Gundam Wing is property of its creators. Standard disclaimers apply. The usual assortment of e-mails could be sent to bukiminatenshi@mailcity.com so that I could grow from your words. I know that this fic should have been up a long time ago, but I had a change of heart. Gomen nasai. Some info before we begin. Trowa Barton not his real name. In case you’re wondering, he doesn’t have a name (see Gundam Wing Endless Waltz OVA 1-3. He was wearing a cross in the OVA which was given to him by someone else in Episode Zero. Sorry about that mistake as well as that about Catherine. For this fic, let’s assume that she really isn’t his sister.

The Gift of Angels

by Lady Aria

Quatre rounded a corner in the Preventers’ Headquarters in a dead run. He was late for a meeting with the other Gundam pilots and Lady Une. He shrieked as he slipped on the newly waxed floor and crashed into another rushing figure.

"Gomen, but I’m in a hurry!" The blonde said as he picked himself up.

"So am I! And it looks like we’re both heading in the same direction!"

Quatre looked up at the speaker and laughed as he took in Duo’s disarming smile. He and the others had gotten used to Duo always being late for mission briefings and Quatre knew that he should have expected to somehow run into the American pilot since he himself was also running late.

The two pilots rushed into the briefing room and was greeted by two impatient and two passive faces as they entered. Lady Une had taken to pacing at the front of the room while Wufei had been tapping his fingers restlessly upon the table. Trowa was sitting calmly at his seat while Heero leaned on the wall and spared the two pilots a casual glance as they took their seats.

"Duo, late as usual," Wufei sniffed as he eyed the long-haired American. "We should really tell him a rendezvous time that’s an hour early if we expect him to be on time." He shifted his gaze to Quatre. "I expected you to be more punctual," he said darkly. If there was one thing about Wufei, he did not like waiting.

"Gomen," Quatre said sheepishly. "It’s been a lot harder to sneak away from Rashid ever since the war ended. Personal safety, and all that."

"Why did you ask us to meet you here, Lady Une?"

All eyes turned to Heero as he took a seat beside Trowa. The war had ended two years ago and none of them have remained in active duty with the exception of Wufei who joined the Preventers after the war. The summons had been pretty unexpected and the fact that all five Gundam pilots were summoned could only mean that there must be something really wrong and since they had all self-destructed their respective units, the possibility of being sent on a mission was disturbing to say the least. The look at the head Preventer’s face told them that they all should have reason to be wary.

"I have gathered you all here today to ask you to undertake a mission," Lady Une began and was greeted by a groan coming from Duo. "I know that I should really leave the missions to the people belonging to the Preventers’ field staff, but this requires more training than they have and must be accomplished by five people who could work in harmony with each other."

"What’s so special about this mission?" Trowa asked.

"Well," Lady Une said as she turned off the fluorescent lights and turned on a projector. "We have received information that dissidents have claimed and restored the abandoned Nairobi base in East Africa and are planning to launch a wide-scale attack upon the colonies as well as the Preventer force here on Earth." She clicked a remote control and a copy of the report flashed upon the screen. "It seems like there are still people who believe that the colonies should be run by Earth. We have several clues as to who are the heads of this possible uprising as well as the plans and modifications the faction made to the base."

Heero leaned on the table as he viewed at floor plan that now graced the viewscreen. There wasn’t much modification done to the base, but he could see that they did beef up the security system practically two hundred percent. "How accurate do you think your information is?"

"Very accurate, actually," Lady Une said confidently. "It would seem that for all the modifications that the faction has done to the base, they did not bother to change the surveillance system. It was just a matter of tapping into the system and getting the necessary information from the mainframe."

"Couldn’t you just disable the system from here?" Duo said as he leaned on the backrest of his chair. He was not for going on this mission if he could help it.

"I’m afraid not," Wufei said as he took over. He pushed at a button that displayed the floor plans of five different sections of the base. "It seems that they had devised a strike plan that should be controlled from five different sites scattered throughout the base. The key to the successful completion of the mission would be to deactivate the system at the same time from all the stations. Note that it has to be at the same time. I have checked the system set-up myself. If the shut-down in all five sites is not accomplished within five seconds of each other, the program will activate and the strike would begin."

Duo let out another groan and said, "I guess there’s really no way out of this, is there?"

"Unless you want to have another war between the Earth and the colonies without having the Gundams to back yourselves up with," Lady Une said grimly.

The four pilots turned their heads towards Heero, who was, in respect, the leader of their group. He stood up and flicked on the switch on the wall immediately bathing the room in harsh white light. They all knew that Heero was now enjoying a quiet, normal life and they were all reluctant to bring him back to the fray. He leveled a grim stare Lady Une’s way and said the words that would decide their course of action.

"Heero...," Lady Une began, pleading.

"I’ve already decided," he said finally as he picked up the jacket that he had thrown over the back of his chair. "Ninmu ryoukai."

*-*-*-*-*-*

Quatre was crawling through an air duct in the south-eastern complex that should lead him to an empty room that was three doors from the control center. It has been a week since the briefing and the time had been spent preparing themselves for the mission. Rashid hadn’t been happy with Quatre’s decision to join the other pilots for the mission, but he knew that Lady Une wouldn’t ask this of the young Winner unless she didn’t have any other choice.

The control centers they were to infiltrate were arranged in an X pattern with four at the corners and one at the center. Each of the buildings were roughly five hundred meters apart and the space was mostly open ground. The control rooms were located at the very heart of the complexes and the places were heavily guarded. They had left each others’ company about half an hour ago, each of them dressed all in black, much to Duo’s relief. Quatre and Duo both wore black caps, but unlike Duo who wore his just for the heck of it, Quatre wore his to hide his hair. It was a pretty well-known fact that it’s easier to spot blonde hair in the dark than brown or black hair.

Quatre looked through the grate to make sure that no one was in the room. He rummaged through the knapsack that each of them have been given and pulled out a small explosive and placed it onto the grate. He scuttled about five meters back and activated the detonator. A small whoosh sounded, and he felt the force of the explosion. The Preventer research team had come up with the small explosives that were both quiet and could be used to destroy small obstacles, like grates for example, and since the blast was unidirectional, he didn’t have to be too far away from the blast.

He lowered himself into the room and set the grate aside. It hadn’t been easy getting this far and he’d managed to down five guards already from the time he set foot in the building, not to mention the other six guards he’d encountered on his way to the building. He looked out the small window on the door and seeing that the coast was clear, dashed to the control room. He punched in the code Lady Une gave him and slipped inside.

The central computer was located exactly where Lady Une said it would be and Quatre slipped the disk that they were given into the unit and broke into the program. He glanced at the plan of attack and was glad that they’d all agreed to go on the mission. It looked like the base had enough firepower to destroy all the colonies in space. He entered the last of the command codes and tapped the earphone receiver he was wearing. The mouthpiece slid out of the receiver unit and opened the channels to the other pilots and to Sally who was waiting with the extraction team.

"SE complex clear. Standing by for shutdown."

*-*-*-*-*-*

Wufei looked at the number of guards that were roaming around in the north-eastern building and sighed in frustration. They had drawn lots to see who would infiltrate which complex, with the exception of Heero who’s specific skills were needed for the central complex, and he had drawn the building that also happened to house the barracks. He already felt like he had stuffed an either unconscious or dead guard in every dark corner of the complex and now he was within fifty meters from his goal when a group of five guards decided to take a cigarette break directly in his intended path.

Wufei blended himself into a deep doorway and rummaged in his sack. He took out a mask and put it on his face as he pulled out a canister. Cursing under his breath, he tossed the can at the guards. Just as one of them was about to pick it up, they all slumped to the ground unconscious and Wufei ran the rest of the way to the control room, not bothering to conceal the bodies.

