09-Aug-2001 to 17-Sep-2001
Title: In the Pale Moonlight
Series: A Matter of Heart
Arc: Dance of the Heart #3
By: Andrea Readwolf
Email: andrea_readwolf@hotmail.com
Rating: YA/PG-17; Mature Audiences
Pairings (Eventually or Implied): 1+2 (2x1/1x2), 2+5 (5x2), 1+5 (1x5), 1+3
(3x1), 2+H (Hx2), 1+R
Archive: This Series can be found at these wonderful sites-- GWAddiction,
P-chan's Heaven, and Eos's GW Page.
Warnings: The following stories contain scenes that are humorous, sappy,
angsty (what do you mean that's not a word!!) slightly AU with Incoherence
and random POV switching. Original Characters are presented, all characters
are IC according to the author's interpretation of them. Oh, and a definite
warning for unexpected Lemon-goodness. YAOI and YURI, with a splash of
hetero every now-and-then. Major Angst
Spoilers: Events take place after Series ending leading up to Endless Waltz
Feedback: C&C is always welcomed and adored. Constructive Criticism is.
digestible. ^_~
Acknowledgements go out to four wonderful people who are doing a wonderful
job keeping me on track: KwyckSylver for grammar and story beta-ing; Lilie
the mouse and Alexia for hitting the storyboards with me and pounding out
the knots; and Zan-who's never missed a serving. ^_~v Thanks, ladies!
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and its characters belong to Bandai, Sunrise and
Sotsu Agency and are only being used for non-profit entertainment purposes.
References to printed texts, films, sitcoms, musical pieces, and/or other
fanfictions don't belong to the author either. Original Characters are
original and hence, the author's own creation. See Preamble for details.
These fics and the ideas contained within are copyright of the author.
"Whadarya 'fraid of, huh? What?" he shouted, whirling within the confines of the four plastered walls. Silence answered him. "Afraid that the Perfect Soldier crap you play at will melt away? Afraid of actually becoming human?" He spat the last word out as though it was the vilest thing in the world. He whirled, his violet gaze landing upon the only other person in the room. "Afraid of having a heart? Of actually caring? WHAT? What the Fuck are you afraid of, Yuy?"
The tall, dark haired boy didn't move from his casual position, leaning up against one of the walls, his eyes shut against the sight of his companion. Someone who didn't know would think that the boy had fallen asleep on his feet. But he knew Heero was awake. He knew that Heero just stood there while he shouted like a raving lunatic for all the house to hear. It didn't faze him in the least... Nope. He was Calm. He was Cool. He was Collected... he was... the Perfect Soldier.
"God dammit, Heero!" Duo shouted, storming around the room, one fist raised, ready to pound on the other boy's chest. To try and force a reactio--
Two blue eyes snapped open, locking to his violet glare. A hand snapped up, seizing the fist--and pulling it forward. Arm followed fist, body followed arm, and Duo Maxwell found himself caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Only, the wall behind him was plaster and cement, not rock and the man in front of him, pushing him into that wall was---
Heero leaned in closer against Duo, pushing him harder against the wall. The braided one stared at him--violet eyes wide, gasping for breath.
"Heero--" he breathed.
Heero growled, pushing the boy's body harder against the wood as his mouth swept over his, kissing away what little breath Duo had managed to recover. The boy moaned, melting against him. After a minute, breathless as well, Heero pulled away--just a little. Duo's lips followed, nibbling.
"What. Are. You. A. Fraid. Of. Heero. Yuy?" he asked, his lips and teeth playing freely over the other's mouth.
"Duo..." he warned, the name rumbling up from his chest and rolling off his tongue like honey.
Duo paused in task, taking a moment to try and quell the shiver and moan that rose to answer. "Please. Tell me," he whispered against those lips that rarely smiled. "Don't block me out, Heero. Tell me what you're afraid of."
His head fell to Duo's neck, sucking on the sensitive skin there, and Duo shivered with delight as the sensations Heero wrought washed over him. He whimpered, tilting his head back, his eyes fluttering shut as Heero's lips played over his throat.
"Please?" he swallowed. "Tell me..."
"You..." Heero whispered against the warm flesh.
Violet eyes blinked open with shock. "ME?" he cried, pulling back the scant inches that were left between him, the wall, and the... hard place before him.
Heero let him pull back, not looking away when those violet-blue hazed eyes locked with his. But his body refused to release its pressure. Confusion clouded those eyes that stared into his. The questions where there--tons of them--he could see... but he prayed he wouldn't ask them...
"You're afraid of me?" Duo asked, his voice sounding small...weak... abused...and something else. Something akin to. awe? He continued to stare--his face a mask. No emotion. Silent.
"Why?" he breathed, his eyes taking in this face of the man before him. "Why, Heero? Why are you afraid of me?"
He continued to stare--his face a mask. No emotion. Silent. No emo--God, he felt sick to his stomach.
"Because you make me feel," he answered softly, eyes flittering away, breaking contact.
Duo stared incredulously at the man before him. If you had told him that Heero Yuy had just one the World's Best Personality Prize he couldn't have been thrown more off kilter. Licking his lips, trying to gain time, trying to gain his thoughts... He swallowed.
"How do I make you feel, Heero?" he asked, his voice a husk whisper.
Duo's warm breath slid over his face--inside he shivered, his eyes darting back up. There it was--in his eyes. That look he'd been seeing for over a week now. That look scared him more than a hundred Aries suits or even the Zero system could. And it was looking directly at him.
They stayed for another minute in silence, either boy refusing to yield.
He saw it--in his eyes. That look he'd been seeing for over a week now. It was a look that scared the bejesus out of him--especially because it was looking right at him. Fear. He couldn't stand it. Especially when it was coming from Heero.
Heero licked his lips again, unsure of what to do, how to tell him what he felt he needed to tell him...and smiled when he saw those violet-blue eyes dart down to his lips. He could do this. Heck! If he could save the world, then surely he could--
"Should I tell you how you make me feel?" Duo asked somewhat playfully. Those blue eyes darted back up to his--and there it was again... that fear... Duo refused to allow it to deter him. He leaned forward into the hard mass that was Heero Yuy's body, smiling.
"Duo..." Heero hissed warningly. 'Don't do this,' he thought. 'Don't press matters that are better left--' The other boy pressed closer.
"You make me feel good, Heero," Duo breathed, his face millimeters away, his lips-- his breath-- caressing his own lips. He leaned forward to take those lips, but Duo brushed past his lips and over his cheek, and whispered in his ear: "You make me feel real good, Heero. Good about myself. Good about us. About what we're doing..."
His lips brushed against that sensitive spot just below the ear, and Duo smiled when he felt Heero shiver. "You make me feel good, Heero. Every time you look at me... Every time you touch me... Every time you kiss me... Every time you're inside of me... Every time I'm inside of you.You make me feel good."
He groaned, his lips falling to Duo's neck, taking in the deep aroma that he knew only as Duo. It was intoxicating. It was arousing. It was--
"How do I make you feel, Heero?" the playful voice whispered once more in his ear.
He was breathing hard, he knew. And his heart rate accelerated. "You... You make me feel good, too, Duo," he said softly. Duo smiled. 'Mission 1: Accomplished' he thought with a grin. "Good," he said aloud. He looked up and his grin increased--if that is at all possible. "You know... there's a bed right over there..." he said, wiggling... in just the... right... way...
"Hn," replied, thrusting him back against the wall. The braided boy grunted--still grinning. "Oh, man! We're not going to make it to the bed, are we?" Another thrust had him groaning as lips and teeth began to suck at his neck. He whimpered--almost nearly a complete puddle of mush--his head lolling back as his eyes hooded near-shut. "I--I want you--want you to know--" he licked his lips again "to know that--that this wont stop," he breathed.
"This" might not stop, but Heero did. He pulled back--just barely--and stared at Duo. Breathless. Flushed. Moist lips. Hooded eyes. And that same damn look from before. His own eyes narrowed, he knew. "What wont?" he asked finally.
"This feeling," Duo answered softly, rotating his hips against Heero's. "You making me feel good... because... " He licked his lips and debated about going through with this.
Duo's lips drew his gaze like a magnet. He wanted to kiss those lips--to suck on them, nibble on them... to stop whatever words that might try to pass through them... But, instead, he lifted a hand up to those lips and brushed the sweet moisture from the lower one with the callused pad of his thumb. He felt the same crunch to his stomach as he had before, but this time, he was determined to get this over with. Perhaps it would be better this way--
"Why?" he whispered hoarsely. Those eyes were locked to his... it was a moment of truth for both of them... either they went forward from here... or they... "Why wont these feelings go away, Duo?"
Duo licked his lips again--the wetness sliding over Heero's thumb and tasting him... delicious... a moment of truth, oh Duo, old buddy... this is it... you're either gonna tell him now or--
"Because it's love," he rasped, his eyes never wavering from Heero's. "You make me feel loved."
Heero waited. He waited for---for---for he didn't know what. The world to end, maybe?
Maybe that's way--when it didn't--the corners of his mouth slowly turned up in a small smile. He leaned forward, brushing his lips to Duo's. "You make me feel loved, too," he whispered before taking Duo's mouth in a kiss hot enough to burn the sun. Well, enough to make Duo whimper, as his knees turned to mush. Heero broke away suddenly--his lips and teeth trailing a path over his chin and down his throat as his hands flew over the fastenings of Duo's shirt and pants.
"Uh, Hee--Heero?" he gasped, eyes hooded as his body gushed with feeling.
"Hn?"
"Could we..." he licked his lips again. "Could we really try and make it to that bed?" he asked, noticing his clothes were rapidly disappearing--not that he minded too much. "I still have rug burns from laa--aah!"
His startled cry as his lover--no, his mind reminded him, his love--as his love picked him up from around the waist and carried him over to the bed was cut off by Heero's lips--before he was drop, unceremoniously, onto said bed.
"Oww! Hey!" Duo cried, looking up to see Heero shucking his own clothes. "Need a hand?" he grinned, pulling... his love... down to the mattress.
That was almost four months ago. It had taken them another three weeks before either one of them had strung those three magical words together, and even to this day, 'I love you' coming from the other's mouth was enough to send a fountain of raw emotion originating from their stomachs and spilling outwards. "Love-with a good helping of lust on the side," Duo had explained it once.
Still, their relationship wasn't. perfect. Both boys were unsure of themselves but they wanted this. *thing* between them. So they worked at it. They didn't start out holding hands as they walked down the street. No, one day Duo had grabbed hold of Heero's hand to drag the other boy to a window showcase, to show him something he thought was "really cool". Heero had just never let go of the braided boy's hand. Duo didn't complain.
They weren't overly affectionate around others unlike the stereotypical "love-struck teenaged couples". And, indeed, out and about the city, many people did wonder if the two were "just friends" or "really! I'm telling you, they're a couple!" The fact that the braided boy flirted with everything and anything-sex not a determinant-kept the gossipers' tongues wagging. But Duo was a favorite among his fellow colonists and, well, if Heero wasn't so much of a conversationalist, he was Duo's friend and companion and welcome wherever the braided-wonder went.
Heero spent a majority of his time with Duo. In fact, there was rarely a time when the two couldn't be found together. Hilde once teased them that if one had to go to the bathroom, the other was sure to follow. The fact that the two boys turned red at that statement was cause for take-out dinner due to a laughing girl, rolling around the floor-dinner had been left to burn. Heero and Duo went to school together, they studied together, they went to movies and concerts and clubs and bars together, they worked at the garage together-even though Heero didn't know the first thing about striping down salvaged materials and Duo spent more time working and talking while Heero watched and listened.
What the silent boy lacked in workability, however, he made up for in finances. When Duo started complaining about some overdrawn drafts coming up with the company, Heero had only asked how much was needed. The next day, the exact amount was waiting with Hilde at the garage. Duo had ranted at first that he didn't need any charity to keep his business going and that, who did "Mr. Windam" think he was? And, how did he know how much money they were shy?
Heero quietly asked him if that mattered.which shut the braided boy up. Especially about money matters whenever Heero was near. Hilde was not quite so tight lipped, however, and whenever funds dipped shy in those first two months after taking over the garage, somehow "Mr. Windam" knew when and where money was needed-and he always provided.
That wasn't too often, though. In fact, the salvage company was thriving after only a month or two of rough times. Duo's previous connections with the salvagers got him good deals on incoming shipments, and Hilde's reputation in the community brought in needy costumers. Still, something was missing.
Sitting out at one of the local playgrounds, late one night, laying back against the Astroturf, staring up at the fake night sky, arms pillowed behind his head, knees bent and up, Duo sighed. "Sometimes, I just wish there was more I could do, you know?"
Heero, ever one of little words, nodded and gave a little grunt of acknowledgement.
