Author's Note at the bottom

SDA

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Valentine's Day

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"Madams," Pagan said as he entered Relena Peacecraft's room, "your Valentines have arrived.  There is only one problem…"

Eighteen-year-old Relena looked up from tying her hair into her usual style of two braids.  "What is it, Pagan?" she asked.  Relena, Hilde Schbeiker, Lucrezia Noin, Sally Po, Midii Une, and Catherine Bloom were all at Relena's manor, for the ever-famous Saint Valentine's Day.  The six girls were to be attending a dance later in the evening, and Relena had invited everyone over to her place to get fixed up for their boys. 

Pagan shook his head.  "The boys showed up, dropped off the Valentines, and left."

"Yes, that was the point…" Relena said.  "So what is the problem?"

"Well, the six men forgot to write the names of whom the Valentines belonged to."

Sally waved her hand as she finished twisting her honey-brown hair.  "No problem, we'll figure it out by their names signed on the cards."

"Er, that's just it," Pagan stammered.  "They didn't put their names on the gifts either."

Hilde laughed.  "What idiots!  And I used to think it was only Duo who had problems!"  All the girls shared a laugh before Relena told Pagan they would be down in a bit to sort through things.

Relena turned to face the girls after her butler had left.  "Well, girls, how do you propose we go about this?"

"I have an idea," Noin said.  "How about we just each pick up the first Valentine we see, open it, and then figure out what belongs to who?"

Hilde nodded.  "That should be easy enough.  Each boy more than likely left something that screams his name."  Noin refrained from saying that Zechs was hardly a boy.

"I don't know," Catherine said a bit unsurely.  "Some of those boys are an awful lot alike when it comes to giving girls a gift."

"Bah," Midii stated, "it'll be easy as pie to figure out."

Standing up, Relena said, "In that case, let's go see who got what!"

"If we can figure it out," Catherine muttered, following the others down to Relena's living room.

****

"Let's see then, who should go first?" Relena asked, looking around.

"I will," Noin said.  She was holding in her hands a beautiful bouquet of red roses, accompanied by a little card.  Pulling the card out, Noin red, " 'Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you.' "

"Aww, how cute," Relena said with a smile.  "That must be from Quatre, for only he would say such a thing."

Noin waved a hand.  "No, no, wait, there's more. 'But the roses are wilted, the violets are dead, the sugar bowl's empty and so is your head.  Happy Valentine's Day!' "

Hilde grinned as she reached out a hand to the woman who looked like she could have been her sister.  "No doubt about it, Lu, that one's mine.  Only Duo would say such a thing on Valentine's Day!"  Noin laughed her agreement as she handed the roses and little card off to Hilde.  "Alrighty then, I might as well go next," Hilde continued.  She was holding a little silver box with a white bow on top of it.  "There's no card, so I guess I'll just open it." Inside of the little box, lying on sparkling paper, was a little sword with the word JUSTICE engraved on the blade.  Hilde placed a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing as she passed it around to the others to see.  "Definitely yours, Sally," Hilde giggled.  "Ooh, look, there's something else in the bottom—ack, it's a heart pendant, but the heart is broken in two!"  Hilde could hold it no longer and she tipped over laughing, passing the box to Sally.

Sally grinned.  "Just like him, too," she said.  "I wonder what meaning I should pull out from the broken heart?"

"Just about anything you want," Relena said with sparkling eyes.  "You could torture him with this for a long time, Sal."

Sally laughed.  "Believe me, I know.  I'll still be teasing Wufei about this when we're old geezers of forty."  Everybody in the room laughed.

" 'S your turn, Sally," Midii said eagerly.  "What's in that pretty little box of yours?"

With a shrug, Sally set to opening it.  "We'll see in a moment."  Sally's little box was navy blue with silver stars decorating it.  A silky pale ribbon held the box shut, but it easily slid off.  Once Sally opened it, it revealed to be the holder of a pair of sapphire earrings in the shape of two teddy bears.  All the girls oohed and aahed.  "Oh, they're so darling!" Sally said with a sigh, holding the sapphire bears up to the light.  "Who do y'all think it's from?"

"That's a toughie," Midii said, placing her chin in her hand as she thought.  "Definitely not from Zechs, because that's not his style."

"No kidding," Noin muttered.

"It's most certainly not from Trowa," Midii continued on.  "The real question here is who has a special thing going with teddy bears?"

From her seat in the recliner, Relena turned a bit red.  "Uhm, well, I'm not saying we do or anything, but for my sixteenth birthday Heero left a teddy bear sitting in my seat on the airplane that would take me back to earth…"

"Perfect!" Hilde exclaimed.  "It's gotta be yours, Re!  And if it's not, well, we can always do some gift swapping later, and the guys will never know."  With a grin, Sally handed the tomato-red Relena her darling sapphire teddy bears.  Quickly setting the box in her lap, Relena picked up what she was holding.

"Here I have a red rose and a sparkling white box," Relena said as she set to opening the box.  Inside it was a beautiful diamond bracelet.  Relena sighed in pure rapture.  "We always said that diamonds are a girl's best friend.  I have no doubt about it when I say this belongs to Cathy."

"Most definitely," Midii nodded.  "Quatre would go to the extremes to buy his girl diamonds.  Plus he can afford them, what with that Winner family fortune backing him up!"

