Title: The
Ice Prince or Such a Marvelous Rose
Author: Meiran Chang
( bonking_bishies @ swirve.com )
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: DorlianXSylvia,
1+R, 6+2, 3+4, 5+Dorothy, 6x9, 2xH
Warnings: shonen ai,
AU, fairy tale, angst, verrrrrrry mild self-insertion in, like, the
last sentence. I made Dorlian a total OOC wuss >_<. Also, I've played
fast and loose with family relationships and situations.
Comments: Ohhhhh pretty
please? --> bonking_bishies @ swirve.com
Archive: 6X2ML Archive
can have it. Otherwise,
please email me, I don't bite.
Disclaimers: I do
not own Gundam Wing or any of its characters, they belong to Bandai and
Sunrise and the American rights are owned by Cartoon Network. Please don't
sue me, I'll just cry a lot. Also, the original story of "Beauty and the
Beast" is by Mme Leprince de Beaumont and not mine either. I don't own anything
except... the original portions of this piece of fiction...whatever
they are.
Dedication: To the
6X2ML, because they're darlings all and the inspiration for
this fic.
The Ice
Prince
Interlude
"Father."
Dorlian glanced up at his oldest child, then dropped his gaze, regarding
the wooden table dully. Relena sighed, a pained look passing over her face,
and shifted her weight to her other foot, carefully cradling the bowl of
soup. Her father had aged twenty years in the one since his son had left.
His hair was threaded liberally with strands of silver; his eyes were opaque
and lackluster. He seemed constantly in pain, a pain no amount of rest, medicine,
or food could ease.
He had faded. Relena couldn't reconcile her memories of a vigorous,
vibrant man with this ghost of her father before her. She could understand
much of it -- the guilt at letting his son go, the grief at Duo's death, the
loneliness -- but this obsessive mourning was unnatural. It was no secret
that his youngest son had been his favorite, but Dorlian was killing himself
off by inches with this soul-consuming grief.
It wasn't as though she didn't miss Duo. She did. There wasn't a day
she didn't think, "Duo'll love this," or "Maybe I should tell Duo," forgetting
briefly that her brother was lost to her forever. The world was somber now
without his laughter, his teasing, his joy. There was so much she wanted
to share with him, so many new experiences she wanted him to hear about,
and it hurt that she would never be able to tell him. Unlike her father,
however, she was able to accept that Duo was gone.
She would never forget him, of course. Quatre felt the same way, she
knew. Both of them had agreed to put the past behind them -- to remember
their brother, but to move on, something Dorlian seemed unable to do. Quatre
had advised her on the strategy necessary to break their father out of his
catatonic misery: he'd told her to be harsh, to offer no sympathy until their
father showed some sort of positive reaction. Relena felt that the time for
catering to Dorlian's debilitating grief was long past and was more than
willing to do this for him.
Relena set the hot bowl of soup before her father, who stared at it
blankly. "Father, you have to eat," she said firmly, crossing her arms. "I'm
not taking 'no' for an answer."
Dorlian mumbled, "Don't you have to go cook for your -- for that boy
you -- ?"
Relena tsked. "Father, really. Heero knows how to cook. He's been on
the farm since he was born."
Dorlian made no reply, only listlessly took spoon in hand and dipped
it in. He held it for a while, staring at it. His hand trembled, causing
the broth to slop out of the spoon's edges.
His daughter pulled up a seat across from him and sat down in it. "You
do realize I'm staying here until you finish that bowl of soup," she informed
him.
"You have better things to do than wait on your father," Dorlian protested
weakly.
She shrugged. "Nothing Heero can't take care of while I'm here with
you. He understands."
"Understands what?"
"That my father is killing himself because he lacks the will to live,"
Relena snapped, "and that because of that, I can't spend as much time with
him as I want to. Look, Father, Duo's gone, all right? Doing this
to yourself won't bring him back."
Tears gathered in Dorlian's eyes. He put the spoon down in the soup.
"I miss him," he whispered. "My little boy... died scared and alone... because
of me. I'm no father. I'm no father at all..."
"Eat," Relena growled. "First of all, I feel obliged to point out that
Duo would absolutely hate all the sniveling you've been doing." Dorlian
started at her unsympathetic words, but she pressed on. "Duo was always
the one who could laugh, who had a smile or a joke ready for the worst
of times. He knew what reality was, but he never forgot, even at the darkest
moments, what happiness was. What kind of way is this to remember him, Father?
Duo went to the Beast to save you, and I'm sure he wouldn't appreciate the
effort you're going through to pine dramatically away." Dorlian still wasn't
eating. That wasn't acceptable. "I told you to eat!" she reminded
him sharply. Her father jumped a bit, looked guilty and began going through
the motions of eating, going so far as to put the spoon in his mouth this
time.