He reached the control center and slid the disk in. He mentally reviewed the instruction Lady Une gave him and entered the necessary codes. In a minute, he was done downloading the information and had managed to enter the core command screen. He tapped his earphone and contacted the others with a satisfied smirk.

"NE complex clear. Standing by for shutdown."

*-*-*-*-*-*

Duo felt like his arm was about to come off. He was in the south-western complex and the ducts that he used to get into were primarily vertical. To make things worse, the room where he was supposed to come out of turned out to be a club of sorts and it was filled with officers who were set upon having a good time.

<I’m gonna get even for this,> Duo thought as he backtracked and looked for another room to go out of.

He saw a likely room and mentally reviewed the layout of the building. He gritted his teeth as the bomb exploded and he slipped into the room. He was several corridors away from the target and he needed to get to the room fast without being seen. The corridors were empty and he slipped into the hallway. Two doors away, he ran into an intoxicated soldier who mistook him for a girl. He gave the soldier a solid whack and rushed into the control center, a disgusted look on his face.

Duo was still muttering as he slid the disk in and tapped into the computer. The computer registered having completed the download and Duo entered the shutdown screen as he tapped his communicator.

"SW complex clear. Standing by for shutdown and I am going to kill the idiot who decided to put up a nightclub in the stupid exit room!"

*-*-*-*-*-*

Trowa hung onto the rope that he was using to climb the air duct and looked into his target room. The north-western complex was the only room that had an airduct in the control center, but the bad news was that the room was never left unoccupied.

He continued to watch the scientists that were working in the room an he slipped the gun he was carrying into a sizable hole in the grating. He was using ice bullets that would be able to pierce bone and would melt, leaving no evidences -- a perfect weapon. One of the scientists passed by the grate and he fired. The man slumped bonelessly to the ground and his colleague rushed to see what was wrong and Trowa fired the second bullet.

Seeing that there were no more people in the room, he slipped in and accessed the system. He slipped in his own disk and opened the comm. channels as the shutdown screen appeared.

"NW complex clear. Standing by for shutdown."

*-*-*-*-*-*

"Copy that, NW," Sally said to her mouthpiece.

Sally was waiting at the outskirts of the base along with the extraction team that would cover the escape of the five pilots in case they needed to shoot their way out of the base. Although the war was over, the identities of the five Gundam pilots were never made public, and they would sooner keep it that way to protect the five teens as well as themselves.

Four of the five control centers are already on standby and all that was left was for Heero to check in from his control center.

<Come on, Heero,> Sally told herself mentally. If Heero fails, it would be the end of the peace as well as the start of a new war.

*-*-*-*-*-*

Heero grunted as he pulled out the last of the cylinders and slid it into the carry case he’d been provided with for the mission. The task he was handed as not just to terminate the Armageddon program, but also to disarm the fifty missiles stored in the central complex by stealing the active component.

In the case rested fifty carefully sealed cylinders and he was now ready to proceed with the final phase of the mission.

He jumped three stories down from his perch and landed lightly on his feet using his grappling gun and rushed to the computer terminal. He slipped in the disk and contacted Sally.

"Central complex clear. Standing by for shutdown."

Sally breathed a sigh of relief when she heard Heero’s voice over the link. She opened the frequencies for all pilots and called them one by one to be sure that they could all hear the instructions.

"SE, do you copy?"

"I copy, control, still standing by," Quatre said over the link.

"NE, do you copy?"

"Copy, control," Wufei grumbled.

"SW, do you copy?"

"SW copy, and hurry up!" Duo hissed into the link.

"NW sector, do you copy?"

"I’m here, control," Trowa said.

"Central?"

"Here."

"Okay," Sally said as she tapped into the console before her, viewing the shutdown screen. "Shutdown in t-minus, five... four... three... two... one... NOW!"

Sally saw all the systems in all five stations go down and was about to congratulate them all when the alarm went off.

"K’so," Sally muttered as she renewed the link, "alarms have been raised! Get yourselves out of there fast!"

*-*-*-*-*-*

All five pilots tucked their respective disks into their sacks and ran for the exits. They were met with several score guards, but managed to slip away from the worst of the groups from the sheer confusion in the area. Quatre turned to look back and managed to shoot at a soldier who was aiming his pistol at Duo’s back. He gave the long-haired American a thumbs up sign and ran towards the safety of the brush.

"Thanks, man," Duo gasped as soon as he and Quatre were out of sniper range. "I owe you one for that."

"Yeah, well, anything for a friend," Quatre said and looked back to the base.

The explosives he’d planted on his way to the target room went off the second he got out of the building and had sent him flying a good ten meters away but managed to get out with nothing more than several bruises and sore ribs. Duo hadn’t been quite so lucky and Quatre could see a wet spot forming on his black clothes from a tear on his shoulder.

A huge explosion came from the center of the base and the ball of fire silhouetted three forms running in their direction. Heero and Wufei were in the lead while Trowa struggled to run backwards as he covered their flight with gunfire. Heero and Wufei had made it into the brush and Quatre’s eyes went wide in terror as Trowa went down fifty meters from safety.

"Trowa!" Quatre screamed from his hiding place and ran towards the fallen pilot before Duo could stop him. He’d managed to grab two extra clips from his sack as well as his automatic rifle and shot at the soldiers as he raced towards his best friend.

He slung his friend’s arm over his shoulders and made the awkward trek back out of the base while he fired upon the soldiers. Quatre’s heart nearly leapt out of his chest when he heard the resounding shots of gunfire from the bushes.

Several pairs of strong hands yanked him back into the bushes and eased the weight of Trowa off him. He looked up to see people wearing Preventer uniforms clustered around him and he let out a sigh of relief as they were ushered into the waiting transport and flown to safety. Duo was about to give him a high-five when he suddenly clutched his leg.

"Mr. Winner, please sit down," the medic told him as he limped towards a nearby seat.

He watched in fascination as the medic tore away at the cloth and exposed a wound on his thigh. He winced a bit as the medic attended to him while Duo gave a low whistle.

"Grazed," Duo whispered, as he looked at the injury. "You, my friend, are living a charmed life! You rush into a volley of gunfire and managed to get out with just a grazed thigh!"

Quatre gave Duo a wry smile as the medic finished bandaging his wound. "I don’t live that charmed a life, Duo," he said, "remember, that I was the one who got himself skewered by a rapier."

"Still," he continued, as the medics worked on his shoulder, "that wound’s still pretty shallow."

"It’s still a wound, Duo," Quatre sighed and was about to say more when he heard a groan coming from Trowa’s direction.

All four pilots and Sally gathered around him while the medics attached an IV tube to left arm. He was looking very pale and, although he was asleep, he looked very much in pain.

"We need to get him to the hospital," one of the medics reported to Sally. "He took five bullets and has lost too much blood for us to handle here."

Sally nodded and went to the cockpit to inform the pilot of the change in plans. Quatre took a seat next to Trowa’s cot and looked at him, all the while praying that his friend would be all right.

*-*-*-*-*-*

"He’s coming around."

"Finally," said a voice in relief.

Trowa woke up disoriented. He had no idea where he was and how he got there. After his eyes focused, he was able to see Quatre, Catherine, Heero, Duo, Wufei and Sally standing around his bed and a bunch of bags holding dextrose and blood all connected to his arm. He stared confused at the people gathered around him and wondered why he was at a hospital. It was then that the events of the mission sunk into him and he felt his body grow heavier with the realization.

"Trowa, are you alright?" Catherine asked him, worried at his silence.

"Yeah, I’m fine," he replied as he looked at the worried expressions on the people around him. He tried to get up, but the loss of blood made him so dizzy that even before he realized it, he had collapsed back onto the bed.

