Chapter One: Pressing Flowers

You and I

We're just pressing flowers

They're dying

But they're ours

– The Civil Wars, "Pressing Flowers"

"Champagne?"

"Please." Relena Yuy accepted the flute that the server proffered from his tray full of identical glasses. The pale, effervescent liquid appeared to dance inside the glasses as they caught the light from the dozens of chandeliers that sparkled down on them.

She smiled faintly at the young uniformed man until he moved on to the next guest, then allowed her face to fall the second his back was turned. She wasn't in the mood to keep up appearances.

She was in the mood to drink.

Relena limited herself to a socially-acceptable draw, then lowered her glass demurely in front of her breast, forcing a smile any time she happened to make eye contact with a colleague. She did her best not to look at any one person for too long, hoping to avoid the dreaded vortex of small talk and idle chit chat.

God, how he had rubbed off on her. As she sipped more bubbly, she reflected that it was probably not a good thing. For someone in her position, definitely not. Another colleague swept by, so she forced yet another smile, all the while fighting back the tears that kept threatening to make an unscheduled appearance. She needed to remain professional at all times. She needed to–

Breathe. Breathe…

There he was, filling the room as suddenly as if he'd appeared out of thin air. Tall, dark, imposing, still unfairly, devilishly handsome. In fifteen years, he had changed so little. And yet so many other things had. She had changed, irrevocably.

His sapphire eyes scanned the room and she knew, any second, without fail, they would fall on her. Actually, she thought it quite impossible that she had somehow spotted him first. The unlikeliness of that was enough to make her snort in laughter. Except there was so little to laugh about these days.

And so, with nothing remotely resembling a plan forming in her champagne-addled brain, Relena did the only sensible thing she could to avoid falling into an altogether different vortex… a much more painful one. She turned around and pretended she hadn't seen him at all. She was met by a sea of much more bland, benign faces, and as she continued to sip her drink and wander through the chattering crowd, she congratulated herself for being somewhat successful at avoiding him.

But she knew better than to think she could get away that easily. Even as she moved further away, she could feel his eyes on her back, tracking her every move. Even if he didn't want to, it was ingrained, she was sure. After all, it was his job– was being the operative word.

Relena half-expected to turn around and find Heero following her. But when she chanced a look over her shoulder and quickly glanced about the ballroom, he was nowhere to be found. She felt a wash of relief. Perhaps he, too, decided it would be better to make himself scarce. Of course, it would behoove the both of them to avoid causing a scene. Which Relena had every intention of doing. Or, rather, not doing…

"Relena?"

Her head whipped around to see who was calling her. Thankfully, it wasn't him; that voice was so distinct, it could wake her from the dead.

Instead, she turned to find a young man dressed in a tuxedo – probably some diplomat's assistant – smiling at her and gesturing toward the stage in the center of the room.

"I believe they're ready for your speech," he said, the smile never leaving his face. Relena nodded and followed after the young man, grateful he hadn't called her "Ms. Relena" or "Ms. Darlian" "Foreign Minister Darlian" or, worse, "Mrs. Yuy." But she'd gotten most of the foreign affairs staff out of the habit of using formal titles long ago. One of her goals as Foreign Minister was to have everyone treated as equals, and banishing bothersome titles was a simple but effective first step.

"My speech…" she mused, tapping a finger to her chin. Her other hand still clutched her champagne flute. "Oh, right. My speech."

Relena climbed the short flight of steps up to the stage, wobbling a bit in her stilettos. The assistant noticed and quickly cupped her elbow to steady her.

"Oops… I knew if I chose this gown there'd be a good chance I'd trip!" Relena giggled and managed to sweep up the hem of her long dress with her hand without missing another step. The young man offered up another smile as he led her up the stage.

"That would be tricky to navigate in, I imagine," he said gamely. But Relena wondered if he could tell how tipsy she was… was she that obvious? As she approached the podium, she tried to recollect how many she'd had… surely no more than two? Maybe three?