"I might also remind you that you have other children. I'm not telling
you to give up on loving your son, but Quatre and I are still here. Both
Quatre and I are willing to offer you support and keep you company. We want
to tell you what's going on in our lives, but you won't listen because you're
too wrapped up in grieving. The time is past for grief -- I'm sure Duo would
tell you the same." Silently she asked her brother, wherever he was, to forgive
her for putting words in his mouth. "We do love you, and we hate to see
what you're doing to yourself. Father, what could be more ungrateful than
to kill yourself after Duo sacrificed himself to avoid that very thing?"
Dorlian sighed, but a rush of color had come back to his pale face.
He was eating now, Relena noted, and hungrily. Of course -- after his prolonged
bouts of fasting, his body cried out for food. "I know it must seem stupid
of me, but I... I miss him so badly," said her father quietly. Another long,
wistful sigh. "He was my boy, my baby, the last child, and a parent always
has a soft spot for the last. He's the special one, the one you go back
to at night when he cries... the one you rock to sleep... the one you sing lullabies
to. Your mother died giving birth to him, you know, and I'd recently lost
my own parents. I would have gone mad with grief, but little Duo kept me
sane, gave me a focus... reminded me that Sylvia had left me a family to take
care of. He was her last gift to me.
"I remember him as a baby," he continued mistily. "He was a laughing baby...
eyes big and bright like Sylvia's, of that precious violet. He was such
an easy child to love, friendly and light-hearted and cheerful. But he was
mature, you know? Strange maturity. He had this intuitive knowledge and
acceptance of the way things worked that many adults out there today would
give their souls for. God knows I could use that knowledge now. And even
as a toddler he was a little showman. Drew everyone's attention. The times
he made me laugh--! Watching him grow... I was proud to be his father. I still
am....
"I had so much hope for him. He was so gifted, so talented, so full of
life. He was my sanity. He was my happiness. But you..." He glanced down at
the scarred table, then back up at his daughter. "Relena, you're right.
I still have two children. And Duo... Duo would not approve of -- of all this
sadness. He always preferred laughter to tears." Dorlian closed his eyes.
"I'll try to remember him as he would want me to, daughter. I will do my
best."
Relena smiled fondly. "All right then, Father. Now please have some
more of that excellent soup."
Dorlian nodded and took up the spoon again. "Now that I think of it,
I am rather hungry," he mused between mouthfuls, though his eyes glistened
with tears. At least he was trying, thought Relena. She wouldn't ask anything
more now.
"Of course you're hungry, Father," she said gaily. "What you've eaten
in the past year would starve a sparrow." Relena settled back comfortably
in her chair. "Now that you're open to talk, let me tell you all the news.
Anything you particularly want to know about?"
Dorlian paused for a moment and seemed to fumble for a question. That
was okay. He needed time to adjust, to learn all over again that life was
there to be faced. "Eh... Where's Quatre?" her father asked mildly. "Did he
return to White Fang, or what? He hasn't been in the house."
Relena tried not to glare, but from the way her father shrank back,
she didn't succeed. "Father, you can't tell me you just forgot that
Quatre and Trowa Bloom are in love. They've been in love for three
years. Quatre just went to live with Trowa because you've been making his
life unbearable. And he wasn't happy with his decision, let me tell you that
much, but he was also unhappy with you and how you were acting. He
was trying so hard to get you to talk to him, to open up, but you were just
deaf to the world in your private misery. He was so nervous and subdued and
unhappy because he didn't know the right way to help you. He tried everything
under the sun and stars, he really did, but you never responded, and finally
he left because he would go just as crazy as you already were if he lived
under this roof another day. I can't count the number of times Quatre came
to me, just as proof that his whole family wasn't cracking because of Duo's
death!"
"Enough," Dorlian groaned. "I understand. I was a fool and I've had
this scolding coming for a while." He closed his eyes for a moment, brows
drawing down, the new wrinkles and lines in his face deepening. "Please make
an effort to understand things from your father's point of view."
"I understand you too much to let you fall into incessant mourning."
Relena glanced at his bowl of soup and exclaimed, "Hey, you're done!"
Dorlian opened his eyes and glanced down himself, looking rueful as he
said, "So I am."
"I'm impressed." The soup bowl sparkled. "That was quick. All right, just
a minute. I have some bread and butter in the kitchen." She rose to fetch
it and quickly returned with a plate bearing large hunks of bread-and-butter.
Dorlian took a big bite of one and Relena, watched in satisfaction, commented:
"Quatre and I understand what you're going through -- we went through an
abbreviated version of it. You weren't a fool, Father, but your grieving had
gone too far. We -- Quatre and I, I mean -- we decided we needed to check
it or you really were just going to take sick and die. We don't mean to tell
you that you need to stop missing or mourning your son. But you have to remember
that you are still alive."
"All right," Dorlian said after a swallow. "Relena. Please.
All right. I understand." He paused for a moment, then ventured, "So what's
Quatre doing now?"