"I suppose it would be too late to ask you not to move," Wufei said, a wry smile on his face, "you took two shots through your left lung and three more shots through your arms and legs. The doctor said that one of them fractured your right leg."

Trowa looked down and saw the cast that had been set on the said leg. The anesthesia was still coursing through his veins that he hadn’t noticed the cast at all.

"If you’re worried that you won’t be able to perform anymore," Quatre piped in when he saw the expression on his face, "the doctor said that the fracture would not leave any permanent damage, although he did say that you’d have to remain in the hospital for a month."

<A whole month,> Trowa though miserably as he looked at the blonde Arabian. <I’m going to have to stay cooped up in here for that long?>

"Trowa," Catherine said as she sat on his bed, clasping his hands in hers. "I’m sorry I won’t be able to stay with you that long. The ringmaster said that we will have to go on tour in a couple of days, and there’s no telling how long the tour will last."

"Not to worry, Catherine," Quatre said, patting her shoulder. "I could stay and keep watch on him. I could use the time out from everything."

Duo plopped down on the other side of the bed and looked at the gloomy Trowa. He couldn’t blame him. Being cooped up in a hospital bed was probably the worst thing that could happen. There was no telling what thoughts could cross a person’s mind when driven by sheer boredom. He was about to try pouncing Trowa to shake him out of his gloom when Heero yanked at his braid.

"ITAI!!!" Duo shrieked and most of the room’s occupants jumped. "What the heck was that for, Heero?!"

"I didn’t want you making Trowa’s injuries worse with another one of your antics," he replied simply and turned to leave the room. "I’m going home, and if anybody needs to contact me, you all know where to find me." With that, he strode out of the room leaving five stupefied figures and a furious Duo behind.

"Well, we should also be going," Sally said as she picked up the bag she’d left on a table and Wufei joined her at the door. "Lady Une’s sure to have a lot of work waiting for us at the headquarters and I’m not one for letting work pile up."

"Get well soon, Trowa," Wufei called as he and Sally left.

Duo got to his feet and walked to the door, his braid swishing behind him. "Well, I gotta get back to work. I’ll be sure to keep in touch, though," he turned back to the two figures loitering around the bed. "Keep him off his feet as much as possible, okay? He’ll need all the rest he could get."

Quatre nodded to Duo and the latter waved once before walking out the door. He turned back towards the couple on the bed and started feeling out of place. This time, three’s definitely a crowd.

"Uh, I could go out if you two think you need some time alone...," he started but Catherine shook her head as she planted a kiss on Trowa’s cheek as she got up off the bed.

"It’s okay, Quatre," she reassured him, "I have go now, anyway. The circus will be leaving soon and I still have to finish packing my stuff." She turned to Trowa and smiled. "Don’t be too hard-headed, okay? Listen to what the doctors and Quatre say for once so you can get back on your feet sooner." She smiled once more before heading out the door.

"You are so lucky to have her, Trowa," Quatre said as he watched Catherine’s receding figure from the window. "She obviously cares for you a lot and...." He turned to look at his friend and smiled as he shook his head.

Trowa had fallen asleep again.

*-*-*-*-*-*

It had been two weeks since Trowa had regained consciousness and, true to his word, Quatre never left his side. During the first few days, Quatre was content to see that Trowa’s condition was indeed improving and kept himself busy by working on his laptop. He had left instructions for Rashid to take care of business while he took care of Trowa and to just send the proposals he needed to look over to the hospital.

Quatre looked up from the office table that had been set up near a large window inside the suite-style hospital room and sighed. Trowa was propped up on pillows and was gazing out onto the hospital gardens, a sad expression on his face. He’d been like that all that week and had spared Quatre only a minimum amount of conversation. Even though Quatre could understand that Trowa was the quiet type, he was aching for some conversation.

It was early afternoon and some of the recuperating children had been brought out to the garden by the nurses and were frolicking in the sunshine. Trowa almost smiled as one of them ran towards the fountain at the center of the garden and started playing with the gurgling water before a nurse rushed up to shoo him away. He was snapped out of his reverie by a sound to his right.

Turning to the sound, he wasn’t really surprised to see Quatre standing beside his bed, although he’d expected to see the blonde Arabian buried in a stack of paperwork and probably tapping away at his laptop. He saw him smile as he dragged a seat to the other side of the bed and sat down looking at the same scene that had caught Trowa’s attention.

"They look so happy, don’t they?" Quatre said as he regarded the children. "It seems as though they’ve completely forgotten whatever it was that had brought them to the hospital."

Trowa nodded and just looked at the children. In a way, he envied them. They took so many things for granted, things that he could only hope that he had, like a name and an identity of his own.

"Trowa."

He looked at the blonde Arabian sitting beside him. He had the oddest expression on his face and he wondered why.

Quatre took a deep breath and continued. "Tell me about your... your childhood." He saw Trowa’s eyes narrow and quickly added, "you don’t have to if you don’t want to. I mean, I was just curious because I know so little about you and everything."

Trowa sighed and he reclined fully upon the stacked up pillows. "I don’t mind telling you, really," he began wistfully, "I’m just afraid of digging up stuff that I’d kept hidden for so long."

"As I said, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to."

Trowa shook his head and looked Quatre straight in the eye. "I feel that I have to. I have kept everything inside me so long that I fell that I might sink into a depression so deep that I might never get out." He looked out at the children.

Quatre looked at his friend and at the sad expression that seemed to have replaced his usual blank cool expressionless mask. He wasn’t sure he liked this side of Trowa.

"You should settle down for a bit, Quatre," Trowa advised. "I will be telling you about my life story, and it would take a while...."

**********************

TROWA’S TALE:

As you know, my name is not really Trowa Barton. It’s just a name I conveniently picked up during the course of my short life. But I am getting ahead of myself. I should really start at beginning, at least at the point where the recollections are clearest.

I was orphaned at an early age. It was the time of war and some children are expected to become orphans. It was just the way things worked. Survival was the only thing in my mind back then and I did everything I could to make sure that I would live to see another sunrise and live another day no matter how bleak that day might be. I never let myself think that I would die.

We, the orphans, lived life like vultures. We come out each time the rain of bullets and hellfire stop and search the wreckage for something, anything that could help us in the miserable existence that was our life. There were adults who would exploit us because of our condition and I recall several times when I myself barely escaped the clutches of these people. Pimps, they called them. People who would sell the bodies of men, women and children to be used for the sexual pleasures of others so that they could have money to spend.

I remember being scared each time I hid in the shadows of a half-collapsed wall peering out of the rubble to see one of my own being led to a seedy motel by a man who could be his or her father, or even grandfather. Once I made the mistake of taking shelter near one of these places and all through the night, all I could hear were the cries for mercy of the child and shrieks of glee of the tormentor. Those sounds haunted me throughout my life. I knew that I should help the orphan but what could a skinny three-year-old do against a fully grown man?

The life I knew then was little more than a type of limbo where the routine was the same monotonous one day after day -- rise with the sun, scavenge the bodies, find something you can trade for food, find a place to hide, make it through the night. Don’t think that suicide never crossed my mind then. It was always an option for people who do not think that they could go on.

I cannot remember how many bodies I have seen hanging from nooses of their own design or having suffered from self-inflicted bullet wounds. For them, it was an easy way out of the hell that has become their life. To me, it was the coward’s way out. As much as death tempted me to come into his embrace, I was scared. I saw the obvious pain that they suffered before they died -- the way their faces had contorted to become the ghastly death mask that greeted me when I walked through the war ravaged streets. It was not a sight that any human being should see.

I remember spending the bulk of my time alone. I was afraid of the adults that walked the streets, thinking that what little kindness they showed me would have a price that I would never be able nor willing to pay. The children sometimes came close to me, but they are usually driven away by my uncanny silence. I remember a child who once called me death himself because of my inability to show any emotion while the others cowered in fear at the sounds of bombs and screams that exploded around us.