They'd come to this park many times at night to just sit and stare up at the fake sky with its pinpricks of light to stimulate stars, talking. Their talks centered around just about anything. Their pasts-growing up on the streets with a plague and civil war; growing up with a group of assassins; death; life; people they remembered and respected, who died, fallen in a battle they didn't start; the scientists; the gundams; the other pilots; how they first met; whether peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches were better with grape jelly or strawberry; what the colonists were thinking when they first decided to go live out in space; what was *with* Relena and *pink* and did they think she would ever grow out of it.
Everything and anything. it was one of the few times Duo could actually get Heero to talk-and keep talking-without feeling like he was pulling teeth. They learned a lot about each other in those quiet moments of reflection, and what they learned made them respect and love the other all the more. Sometimes one would cry; the other never said anything about it, just squeezed his hand and maybe drop a kiss on the white knuckles. Many times they revisited old subjects, always with an air of "I wish I could."
"It's not right, kids living on the streets, fighting for food and life and a scrap of clothing to wear, to keep warm. I wish I could just do something more for them."
"Like what?" Heero asked, studying the fiber optical lights above them.
"I don't know." The braided boy sighed and rolled onto his stomach, propping his chin up on one arm and playing with the grass. "Give them a home. give them food. clothing. a purpose in life. Hope."
Heero rolled around until he could pillow his head against Duo's back-a perfect view of the slides between his knees. "Wanna try it on the slide again?"
Duo twisted beneath him, wiggling until he was on his back again, Heero's head resting against his stomach now. "You have *got* to be kidding me, right?" No comment. "After the last time.?"
Heero didn't answer, well aware of what happened last time, and after a moment, returned to the original subject. "Why couldn't you build them a home?" he asked.
"That stuff all takes money, Heero," Duo sighed again. "You know that. And these kids don't have any money-that's what's got them stuck there in the first place."
"You do."
"What?"
"You have money." Heero continued to stare at the slide.
"Maybe, but not enough to put together something along the scales of what those kids need," Duo replied, playing with Heero's hair. "You've seen the place, Heero. You've seen them. Many of them won't want to leave the colony, and those that do probably wont leave without the others."
"So, build them a home here." Heero *had* seen what it was like. He'd followed Duo one day when the braided pilot had been taking some things down to Miramar. Duo said he wanted to go alone, but Heero wanted to know, so he 'd waiting a few minutes, and then followed him. What he'd seen had shocked and saddened him. All too clearly, all around him, were the ravages of war. 'This is what war does to people,' he thought, looking at the decaying city. He'd wanted to cry.
"That would take a lot of work-even more money than I have," Duo answered sourly.
Heero just shook his head. "You have money. We all do." This time, he sighed. "Enough credits to build your own colony if that's what you wanted."
"What are you talking about, Heero?" Duo asked, looking up over at him. Two violet eyes narrowed. "Just how did I come into this money.?"
Another shrug. "Courtesy of OZ and Romafeller."
This time Duo sat all the way up, forcing Heero to sit up as well. "And when were you going to tell me?"
"When you needed it." Heero looked over his shoulder again. "Are you sure you don't want to try it on the slide again?"
No one asked her if she minded two homosexual males living under her roof. No one asked her what she thought of the matter. No one even stopped to consider that, until that night a month and a half ago, when she'd walked into her kitchen, returning home late from a friend's house, and actually *saw*--with her own two eyes-one Duo Maxwell pressed up against one Heero Yuy's back, nibbling and kissing while the other attempted to make dinner, she hadn't even *considered* the idea that there was something between the two boys other than the shared experiences of war, being gundam pilots, being orphans, being the same age, attending the same classes, working at the garage, and overall friendship-ness.
Of course, looking back over the last several months, it was easy to pick out the signs that the two were a couple-Duo's overly-friendliness, Heero's possibly-sexual-undertoned comments. Little things that she just hadn't put together to prepare herself for the picture she'd discovered that night.
She must have made a sound because both teens turned around and saw her-Duo pulling away from Heero and smiling at her, throwing out one of his witty little greetings, Heero nodded at her once before turning back to his most recent culinary concoction. That's when she knew this wasn't something that just happened, that this-whatever *this* was-had been going on for quite sometime, in her house, in her home, under her roof, with her completely clueless.
She swallowed hard, gave some excuse about having eaten over at her friend's house and how tired and dirty she was. and then she'd escaped. She escaped to her bedroom and locked herself in, gasping and blinking hard. She tore out of her clothes and turned the water on hot as it could run, and just sat under the burning pelting spray until she finally stopped crying, too tired to cry anymore.
She had no right to be angry at him. None. She had no claim on him. It was her who said 'no strings', not him. In fact, one could technically say she cohorced him into it. He hadn't wanted to at first-had even admitted that he liked someone else. No, loved, not liked. And she'd still.
She'd allowed herself to have feelings for him. Even after telling herself that they wouldn't work as a couple. That they weren't compatible like that. That, all she wanted from him was friendship and one night of sex.
And that's exactly what she got.
His friendship and one night of sex. He'd never promised more, but she'd.
Hilde shook her head and pushed off her bed. She *had* to stop thinking about this. It was useless, it was silly, it was pathetic and draining, and it wasn't getting her anywhere.
She didn't want to believe it at first. She didn't want to believe it at all-maybe that's why it took such a concrete visual to make it even become a possibility in her mind. She'd spent that first week trying to convince herself that it was Duo teasing Heero and really didn't mean anything. After all, Duo *was* overly affectionate and teasing with people.
Granted, the braided pilot didn't go around nibbling on people's necks-he hadn't even done that to *her*--but. that didn't mean anything, right?
He never went anywhere with anyone if Heero wasn't there. He didn't date, though he always had someplace fun to go to every night. He didn't do anything that Heero wasn't a part of. It was like they were glued at the hip. or hips as the case may be.
Hilde flushed. It wasn't long before she was caught up in the taboo and *different ness* of it all. Did they. do it? She wondered. Did they like it? Who did what? They didn't do it in *her* house, did they?
The questions flooded her every waking second and she couldn't look at either one of them without thinking about how Duo looked when she and he had done it. Did he look the same with Heero?
Neither one actually said or did anything that would suggest they were having sex, but, that didn't stop Hilde from thinking about it. Thinking about it more than she probably should.
She heard Duo's voice before she saw him and looked up at the back door expectantly. She didn't have long to wait. Duo, Heero right behind him, coming in out of the dark, flushed with excitement and talking a mile-a-minute, entered the kitchen.
"No, I think that's a *great* idea! We could probably get some of the kids to help too, you know? Make it really *theirs*. Of course there's all the legalities, but I-"
"There's some stew on the stove" she announced, sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of stew in front of her.
The braided-teen finally took notice of her. "OH! Hey, Hilde! Guess what! Heero and I had the greatest idea and-"
"I suggest you eat before it gets too cold," she said, blowing on her steaming spoonful. She needn't have said anything, though. Heero had already retrieved two bowls and was ladling them both full of the thick stew. Duo bypassed him on his way for spoons, napkins and something to drink. They arrived at the table at the same time. Perfectly coordinated. Hilde felt like crying again.
"We're gonna go into Miramar tomorrow and find a building that's not too destroyed and fix it up for an orphanage!" Duo announced, yelping when he scalded his tongue on the hot stew. "Give some of those kids a real place to live and all."
"That's great, Duo," she said, her voice belaying any greatness, "But where do you expect to get the money for something like that?"
"Oh, we've already got it, that's not a problem," Duo replied, grinning. "The problem is gonna be not getting shot at or run out of the place before we finish!"
He winked at her. It was too much. Pushing up from the table, setting her half-eaten dinner in the sink, she excused herself and left the house. Maybe Kimmy or Lisa would be home.
Heero viewed the task of constructing an orphanage as a mission to be carried out. First, they would need information. Heero and Duo retired to the basement with laptop and halo-projector.
"This colony has never officially had an orphanage before," Heero told him, skimming through the records. "The one you stayed at, with the church, was never recognized by the government. There are a few regulations, but we should be able to meet them."
"What about the property?" Duo asked. "Do we even know who owns-"
"When the city went bankrupt, the colonial government retracted any property agreements," Heero answered. He swiveled in his chair and looked over at him. "Because the city of Miramar is so poor, no one has been willing to buy anything in that sector. Property is cheap."
Violet eyes narrowed. "How cheap?"
Heero shrugged. "Cheap enough that you could probably buy the whole city if you wanted to." He shrugged again, turning back to his computer. "Without even putting a dent in your accounts."
"Can I really do that?"
"What? Buy a city?"
"Yeah."
"If you wanted to."
They stayed up late, pouring over the schematics of the city, reading over statistics and tossing about probable ways to get the city back on its economical feet. The next morning they were hitting the streets of the city, Duo running off visions of grandeur, Heero making a mental list.
"And that corner right there would be really great for an ice cream pallor or an arcade, don't cha think?" the braided boy was saying. "And over there, the old movie theater. Wonder what it would take to get that back up and running? Hmmm. right up there, I think, is where that old dance studio was, if I remember right-"
They traveled the entire city, from center to the surrounding suburbs. People stopped and stared, but no one approached them. It was getting late, the colony's day-cycle leading into night, before children began straggling into sight. Heero studied each of the wearied, worried, frightened faces. Large, hungry eyes, staring out of tired, dirty faces. Too proud to beg for help.
"I was thinking," Heero announced as they began making their way back to the Pembroke District and home.
Duo snapped out of his daydreaming musings and looked over his serious expression. Heero hadn't said too much all day, but, then, that wasn't very surprising. "Whadda'bout?"
They continued walking, their pace uninterrupted for several yards, before Heero answered. "Moving into the city once we get started."
"You mean, leave Hilde's place?" Duo's forehead wrinkled with thought. He supposed they probably *should* stop hinging off of the girl, but he kinda really hated the idea of leaving her all by herself again.
"It was just a thought," Heero replied, letting the matter drop.
"Do you think I'm being silly?" the dark-haired girl hiccupped.
"Yes," her friend replied, reaching over for another roll of sushi. "But I don't think there's any help for it." She popped the rice and crabmeat combo in her mouth and hummed her appreciation. "I don't know which I like better-Gerdi's enchiladas or his sushi!"
Hilde fell back against the bed, shaking her head with a small, sad smile. "I can't believe you went and got married."
"Believe it!" Kimmy told her. "I told you the minute I found a man who liked to cook, clean, and was great in bed I was going to marry him!"
"Unbelievable," the dark-haired girl mumbled, rolling over onto her stomach. She fiddled with a loose string on the quilt, lips turned in a pout.
"Hilde, you know what your problem is?"
"What?" she grumbled, the word muffled by her arm.
"You *want* to be in love, and you want to be married and do all that domesticated stuff and you don't care who it's with," the brown haired girl replied.
Hilde sat up, outraged, but her friend was going on.
"You're more upset that he has somebody and you don't, than the fact that he has somebody and it's not *you*," Kimmy continued, reaching for another roll. "What you need is to get your ass out to the clubs and find a guy to bring home."
"Fat friend you are!" she shouted, angry and hurt and filled with shame because her friend's words rung too true in her own ears. "Here I come, looking for some solace, and what do I get? Accusations! I don't need this! Not right now I don't!"
She pushed off the bed and was storming off to the door, Kimmy's words following.
It wasn't true. No, it wasn't. She wasn't jealous over someone else's happiness. Especially not Duo's. Hell's fires *knew* he deserved a bit of happiness after all the junk he went through in his past. Hell! She was happy for him that he'd found someone to be happy with!
She just wished it could have been her.
Heero Yuy was not in L2.
It wasn't *that* unusual. The stoic pilot had often left the colony from time-to-time in the last six months, always for a day or two. But this time he'd informed his violet-eyed, braided lover that he would be gone for a week, maybe longer. And he didn't tell Duo where he was going or why.
Duo didn't want to pry-Heero had a lot of secrets, and just because he'd been privy to many of them, didn't mean the other boy was willing or ready to share *all* his secrets. Duo had a few of his own that he hadn't wanted to share with his lover just yet.
Still. The braided-boy's curiosity was grandiose, and he couldn't help but feel a little snubbed that Heero hadn't bothered to tell him anything more than he needed to take care of something and he'd been in touch. And then he'd left.
His gundam was still here-Duo had checked-which meant, he had no way of contacting the other pilot until Heero contacted him first.
A part of him felt angry-angry with Heero for leaving just when Duo's dreams and plans for rebuilding his hometown were so close to becoming a reality. Another part of him argued that Heero had his reasons and they were probably really good reasons. So Duo Maxwell spent his days going to summer classes and working at the garage, and he spent his nights talking to the people of Charity Row and dreaming of Heero.
Duo waited six days without a phone call before he admitted to himself that he was worried.
“You have *got* to stop this.”
No reply.
“You’re killing yourself!”
Still no response.
“Please, Quatre! We’re worried about you!”
The blond boy sighed and continued flipping stations on the vidscreen before him. There was nothing good on. There never was. It didn’t matter what time of day or night it was. Nothing interested him anymore.