A giddy grin covered Catherine's face as she took the bracelet from Relena.  "It must be!  He said he'd buy me diamonds, but I figured he was only saying that because I was mooning over a pair of diamond earrings I saw in a window.  I never dreamed he'd really buy them!"

"He's such a sweetie, isn't he?" Relena cooed, handing Catherine the red rose as well.

"Come on, Cathy, open up the gift you've got!" Hilde prompted.  "I want to know what Midii and Noin got!"

"Okay, here goes," Catherine said.  In her lap was a rectangular box wrapped in platinum gold paper.  She personally thought it was for Midii, since the paper matched the girl's hair and all, but she wasn't about to say that until it was made certain.  Carefully unwrapping the gift, it revealed to be the holder of six hair clips—two silver, two gold, and two emerald.  Midii squealed in delight, confirming Catherine's suspicions.

"He said he'd get me that set, but I didn't believe him," she exclaimed in giddiness.  "Oh, they're so beautiful!"  Midii gently took the box from Catherine and cradled it to her chest.  "He said he would, and he did!  I'm going to give him the biggest kiss ever for this!"

"The smile on your face alone says it all," Relena grinned.  "My but I wish the boys had stuck around for this!"

"Why," Hilde asked with a grin, "just so Duo could be embarrassed?"  All the girls laughed.  If Duo had given Hilde a pile of dung while all the other girls had gotten diamonds, he would have puffed his chest up proudly and seriously stated that it was special dung from the Garden of Eden, made just for Hilde.  He'd mean it, too.  Hilde loved him despite it, though, and fortunately didn't judge him by the gifts he gave.

Midii held up the fist-sized velvet box she had.  "Obviously this is for Noin.  I think she should open it."

"No, no," Noin said, waving her hands.  "That wouldn't be fair to you, because then you wouldn't have the chance to open a gift.  You open it and tell me what's inside."

Midii grinned.  "But I already know what's inside.  I helped him go shopping."  Noin raised an eyebrow; Zechs, asking for help to buy a Valentine's Day gift?  Unrealistic.

"Yeah, whatever," Noin said.

"I'm serious," Midii said as she opened the black velvet box.  A flower opened up once the lid was up, fully in bloom.  "It's a lily!" Midii gasped.  "I didn't know he'd do that!"  A grin lit up her face as she passed the box to Noin.  "Enjoy," she said with a wink.

Eyeing Midii suspiciously, Noin took the box and breathed deeply from the white lily.  "It's so pretty," she murmured, happy Zechs had remembered Valentine's Day at all.

"Are you just going to sit there smelling it?" Midii demanded.

"Uh, yeah," Noin replied.  "What else would I do, eat it?"

"Lift the lily up!" Midii said exasperatedly.  Cautiously, afraid Duo might have tampered with it, Noin lifted up the lily's petals.  Lying underneath the flower on a cushion of soft cotton was a diamond ring, just the right size to fit her ring finger on her left hand…

"Oh my gosh it's an engagement ring!" Sally shrieked, having looked over Noin's shoulder.  "Zechs and Noin are gonna get married!"  Shrieks, squeals and giggles erupted from the six women as they all took turns hugging a very shocked Noin.

"Are you okay, Miss Noin?" Relena asked, a wide grin on her face.  "Surely my brother isn't that despicable…"

"Oh no, it's not that," Noin breathed.  "I just never in a million years expected him to ask me to marry him!"

"Why ever not?" Catherine demanded, leaning in for a closer look at the ring.  "You love each other, so why wouldn't it be natural for him to marry you?"

"Because it's Zechs," Noin said.  It was a pathetic excuse, but how could she ever explain to them all the reasons why?

"I can see a problem with this marriage already," Hilde giggled.  "Zechs's hair flows to his waist, and Noin's barely brushes her earlobes!  Who's going to be the bride, and who's going to be the groom?"

"Why you," Noin growled, leaping at Hilde and tickling the life out of her.  "Of course I'm going to be the groom!" Laughter rang out through the room.

"That's what I was afraid of," Hilde laughed, pushing Noin off her.

Catherine smiled at the girls around her.  "Well, I would definitely say that today was much more enjoyable than last year.  At least the boys remembered this year."

"I don't know," Hilde said thoughtfully.  "I came up with some most delicious ways to make Duo pay if he forgot again this year.  It would have been fun to put some of those things into action."

Sally slapped Hilde on the back.  "Maybe next year, Hil, maybe next year."

Oh yes, maybe next year.

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Author's Note:  Hah, what did ya think of that?  Pretty sappy, neh?  I thought it was cute! Or I used to…now I'm not so sure… ^_^ Thanks to Rebecca for teaching me that awful poem!  It's what inspired me to write this.  Speaking of which, I wrote it LAST Valentine's day, but forgot to post it, so I saved it an entire year, which is probably a good thing because it most likely sucks…(anyone noticing a recurring theme with me hating all my work?) Thank you SOSO much to Laurel Meredith for everything.  You'll never desert me and Julie, I know it!  *glomp*  Now everyone, please review!  It'll make my day and possibly send me on a hyper rush so I'll fly to the other computer and write more goo so I can post it on here. ^__^ ~~Callisto