The child that I never was had spent about two years living like this. I don’t know if it was sheer luck on my part, or if fate decided to give me a break, but I was about five years old when the Lorengers found me.

"Daddy, why do we have to come here?"

"I know that this is hard for you, Kristen, but you must understand. I have to come here to see how much damage this war has done."

Those were the words that greeted me that fateful morning. I had taken shelter in an abandoned building that had a large hole in the wall, but had just enough roofing and scattered wood and what have you to provide a decent place to sleep.

I peered out the window and saw a girl, I remembered that she was twelve at that time, and a man that was her father. The man was dressed in a navy blue suit and was holding a clip board in his hand while the girl was dressed in blue jeans and a black shirt that reached nearly down to her knees. She was pretty tall and a little lanky and I nearly laughed out loud when she tripped over a piece of deformed bar that protruded from a mound of rubble.

She turned in my direction and I ducked. I knew that I must have made a noise that alerted her to my whereabouts and silently berated myself. I was hoping that she hadn’t seen me when I heard her call out to her father.

"Daddy! Daddy! I saw someone over there!"

I knew there was no way out of my predicament and I tried to mold myself to the shadows hoping against hope that I wouldn’t be seen. I heard their footfalls as they entered the building and I was shaking in fear as the man cleared away the wooden board that had served as my roof last night. I squinted at the bright daylight and slowly looked up in terror at the man standing before me.

To my surprise, I felt the gentlest of hands reach out to pluck me out of my hiding place and set me down on my feet beside him. I looked up to see a tall man with a square jaw and salt and pepper hair and beard looking down at me. His eyes were a piercing green, the color of emerald, not like mine that look more the color of olive. I heard a gasp to my left and saw the girl I had seen earlier. She was a head taller than me, and she had a delicate oval face and soft brown hair that was just past shoulder-length. She had her father’s eyes and they registered surprise at seeing that her ‘someone’ was such a young boy.

"Well now," the man had said. "Who are you and how did you come to be here, young man?"

I couldn’t answer. I was struck by the gentleness in his voice and the fact that he was talking to me and treating me like another human being. He nudged me gently and I regained my wits and he repeated his question, not even a hint of impatience coloring his voice.

"I-I don’t have a name," I said, feeling a bit ashamed at the admission. "I’ve always been here and there, though I don’t know exactly where ‘here’ and ‘there’ is."

The girl gaped at me then. I couldn’t look her in the eye, and if there was a time when I wished I was dead, it was most likely this.

"You’ve got to be kidding," she said, shaking her head. "How can someone not have a name? How can you survive without a name?"

"They call me Nanashi," I replied meekly.

"But that’s just another was of saying ‘no name!’ Daddy," she pleaded turning to her father, "we have to help him. He doesn’t have a home, he doesn’t have a name even! We just have to help him!"

"You don’t have to convince me, Kristen," her father replied as he turned to me. "From now on, you are my youngest son. I am your father Reginald Lorenger. Your mother is Wilhemina Toran and your siblings are Kristen, here, and an older brother named Dominic."

I was too shocked to reply. Here was a man and his daughter, two total strangers who were offering me the chance to become a part of their family. It seemed too good to be true, yet I saw the genuine, guileless smiles on both their faces and their welcome of open arms. I took a tentative step towards them, hoping that they wouldn’t vanish into thin air and I would wake up to find out that it had all been only a dream.

The feeling of the man’s arms, Reginald, my new father, around me convinced me that this was no dream and that it was all real. He didn’t pull away as I hugged him despite all the grime that had clung to me from all the time I had spent living out in the battlefield. I felt another figure behind me as the girl, Kristen, my new sister, hugged us. I thought I could have died content at that time. Everything was so perfect.

"Now," the man said, breaking the embrace and kneeling before me, holding me at arm’s length. "There is the matter of you not having a name...."

"I have one!" Kristen piped in and she colored a little as I regarded her with the one visible eye beneath my waterfall of bangs. "That is, if you’d accept it."

I nodded my head and she continued. "I would give you the name Alexander. That was the name of a great conqueror who lived a long time ago. We could call you Alex for short."

"I like the name, Ale-xan-der," I replied, getting used to the word. "But why that name?"

"I don’t know," she confessed. "It just seemed to suit you so well. I think that you are destined for a lot of things, and that name seemed to fit someone like you."

I must have smiled then. The first smile that must have graced my face because she and her father smiled back at me as they led me to a waiting car at the outskirts of the city that had served as a battlefield the night before.

*-*-*-*-*-*

The Lorenger home was a sprawling two-story house that had everything. Mrs. Lorenger was as welcoming as her husband and I was surprised when Dominic, or Nic, as he preferred to be called, became excited when his father announced that he was going to adopt me. She was a tall, regal woman with dark brown hair cut short in a bob and expressive blue eyes. Her son looked like the mirror image of his father with black hair and blue eyes.

They had given me my own room on the second floor with its own bathroom. The room next to mine belonged to Kristen while the one at the end of the hallway belonged to Nic. The one at the other end of the hall belonged to ‘mom and dad’ while the other two bedrooms on the floor were guest rooms. Kristen had dragged me up the attic the minute we got home and proceeded to dig through a mess of boxes, shoving aside the ones she didn’t want after looking at their labels, and a little sound of delight escaped from her lips as she dragged a wooden chest from underneath a mound of boxes that came tumbling down with a crash.

We were coughing and practically choking on the dust that the fall had unsettled and Nic got a noseful of dust when he popped his head in to see what the crash was. He bopped Kristen playfully behind the head and helped us rearrange the boxes before helping Kristen lug the chest downstairs. I had been wondering what the contents of the box was when we arrived at the living room.

Kristen proudly showed me the chest’s tag and she looked at me quizzically as I shook my head.

"You can’t read, can you?" It sounded like more of a statement than a question and I wanted the earth to swallow me whole. "That’s okay," she said, patting my shoulder. "We could take care of that in time."

She opened the box and pulled out a bunch of clothes wrapped in air-tight bags. I watched in amazement as the clothes expanded after she broke the seals and held them out for me to see.

"I told you keeping Nic’s old clothes in these bags would come in handy!" She said triumphantly at her mother. "See? They’re as good as new!"

I looked at the clothes and was about to touch them when I saw that my hands were still dirty. Mrs. Lorenger laughed when she saw this and ushered me to the bathroom. I watched as she filled the tub with warm water and arranged a small array of bottles, a washcloth and a dish of soap. She quickly stripped me and before I could complain, I was in the tub and she was already scrubbing away at me. The water felt so good and her hands were slowly lulling me to sleep.

"So, what do I call you?"

I looked at her and replied, "I don’t have a name, but Kristen said that I could have the name Alexander. I guess you could call me Alex for short."

She laughed at that. It wasn’t mocking or anything, it was just a good laugh. "That’s just like Kristen. I wonder why she chose that name?"

"She said it was because I was destined for a lot of things."

"Souka," she said, as she applied shampoo into my hair. "She loves to talk in riddles, but I have to admit, she’s right most of the time and there’s absolutely no reason for her to be wrong about you."

I looked at the woman before me, the same woman that must have sworn lifelong fidelity to the man who had saved me and had given birth to the girl that gave me a name. Once again, I tried to scrutinize her the way I had scrutinized her husband and daughter and I found only the same openness that I had seen from the others.

Sighing, I let myself enjoy the bath. I felt the tension and the fear slide away along with the grime with each gentle stroke made by Mrs. Lorenger. For once in my life, I felt safe.