He looked like a different person from the young, smiling, lively boy Farrah and her sisters had met only two months ago. A stranger to them, more so than the boy they’d fallen in love with from the first—a listless, sullen stranger who wouldn’t leave the house or eat or smile or laugh or talk to anyone. They all agreed something was wrong, and everyone had a different suggestion to the cause and cure.
“Quatre,” she tried again, her voice going soft and sweet, laced with the tenderness of a sister. “Please, you have to stop this…”
“Farrah, I appreciate your concern—“ Which was a lie. His sisters’ “concern” was becoming evermore annoying. “—but I’m fine, really.”
“That’s a lie, Quatre Winner!” his youngest sister accused him angrily. “You are *not* ‘fine’! Have you looked at yourself recently? Oh, Quatre!” And her voice was soft and sweet again. “You look *terrible*! Nothing like the sweet, smiling boy I met two months ago. *Please*!”
No answer. The vidscreen flickered into a new connection.
“Quatre, please,” his sister was trying again. “Next week is your sixteenth birthday,” she announced.
As if he was so feeble minded that he’d forgotten when his own birthday was. Was it already March?
“Our sisters and I would like to celebrate it with you,” she continued, sitting down on the couch next to his legs. “If you’ll let us, that is…”
“Sure,” he nodded, flipping the station. “If you want to, that’s fine.”
“Quatre…” A hand brushed his leg, snatching his attention away from the screen. Farrah was looking at him with large, sorrowful blue eyes. He stared back. “Please, find that boy and bring him back to us? We miss him very much, and he’s needed.”
She squeezed his thigh and then pushed up, leaving him alone with the tears that threatened to swallow him whole. His sister had meant him, he knew…
But his heart thought of another.
“Good show, Catherine, Trowa!” the ringmaster called to them as they headed for their trailer.
“I think Trowa’s getting better at being a target, don’t you?” the red-haired girl teased, sending a wink towards the man who was like a father to her. “It must be all this muscle he’s building up. What do you think?”
“I think he’s finally developed a stomach tough enough to deal with your cooking!” the older man teased, laughing and walking away before either of the two could get a word out.
Catherine growled and stomped her foot. “My cooking is *not* bad!” she shouted, turning to the boy who stood, waiting patiently, holding the door to their trailer open for her. “Is my cooking really that bad?” she asked, a pitiful, congealing tone lacing her voice.
“It’s edible,” the boy replied and nothing more.
Catherine sighed and threw her hands up over her head. “No one ever likes my cooking!” she complained. “But do you see *them* offering to cook? No!”
Trowa followed her into the trailer, closing the door behind them, and then followed her into the rear of the mobile home. It was modest sized, big enough for the both of them, fitting them comfortably. Catherine moved into the bedroom in the back—her room, Trowa stopped at the trunk outside the bedroom— his closet.
By the time Catherine had finished scrubbing the make-up off her face and washing the hairspray from her red curls, Trowa was out of his clown suit— carefully folded and put away for tomorrow’s show—and was in the kitchen, preparing a simple dinner.
“Trowa, you didn’t have to cook, you know I’ll do that!” Catherine said, scrubbing a towel over her wet curls. He didn’t reply—she didn’t really expect him to. “Here, let me do that,” she offered, letting the towel drop around her shoulders. “You can go feed the lions.”
“They’ve already been feed,” the boy answered, turning the meat patty over to fry on the other side.
“Oh, well, um…” She fell into one of the chairs and just watched as he finished cooking the hamburgers. “Trowa,” she asked when he sat down next to her. “Are you happy here?”
He was quiet. Neither one touched their burgers. “Do you want me to leave?” he asked after another minute of silence.
“No!” she cried a little too forcefully. She scrunched up her eyes and shook her head, sighing. “Trowa, I just—I just want you to be happy, and I’m—I’m wondering if we’re making you happy or not. It’s so hard to tell; you never laugh or smile, and yet, you’ve continued to come back to us and…”
Catherine sighed again and looked at him, reaching out to touch his shoulder. “Trowa, I just want you to be happy.”
He didn’t look at her, didn’t acknowledge her touch, didn’t do anything but sit there, staring down at his plate.
She leaned back into her own seat, withdrawing her hand with a sigh.
“I’m happy here,” he answered, his voice dead, shocking her with any response at all. And then he picked up his fork and stabbed the dead chunk meat.
He sat on the edge of his bed, staring into one of the mirrors, staring at the reflection of the boy he saw there. ‘Can that boy really be me?’ he wondered. ‘He looks sad.’
“I *am* sad.”
Listless blue eyes fell shut, blocking out the image of the boy. Behind his closed eyelids, the image replaced itself with that of another boy—taller, narrower in stature. The soft forelock of cinnamon hair falling forward, hiding eyes the shade of forest. Skin that was both soft, yet hard—calloused, chapped, weatherworn, stretched over muscle and bone. The smooth touch of worn denim and cotton. The heady scent of sawdust and musk—
Quatre’s distressed whimper drowned in the feathery-cushion of his pillow, his senses reeling from the phantoms of memories. His body could still feel the other boy, around him, under him, rising to meet his every thrust. His lips could taste the nectar of the other boy’s lips, his skin, his essence, warm, salty. The best thing he’d ever tasted.
“Love.”
The word fell from his lips, a mixture of blessing and curse. He had loved the other boy—loved him to an impossible point of description.
But Trowa didn’t love him back.
“Let’s not try to make anything more of it than what it was: sex. Companionship during stressful times,” Trowa’s words revisited him.
Those words had haunted him for the last two months.
Quatre looked up at the canopy, studying its deep, rich colors, looking for guidance.
“You’re killing yourself, Quatre!” his sister had told him.
Was it true? He tried to remember when was the last time he’d eaten something— really *eaten*. He couldn’t. He couldn’t even remember what was served for dinner last night. And when was the last time he left the house? Not since after that first week. He’d tried to go to the office a couple times… but they were failed attempts, and eventually he gave up trying.
Was his sister right? *Was* he killing himself?
“You look *terrible*! Nothing like the sweet, smiling boy I met two months ago. *Please*! Find that boy and bring him back to us? We miss him very much, and he’s needed.”
Absently, he wondered where that boy had gone to, too.
He didn’t watch the news. He was afraid to. Afraid he’d see the other boy; afraid he wouldn’t. Afraid if he did the other boy would look terrible and he’d know he’d made a mistake in leaving; afraid the other boy would look better than ever and he’d know he’d been right… and that would be worse, wouldn’t it?
His sister, however, was an avid news-watcher. He made sure he was away when the vidscreen was on. Tonight, as with many nights before, he’d built up a small campfire set a little ways away from the others, and sat, staring into its flames. Above him, the night sky was filled with the light of the full moon, shining brightly over the treetops.
Absently, he thought of another night, almost a year ago, that he had sat at a similar fire, under a similar moon, after the failure of New Edwards. He had followed Wufei’s gundam that day, angry and upset and shamed at being used like they had been. He’d left Quatre with the others and flew after Wufei; flew after the ones who had tricked them.
He thought about what had happened later that night, when he had brought the defeated and broken Asian boy home to the circus with him. Catherine had been eager to help, and she didn’t ask many questions—though he knew she wanted to. He supposed he was lucky for that fact. Even a month later, when he brought another boy home—Heero, critically wounded after his attempted self-destruction— she hadn’t forced any questions from him.
He’d been thankful. He *was* thankful. She had been kind to him, from the very first she had taken him under her wing and treated him like the brother she claimed him to be. It was… an interesting experience. He remembered, Catherine had liked Wufei and Heero when he brought them home with him. And Heero’s willingness to stand for her target practice had won her admiration of the Japanese youth.
He remembered when Duo and Quatre had visited the circus, when they were back in the colonies. She had shielded him like a lioness protecting her cub. He found it somewhat amusing that the two most likable of the five gundam pilots— the two who were the most cheerful and friendly—were the two Catherine had felt the most offensive towards.
Of course, at the time he was suffering from amnesia, so, perhaps she would have acted the same towards Wufei or Heero if it had been them who had found him. Trowa thought so. For some reason—even after knowing he was a known terrorist, a gundam pilot—the strange, fiery girl was protective of him. Him. A boy of fifteen? Sixteen?—he didn’t even know his own age—who had been killing other people and defending himself since he was a babe.
It felt good, he concluded, staring at the dying embers while all around him, a chorus of crickets and owls rose out from the darkness.
He smiled brightly at them all as they rushed around him, enveloping him in their attention. He tried to push away the wave of fatigue that lapped at his being, tried to stay attentive, listening as all the girls went on about how happy they were to see him looking more like himself again. He just smiled and nodded and told them he hadn’t been feeling very well lately, but he was glad they could make it today.
He pulled up all his training from *years* as his father’s son, being groomed as the Winner heir. Smiling, looking attentive, open face, closed eyes, nod of the head, a swivel to scan over the faces of the rest of his guests before returning to the one at his side. One arm at the small of his back, the other out in front of him, holding out his glass of whatever it was they were serving, sipping from the flute occasionally. All an act he had learned only all too well. An act he had despised for its fakeness—until recently. Until he’d discovered he could hide behind the act and his sisters would be satisfied that their brother was “back”.
And then there was a tug at the sleeve of his blazer, and the tug became more forceful before he was being pulled away. Someone murmured an ‘excuse us,’ and then he was dragged into another room. With a little force he was manhandled into a turn until he was facing his kidnapper.
“Hello, Farrah,” he said calmly, smoothing out the wrinkles of his blue blazer. “How are you this day?”
“Cut the crap, Quatre,” the young woman snapped, pinching his chin and forcing him to look at her. She squinted into his eyes, turning his face this way and that, and then she sighed disgustedly, dropping her hand away.
He took the moment to study her. As with all his sisters, her hair was a color of blonde—not as light as his own, darker. The medium-length strands were pulled away from her face, but left loose to curl behind her shoulders. The dusky-blue teacup blouse scooped over both shoulders with a dip of bare skin in the back and tucked in neatly to a pair of black buckled slacks. The shoes, comfortable pumps. Her jewelry was neither flashy nor overdone—a simple gold chain with a diamond heart pendent and two diamond-drop gold earrings. As with all his sisters, she looked fashionable and yet conservative.
Farrah sighed. “Well, at least you went to the spa like I told you to.” She turned his face again. “Got some color back into you. Have you been eating?” She pinched his arms and torso and would have gone farther had his not pushed her hands away and moved back.
She sighed again. “Listen, Quatre, Sadira was thinking of setting you up on a couple of dates, getting you back out in the commercial world—you remember what that’s like, right? The Real World? The one outside those doors there?” She stabbed a finger towards the French doors she’d just dragged him through.
“You should listen to her, you know,” Farrah continued, walking over to a small bar and pouring herself a drink. “She’s an image consultant, and right now your image is a little blackened.” She poured another drink and shoved it into Quatre’s hands.
“WEI isn’t a bad engine, you know,” she was saying, falling into one of the plush lounge chairs in the room and looking up at him. “It was built to last, but it can’t keep running without a head.” She paused, letting that sink in, before she added. “And guess who that head is right now?”
“I never asked to be,” the blond boy replied, slumping down into a matching white-plush chair.
“You think that matters any?” Her face looked hurt and swollen with sympathy. “Oh, Quatre, honey, *none* of us wanted to get stuck with that monster!” She shook her head. “And we didn’t, you *did*.” She reached over and set her tumbler on the glass tabletop. “Quatre, we’re here for you, if you need us. But you have to say something, we can’t help us unless you tell us what you need.”
‘I need Trowa,’ he thought, looking out at the sea of smiling Winners outside.
‘Quatre…’ The tall, green-eyed boy stood transfixed, staring at the screen in front of him, the grocer’s bag slack in his hands. Before him, a wall of vidscreens mocked him, all displaying the face of the boy he couldn’t seem to forget, no matter how hard he tried. From somewhere behind the display case window, sound reached out to tease his hearing.
::::Multi-millionaire heir, Quatre Raberba Winner has returned to the business world after a two month sabbatical following the end of the War. Quatre Winner is the son of…::::
::::Boy billionaire, Quatre Winner, has finally come out in public as CEO of Winner Enterprises Incorporated. Today at a news release, the young heir announced his plans for the future of WEI…::::
:::: “I intend to do everything within my power to help the colonies and Earth rebuild and—”::::
:::: “Yes, I plan to do anything possible to help Vice Minister Darlian in her mission to build a better government for all. Indeed, she has my full support and cooperation—”::::
His prince’s image flashed before him in a dozen pictures—smiling, nodding, brushing away a skewed bang. It was his Quatre, but it wasn’t. Something was different, off, wrong about the whole picture before him. He studied the moving images, the eyes of a hungry man feasting at a banquet, but before he could determine what it was that *wasn’t* *quite* *right* about the images, his attention was drawn away.
