being rare in itself. “I’m here. What is it, Heero?”
Heero’s head was awhirl, his thoughts reverberating back to
that scene with Relena. His heart beat had still not slowed down. “I have
a problem. Where are you?”
Mandred
laughed. “I’m very far away.”
Heero wondered briefly just how far, but not too
long. His memories, strangely, of some of his time with Mandred were
muddled, like looking through fog. And yet, he had no desire to think on
them at all, and he knew vaguely why that was too. Mandred, he
remembered, was a strange person, old, though he did not look it, and from a
very strange place.
“What
do you need?” Mandred asked him, in all the tones of human normalcy, which Heero took at face value, because Mandred was honest and
straight-forward if he was anything.
“Advice,”
he muttered. “About Relena.”
Mandred’s reply was not urgent, but it was immediate.
It almost sounded amused. “I think I see. I’ll be at your house in
a few minutes. I’ll probably beat you there.”
Heero didn’t ask how that was to be managed, nor did he ask
how Mandred knew he was not at home already. He never asked those sorts
of questions. He was just grateful that he did not have to explain
anything and would get help without strictly asking for it. His body was
shaking a little, not with fear, but with adrenaline, a familiar sensation, but
not in this context.
“Thanks,”
Heero said, and hung up.
He
stopped in the middle of the street, staring at his phone, and then arched his
neck to look back at where he had come from. He could not see Relena
anymore simply by looking at the building, he knew, and wondered if it was
foolish to try. What had gone wrong? He had been mostly fine until
he drew too close to her, and then what he had intended fell all to pieces, if
he even knew what he had intended.
He
hoped Mandred’s advice was good.