*-*-*-*-*-*

I became a part of the Lorenger household in June, just as Kristen and Dominic were enjoying their summer vacation. Mr. Lorenger was a city architect and was working with a team of other architects and engineers who were set on rebuilding the damaged city left by the war’s wake. Mrs. Lorenger, meanwhile, was a professor in the local university.

My first days with the Lorenger family were something of an adjustment period. I had to familiarize myself with the layout of the house as well as help out in other household duties. During the first few months, I spent most of my time with my new brother and sister. Kristen was teaching me skills known a ‘reading and writing’ which meant being able to understand and reproduce symbols that I saw everywhere.

In a month, we were already poring over children’s books she’d borrowed from the library. She smiled in encouragement as I stumbled uncertainly over the words and corrected me whenever I made a mistake. They were useful skill, reading and writing.

On the off chance that Kristen was busy with something, Nic spent time with me. We usually spent the time outdoors and he was teaching me baseball. At first, I didn’t understand the point of the sport, but after Nic’s lessons and being dragged to a few games, I was hooked. Kristen often shook her head as she listened to us rambling on about the greatest players and statistics while her parents just laughed at her exasperation.

If there was a heaven, in my opinion, it was being able to spend time and belong to a family that loves and cares for you.

When September rolled in, I had been enrolled in a preschool near Kristen’s middleschool. Nic was already in highschool and he spent more time out of the house than in. At first, I was apprehensive about being left in a place with total strangers, even if it was only for a few hours a day. My teacher had been a large matronly woman and she assured me that I would get used to the routines in no time.

Because I was quiet, only a few of the children came up to speak to me. After I few months, I had made a few friends, but shared a bond with none of them like the one I had with the Lorengers. Since I got out of school at three in the afternoon, I waited at the school’s lobby for Kristen everyday so that we could walk home together. Even though most of the walks were done in complete silence, I was content as she was. I remember a time when I saw a mischievous glint in her eye as she left my side and made a dash for the nearest phone. I looked at her quizzically as she spoke on the phone in hushed tones.

She hung up, the mischievous glint even brighter in her eyes. Without offering an explanation, she grabbed my hand and we set off running for the bus stop. I continued to let her lead me wherever it was we were going, having learned to trust her in the few months that we’ve spent together. We got off at the mall and since it was the first time I’ve ever gone there, I was staring. The place seemed huge to me and I heard Kristen laugh as she led me inside.

We passed a few stores, and since it was a weekday, there weren’t many people there. She came to a halt at a food shop and we went in. She helped me up to the booth seat as a waitress gave us menus. Her forehead scrunching in concentration, she pointed at something on the menu and said "two."

I watched the waitress nod as she took the menus away and walked off to get the orders. Kristen cupped her face as she looked at me as she propped her elbows up on the table.

"So how was school?"

"It was okay," I replied as I took a sip from the glass of water that the waitress had brought. "Mrs. Jacobs taught us how to write our names. She was surprised when I said that I already knew how to as well as write some other words. She said that she may need to ‘ac-ce-le-rate’ me real soon. What’s ‘ac-ce-le-rate’ mean?"

Kristen laughed at the curious expression on my face. "It means that you’re going to be in a class with the older kids because you already know more than the other kids your age." She ruffled my hair and tried to shift my bangs off my face. No such luck. "Well! I guess it was a good thing I decided to bring you here! This is a reason to celebrate!"

I gave her a shy smile as the waitress arrived with our orders. It was served in a long dish and was cold and colorful. I looked at it curiously as Kristen handed me a teaspoon and a napkin.

"It’s ice cream, or more specifically, it’s a banana split. You should try it, it’s really good," she coaxed as she spooned some into her mouth and hummed delightedly at the taste.

I shrugged and imitated her actions. My eyes widened at the taste. It was really cold and sweet and creamy. I have never tasted anything like it before and I loved it very much. She laughed as she wiped some whipped cream off my nose and laughed even harder when I did the same since she’d also gotten some on her cheek.

After having ice cream, we started for home. On our way out of the mall, we passed a jewelry store and she stopped to admire the display. I saw her eyes brighten up and she led me into the store promising to only take a minute. She talked to the shop owner as I looked at the assortment of gold, silver and platinum jewelry on display. I remember looking at a unicorn pendant with emerald eyes when she tapped my shoulder, telling me that it was time to go home for real and in her hand, she held a small gold pouch with tiny gold tassels.

We went home and Kristen was given a light scolding by her mother because we had arrived nearly a half-hour later than she’d anticipated. After dinner, I was on the verge of attacking my homework when I heard a small knock on the door and Kristen popped her head into the room, asking if she could come in. I said yes and she bounced in with the gold pouch in hand.

"Open it," she said as she tossed it in my direction, her eyes gleaming.

I looked suspiciously at the package as I pulled the tassels to release the contents. A small white and gold box bearing the jeweler’s name dropped onto my palm and I looked at her questioningly. She just nodded her head in encouragement and I opened the box.

Inside was a small gold crucifix. It was a simple pendant on a chain nothing fancy. She took the ends of the chain and fastened the necklace around my neck. It hung low on my chest and she just shrugged.

"Oh well," she said, "you’ll eventually grown into it anyway."

"What’s this for?" I asked, lifting the pendant in my palm.

"It’s a crucifix. Catholicism says that it should protect you from harm and you can pray using it. It’s also used as a symbol of hope," she sighed. "When I met you, you had no hope and only saw the world in its worst. I wanted to give you hope, but I also wanted you to have something that you could use to remember me by."

I looked at her sitting on my bed and walked to her, my homework momentarily forgotten. She was more than a little surprised as I hugged her. She took me in her arms and hugged me back.

"Thank you," I whispered into her ear. "Thank you..., oneechan."

I knew that she must have been crying as I felt her shoulders shake. Although I didn’t understand it then, calling her by that name must have been a big deal to her.

*-*-*-*-*-*

When December came around, the house was a network of hanging foliage with Mr. Lorenger and Nic dragging in a huge tree they had gotten somewhere. Mrs. Lorenger was fussing about how the two had dragged in so much snow while Kristen and I snickered in the background, peering in from the kitchen. There wasn’t much of either of us that wasn’t smeared by flour, sugar, or some other kind of sauce from helping out with the cooking.

After we finished washing the dishes, we were called out to the living room by Mr. Lorenger to decorate the tree. I watched in fascination as Nic and Kristen battled as to who would place the star at the top of the tree while their parents took out several glass ornaments from a box. I noticed that the ornaments had names on them as I helped Mrs. Lorenger hand them up to her husband.

As if on cue, Nic pounced on a small unadorned box beneath the tree and gleefully handed it to me.

"Nic! I was supposed to give that to him!" Kristen said with her hands on her hips, obviously irritated.

"Sorry, little sister, but I got to it first," Nic replied smugly.

I gave them both a half-smile as I opened the box. I was so surprised to see the contents that I nearly dropped the box.

Inside was a beautiful green glass ornament with my name on it.

Kristen grinned at my shocked expression and hugged me. "We just want you to know how special you are to us, Alex," she said as she ruffled my hair.

"Yeah," Nic agreed. "It sure feels great to have a kid brother."

We went to church on Christmas eve to listen to mass. It was the first time I’ve been in one that wasn’t reduced to crumbling debris by bombs and rockets. I immediately felt so small as I gazed up the soaring towers and stained glass windows and the solemnness of the surroundings permeated everything. As we listened to the choir sing the hymns, I chanced to look upon Kristen who was sitting right beside me.

Her head was bowed to her clasped hands and I saw her lips moving, although she never made a sound. I continued to watch her as she crossed herself and turned to look at me.

"Something wrong, Alex?"

"What were you doing?" I asked her in hushed tones.

"Praying," she replied simply.

"What’s that?"