“Hey, Trowa!” Catherine called sing-songingly. She smiled up at the boy and waved a hand in front of his face. “You in there? Come on, you’re going to let the ice cream melt if you stay out here!”
She turned, tugging at his arm when she caught sight of what he was staring at. Her smiling face puzzled into a frown as she tried to place why the face seemed familiar. “Isn’t that one of your pilot friends…?”
Abruptly, the boy turned away, starting down the way they’d come.
“Trowa!” Catherine called after him, racing to catch up with him. “Trowa! What’s wrong?”
Silence answered her and she mewed, poking him in the ribs at his side. “I *asked* you a question!”
“Nothing,” was the curt reply.
“Un huh,” Catherine answered, completely unconvinced. “Fine! Fine! I see how it is! You feel you can’t talk to me, I understand! I mean, hey! It’s not like I’m your mother or anything and I *certainly* can’t *force* you to tell me anything you don’t want to and hey! Why should I even care, right? You’re a—“
Trowa turned on her without warning, catching her by her arms and stopping their forward progress. He offered a small, shy smile before leaning over and pressing a light kiss to her cheek.
“Thank you, Cathy,” was all he said before letting go, turning, and continuing back down the street towards home.
Catherine stared after him in disbelief, a hand raised to the cheek he’d touched. “Well I’ll be damned,” she whispered before racing after him again to catch up, smiling happily.
He was angry. No, livid. Of course, no one on the outside knew this. No one knew that behind the calm, cool, collected, smiling exterior they all saw he was raging. And he had no outlet for his rage. It had been like this for the last two months. So he turned his attentions over to WEI, pouring all his energies, all his emotions into the company his father left him—tearing the company apart, putting it back together, building it up greater than ever. Adding, taking over, compiling, buying out, more, more, more… And his plans for the future called for more of the same.
Late nights at the office didn’t bother him—there was little to go home for. But his life wasn’t all office work. No, that would have been too easy, now wouldn’t it? Even now, Quatre Winner was dressing for another party to benefit… Well, he wasn’t sure what tonight’s affair was in honor of. He’d have to ask Sadira before he left.
Quatre sighed, pausing in tying off his cravat to stare at his reflection in the mirror.
Following Sadira and his other sisters’ advice he’d had his wardrobe overhauled— any pairs of jeans, shorts, tank tops, or other “unsuitable” apparel had been removed from his closet, replaced with slacks, pants, and trousers, dress shirts and sporting three button “relax” shirts. They had gone so far as to steal away his boxer shorts, leaving briefs in their place. Currently he was dressed in another one of their chosen suits—though, he had to admit, he *did* look good. The black suit was offset by the royal blue, diamond-patterned vest into which a grey-blue cravat was stuffed. The colors seemed to heighten the golden tones of his face and hair and accent the color of his eyes, bringing them out with an uncanniness.
If he allowed himself to dwell on it, he knew he would pout and throw a tantrum. After all, was it fair that everything he’d worked so hard to *change* from the mold his father had created was suddenly torn from him? Everything that he’d defined for himself in the past year was suddenly thrown out the window as if it was of no consequence? ‘Yes, dear, you fought in a war. Wasn’t it terrible? But now you’re home and safe and you don’t have to pretend anymore.’
“Bullshit,” the blond teen grumbled, running a hand through his hair. He let out a short breath and shook his head. Even his hairstyle and appearance had been deemed lacking. As a result, he was chauffeured to a spa where he was preened and primed for the media cameras and another week of work. His hair was shaped and styled, streaked with near-white highlights; his nails trimmed neatly, buffed and shined; his body wrapped in some weird chemical treatment before being baked in an artificial tanning booth and then smoothed with softening, scented oils. It wasn’t *so* *so* bad… Not really. After all, he’d participated in the ritual for years with his father.
“It is important to *always* look your best, Quatre.”
He used to actually enjoy it. Used to, before. The only thing he *truly* enjoyed any more was the massage. There was just something sinful about having someone’s hands move over your entire body, working the kinks and knots out of tired, stressed muscles. And the girl who provided the service was pretty and good, and he knew that she was more than willing to offer him more than just a regular massage.
Sometimes Quatre wondered why he didn’t take her up on her offer. After all, it had been over three months since he’d last… and he was a young, healthy male. But even on the days he thought he might just go ahead and accept her extra favors, he left without, offering her only a smile and a generous tip.
It wasn’t that he didn’t date, or that he was exclusive with anybody. In fact, Sadira *insisted* he date—“It’s good for your image, Quatre, if you’re seen as being sociable,”—and his sisters were more than willing to provide him with willing, available young ladies. Once, Farrah had offered one of her ex- boyfriends up as a possible date. Sadira had quickly told her to try and be a little serious. It was kind of a shame. The boy in question had been cute. Not as cute as…
Quatre sighed, his eyes falling shut as he took a deep breath. He had to stop thinking about *him*. It wasn’t doing anybody any good. He looked at his time piece. He was supposed to pick up another one of his sisters’ choices in fifteen minutes. Not for the first time, Quatre hoped that this girl might be at least a *little* likable to him. After all, Sadira *had* suggested dating someone *more* than just once…
Quatre sighed again and headed for the door. The sooner he got this over with the sooner he could go to bed and get back into another day with WEI.
He was unlike any other man she’d ever met. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, she hadn’t yet decided. But she liked him, she knew that much. Not *like* like, but liked. She would *never* want a Relationship with him—he was too quiet and stoic for her. She preferred her men with a good sense of humor and an argumentative streak that could match her own fiery attitude.
But she liked him. Heck! She even loved him, you could say. Yeah, she loved him. Like a brother. She had one once. Not too many people bothered to remember that she wasn’t always just a carnie-orphan. That she’d actually had parents, and a baby brother. That she had a family. Once.
Of course, that was many years ago, now. Her mother and father and baby brother were all dead now. They died when a group of rebels attacked their circus train, back on Earth. She had only been four or five. They say circus folk are like a family. For her it *was* family. The only one she could really remember; the only one she had left.
She’d seen carnies come and go, some stayed. She stayed. She had nowhere else to go, and, truth be told, she really didn’t want to go. She couldn’t imagine life outside the circus. The thought of living in just one house, day after day, month after month, Hell! Even year after year! It made her queasy. Of course, you could argue that she lived out of the same trailer, but, you see, that was different. The scene outside her window varied every other week. In fact, the only time they’d stayed in one place for *longer* then four weeks was during the war, when some of their usual stops were blocked by battles.
So she stayed with the circus, followed where it led, made friends with the newcomers, remained a “darling” to the old-timers. There were only a few old enough to remember her parents now, though. Circus life wasn’t easy, but she remembered the stories told of her parents. She even had a few pictures of them. If one looked closely at the pictures before and after her birth, they’d realize the woman was different; that the woman who carried her and gave her life was not the same woman who nursed her and sustained that life.
Her *birth* mother had died bringing *her* into the world—though, not many would talk about it. After all, none of the carnie-folk really new that much about her mother. Katerina Bloom had already been pregnant when her husband, Galeno Bloom, brought them to the circus. Katerina’s younger sister was the woman she thought of as mother; the woman who began to raise her. It was her mother’s sister her father had remarried and who had given birth to a baby boy, her little brother, her half brother.
But she had loved him. She had loved him with all her little heart. And she had nightmares for years after their deaths. Night after night, filled with terrors of war, bombings, fire in the sky, screamings, angry shouts, her brother’s terrified wailings…
She was lucky. The circus kept her. They could have given her away, dropped her off at one of those orphanages. But they didn’t. They kept her. Carnie folk always watch out for one of their own she learned. She became a child of the circus, learning every trick of the trade. She *could* do any number of the acts—she knew them all—but her favorite by far was the knife toss. The feel of the blade as it resting in her palm, waiting for its release off her fingertips.
She very rarely missed—her aim was always on target. The first time in years had been when she’d sliced Trowa’s cheek last spring. She’d been angry at herself and, in typical fashion, had berated him for not ducking. He had just sat there, calm as you please, and let her yell at him. She was already infatuated with him.
She really couldn’t explain what it was about the quiet, tall, teenaged boy that appealed to her. She just knew she wanted to protect him and make him happy. Every time he’d disappear, going off on one of his missions she now realized, she’d be worried and then relieved when he returned, safe. She should have guessed sooner that he was involved in the war. The truth was, Trowa was a very attractive boy and she honestly thought he was heading off to meet some girl he’d recently meet, shacked up somewhere in the town they’d just entered.
Trowa never brought anyone home, though. At least, not any girls. And the one boy he’d brought home she didn’t think anything about—him being as taciturn as her ‘brother’. She just figured he was a friend, and was happy that Trowa had made one. So happy that she didn’t even argue when they chose to sleep outside in the woods instead of in a trailer. Of course the second boy…
Heero… He looked like he’d been in a terrible fight, and gotten the worse of it. Trowa didn’t offer any explanations, and she was too proud to ask… But…
They were gundam pilots. Trowa, and Heero, too. She figured even the other boy Trowa had brought home—she couldn’t even remember his name now—was probably one, too. And those other two boys, the ones that came to the circus when they were back in space? The one with the braid and the blond one she’d seen on TV today, Quatre Winner. They were probably both gundam pilots as well. She wondered if they were close, the five pilots, and if she would get the opportunity to meet them all. She’d never met a real celebrity before. Well, excluding her brother and Heero, of course.
Her brother and Heero. Her brother liked Heero—he’d laughed and smiled around the other boy. It was really the only time she could remember Trowa smiling, let alone laughing. She hoped she got to see the other boy again. She didn’t like it when Trowa looked so lonely. It wasn’t good for him.
With a heavy sigh, Catherine Bloom pushed off the elephant post and crossed over to where her brother squatted next to the lion’s cage. “Are you coming to bed?”
Trowa didn’t look back at her; didn’t even seem startled that she was there, as if he already knew she’d been watching him for the past five, ten minutes. He continued to scratch the large feline’s forehead, right between the eyes. “I’ll be there in a little bit,” he replied, his voice little above a whisper.
Catherine smoothed her palms over his shoulders, squeezing a minute before leaning forward and giving him a hug from behind. “Okay,” she said, popping a kiss on his cheek before pulling away. “But don’t stay out too long. Those cats have to sleep, too, you know.”
“What’s sleep,” he asked the empty air.
“You don’t like it. Go ahead, you can say it,” the meticulously dressed blonde was saying, waving a hand.
“I never—“ the young businessman tried to respond.
“Sir? The reports you asked for?” The door to his office was open, his secretary dropping thick folders down on his desk and beating a hasty retreat.
“Thank you, Margaret, I—“ He reached for the top folder.
“Quatre? I *do* need an answer,” Felicia reminded him, arms crossed over her chest, one red heeled shoe tapping away impatiently.
Quatre sighed and fell back into his chair, shooting a *look* towards the oldest Winner present in the room just then. “Felicia,” he said agreeably, authoritively—the note in his voice causing all the others to hush up. “If you would like to throw a gala at Winner Hall, you are more than welcome. Please just give Maritza the information and she’ll help you.
“Sara, you’re right. I don’t like it,” he continued, dismissing one sister in favor of another. “I absolutely refuse to wear that suit. Amber, I can’t sit for you right now. I know I promised to, but if you could talk with Maxine, she’ll be able to work out a time with you that will work for both of us.”
He depressed a button that connected him to Margaret’s desk outside. “Meg? I need those files we talked about sent over to Alanis’s office. They need to be on her desk no later than 3 today.”
“Right away, Mr. Winner,” a voice filtered back.
“Angela,” he continued, connecting to another desk.
“Yes, sir?”
“I need to talk to Ranalyn sometime within the next five minutes please?”
“Of course, sir,” the girl replied. “I’m still trying to get through.”
Quatre sighed, but acknowledged his sister was a very busy and wanted woman. “Understood.” He looked to the four women who were still in his office. “Is there anything else?” he asked, hoping his voice was free from the stress and annoyance he was feeling.
“You *really* don’t like it?” Sahara asked, holding up the blue and orange striped suit. Quatre *looked* at her and she sighed, putting the garment away.
“*No later than *three**,” Alanis reminded him before grabbing her purse and striding out the door, Sahara not far behind her.
“It won’t take more than ten minutes,” Amber cajoled, holding her camera aloft.
“Am…” Quatre shook his head. “Fine! But make it quick, I really *do* need to get this work done.”
“Work! Work! Work!” Farrah groused. “That’s all you ever *do* anymore! You *know* what they say about all work and no play,” she quipped, kicking her legs over the side of the plush chair—which she was sitting in sideways.
“Speaking of work,” Amber intoned, raising the camera to focus on the young man behind the desk. “Shouldn’t you be thinking of getting a job?”
“What for?” the youngest Winner daughter questioned, smiling sweetly. “It’s not like any of us actually *have* to work, and since I don’t have a *passion* like the rest of you do, I don’t see the point in wasting time trying to earn money that I don’t need and wouldn’t have the slightest clue of how to spend!”