Relena set her glass down gingerly on the podium, noticing a pen on the wooden surface. She angled the glass toward the microphone, picked up the pen and starting dinging the glass. The high-pitched sound pierced the air, and the microphone screeched with not-so-pleasant feedback. Relena looked up and, sure enough, all eyes were on her. She set the pen down, straightened the mic, and giggled.

"Sorry about that," she said with a shrug, plastering on the brightest smile she could possibly fabricate. She wondered idly if she looked all right; hopefully her hair wasn't mussed, and her lipstick was still in place. She quickly wet her lips and pursed them together, then lifted a hand to hair, sweeping back a loose strand.

God, Relena, don't be such a spaz, she chided herself. How many times had she given speeches just like this? It shouldn't be so hard.

Except, at the moment, she couldn't remember what the speech was for, exactly. She knew she was at… some event. A fancy one, too, or so the impeccably-dressed audience indicated. Obviously, it was a black tie… gala, of sorts? A benefit, maybe? Relena frowned, searching her mind, but everything came up fuzzy. Now she was slightly worried. Surely she wasn't drunk enough to forget where she was?

She realized too late that she was standing there just smiling and not speaking. And the entire room was watching her, waiting.

Shit.

Heero could see that Relena was struggling, and it was enough to make his blood pressure rise. From his vantage point on the balcony, he could just make out the beads of perspiration dotting her hairline. His chest filled with a familiar ache. How he longed to rush to her and rescue her from any further embarrassment, but he knew approaching her at this moment would only humiliate her more.

Not that she would have accepted his attentions, anyway.

So Heero shrank back from the balcony ledge in defeat, although he kept one arm draped loosely over the railing, trying to appear casual. Anyone in the audience who recognized him would assume he was nonchalantly watching his wife give yet another speech– one of hundreds in their years together. There were few people there who really knew him, though, or what his marriage to Relena was actually like.

Heero winced inwardly as he watched Relena fumbling over her words, although she did so graciously. She was poised and gifted, even while inebriated. He was worried about her drinking, more worried about the reason for it, and concerned for her carefully-crafted public image. No doubt her publicist would be hounding her later… But knowing Relena, she would handle the situation with aplomb. Even now, her nervous giggles were more endearing than cringe-worthy. But Heero knew her laughter and smiles were false. He wished that weren't the case, wished he could turn back time to when her joy was genuine.

More than anything, he wished he could storm that stage, gather her into his arms and kiss her like there was no tomorrow. The slinky evening gown she wore wasn't helping matters; the way the sheer fabric clung to her shapely body was killing him. He hadn't been able to take his eyes off her all evening, although that would have been the case if she'd shown up to the gala wearing a burlap sack.

He loved her, needed her, now more than ever.

And he missed her like crazy.

Heero frowned and chugged back what remained of his champagne, his eyes never leaving the gorgeous figure on the stage below. The figure who was all but a phantom to him, now.

Relena cleared her throat delicately, beaming at her waiting audience. Heero was anxious as the rest of them to hear what, exactly, was going to come out of her beautiful mouth next...

A/N: Well, hello, lovelies! It's been a while...

I won't offer up excuses for my way-too-long absence, other than to say it's been a crazy year. I'm sure it has been for you, as well. So, please, let's catch up when we can! Drop me a note. How on earth have you been?!

I've missed this fandom and have sooo many stories bookmarked that I desperately need to catch up on. I haven't felt much like working on my original stories or fics lately, so I've decided to dive back in to some familiar territory... This story here is basically a rewrite of another one of my fics, Civil Wars. Remember the redux/remix fanfics of yore? Yeah, this is basically... that. :D I've had so many different ideas for this scenario I cooked up for Heero and Relena, and the story has never really let me go. Even if the original fic is just barely hanging on after it went so off the rails (insert crying-laughing emojis here) I'm still committed to sewing up this story, somehow. I hope you'll stick around to see what happens, too. Expect much angst and maybe some fluff? We shall see :D

Onward!

Love love love,

- RFP