She blinked at me and her expression became thoughtful. "It’s when you talk to God. It could be about anything -- thanking Him for what he has given you, telling Him about your problems...." She paused and smiled. "God is the only one who will never turn anyone away. He doesn’t care if you are rich or poor, young or old. It’s just the way things are."

I looked away, digesting her words. It just seemed too much to be believed. I looked back at her and asked, "what were you praying for?"

Her eyes glistened as she looked at me and chucked my chin a bit. "For bringing you into our lives."

*-*-*-*-*-*

So it went. I was in grade school by the time I was six and Kristen moved up to highschool with Nic. I joined the little league baseball team and the gymnastics club in the school, having seen an exhibition show done by the team at the mall. I began to see less of Kristen and Nic, although we live in the same house. It seemed that they just had too much work to do.

Once, during the summer break, I saw Kristen in the music room. The only reason I previously had to go to that room was to get some peace and quiet and to think.

She was looking through some sheet music and was scribbling on some paper on top of the baby grand piano. She didn’t see me at the doorway and I continued to watch her as she wrote out something on the paper. I saw her stretch her arms over her head as she grinned. The sheaf of papers had been stacked upon the bar on the piano that was used to hold music books and she sat down and began to play.

The music filled the room and it paralyzed me. It had started out in the lower scale and had a haunting melody. In my mind, I saw scenes of princesses calling out for their loves, much like the bedtime stories that Mrs. Lorenger told me when I first came to their lives.

Kristen’s eyes were starting to drift shut as if she herself became part of the melody and it no longer existed as ink upon paper. Instead, it seemed to take on the form of a spirit that intertwined itself into her being to the point that I was almost afraid that it would take away the spirit of the sister that I loved dearly. Then, the song ended with a final lingering note and Kristen’s eyes opened and she started writing on the sheet again.

I had wanted to lean on the doorframe, but missed and landed on the floor with a thud. In a flash, Kristen was helping me to my feet and scolding me lightly, saying that she never expected a gymnast to be so clumsy.

"What was that you were playing?" I asked her, immediately changing the subject.

"Oh, that?" She said nodding to the paper. "It’s just something that I composed."

"It was beautiful," I whispered.

I moved to the piano and looked at the sheets. The movements looked simple enough and I begged her to teach me how to play it. She was biting back a smile as she looked at my feet dangling from where I sat on the piano bench, not quite able to reach the pedals below.

She snapped her fingers and opened a glass case that had several small instruments in them and took out a flute. She gestured for me to get up and handed me the instrument saying that it would be perfect for me until I could reach the pedals of the piano.

We agreed that we’d practice together at least twice a week so that I would become familiar with the flute, and before I knew it, I was playing the same melody on the instrument in a few months. She’d told me that music has a spirit and it would only show itself to those who could not only see the music upon the paper on which it was written, but also feel the music coursing within them -- becoming a part of them. It was the secret of a good musician because it transcended perfecting the music through practice thus becoming the language of the soul.

*-*-*-*-*-*

When I was seven, I remember having a nightmare.

I knew I must have screamed since the next thing I knew was Kristen inside my room shaking me awake. Upon seeing her, I clasped her to myself, unwilling to let go. I had been so frightened, I was shaking. I heard her cooing into my hair, telling me that it would be all right and that she was there.

"It’s okay, Alex," she said as she rocked me in her arms. "It was just a bad dream."

"Kristen... oneechan...," I whispered, "but it seemed so real. I was so scared."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

I nodded and took several calming breaths to steady myself. "It was horrible. I dreamt that I was walking alone on a battlefield littered with bodies. They were all faceless not because they features were destroyed by fire and such, but just blank. I walked on and on until I came to a ridge overlooking a valley.

"In the valley were five stone slabs arranged in a pentagon and they were occupied save one. I ran down to the bottom of the valley to see what was on the slabs." I pause and looked at her with what must have been a haunted look and she just held me tighter.

"What were on the slabs, Alex?" She whispered to me.

"You, Nic, mom and dad," I whispered. I had grown so accustomed to the Lorenger adults that I had started calling the mom and dad -- much to their delight.

I stopped then, unwilling to tell her that in the dream, they were dead, their bodies gutted and left to rot in the sun. I had looked at the suspiciously empty fifth slab when a hand grabbed my collar and tossed me on it. The figure strapped my arms and legs upon the slab and was about to plunge a knife into my body when Kristen shook me awake.

"Don’t worry about it," she reassured me. "We’re all here and safe. Nothing like that would ever happen to us here, I won’t let it."

She laid me back down on the bed, tucked me in and kissed me goodnight. She was about to leave when I grabbed her hand.

"Please, Kristen," I pleaded, "oneechan, please stay here tonight. I don’t...," I stammered, "I don’t want to dream about that again."

Kristen sighed and gestured for me to scoot over on the bed. We both laid back down and I listened to her singing me a lullaby. I wrapped my arms around her, treating her as my anchor to reality as I prayed.

I prayed with my whole heart that what I dreamt never come to pass. I pleaded that if there were people that this world needed more, it would be this family. I prayed for a lot of things until sleep finally overcame me.

Unfortunately, fate decided to play a macabre joke upon me.

It was probably about one o’clock in the morning, just a few days after my eight birthday -- which would be the anniversary of when they had found me -- when it happened.

I woke up to the sound of people arguing and thought I was having another bad dream. I got up and was about to go to Kristen’s room when I heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire. I crept up to the banister and saw my dad lying dead in a spreading pool of blood on the floor. The man who held the still-smoking pistol wore the uniform of an OZ soldier.

A scream nearly escaped my throat as a hand picked me up and another covered my mouth. I was dragged to Nic’s room and was relieved to see that it was Nic, my oniichan, who had picked me up. His face was grim as he looked out the door. Kristen was also in the room, her brown hair a mess and her emerald eyes frightened. Nic’s own raven-black hair was also a mess and his blue eyes were hard. I rushed over to Kristen who met my advance with a hug.

"Kristen, what’s happening?" I asked her alarmed.

"They declared father a traitor," Nic said, anger filling his voice. "They accused him of conniving with rebels planning on bringing down the army when all he ever wanted was to rebuild what they have destroyed!"

"I saw him, Nic," I said to my angry brother. "Daddy’s dead."

"Bastards," he hissed as he looked out the door.

"See this house and this family!"

We heard the words spoken from outside the house. All three of us peered out the window to see what was going on. We saw several men with rifles come into the front door while a crowd formed outside. I started having a sinking feeling as I saw some men throwing liquid at the house. One whiff and we all knew what was happening -- they planned to burn us alive.

"This is what will happen to those who wish to defy the rule of OZ!"

Just before they set the house on fire, we heard a scream and a shot. Kristen buried her face in her hands and cried while I just looked blankly at the door. Nic held her shaking body as she sobbed into his shoulder. Mrs. Lorenger -- our mother -- was dead.

Almost immediately, flames started licking at the walls and we started moving. They had the whole house surrounded and were waiting for us to come out so that they could kill us. But there was a place they hadn’t thought of securing. The west side of the house. It did not have an opening large enough for either Kristen or Nic, but it had a window that I could fit through. I argued with them that I wouldn’t leave without them.

"Don’t be stupid, Alex," Nic said, "we can’t get out alive, but you can. There’s no reason for you to die here."

"Nic’s right, Alex," Kristen replied. "No matter what happens, you have to survive."

When I wouldn’t budge, Nic picked me up and ran to the window. Kristen spared me a kiss and a hug before Nic verily threw me out. I landed in a heap and I felt my shoulder snap. I watched in mute horror as the faces of the last remaining members of my family disappeared in flames.

I knew then that it wouldn’t be safe for me to keep the name Alexander Lorenger. They were the only Lorengers in the colony and someone bearing the same name would attract too much attention. I was forced to leave the place and become Nanashi once more, no longer willing to feel for anyone or anything. I let myself feel for the Lorengers and it hurt me so bad when they died. I didn’t want to get hurt again.