“So you’re determined to torment the rest of us, is that is?” her sister replied, snapping a shot of Quatre moving the folders off his desk. “Smile for me, Quatre,” she instructed and the boy—who hadn’t realized she’d begun—looked back startled. “Oooh, you *are* a cutie!” she teased.
“If you want to call it ‘torment’,” Farrah answered, winking at her brother. “I prefer to think of it as… Keeping you all on your toes!”
“We all have *real* jobs,” Amber retorted. “We don’t need any help ‘keeping on our toes’.”
“You’re just grumpy ‘cause Kirk’s visiting his parents with the girls and you haven’t gotten any in the last two days!”
The camera fell from Amber’s face as she reeled on her sister. “That is a *HORRIBLE* thing to say, Farrah Winner!” She was shaking with anger when she turned back towards Quatre. “We can continue at another time,” she said before storming out the door.
Quatre sat, stunned, mouth gaped. “That wasn’t very nice, you know,” he said when he finally recovered his voice.
Farrah just giggled, sitting up in her chair. “I know, but it’s the truth. At least now we can go to lunch. Come on! I found this really great place that’s open for lunch and has some of the *yummiest* eye-candy in all the colonies!”
Quatre sighed, shaking his head but getting up anyway. “Oh? And just what is this ‘really great place’?” he asked, not sure if he really wanted to know.
“Oh, it’s this gay bar down on Keeley and Lemmings street,” she answered gaily, tugging him out the office with her.
“Oh, you’re bad…” he replied, a smile tugging at his voice.
“I know,” she could be heard answering.
“Bonsai,” the bulging-nosed, wild-haired man announced, sitting back in his chair at the gaming table.
“Dammit, Pete!” his counterpart exploded, throwing up his arms in disgust as he realized his loss. “Of all the downright, rotten, no-good—“
“There is no reason to rant,” Palwashi Hilel instructed, coming up behind the loser and placing a hand on his shoulder. “Now please get up, Garret. It is my turn.”
Garret Green vacated his seat at the gaming table quickly, allowing Hilel to replace him, and he grumbled all the way to the old blue-checkered couch where he plopped his old bag of bones down and snatched up the remote.
“I *was* watching that,” Samuel Jackson announced when the vidscreen flickered from the news to a cartoon.
“Maybe so, but it was boring,” the long-nosed, mushroom-haired man replied.
“And *this* is childish,” his life-long friend retorted. He would have reached for the remote, but with his claw off and his other arm wrapped, he was out of luck. “I would like to know what is happening outside this room and I am at a disadvantage to know!”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Garret groused. “Or have you forgotten, the war is over? Our part in history is no longer necessary.”
“Nonsense!” Samuel snapped. “You’ve just been moody ever since we got here and I am getting sick of it!”
“*I’m* the one who’s *moody* is it?” Garret tossed the remote at him. “Fine! Watch your stupid news!” He sat there, grumpy and pouting, while Jackson contorted his body around so he could reach the remote with his good hand. The vidscreen flickered back to the news.
He was about to try another station when Hilel called out to him. “Turn the sound up,” he requested, eyes squinting, his mustache twitching. “Ah! It is, it is! How wonderful!”
“That’s your pilot,” Jackson realized, turning the sound up as requested. “Ah! And that’s that noisy child who was chasing after my boy!”
:::: Vice Minister Relena Darlian and CEO of Winner Enterprises, Quatre Raberba Winner, met today in L2 to discuss possible solutions to help rebuild the American LeGrange Point’s fractured economy…::::
“L2, huh?” Garret mused, nodding. “I wonder if this has anything to do with Duo.”
“What about Duo?” Howard asked, coming through the door along with Osiris, arms loaded with bags of groceries.
“Quatre and Relena Darlian are on L2,” Hilel informed him.
“L2, huh?” Howard dropped his load off in the kitchen. “Hey, that’s where Duo and Heero are holed up at.”
“Heero is with pilot 02?” Jackson blinked, surprised by this information.
“Yep!” Howard washed his hands while Osiris began putting the food away. “He and Duo set themselves up in their own apartment, last I heard. They have some “community-reconstruction” gig they’re working on.”
He snagged a beer before leaving Osiris in the kitchen and joining the others in the common area. “It should be good for them. I can’t see them staying out of things for any length of time.”
He took a swig of the brew, giving out a satisfied sound of approval. “Speaking of which, you guys have been leeching off me for the last six months—not that I don’t love you all or anything, but don’t you think it’s time you moved out?”
“And do *what*?” Garret demanded of his brother.
“Oh, I don’t know,” the older man replied, leaning back against the breakfast bar, watching Hilel and Seagram continue their game. “Get a real job. Find your families. Something.”
“A real job would be entirely boring after the lives we have led,” Jackson answered, flipping the station again.
“And what about Shima?” Howard was quick to ask. “Aren’t you curious what she’s been up to in all this time?”
“No.”
“Well that’s rather callous, don’t you think?” He crunched the beer can and went to deposit it in the trash receptacle.
“The last I saw her,” Hilel offered, “she was still working with/for Winner family.”
“Surely, by now she realizes that her work is no longer necessary,” Seagram responding, moving another piece on the game board in front of him.
“That would not matter,” Osiris spoke up, coming from the kitchen with a bottle of tea. “She is as stubborn as her father.”
“At least she’s prettier,” Garret added, contemplating grabbing the remote again.
“You shouldn’t be talking about looks,” Jackson snapped, clicking off the vidscreen completely.
“Quite the contrary,” Garret answered amiably. “Seeing as how *my* suit was the best—“
“Oh, GIVE IT UP!” Jackson growled, stumbling to a standing position, tottering for balance. A startled look overtook his features a moment before he was tumbling to the floor. Shouting was the last thing he heard as his body was swallowed up in a gulf of icy pain.
She pressed against the cool metal wall, praying that she wouldn’t be discovered. If Dekim thought she was spying—or worse, she was neglecting her studies—he would be sore with her, and Mariemeia dreaded what could happen when her grandfather was sore. But, by right, she deserved to know what was going on in that other room. After all, what affected her army affected her, did it not? And the progress on the new mobile suit facility definitely affected her army and her.
At least, she *thought* the man she’d had seen enter Dekim’s office a few minutes ago was from the new satellite, but, it didn’t sound like they were talking about her new mobile suits. That was strange… Mariemeia pressed closer, trying to make out their words.
“I don’t care *where* they are!” Dekim was yelling, but the other man was answering in hushed whispers and Mariemeia couldn’t hear what he was saying. “I want them *found*! Is that *understood*?”
She could hear the other man’s muffled reply. ‘He sounds weak,’ she thought scathingly. “That is *your* job! Find them and *persuade* them to join us in our glorious cause! As *per* *their* *original* *instructions*!”
She pictured the nerve at Dekim’s forehead pulsating grandly—as it did whenever he became enraged; his face deepening into a rich plum. She tried vainly to swallow the giggled that came, unbidden, and the image.
“Mariemeia?” It was more a command than a question.
She straightened to her full height immediately—ice filling down her bones so that she stood erect, shoulders back, chin up. “Yes, Dekim,” she smiled prettily like she’d learned and pushed the door open. Inside was her grandfather, standing tall behind his oversized desk, and a sniveling-looking man in a grey suit with fallen shoulders. ‘Weak,’ she reasserted.
“Mr. Grayson here is in charge of recovering our gundams and their pilots for us,” he informed her.
She turned back to the man, allowing her eyes to judge him. He seemed to cower away from her and she smiled. “I look forward to meeting my greatest warriors,” she replied.
They were military brats—six homes in less then two years. When the orders for L1 came in, mother told father she had no intention of moving after that, so he’d better be sure space was were he wanted to live. Admiral Howard Green, Sr. was as enamored with space as his two sons. It was an easy decision.
So they’d packed up their belongs and hopped a shuttle to space. For 10-year- old Howard Jr. and his 6-year-old brother Garret, it was a dream come true. Colony life was different from Earth. Getting used to hydro-showers (because water was expensive in space) and regulated time, weather reports that were accurate—*three* weeks in advance! —and Astroturf, specially designed grass that thrived in the lower g-force of the colonies. These were things the two imaginative little boys adjusted to quickly, and, well, if their mother complained about not being able to do all the gardening she was accustomed to, it was a minor drawback.
Garret wasn’t one to make friends easily. Howard, on the other hand, was *always* making friends—of either sex. Everyone was always hanging off of the older Green boy’s words, and if Garret tagged along on some of their more adventuresome excursions, he was tolerated because of Howard.
The fact that Garret managed to make one friend all on his own was testament to the other boy’s…strangeness. Samuel Jackson was a native Japanese colonist who neither possessed a Japanese name nor *looked* very-much Japanese. At least, not to Garret anyway. Not that such things mattered, really. In the end it was the eccentricities of both boys, combined with their lust in pursuit of science and discovery, that made them fast friends upon meeting.
It is like that, you know. Social outcasts finding each other in the throng of school, family, life. Bonding together as only children can do—full-heartedly, passionately, vibrant with the promise of youth. The fact that their friendship survived sixty years was proof of how eccentric the pair was.
In Senior High, Sam and Garret ran into another social outcast in the form of a boy, two years their junior, who was said to be a ‘genius’—Palwashi Hilel. A year later, when Howard left for college, he befriended and brought home a Chinese-enthusiast, Indra Osiris. It was only another three years, when Sam and Garret took their turn as college freshmen, that Pierre Seagram joined their small circle and completed the “Fabulous Five” as Garret referred to their group.
Garret, Sam, Hilel, and Osiris were already referring to one another by the letter of their last name—a habit Seagram easily adapted to, and one Howard was opposed to. “Just call me ‘Howard’,” the older Green brother would say, grinning over his shades. “Let Gary over there be the ‘G-meister’ of this group!”
It would be impossible to say whose idea it was originally to try and build a mobile suit. It was a universal thought, you could say—like unicorns and dragons, or the Lock Ness Monster. Like any normal group of boys who were too strange or too shy to go out and hang with the crowd, get drunk, get girlfriends, and partake in the orgy of college life, the five young man locked themselves in their rooms and devised fantastic scenarios of giant robots operated by a single human being. Their notes and outlines included detailed diagrams with schematics. Arguments over every-little-inch of the hypothesized suit resulted in weeks of one person not talking to another.
It was during one such argument that Howard caught sight of one of the diagrams in his brother’s room. Intrigued, the older Green sibling “borrowed” the plans. Two years later, the Federation was offering him a deal to build the first known mobile suit.
Tallgeese wasn’t *exactly* the same mobile suit the G-team had intended. That was Howard’s own influence—embellishing the suit to fit his own desires. Shirin, the suit Osiris took with him to the L5 colonies, was the intended outcome, which they were able to build after they exited college—and that suit *still* did not meet with their approval. The titanium used to construct the suit was too heavy and gundamium was yet to be discovered in the Winner mining labs.
The Federation felt the same way, and Tallgeese was set aside in favor of smaller, lighter suits.
It was in college that something remarkable happened in their group. One of their members met and fell in love with a beautiful young woman. That in and of itself was not the extraordinary event since it was a common occurrence for the five young men. The significant factor was that the girl fell in love right back.
Trinity Midorikawa was a political science graduate going for her master’s. It was a “kick in the behind by fate,” as she commonly informed him, that she and Samuel Jackson bumped into one another in the mess hall one rainy afternoon when Trinity had forgotten her raincoat. She had a debate in Rolf’s Hall in twenty minutes and when Samuel offered to lend her his umbrella he had never expected to see her or the umbrella again.
A day later, Trinity was standing at his doorstep, umbrella in hand, a radiant smile on her face.
Samuel Jackson might be many things, but a fool to pass up an opportunity of a lifetime was not one of them. In less than five months he proposed and six months later was married to Trinity Midorikawa.
“‘Trinity Jackson’ has a *much* nicer ring to it than ‘Trinity Midorikawa’,” she used to tease him. It was another eight months before she announced she was pregnant.
To suddenly have a woman thrust into their circle was disturbing enough—even though Trinity was often times too involved in her own school work and debates, full of political affairs to really interfere with them—but to have a pregnant one! And then two woman—albeit, in two different sizes…
Garret had, at first, been very distrustful of the beautiful woman politician. After all, what could a girl like that want with his comrade? He had been the most vocal against the marriage and when he learned of the pregnancy he was insistent that child could *not* be his friend’s. Jackson informed him that it most certainly *could* be, and more over, *was*. It wasn’t until Trinity asked him if he’d consent to being Hiroshima’s godfather that the younger Green sibling came around to the idea of his childhood friend as a married man and father.
And now, forty years later, after loosing his good friend Trinity Jackson to an assassin, after losing his father to a 20-year war, after losing his mother to Kenward’s Disease, after losing so much… Garret Green now stood to lose his best friend, too.
