She wished she had been asleep.

"This can't be happening…" she groaned again, looking at herself in the mirror.

Wedding day. Heero Yuy's, to be exact. And somehow, what seemed like eons ago, she had a thought, a fleeting hope that it would be hers too.

Like the bride, she was packed up in white lace, looking immaculate and utterly divine. But she wasn't the bride. She wouldn't have minded wearing jeans and a ragged t-shirt as long as she was his bride, but, well…

Dorothy Catalonia, one of the bridesmaids, popped into her room.

"Showtime, Relena" the young woman said, "the limo's driving us to the church."

"Bride has arrived" Duo told Heero, who was adjusting his tux in the dressing room in the huge cathedral where he was going to get married.

"Nervous?" Duo asked, eager to get some form of reaction from his quiet friend. There was resignation in those cobalt blue eyes that he couldn't accept. No way, not Heero Yuy.

"It's a mission" Heero replied flatly, as if it were self-explanatory. For a moment there, he sounded like the unfeeling version of himself, the one from years and years past.

Duo didn't like what he had heard.

Heero didn't either, but there was nothing he could do about it anymore.

Opening strings of "Here Comes the Bride."

Heero stood like a statue at the end of the long corridor, as Julianna made her regal walk down the aisle.

Since her father has long been deceased, the man who was going to 'give her away' at her wedding was Dominic Burke, who looked almost as stiff as the groom.

Dominic's hand shook, as he took Julianna's hand from his arm.

She looked up at him, as if in fear, but he was too angry, too regretful.

He placed Julianna's hand in Heero's, then walked away to his assigned place, all the while holding her gaze.

Relena, from her vantage point behind Julianna, as she was helping carry the girl's train, saw the exchange between the haughty Princess and Dominic.

Her heart fluttered with hope that she would change her mind upon seeing the love in his eyes, love for her, then crashed when she looked at Heero, who nodded to the bishop in a signal to begin the ceremonies.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to celebrate holy matrimony…"

The priest droned on as the celebration dragged, taking her from misery to boredom and resignation to anger, in a parabolic mood-swing that she could only refer to as a conflict of duties to herself and her Cause.

But Relena figured, in the end, it was Heero's choice.

Vows.

It came sooner than she had expected.

It made her blood cold.

"If any man or woman here has reason to object to this marriage, speak now, or forever hold your peace" said the bishop.

Relena held her breath.

She wouldn't object.

She promised him she wouldn't make him choose.

"I object!"

to be continued...

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