I joined the mercenaries soon after.

They wouldn’t accept me at first since I was young, but being small had its advantages. As soon as they realized this, I became a part of their team. I still had the crucifix Kristen gave me and wore it each time I went out to fight. It reminded me of the consequences of letting myself feel. I numbed myself by repeating over and over again the thoughts: This is war and people die. Show no mercy. Kill or be killed.

I must say that they were unnerved by my silence. Sure, they tried to take advantage of a kid that looked too small and too skinny to be able to defend himself, but the quickly realized the error of their ways before any damage was done. It was a good thing that Nic had taught me how to fight. While Kristen enriched my life with beauty and grace, Nic taught me self-defense and all sorts of ‘manly’ stuff like repairing cars among other things.

When I was fifteen, I was recruited into Operation Meteor.

That was when I met Trowa Barton.

He was nothing but a big airbag who liked to throw his weight around just because he belonged to an influential family and his father was the head of the Barton foundation that financed the whole endeavor. He’d often pick me out of the crowd and brag and sometimes make suggestive moves, but I just did what I do best -- I ignored him. After a while, he lost interest and ignored me too.

I was working on recalibrating the system on the Heavyarms when I heard the gunshot and saw him slump to the floor, dead. From what I had overheard, the real project meteor was to drop a colony upon the earth and to use the Gundams to destroy the governing bodies in the chaos. Of course, the very act of dropping a whole colony onto the earth would usher in another ice age, but since they lived in space, it would not affect them.

Apparently, one of the technicians working on the project had family on earth and wanted to keep them alive so he killed Trowa Barton. They would have killed me too until I gave them an offer they couldn’t refuse -- I’d assume Trowa Barton’s identity and continue with the mission as if nothing happened and since I had no ambition of ruling the earth, they readily agreed. That is how I came to be the pilot of Gundam Heavyarms.

On the eve of the launch of Operation Meteor, I decided to go back to the old neighborhood. I looked at the place where the house had stood and saw that another house had be built in its place. I walked on until I came to the cemetery.

The Lorengers were buried in a neat row towards the back of the graveyard. At least they were given that much respect. I nearly laughed as I saw the fifth grave -- Alexander Lorenger. It was ironic. They had found five burnt bodies after the fire and had popped them into coffins and buried them, not even checking if they had placed the correct body in the correct grave.

I sat down before the graves and sighed as I placed a bouquet on each of them. I fingered the engraving on each tombstone lovingly, imagining that the cold marble was the soft skin of the person that it stood for.

I kissed Kristen’s tombstone once before I left for the mission. They were all dead and buried and all that was left for me was the mission. I had been given a chance to end the war that had claimed the lives of the only people who cared for me and I was not going to let the mission suffer because of feelings that should have been buried when their bodies were. If I had any regrets, it would be that I never once told them how much I loved them, most of all Kristen.

So the wheels were set in motion and all five Gundams were launched into earth with the sacrificial colony left to remain in its orbit. I became the chameleon that was required of me to finish the mission and I managed to execute them all as efficiently as I could. Now that the war is over, I will try to start a new life and learn to let myself feel again.

*********************

Quatre sat transfixed as Trowa finished the tale. He never imagined the great weight that the quiet boy had upon his shoulders. He’d seen the death of his father, but they’d been separated by several meters of empty space. Even then, seeing his father die hurt him so much that he’d become temporarily insane. What more when a child, as young as Trowa was then, witnessed the death of the people he’d grown to call his family?

Trowa had laid back down on the pile of pillows and had now closed his eyes. He felt a solitary tear roll down his cheek as a stray image of a laughing Kristen offering him the crucifix in its golden pouch flickered through his mind. It was strange. He knew that recalling the memories would hurt, but as the words poured out of him, he felt the hurt, but it seemed to lessen as he shared his grief with the pilot that had been closest to him -- the one he’d dare call his friend.

Quatre reached out and grasped his hands in his. Trowa opened his eyes and looked at the blonde boy’s eyes which were shimmering with unshed tears. He got up from his seat and gave Trowa a hug and Trowa could actually feel all the guilt that he had kept inside him slowly ebb from his body.

"It’s okay, Trowa," Quatre whispered to him. "Their deaths weren’t your fault, so you had no reason to feel guilty about whatever happened." He felt the other boy return the hug and continued. "I felt the same way when my father died. It hurt real bad and it took me a long time to forgive myself. You’ve carried this burden with you for over ten years now. I think it’s time you let it go."

Trowa nodded to the other boy’s shoulder and let the tears flow out. He hadn’t been able to show his grief when the Lorengers died and the silent tears that he now shed washed away the self-loathing that he’d felt for their deaths and all the deaths he’d caused to win the war.

*-*-*-*-*-*

"Try standing now."

It had been ten days since Trowa and Quatre had their little talk, and Quatre had wheeled him out of the room for some fresh air. His leg had healed nicely and the doctors had suggested that he try walking to see if it could now support his weight without any pain. Instead of the peek-a-boo hospital gown, he now wore a set of white pajamas with a green trim that was amongst the clothes that Catherine had brought to the hospital before the circus left on tour.

Trowa used Quatre’s shoulder for support as he lifted himself up from the wheelchair. Being confined in a hospital bed without getting any notable form of exercise had been boring as hell and he was desperately craving a stroll through the garden when Quatre announced that the doctor gave him permission to go out of the room.

As soon as he gained his balance, he released his hold on Quatre’s shoulder and took several tentative steps. His right leg felt a little stiff, but there was no pain. Soon, the two boys were strolling around the garden exchanging a few words and just enjoying one of the few truly perfect days on Earth.

"OHAYOU GOZAIMASU!!!!"

The two looked up to see Duo bounding towards them with Heero and Wufei in tow. Heero and Duo were wearing their usual street clothes but both had what looked suspiciously like bookbags slung over their shoulders. Wufei was also wearing street clothes, for once, and was smiling at the two pilots as they approached.

"Ohayou, Duo, Heero, Wufei!" Quatre greeted them while Trowa just nodded, acknowledging their presence.

"Hey! Looks like you’re already back on your toes," Duo said looking at Trowa’s right leg. He was about to try tapping the newly-mended body part when Heero tugged at his braid.

"Don’t even think about it," he growled at Duo.

"So," Quatre interjected, not wanting to listen to Heero and Duo screech at each other. "Just how are you guys doing?"

"Well," Duo began, "Heero and I are already starting college. I’m studying psychology while Heero here’s into chemistry and physics. Ever since we completed the last mission, Wufei’s been bugging us to join the Preventers, saying that they need more ‘qualified applicants’ in their ranks."

Wufei shrugged and said, "can I help it if you guys are the only other ‘qualified applicants’ I could think of? It’s not like you could post an advertisement asking for people who specialized in espionage and piloting mobile suits!"

Heero snorted and took a seat at a nearby bench. "So how are you two doing?" He looked at Quatre. "I heard that you actually stayed here all this time looking after Trowa."

"I did," Quatre replied as he looked at the taller pilot.

"Yeesh, it’s a wonder you didn’t start going nuts," Duo sighed. "I mean, Trowa’s about as much fun to talk to as a tree."

"Duo, it would be best if you don’t talk about me as if I’m not present."

The American pilot gave Trowa a mocking grin. "Well it’s true! Come on! It’s not like you ever say more than one sentence at a time!"

<You’d be surprised,> Quatre thought as he looked at Trowa who had crossed his arms over his chest and was shaking his head at the nerve of the long-haired pilot. "So, is this a courtesy call or do you guys have something more in mind than just stopping by to say hi?"