It was a small apartment; he didn’t need anything big for just him. One long room that contained the bedroom, living room, and kitchen.
It was a dump. The cheap linoleum floor was cut up and covered in a layer of dirt so thick that even bleach wouldn’t cure it. The one window at the back of the room had cardboard shoved into square broken panes of glass. Dingy, thread- bare curtains hung limp to either side of the window. There was a mattress on the floor, covered in soiled and stained sheets. An overturned box against the wall supported an old, obsolete television that only received 10 stations. A broken lamp, held together by duct-tape, was on the floor next to the bed. A table with three rickety chairs—the fourth being in a broken heap underneath the table—separated the “bedroom” from the “kitchen”. The kitchen was a countertop with a microcook, a cooler, and a sink. There were two doors in the apartment. One lead to a dingy, dirty hallway; the other, to a skank bathroom.
Everywhere, laid overturned boxes of take-out, molded and sour, and empty bottles.
In this ravel lay the heir to the Dragon clan, lost, wasting away in his self- inflicted prison. His black hair was stringy and greasy, tangled clumps against the sour pillow. He was too tired to try and wash the oil from his body, to scrape the layer of dirt off with a simple bar of soap. Too tired to move off the bed, to do something useful or productive.
He had no energy. His body’s charkas were off-balanced, he knew, but he was too tired to remedy the problem. So he just laid there, staring off into space, staring at the cracked ceiling, staring at the stained wall, staring out the broken window to the brick-faced wall outside, staring at the creased picture in his hand.
He found himself doing that a lot. Staring at her picture, his thumb tracing the image of her face. So often his thoughts revolved around her—what would she say if she were to walk in that door right now? How would she react to knowing he was the cause of their clan’s annihilation? What would she say if she knew he was in love with another man? Worse, a man who was already in love with someone else…
He thought about that a lot too. He thought about Duo, dragging to mind every little detail he could remember about the laughing, long-haired pilot.
And he thought about Heero.
More than he wanted to.
Whenever he thought about the stoic Japanese pilot, his thoughts inevitably turned back to that last night on MOII and his stomach turned queasy. His body burned with remembered shame and humiliation—but more than just that, he burned with remembered lust, and he caught himself on more than just one occasion, fantasizing about the pilot of 01.
Wufei didn’t understand his actions, try though he might to analyze them. He loved Duo, he knew that. He would give his life to save the other boy and all he wanted more than to be with him, was for him to be happy. That had to be love, right? There was desire there, too, but… it was so completely unlike the feelings tied up with Heero.
Wufei didn’t love Heero. No, he didn’t, but he did desire him. And admire him. And hate him. He wanted Duo to be happy, and he knew that Heero made him happy. But he wanted it to be him, Wufei. He was jealous of the Japanese fighter, and he didn’t like it. But there was more to it than just that. More to it that he just didn’t understand yet.
His heart ached; his stomach tightened in knots, a sour taste making its way to his mouth. A thought of washing up seared across his mind before fading back into the haze, forgotten.
He wondered why he did what he did, with Heero, like that. What was the purpose of it? Was he trying to get back at the other boy? Was he trying to get back at himself? He didn’t know. He just didn’t know. Was it the liquor? Was it because of what Une had told him, about Treize? Was it because the war was finally over? Was it because he didn’t care anymore?
He wished he had the answers. He wished he could take a shower. He wished… he wished… he wished…
She was so pretty. The lotus blossom of their clans. The prize, the gift, given to his clan, via him. They had been friends, before they’d been promised to each other. That one act seemed to ruin their friendship. Their clans didn’t seem to understand nor care.
She was so beautiful. Full of passion, life, spirit. Her entire body proclaimed her spirit, shouted it out loudly for anyone to hear. Her dark eyes flashed with fire born of that spirit. Her dark hair was long and silky—until she’d learned of her prominent marriage, and then she’d chopped it short in protest.
They were too different. They were too much alike. He *had* loved her. He wondered if she ever understood that. He’d admired her fighting spirit, her will to live and protect those she loved. Their coupling was always passionate, infused with that fire, their wills clashing madly together even as their bodies thrashed and fought for dominance.
He always thought she won those battles.
They were both so young, though. So young. Only twelve years of age. Barely teenagers, let alone adults.
But they both understood the importance of their joining. Perhaps that’s why neither one fought so hard against it. Their marriage joined their two clans, ending hostilities between their families. They were sacrificed for peace, their lives offered up for the lives of their friends and family.
The picture was taken at one of their clans’ many festivals, he couldn’t remember which one. It was before their arranged marriage was announced, when she still smiled freely. Already, she was beginning to show the beauty of the woman she was to have become, if given the chance. The silken dress wrapped around her body, accenting curves that were trying to bloom into being. Her long hair was done up decoratively for the occasion, her face painted with precise dedication. But amongst all that loveliness, it was her eyes that stood out the most to him. Even if the picture’s capture of such a thing was only minute, her eyes still shone with the brilliance of her spirit, aflame with passion of will.
He really did love her. But he’d hated her, too.
He hated her for being his wife, not his friend. He hated her for her passion of life. He hated her for her spirit of living. He hated her for not understanding his needs for spiritual and intellectual stimulation. He hated her for not understanding him. He hated her for making him love her anyway.
He remembered how proud she had been when it was announce that *he* had been chosen to pilot the special machine his sensei was building. He remembered how enraged she had been when he told her he did not want the “honor”. They had fought, violently.
He had managed to strike her.
It made him sick. In all their many fights he had never struck her.
The contact seemed to have surprised her, too, for she looked up at him, those wide, dark eyes shining with confusion and hurt. And then she looked away. He had done the only thing he could think to do. He ran away.
Book in hand, he had escaped to the solitude of his field.
And then they were attacked. It happened so quickly, too soon. They weren’t prepared.
He could still see her face, hot with righteous anger, hovering over him, yelling at him to do something, running away from him when he didn’t move. He could still feel the slight weight of her body, in his arms, as he held her broken and bruised form close to him.
He took her into himself, more completely than ever before. He drank in her spirit, her will, and her fire and swallowed it down. Infused her stronger fighting spirit into his weaker soul, allowing it to lace up and down his will, fortifying himself for the war to come.
He understood then, that it was going to be war. A bloody battle of clashing wills that would set the world and colonies on fire. He suddenly looked forward to it. Looked forward to the opportunity to destroy the bastards who killed his wife. He trained, night and day, in the suit Master O built. He studied it until he knew it inside and out, knew how to take it apart and put it back together again. He learned everything he could about the suit, how to fix it, how to find replacement parts, how it operated. Some of his lessons were just hypothesized, it was true. After all, they couldn’t be sure *how* Shenlong would react to aqua-climated pressures, but Wufei knew all the possible outcomes.
When the signal came for his mission to begin, he didn’t hesitate. Climbing into the cockpit with only one bag full of supplies, Wufei didn’t hesitate or look back. After the door sealed shut and Master O and others started the countdown, he slipped out the one picture he’d brought with him and used a bit of adhesive to stick it to one of the upper consoles.
“Nataku…” he had whispered while he and his gundam went hurtling through space, intent on it’s Earthly destination.
The medical bed wasn’t the most uncomfortable thing he’d ever slept on, but it came pretty damn close.
The room was small—like most things in space; more compact—but it served its purpose. White walls, a picture of a sunset beach on one, a door, a table with some type of plant on it, the bed, a TV mounted up near the ceiling, and a chair. The various monitor equipment, fluid bags, tubes, and hummings and beepings could be ignored. In fact, it was preferable to ignore them.
Sighing, the man on the bed wished he knew where his optical goggles were. If there was anything he hated more than being uncomfortable, it was being in the dark. There was a shifting somewhere, not from him, and he realized he wasn’t alone in the room—a rather disturbing thought when you couldn’t see.
“Garret?” his raspy voice called out, and he realized there was something stuck down his throat. He didn’t like it one bit and felt like it was going to gag him.
“Don’t try to talk, J,” the man beside him told him, a reassuring hand pressing on his shoulder. “You have a breathing tube stuck down your throat; you’ll only cause more damage if you—“
Samuel Jackson huffed and grumbled silently to himself. What a fine mess this was.
“You’re at Mercer,” G continued, his voice soft and saddened, like he’d been crying. “I gotta tell you; you look a wreck.”
J’s sightless eyes blinked in reply. He tried to reach up and pull the tube out so he could talk… only to realize he couldn’t move any of his limbs. He jerked his chin towards his life-long friend.
“No, J-man. You have to keep that in. It’s the only thing keeping you breathing right now,” Garret informed him. “If you want, it’s not too late for me to call Shima or—“
But J was shaking his head, and he tried to chomp down on the tube gagging him.
“Stop it!” his friend hissed, but the bed-ridden man didn’t reply. After several attempts, Garret finally gave in and wrenched the tube out of his body.
Samuel Jackson felt like his lungs were collapsing as he struggled to take in each breath. “Promise me,” he rasped, loosing the battle. “Watch over them, both.”
Another squeeze at his shoulder told him the other was still there. “Trinity… He looks… so much… like her…”
“I promise,” Garret whispered brokenly, his face twisted in pain and sorrow as he watched the man in the bed who he loved like a brother, like a friend, a best friend. “I’ll watch over them both for you.”
“Proud… of them… love…”
There was so much he wanted to say. There was still so much he wanted to do. But he saw her face, her smiling, radiant face, and he knew nothing more than love as her arms wrapped around him and welcomed him Home.
It was a small ceremony; five old men staring at a brass urn. It was like they had all been waiting for it to happen and now that it had, they were free to go. They wondered what to do with themselves now, cut free and yet still tied down.
It was Hilel who first announced his intentions of leaving. “I have accepted a research position with Myron University,” he announced one afternoon, less than a week after J’s death.
The remaining three looked at him, and then nodded, looking away again.
Two days later, Seagram mentioned returning to Earth and doing a bit of traveling. They replied with what a good idea that sounded like.
After they saw H off to his fancy research institute, and S shuttled down to Earth, Osiris told Garret that he must leave as well. Garret didn’t ask where, O didn’t offer.
Suddenly, G found himself the only one left, alone with his brother, sitting, staring out at each other from across the table.
“We’ve gotten old,” he said into the silence.
“Yep,” Howard agreed, not sounding very chipper. “We have.”
Silence.
“I don’t remember getting old.”
Howard pulled a long swallow of his beer and didn’t reply.
“I try to look back, and I wonder… was it worth it. Did I do anything worthwhile?”
Howard looked at him, not smiling, not frowning. Dead serious. “You helped save the world, Garret. I’m proud of you for that.” He let a moment pass by before adding, “Dad would be right proud of you, too.”
“I wish I could believe that,” the younger brother whispered.
“It’s the truth.”
Garret stared down into his own beer. “I don’t know what truth is anymore.”
He was surprised at the squalor he found. Surprised and disgusted. Disgusted with everything and everyone, including himself. He stepped into the flat, expecting something to jump out at him—a rat or roach, maybe. Rotten cartons of take-out tumbled out of his way as he walked through them, eyeing the pitiful kitchen, the table, before his sight settling on the rumpled bed and the body laying on it.
At first he thought he might be too late, that the body was lifeless. But then he breathed a sigh of relief when the body moved, turning over on itself to look up at him. He felt his chest constrict with a torrent of emotions.
“Come with me,” he instructed, he voice soft and steady, not betraying any of his wild emotions.
The figure crumbled in on itself again and turned away from him, without answering.
“Get up,” he commanded without raising its volume. “You will bathe and then get dressed. You are coming with me.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” the body mumbled. “ ‘Specially not with you…”
He frowned, unaccustomed to disobedience from the boy. But then, he realized, the boy wasn’t really a boy anymore. He reached over, almost loathed to touch anything in the room, and grabbed a handful of the sheet. With a heavy jerk, he yanked both the sheet and the boy off the mattress. The boy glared up at him from the floor.
“You will bathe and dress yourself, or I will do it for you,” he informed the youth, “but either way, you *are* coming with me, Chang Wufei.”
He knew it was a dirty trick, invoking the boy’s honor and pride, but from what he’d seen, if he didn’t, the boy was surely going to condemn himself to an unjust grave. And that was the last thing Indra Osiris wanted to see now that he’d survived the war.
Black eyes glared up into dark brown, insolent, rebellious, and Master O felt a glimmer of hope. Perhaps it wasn’t too late after all, to save the boy.
The battle of wills continued for another minute, but the boy was too weak, too uncentered to even come close to winning. Finally, he climbed to his feet and trudged over to the bathroom. A minute later, Osiris heard the water to the shower running. He inspected the room again, shaking his head in dismay.
“This war has asked too much of you, my young friend,” he whispered. “You gave too blindly.”
“Where are we going?”
Osiris turned around, surprised, not having heard the water turned off. The naked young man standing in the doorway was only a hollowed shadow of the boy he knew and the man he was yet to become.