"He and Trowa are setting up their own farm. It's in that splotch of
land to the north of ours. It's not that long a walk from there to either
Catherine's home or yours, which is precisely why they chose it." Relena
smiled. "Quatre's great with carpentry and animals; Trowa's a wonder with
plants and has a knack for organization. Not only are they in love, but their
skills complement each other's perfectly. And they both like it here. They
don't want to go to the city. They figure when they get the farm running,
they'll adopt a child." She giggled. "It really is romantic. They're so in
love. Quatre's tried to talk to you about it before, but you were always
off in the clouds."
Dorlian looked guilty. "I'll talk to him later."
"Don't worry, Father. I'll tell him to come over."
"Thank you, Relena." Dorlian glanced up at the ceiling rafters, then
at Relena. He cleared his throat and said, "So, now... is there anything you
would like to tell me?"
"Why, yes. You see, Father, you kind of missed the details of me and
Heero's handfasting."
"What?"
"Me and Heero. He asked me to marry him a month or so back and I said yes.
I've been trying to tell you for the longest time."
"I'm sorry," Dorlian said helplessly. He put his face in his hands. "My
daughter's going to get married, and I didn't even notice. Dear God. I'm sorry,
Relena. I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you." His shoulders slumped. "I promise."
He looked so much as he had that day nearly two and a half years ago
when he told them that they would be leaving White Fang. His genuine contrition
melted her bitterness. "Oh, Father." She got up and hugged him tightly.
For the first time in a year, he responded and hugged her back. "It doesn't
matter. I know you were heartsore and mourning."
She pulled away in time to see a fond and slightly regretful touch
her father's lips. It reminded her, somehow, of Duo, and she felt that somewhere,
Duo was watching her, wearing that smile. The thought almost brought tears
to her eyes and she took a moment to fight them back down.
"Anyway," she said at last. "You want to know about me and Heero?"
Dorlian nodded.
"Okay, well, this happened after one of Heero's Mage lessons. See,
we were talking about our families, and Heero brought you up, and I said
that I was really worried about you, and I started tearing up, because it
really was a frustrating situation and I sure didn't know what to
do about it. And Heero's so empathetic, almost like Quatre. He comforted
me and he held me and stuff, which was nice. And then he said that he was
really grateful to me for all I'd done for him, and we talked for a little
while more, and then he asked me! He was so nervous, poor baby..."
Relena grinned despite herself. The memory of intense Heero, looking at
her with that serious, apprehensive ocean blue gaze, and asking her to be
his wife... Duo would have had so much fun teasing her, and she would have had
as much fun laughing at what he came up with. The memory of a delightfully
filthy song Duo had sung about one of her old boyfriends in White Fang came
to mind. She couldn't imagine Heero doing anything the lover in that
song had done. Or -- she stifled a snort of laughter -- maybe she could....
"Relena?" Dorlian prodded curiously.
"Oh!" Relena was startled out of her thoughts. "Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Well,
when Heero asked me, of course I said yes. I mean, I really do love him.
He's such a sweetheart. So right now we're just planning the ceremony. Shigeta
and Hana say we can live with them if we want to, but what we'd really like
to do is move to the city. In a few years maybe we can do that."
"It sounds like you two have your future planned very well," Dorlian
said.
"Absolutely," Relena said with a wink. Then she was struck by genius inspiration
and added, "By the way, Father, Heero and I were planning a dinner at his
parents' home for tonight. Won't you come? We've already invited Quatre,
Trowa, and Catherine." Or at least we're going to right after I get home.
"Oh?" Her father smiled. "What's the special occasion?"
"None," she said airily. Except your return to life.
"I think I will go, Relena. Thank you for thinking of me."
"Only because you're my father," she said teasingly.
He made a soft concurring sound and smiled. After nearly a year of sadness
and silence, the tired beauty of his smile was poignant. "Of course."
They sat together in companionable silence for a while. Relena was
elated at her success in dealing with her father. She could still see a
stubborn grief haunting the back of his eyes, and likely that grief
would never fade. But as long as he could eat, breathe, sleep and smile,
she was satisfied. He wouldn't die from not wanting to live now -- not with
this new hope for the future.
After some time, Relena got up. "I should probably get going," she
said fondly. "You think you can take care of yourself here?"
Her father nodded. "I'll clean up." He looked around ruefully at the
spiderwebs stretching from rafter to rafter, at the dust gathering on the
shelf above the fireplace, at the wrinkled clothing draped carelessly over
the backs of chairs and the cushions tumbled all over the floor, and repeated,
"Yes, I'll certainly clean up."
Relena grabbed her warm wool coat, for a year had passed and it was
winter again, and shrugged it on. "Quatre and I will be stopping by every
few days. You needn't worry about being left alone too often." She leaned
down and kissed her father's cheek. "I love you, Father. See you at the dinner."
"See you," he replied, and watched her go.