Disclaimer: GW = not mine.

Author's Note: Leaving the prompts to the end notes to avoid spoiling it.

Uniformities
by mistress amethyst une

Walking down the street next to Relena, Heero kept his hands to his trouser pockets, warming away the cold sweat permeating his palms. The colony was taking its newly repaired weather system on a test run, and today's temperature was meant to simulate an autumn day. Truth be told, the cold really didn't bother Heero all that much. If he had opted to wear his usual tank top and denim jeans, the chill would have offered only mild discomfort. So why was he wearing more layers of clothing now than when he was doing battle in Antarctica? Granted, Heavyarms* had one hell of a heating system but he didn't see the point in wearing a suit jacket over a waistcoat over a dress shirt. To add insult to injury, she was wearing her usual work outfit: a long-sleeved white blouse and a black pencil skirt. This was what he got for letting her dress him. Politicians never played fair.

He had gotten an odd sense of satisfaction when Relena fixed his tie though. It was nostalgic. He remembered then how he had hated the uniforms at both St. Gabriel's and the Sank Kingdom's Pacifist Institute. Suspenders and waistcoats. Cravats and bow ties. Those schools had stumbled upon how to make sure its adolescent male students kept their clothes on by turning getting dressed and undressed into tasks on par with Herculean labor. Relena seemed even more adept at dressing him than she was at dressing herself. She had been the one to fix his cravats back at Sank after he refused maid service. Back then, he hadn't known she would be just as skillful at getting him out of an outfit as she was at getting him into one.

She would knock on his bedroom door exactly five minutes before the chapel tower's bell signaled breakfast. In silence, he would let her in as he stood in his shirt and waistcoat, neck bare. He never quite knew how she did it but, in seconds, the cravat would be where it needed to be and she would be out the door. Even now, they never spoke of those mornings. He was hard-pressed to remember how that morning ritual had even started. Perhaps it was the day she introduced him to the class? He remembered those nimble fingers of hers straightening his cravat before she walked in the door with him and Quatre in tow. All he knew for certain was after she agreed to letting him and Noin build Sank's defenses, she stopped coming.

At first, he thought she was being petty and was punishing him in her own little way. But then, he read the sadness in her eyes whenever she was teaching, noted how she requested permission to sit next to him even if she ruled the country.

How can I expect to come up with a position the world agrees to if I can't even agree with the people closest to me?

He supposed abandoning that short-lived morning tradition was her way of driving the point home. She couldn't even agree with him on how to tie a cravat. That needed to change. Eventually, he did learn to affix the damned thing to his neck properly though it took him much longer than when she did it.

It only occurred to him much later that, if he had just found the strength to swallow his pride and ask, she probably would still have helped him.

She didn't want to force her help on him.

She wanted to be asked.

He realized it on Libra. After shielding her from falling debris, he suffered a flesh wound to the arm. When he insisted that it was nothing, she didn't press him further though her glare of disapproval could have burned a hole right through him. When they got to the locker room, he finally relented upon realizing the difficulty of shedding the White Fang uniform. She helped him undress in silence. Taking the scarf from his neck, she wrapped it around his bleeding arm when he didn't protest. For a man who thought he was about to die, allowing himself the conceit of being cared for didn't seem to be as great a sign of weakness as he once thought.

The march of memory was halted as Relena stopped dead in her tracks, snapping Heero out of his reminiscence. At a nearby pedestrian crossing, a woman was running in their direction, hair flying loose. She showed no hint of slowing down. The dark blonde blur had Heero caught in a hug in a matter of seconds, peppering his face with kisses at a rate that would put a machine gun to shame. People in the street stopped and stared. A few camera flashes guaranteed tomorrow's gossip rags their headlines.

Heero didn't resist. She ceased her assault and stepped back with a grin on her face. "Look at you! I haven't seen you in ages. Nice to see you've finally learned the merits of clothing."

Relena suppressed the urge to burst out laughing, instead settling for a bout of unladylike snorts.

"And you?" grinned the woman, turning to Relena before catching her in a vice-like hug. "You need to call more often."

"It's nice to see you again," she choked, trying to breathe as the embrace tightened. "You look lovely with your hair down, Mother."

"I thought a change would be good," said Mrs. Darlian, releasing her daughter. "After all, a much bigger change is upon us."

Taking a quick gasp of air, Relena asked her: "Is that why you asked us to meet you today?"

Mrs. Darlian walked up to Heero. "You did an excellent job on his tie," she commented, ignoring her daughter's question.

Relena suppressed an expression of exasperation. A few years ago, her mother had entered a midlife crisis of sorts. Apparently, Mrs. Lily Darlian wasn't as old as she had previously led people to believe. She turned thirty-five in the advent of the second After Colony century. If Relena had known how old her mother really was, she would have quickly learned that she wasn't a Darlian by blood. Lily had only been thirty during the first Eve War. It was a testament to how well-constructed the "Darlian Deception" (as the history books now called it) was. She could only imagine how mortified her twentysomething mother must have been every year, getting a birthday party meant for a woman ten years older. Not to mention having to dress and act like she was ten years older. Come to think of it, her mother's past predicament mirrored Relena's current one. Politics left Relena far more serious than other women in their twenties.

"Thank you," acknowledged Relena.

"You have my blessing," nodded Mrs. Darlian, still keeping her gaze steady on Heero. "Feel free, Mr. Yuy."

Relena arched an eyebrow. "Your blessing?"

"I'm sorry to say I led you here under false pretenses," her mother smiled coyly. "Mr. Yuy called me a few days ago. He requested my blessing. I told him he would have it. I know he makes you happy. Dressing sharply was a bonus though. I should have known he would go the whole nine yards. He asked you to dress him, didn't he?"

Relena nodded, suddenly feeling a bit light-headed. The only reason she could think of for Heero to request her mother's blessing was...

"When a man trusts you enough to let you wrap a noose around his neck, that says something. Considering what he's been through during the war, that says even more."

Heero withdrew a box of blue velvet from one of his trouser pockets. Regrettably, the sweat from his palm had stained it. His strategy for drying away that mark of nervousness had failed miserably. Relena didn't notice. She stood frozen as he dropped to one knee.

The next day, the gossip rags delivered conflicting headlines. Half of them featured images of Relena Darlian's alleged boyfriend being kissed by a mystery woman. What made these pictures of particular interest was that Darlian was present and seemed amused by the incident. The other half? Darlian making out with the alleged boyfriend now turned alleged fiancé. Close-ups featured a bright diamond glistening on her left hand while the right busily undid his tie.

*Correction: Heero was piloting Heavyarms against Tallgeese in Antarctica. It wasn't Wing Gundam. *headdesk*

If you watch Boardwalk Empire, this is all Gillian's fault for being such a BAMF GILF. :3 I did my best to be canon-compliant and a bit more serious here. Hope it's ok. The prompts were: proposal - public place and uniform. And demmit, it took forever for me to think of that title. Corrected myself here, too.