“Get dressed,” he answered. “You’re coming with me.”
~Act III~
As Devenley Behr set the Shooting Star down, they already knew the small desert village was deserted. What they were looking for had moved on, but they landed anyway with the hopes that some sign might have been left for others--such as themselves--to follow after.
"I don't get it," Carina complained, squinting and shading her eyes with a hand. "All that's here is just a bunch of empty stucco buildings. What're ya looking for?"
Ochenta smiled and ruffled the girl's dark hair. "Just because you don't see anything, doesn't mean something's not there."
"Found it!" Blaire shouted out. "Over here!"
"This is just one of many such cities that belongs to the Sands," Nita continued as they followed Blaire's voice to one of the buildings. "Are people could be anywhere, in any one of those cities. They last time any one of us saw them, they were here."
Blaire had a rug pulled away from the floor; hidden underneath it had been a trap door. The short-cropped strawberry blonde held up the rug for the Carina. "It's a special pattern. Remember it."
Carina studied the multi-colored mat, but didn't see anything special about it. Jack led them down the ladder and threw the dark with a flashlight, until they came to an open cavern, their scruff footsteps echoing in the emptiness.
"They must have left in a hurry."
"From the scorched markings on some of the walls, I'd say they were under attack."
"But who would want to harm simple peasants?"
"It's possible they learned of the soldiers."
"Anything's possible," Jack concluded, swiveling her beam of light around. "We should look for signs of where they might be now."
They split up in pairs, Rini with Nita, Kat heading off with Dev, and Blaire ghosting past with Jack. Generators hummed to life and the dark cavern was suddenly flooded with light.
"Main console," Blaire pointed out. "Nita!"
In minutes the dark-haired woman was into the system and pulling up records.
"It seems they were very interested in those Gundams," Dev pointed out.
"Yes," Nita didn't look away from the screen as her fingers flew over the keyboard. "Especially 04. See here. They actually had the gundam in their possession a number of times."
" '04', huh? I wonder--"
The large display screen flickered before the top-half image of a big breaded man appeared.
"Rashid!"
"You have entered a restricted area," the man said, his deep voice bellowing out in the cavern behind them. "Leave immediately."
"Rashid, don't you recognize us?"
"Hold on," Nita mumbled. "I think it's a recording..." She raced on as the messaged continued to issue out its warnings. "Jino!" she cried out with escalation.
Again, the screen flickered. Again the image of the same man appeared. This time, however, the man's dark, penetrating eyes looked at each of the six girls thoroughly before speaking. "I was told the Oasis retreat had been infiltrated."
Blaire grinned and stepped up behind Nita. "Hello, Rashid. Good to see *you* again, *too*."
The older man's shoulders shook with repressed laughter and he smiled down upon them. "What are you women up to that I find you in an abandoned city?"
"Looking for you, of course!" Jack replied, stepping up beside Blaire at Nita's other shoulder.
"Then you look in the wrong place," Rashid answered. "We are farther to the North."
"Palm Springs?"
He shook his large, bearded head. "No," he replied gruffly. "We have returned to our original home--the true White Sands."
The office was modest by Earth's standards, but rather luxuriant for the colonies. A desk, a picture of a space nebula on a wall, a fake tree in the corner, and a narrow strip of window near the ceiling were the only distinguishable features of the room. There was no vidscreen; the communications unit consisted of a head set with a mouthpiece, which you could talk into and hear responses by. The only good thing she could discern from this was that the person you were talking to couldn't see what you were doing and that your hands were still free to do those other things.
At that moment, the person on the other end of the call was Prime Minister Gene Madison and those "other things" was her signature at the bottom of an endless pile of paperwork.
"Yes, Gene. I would appreciate it if you could talk to Garibaldi about that. Good. Yes. I'll keep that in mind. Until we talk again. Yes. Goodbye, Prime Minister Madison."
With a sigh, Vice Minister Dorian slid the headset off and massaged her temples. Leaning back into her chair, eyes closed against the bitter artificial lights, Relena didn't bother to look when the door to her temporary office opened and closed without word.
"Phil? Will you have someone make a copy of these and send them out to all the colonial administration offices for approval?" Relena said without looking at him. "The sooner we get everyone's approval, the sooner we can get some of these bills passed."
"Phil isn't here right now."
The thick, nasal response had an immediate reaction--Relena bolted up straight in her chair, cornflower blue eyes snapping open to take in the appearance of her unexpected visitor. And then, just as quickly, the edge melted off her demeanor and she relaxed back in her chair, smiling at him.
"Hello, Heero."
In a coffee shop of high repute within the boundaries of the capitol city, three women sat around a table with cups of flavored coffee, smiling and laughing as they shed layers of stress.
"It's done," announced the spiky-black-haired woman, raising her mug.
"Here, here!" replied the two sandy-blonde women before taking a sip of their hot beverages.
"Mmm, and *now* we're just waiting for approval to come through," Sally Po continued.
"I see no reason why they should refuse," Anne countered. "After all, it will cost the new government very little and benefit it greatly."
"That's true," Lucrezia Noin was quick to agree, "but someone could still try and stop us."
"Then they are fools," Anne said, angrily sipping at the hot coffee and burning her tongue.
"Probably men," was Sally's reply, grinning at the two women. "The Preventers will be a strong force to help protect peace." She lifted her cup towards Anne. "And *you* will be it's President."
Anne made a face. "I don't think 'President' is the right word."
"Leader?"
"Head-Chair-Person?"
"Mother?"
The women laughed freely, basking in the sense of accomplishment. The proposal for the creation of the agency they'd dubbed "Preventers" was on its way to approval. The Vice-Minister herself was backing the project along with business tycoon, Quatre Raberba Winner. With those two formidable supporters, it was only a matter of technicality before the project was given the stamp of approval.
Anne had already selected the building that would serve as Preventer Headquarters--an office building that had previously belonged to Treize Khushrenada, used for OZ paper-pushers. It was already furbished with everything they would possibly need--with the exception of staff. The Preventers would be very much similar to OZ she realized, and that in and of itself would be the major strike against the agency. After all, what was to stop the organization from rising up and becoming a military power bent on domination?
Nothing.
Nothing except her, and she wasn't immortal. They had worked hard, drawing up a doctrine that would serve as the Preventers' constitution. They had pulled all their resources together, checking and then double-checking over each person's suggestions, searching out the loopholes, searching out the gray areas. They racked their brains out until they'd come up with a solution to every scenario they could think of.
They wrote the book on "PREVENTERS".
"We should have secret codenames," Sally teased.
"What? Like 'Wonder Woman' or 'Bat Girl'?" Noin laughed.
Sally joined in, nearly choking on her coffee. "What? Not 'Lacy Lucy'?"
Noin tossed her crumpled up napkin across the table. "I should have *never* told you about that!"
"Auh! But I think it's *cute*!" Sally caught the rolled up bit of paper easily. "What do you think, Chief?"
"Mmm?" Anne was caught off guard and quickly reined her thoughts back to the here-and-now. "About code-names? I think it's a good idea."
"Good. Then I want to be 'Water'," Sally announced. "Preventer Water. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"
" 'Water'?" Noin laughed. "Wherever did you come up with a name like *that*?!"
Sally put on a face of mock-indignation. "It's one of the five basic elements of alchemy--the forerunner of modern medicine. I think it's *very* appropriate." She shrugged, dipping her fingers into a near-by glass of ice water. "Water was said to hold the properties of healing and loving emotion, and, when you think about it, we couldn't exist without water."
They were quiet for a moment, mulling that over while the rest of the world went by without them.
"What were the other four elements?" Noin asked after another minute. "You said there were five."
Sally nodded, tracing invisible patterns over the pink tablecloth. "Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, and Spirit. The old alchemist believed that those five elements made up every living and non-living thing there was in the world."
Noin watched Sally's fingers, staring like one transfixed, hypnotized. "Fire," she whispered unconsciously. She looked up at her friend's face. "What properties did they associate with Fire?"
The older woman sat back in her chair, a smirk taking over her smile. "Passion. Passion of love and hate. A temperamental element that rages with intense energies."
Noin grinned. "I rather like that idea." She leaned back in her seat, too. "All right, then. If you're going to be 'Water', I'll be 'Fire'." They looked to the third woman. "What about you, Anne? Wanna be Earth, Wind, or Spirit with us?"
Anne laughed, her shoulders shaking. " 'Preventer Spirit'? I don't think so."
Sally grinned and shoulder-bumped her. "Nah, she's the 'Mother Preventer', don't you know!"
"I won't ask how you got in here," she continued, smiling at the Japanese pilot as she studied him. He was a sight for sore eyes. Just his very presence in the room seemed to give her a renewed sense of strength to fight on for a lasting peace. She picked up the folder she had meant for Phil to copy and tapped it against the desk.
"Laws, for the colonies *and* Earth," she informed him, setting the folder back down.
"Your security sucks," he announced, surprising her--though she couldn't be sure which surprised her more: the fact that he actually said something without being provoked, or the manner in which he said it. He looked at the chair before looking back at her. "May I?"
"Of course! Sit, sit!" she motioned to the chair and leaned forward over the desk. "I'm sure didn't come here just to tell me that my security 'sucks', and since you don't have a gun in your hand, I doubt you're going to try and kill me." Her smile turned teasing as she folded her hands over the folder "So what can I do for you, Mr. Yuy?"
He reached into his jean jacket--god! But he looked good in denim!--and handed her another folder. Relena stared at it for a moment before reaching out and taking it from him. He sat in silence while she flipped through the contents, eyes glancing over images and statistics, gracing the proposal with a cursory skim. When she reached the last few pages, she looked back at him.
"I don't understand," she admitted, working loose the lump in her chest some of the images had lodged there. "What do you want me to do?"
He reached over and retrieved the folder from her. "Duo and I have made this our mission," he told her, sitting back in his chair with the folder against one thigh. "This is just one colony in L2. There are many other places like this--on Earth as well as in the colonies."
She looked stricken, and he felt a moment of pathos for her. She was young. The same age as himself. But she was strong too. He knew it was the right decision to come to her. She wouldn't let him--or Duo--down.
"Why did you come to me?" she whispered, her eyes still burning.
He told her the truth. "You get things done."
Relena Dorian looked at the boy sitting across from her and marveled at it. "You are a strange boy, Heero Yuy." It was the only thing she could think of to say, and the words were out of her mouth before she could pull them back.
Heero stood, the folder hanging between them. "You'll do it?" Relena stood, also, and reached out to take it from him. "I'll do my best," she promised, and they both knew it would happen.
She stared out the window overlooking the balcony, overlooking the street, overlooking the people, overlooking... She knew why she came. They both knew why she'd come. She had told her before when they had met, months ago now, that she was tired of looking back. She had meant it.
With a heavy sigh, Dorothy Catalonia turned away from the sliding glass window. It was a nice apartment, suitable for the woman who was living there--sparse of very many decorations, just a picture here or there on the walls. A vidscreen. An in-sound system. A computer in the corner. A table near the open bar kitchen. Small, but room enough for one person. Yes, it was very suitable for the woman living there.
"Nice apartment," Dorothy commented, clasping her hands in front of her.
"It's not much," Noin replied, "but it's home." Dorothy nodded, but didn't say anything else. An uncomfortable silence stretched out between them and both women realized they didn't like one another very much, which made the gap between them all that more uncomfortable. "Would you like something to drink?"
" Yes, please. That would be nice," Dorothy replied more in route than because she was thirsty.
The longhaired blonde followed her to the kitchen while Noin poured her a glass of water. "So..." she said after another minute. "What can I do for you?"
"Relena," she all-but-blurted out. Dorothy closed her eyes and regained herself. "You could tell me, please, where I can find Miss Relena."
"She's all over the news," Noin replied. "Surely you've been keeping track of what's going on in the world..."
She had been. She knew Relena was in the colonies. She knew just as much--if not more--as to what Relena had been up to these last few months than other people did. But she didn't want to admit to that.
"She's in L2," Noin said finally when she realized the other woman wasn't going to say anything. "Pushing through a Rehabitation Program."
"She is... well?"
"About as well as can be expected when you're running yourself ragged trying to save humanity from itself," Noin replied sourly.
That seemed to amuse the blonde. "You don't agree with Miss Relena's efforts?"
"I don't agree with 'Miss Relena' doing all the word herself," Noin snapped, folding her arms under her chest. "What is it you want to know, Dorothy? Out with it."
Again, the blonde young woman turned back towards the window. "I expected to hear from her..." she whispered, watching large raindrops splatter against the glass. "I thought she would have inquired after me... *sometime* in the last six months..."
Noin warred with herself, torn between wanted to be spiteful and wanting to be sympathetic. In the end, Relena's influence won out. "She's known where you are for over five months."
Long blond hair whipped around in a flying arch, crashing into Dorothy's chest and stomach before bouncing back behind her. "What?"
"As soon as you returned to your family's estate, she's known where you've been, what you've been doing."
"But what--why hasn't she tried to contact me?" the confused woman demanded.
"She thought the next move should be yours," Noin answered as simply and steadily as she could.
Dorothy turned back to the window, smiling. "I see," she said.
'Bravo, Miss Relena. You've out-smarted me once again.'
Geraldine Dorian sat at the bedside in constant vigil over Milliard Peacecraft. The sounds of the sick room were like home to her now--the low, pulsmic throb of the heart monitor, the steady, raspmic hiss of the respirator, the tiny throp of each drop of IV liquid. A nurse came by regularly to check tubing and bags, replacing old, used materials with new, fresh ones.
Days came and went, curled up with a book; long, lonely nights passed in the day bed she'd had brought into the room. Some days she allowed herself a vacation and took to "exploring" the buildings and grounds she found herself surrounded by. *This* was the life her daughter had been born to. These fancy gardens and whitewashed buildings with terraces and balconies. This was far more than what she'd been raised with. Relena had been raised a pauper in light of this extravagance.
The sleeping Sank Prince remained without change and the hope and optimism she showed her daughter when they talked was abysmally missing when the matron was alone. The servants were a rather cheerful lot, despite their reason for being there--or perhaps because of their reason for being there. For the first time in many years, this country manor home had been opened, a Peacecraft had returned to them, and even if he was unconscious, the people still viewed it as a benevolent sign of good fortune for the future.
Villagers from the nearby town, often came to drop of tokens of well-wishes without ever asking to see if it was true, that the Sank Prince whom they had thought lost to them was really alive, was really living there. For their sake, as well as her daughter's, Geraldine prayed the young man would get better. She talked to him, never expecting a real reply but continuing their conversations as if he had given one anyway. She allowed herself to become fond of a man she wasn't even sure would live.
"Relena is doing well. Still in Space and complaining about how she misses home and can't wait until she can come back. She's hoping to speak with you when she gets back. I think you owe at least that much too her. After all, she *is* your sister, your only living family. It's a shame you two couldn't have been raised together. You both missed out on a lot because of that, though, you could be sure, I would have never had allowed you to enter the military had you been raised as my son!"
"That lovely young lady, Miss Noin called today. She wanted to know how you were doing, so, of course I told her. I do wish you would do something more than just lie there on your back. It *can't* be healthy, I'm sure. I was telling Relena *she* needs to get out more, do a little exercise of some sort, get her blood pumping. She said that, with the way some of those old stuffy heads she has to put up with daily over there, her blood gets boiling enough."
"I heard there's a search going on for those five young men who piloted those Gundams. They still don't know whether to punish them or praise them, the fools. They wouldn't think to praise you, though. I won't pretend to understand why you chose the decisions you did. That's the past; a distinction of intentions and deeds. I can't help wondering why, though. That Lucrezia-girl of yours said that you and General Khushrenada were close friends. I can't even begin to imagine what would possess you two to fight against each other if that was the case. But the girl seems to know you. Better than I know you."
"Relena's proud of you, I want you to know. She's proud that, in the end, you helped save Earth. She's always wanted a brother, you know. I used to feel terrible that I couldn't give her one. Perhaps she knew, somewhere, out there, you were waiting to be found."
Relena's adrenaline was running high. Fresh from a meeting with L1 representatives, fifty-four hours away from her flight to L2, Vice-Minister Darlian came off the elevator ready and rearing to get through the stacks of paperwork left waiting on her desk. Her overly agitated secretary obstructed her path, however.
"OH! Ms Darlian! Ms. Darlian!" the man who was probably twice her age cried out, flying from the seat at his desk to her side before she'd even cleared the elevator doors. "Ms. Darlian! There's someone waiting in your office!"
Phil was breathless and his rather pasty appearance was the only thing saving him from receiving a fistful of political documents shoved down his throat--it had been a rough meeting.
"Who is it?" Relena asked calmly, using her most nurturing voice that had proven effective against even some of the old hard-ups in Romafeller. She knew for a fact that she had no personal meetings scheduled for today--she'd planned that specifically so she could have the entire afternoon to actually put some sort of a *dent* into her paperwork--and she'd just left the L1 representatives back downstairs...
"She wouldn't say, Ms. Darlian," Phil practically whimpered. "And she wouldn't *leave*, either!"
" 'She'?" Relena suppressed a heart-felt groan. She could just imagine who was waiting for her in her office. Rearing for political battle with the representative of L3, Relena pushed through her office door and--stopped.
"Hello, Miss Relena."
Relena's mouth work, but no sound came out. Finally, she just shut her trap and stared at the other girl.
Dorothy stood up from Relena's chair, a flick of her head sending her long blonde hair swishing across her back. She dropped the folder she'd been reading back onto the desk and met the other girl's blue eyes evenly.
"It is good to see you again," she said after a moment of silence. Ice blue eyes flickered down over Relena's body before coming back up to her face. "You haven't been eating."
Dorothy skirted around the desk to come right in front of the Vice Minister. "But," she continued, clasping her hands in front of her, "that's to be expected. After all, you've been *quite* busy."
Relena watched her approached, wondering what the other girl could want from her; wondering why, after over six months, she was just now coming to her. She moved in dance with the blonde, turning, backing away as Dorothy came closer and then closed the door she'd left open.
"Hello, Dorothy," came her belated reply. Her backside connected with her desk and she took comfort in its solid build. "Yes, I've been quite busy..."
"I must say," Dorothy commented casually, closing in on the other girl until they were flush. She whispered in Relena's ear, "Your security is pitiful."
And then she was gone again, moving around the desk and sitting on a corner. "Yes, so I've been told." Relena followed her, needing to know. "Dorothy... why are you here?"
Smiling, the taller girl leaned over the desk, pressing on the comm unit. Eyes never leaving Relena's, Dorothy instructed, "This is Vice-Minister Darlian's personal assistant, Dorothy Catalonia. Please send a copy of Miss Relena's schedule to me immediately and clear her schedule for the next day." She added as if an after-thought, "Oh, and please have your chief of security contact me. Immediately."
Dorothy held her breath, waiting for Relena's protest.
It never came.
They had stayed at the retreat for almost six months. It was a vacation they did not soon grow tired of. For Carina, it was a time of great learning. New experiences awaited her at every turn, and she was eager to learn and master them all. She trained mostly with her sisters, for the first time understanding just how deadly the older girls were.
Jacqueline's lessons geared more to hand-to-hand fighting, or street fighting. Rini learned that the most simplest of objects could become a weapon if one knew how to use it. In compliment to Jack's teachings, Katalynna taught her different forms of the martial arts. Rini couldn't be sure what style exactly she was learning, but she understood the concepts, felt the tingling sensation in her body that meant she was doing something right.
As promised, Blaire introduced her little sister to the art of blade and artillery. Rini didn't know the firearm from its retort, yet, but she was well determined to before the end of the year. From Devenley, she learned the dynamics of flying--though the Mangaunac soldiers still wouldn't let her test out her new-found skills in one of their mobile suits. Nita tried to teach her the fundamentals of hacking into a system, but Rini quickly discovered computers weren't her thing.
Her days weren't completely filled with lessons, though she was constantly learning. Some of her favorite times where when she could escape to the bazaar and look at all the many different items there for sale. Or watching the wild flamingos flying out over the waters before landing in the shallows. Or swimming with a group of kids her own age.
And all around her, stretching out for miles out behind the blue waters of the ocean, was pearly white sand. It was like living in a tropical paradise--an ever-lasting beach.
It was on one day, in the middle of July, as she sat arms propped over her knees, chin resting on her forearms, a tall glass of ice tea condensing under the cool shade of a palm tree, the salty ocean breeze catching her lengthened bleached reddish-dark hair up off her back and shoulder, staring at the group of teens in the water below her, that Blaire came to her.
Without speaking, the blonde woman sat down beside her in the soft sand, propping her arms up over her knees. They sat there, in silence, for several minutes, listening to the flamingos' honk and the younger children laugh gaily with childish delight.
"You've learned a lot in your time here," she said finally.
Rini offered a sound of acknowledgement, and then turned, resting her cheek on her arm, and looked at her sister. "But not enough," she said without question or accusation.
Blaire smiled--a soft, sad smile that failed to light up her blue eyes. "You can never learn enough, Carina.
The younger girl studied her for a minute, and then turned back to her review of the group below. "Maybe not," she answered.
"We will be leaving soon," Blaire hedged, following Rini's gaze down at the pool. "You will be staying here." She expected protest. None came. "There is... something... that we have left out of your training. Something that is the responsibility of your eldest female relative to teach you, but..." Blaire licked her wind-chapped lips. "Doce is not here, and," she hesitated, hating to speak ill of any sister. "We fear, if we do not come back, that... she might not tell you at all."
Carina sat back, her arms falling off her knees as she stretched her legs out before folding them under her Indian-style. "You're going off on a mission." Blaire nodded. "And I can't go because I'm not ready yet. I would only get in the way."
Blaire smiled. "That you understand and trust that shows how *much* you have learned." She reached out and cupped her youngest sister's cheek. "Soon, little sister. Soon you will be ready to come with us, and when that time comes, we will not stop you."
Carina stared at her, and then nodded before leaning her shoulder against the tree and refolding her legs. "Where is it you're going?"
The smile fell from Blaire's face, replied with a deep scowl. "There is an uprising in Ebyani."
"But the war is over."
Blaire nodded. "The war is over," she confirmed, "but the battles rage on. That is why there will always be need of good and righteous soldiers. Why we have trained you despite the war's end."
Carina didn't understand how the war could be really over if there were people still fighting, but she didn't try to press it. There was something else... "What is it you wanted to talk to me about?"
Blaire sighed and looked out over the blue waters of the ocean. "The power of invisibility."
Rini frowned, a hundred thought and questions leaping to mind, but she held her tongue. One of the things she had learned in the past half-year was that, sometimes, silence led to answers quicker than questions.
"Do you remember anything of our mother?" the blonde asked suddenly, surprising the younger girl. Rini shook her head and Blaire smiled sadly. "No, of course not... You were only a baby when she died... I was seven." Still the blonde girl didn't look at her, but out over the ocean. Her smile faded as her eyes watered. "She was beaten to death, murdered by her husband, Aba Behr."
The dark-haired girl gasped with this knowledge, appropriately horrified. Never before had she been told the cause of her mother's death, no one had even broached the subject. And no wonder...
" 'Never let them know,' she told us as she was laying there on her bed, bleeding to death. 'Play the role they would have you play; give them what they think they want--but never let them know...'"
"Never let *who* know *what*?" Rini asked breathless.
" 'Never let them know that you are better then them... smarter... stronger... That you will live longer than them and better than them... That you will survive even when they are all dead--through your daughters... and her daughters... and their daughters... That you cannot die.'
"I remember every single word, as if it happened yesterday." Blue eyes squinted off at the horizon. "Her voice is burned in my memory...
" 'They think they can control us,' she said, 'that we are weaker than them because of our sex. They underestimate us... and that is their mistake...'" Blaire's eyes shut against some unseeable sight. " "Our life is a war... and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy's country... Live Life with your head in the lion's mouth... overcome with yeses, undermined with smiles, agree them to death and destruction, let them swallow you till they vomit and bust wide open... and never forget the power of invisibility..."
Suddenly, Blaire was looking directly at her, her cold blue eyes boring into her with ferocious intensity. "Do you understand?"
Overwhelmed, large golden brown eyes stared back at the blonde. Dumbly, Carina slowly shook her head, eyes never leaving Blaire's.
Blaire's features softened without warning and she reached out and touched Rini's cheek again.
"The power of invisibility has to do with the concept that, because you are a woman, men will overlook your significance and you can get away with stuff that they would deem 'too sophisticated' or 'too smart' for a woman's psyche... We're not very much like this now, entering a new century... but... only a couple of centuries ago... and for millennia before that... We were underestimated... Invisible to those in power...
"What I think she meant is, men tried to get some kind of revenge on women. After all, the Woman proved to have a stronger spirit than the Man, for Eva managed to convince Adam to eat the apple. So the Man complied with the Woman's will, and proved to be weak. So now the Woman is also the image of the Sin and Men used their physical strength to proclaim themselves stronger. The only reason for women's bad position in society is the whole Judo-Christian religious thing from the past centuries."
Blaire smiled and looked off toward the see. "I am not blaming the religions--that would be too easy. Before them and after them, women were recognized as equals. I blame the women who allowed themselves to be repressed." She looked back towards her sister. "That is why we have trained. That is why we have trained you. So that you will not be trapped by the mistakes of the past. So that, without us, you will be equal, you will have power." Again, she touched her sister's cheek. "And now, you will understand how to use that power."
Long after Blaire and her sisters had left, Carina Behr sat by the ocean and pondered the power of invisibility.
End of Act III
Andrea Readwolf
Please send comments to: andrea_readwolf@hotmail.com