"Well, actually, we came to drop something off," Duo said and he shoved a now-reluctant Wufei to the front.

Quatre eyed the Chinese pilot quizzically as he handed him and Trowa each a gold embossed red envelope. Quatre and Trowa looked at each other and shrugged as they broke the seal on the message and their eyes grew wide as they read the card inserted.

"You’re kidding," Trowa said as he looked at each of the three pilots.

"When did this happen?" Quatre asked, a stunned expression on his face.

"Uh...," Wufei stuttered. "Two weeks ago."

Five minutes of shocked silence passed before Duo screeched in frustration.

"WELL, ISN’T ANYBODY GOING TO SAY ANYTHING?!"

Quatre had been knocked out of his momentary shock and laughed. He shook Wufei’s hand as Trowa gave him a pat on the back.

"Good luck, my friend," Quatre said encouragingly at him.

"So you guys’ll come?" Wufei asked.

"Of course!" Quatre piped in brightly. "Trowa and I wouldn’t miss it for the world!"

"I still can’t believe that you’re getting married, Wufei," Trowa said, shaking his head.

A hurt expression crossed his face. "I WAS married before, you know."

"Yeah, like that worked out...."

Those were the last words Duo was able to get out before Wufei pounced him. Heero let out a sigh of long-suffering as he watched the two wrestling on the ground.

"Some things just never change."

*-*-*-*-*-*

Wufei’s wedding wasn’t going to be held until after a few months and the invitations he’d given to the other pilots were only a few that he’d had advance printed so that he could brace them for the news. Quatre had gone back to his desert mansion where he preferred to stay and Trowa had gone to stay with him until he could arrange for Catherine to meet him in time to attend the wedding.

As Quatre more or less expected, a mound of paperwork was waiting for him in his office courtesy of Rashid. He asked a servant to unpack his luggage as he went through several neat stacks that nearly covered his entire desk. He’d given Trowa the run of the house so he didn’t have to worry about the other boy getting bored out of his wits. He had just picked up the first folder when a AV comm channel opened to his right.

"Quatre! I’m so glad to see that you’re back!" The feminine voice said over the link.

"Hello, oneechan," he said, as he looked at Iria. "Do you think you could spare a week off from the colony to come back here?"

"Sure. I could ask Shirai to take over while I’m gone. Why do you ask?"

Quatre waved the invitation in front of the monitor. "We’ve been invited to a wedding."

Iria smiled as she looked at her brother. "Anybody I know?"

"Chang Wufei and Sally Poe."

"You’re kidding!" She said, her eyes growing wide. "I knew that they were seeing each other on the side, but this is a big surprise."

"You should have seen our faces when we got the invitations," he said as he shook his head. "So can I expect you to come?"

"Of course! I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Anyway, I have to go. I just called to see if you were already back. See you then!"

Quatre continued to smile after his sister’s face blinked out of the screen. Iria was his favorite sister and he loved spending time with her. Feeling more energized, he started attacking the stacks of folders and contracts with more gusto.

*-*-*-*-*-*

Trowa was lounging out by the pool, taking a nap. He didn’t worry about getting a sunburn since he’d put on several layers of sunblock and had commandeered a lounge chair that was conveniently located under a stand of palm trees. He looked lazily up at the few stray wisps of clouds on the desert sky and sighed in contentment. Relaxing by a pool, no mission to worry about, not waiting to see if you’ll live to see the next day..., this was the life.

He felt a shadow fall over his form and opened eyes behind dark glasses to see Avdul grinning at him. The Maganac dragged a seat next to him and sighed as he watched a song bird dip the tip of its wing into the water before flying off.

"So, how are you feeling?"

Trowa gave the man a smile as he sat up from the chair. "I’m okay now, thanks to Quatre. It was torture being kept in the hospital that long. What about you? I heard you got married after the war."

Avdul nodded and a smile came to his lips. "Yes, I did. Liezela is doing well and so is our son Ramiel. You should have seen how happy Master Quatre was when I brought my wife and son to visit him here. Ramiel was already a year old then, and he and Master Quatre were chasing each other around the house. I’ve never seen him that happy in years." He looked down at his hands before he continued. "Not since his father died."

Silence befell the two of them. It was hard trying not to recall the events of the war. Too many people had died senselessly and the events would haunt them for the rest of their lives unless they find a way to forgive themselves and come to peace with what they have done.

Trowa got up then and executed a perfect swan dive into the blue water of the pool. Avdul watched him swimming for about ten minutes before taking his leave saying that he needed to meet Hamil and the others in a few minutes. Trowa waved a good-bye to him and swam several laps to exercise his leg. He found swimming to be a great exercise since when his legs got tired, he could just float or use his arms.

A few minutes later, a maid walked out to the pool bearing a tall glass of iced tea and a portable comm unit. She set the unit and the glass down on a wrought iron table and executed a small bow to Trowa.

"Mr. Barton, you have a call from Miss Bloom," she said simply before returning to the house.

He hefted himself out of the water and to the table, grabbing a towel from a lounge chair to dry himself off. He flicked the unit on while taking a sip from the glass and Catherine’s face came to the monitor just as he was rubbing his hair with the towel.

"I see you’re doing okay," she said to him smiling. "I just called to check up on you."

"Where are you now?" Trowa asked taking a seat.

"We’re at an L2 colony," she said, eyes sparkling with excitement. "We’ve been asked to perform for the children at the newly constructed orphanage here in honor of Father Maxwell and Sister Helen. Once the ringmaster heard the request, he couldn’t refuse. Trowa, I wish you were here. Duo even took time out from school to come up here just to see the new orphanage and even sit with them You should have seen the faces of the children! They loved us!"

"I’m sure they did," he told her affectionately. "By the way, could you spare some time away from the circus? We’ve been invited to Wufei and Sally’s wedding."

"Of course, I can. It’s about time those two decided to tie the knot," Catherine said happily.

"So, I can expect to see you at the wedding?"

"Yup," she confirmed as she looked over her shoulder. "Anyway, I have to go. See you then!"

Trowa smiled at the now-blank screen before him. Catherine had stuck by him through everything and stood up for him whenever he needed it. She’d been his anchor when he into despair and she’d brought him back when he tried to take his own life. He knew that he owed her more than his life.

He took a deep, cleansing breath and headed back into the house. He’d already been outdoors for too long and the temperature was starting to do its nightly drop. He happened to glance upwards. Dusk was starting to fall and he experienced a profound peace as he looked at the different warm hues that bathed the sky. When he looked hard enough, he could make out the light of the stars and colonies that were starting to peek out from being subdued by the sun’s brightness. It warmed his heart to think that Catherine was currently in one of those lights and would be joining him soon.

Sparing one last glance to the darkening sky, he hastily entered the house as the first cold winds of the desert caressed his still-damp flesh.

*-*-*-*-*-*

"Rashid, what IS this?!"

Quatre raised an eyebrow towards his most trusted commander as he waved a sheaf of paper at him, a slightly irritated expression on his face.

"Those are the dossiers of the people who have been meaning to meet with you, Master Quatre," he said simply. "I have taken it to myself that you should be aware of the backgrounds of the people you are to meet with so that you will know the kind of person you are dealing with."

"Thank you for the thought, Rashid," he replied in an exasperated voice. "But don’t you think that prying into their personal lives in a little too extreme?"

Rashid sniffed at the reprimand. "I have sworn to protect you in the best way I can and supplying you with this information is one of the ways I can protect you. For instance, the woman that you are supposed to meet with tomorrow for a business lunch, Dr. Christiana Mallory, has done some surprising things...."

"Rashid!" Quatre practically shouted in horror. "Dr. Mallory is one of the world’s most renowned and respected people in medical research! She’s won awards for medical breakthroughs and her research team has come up with cures for five diseases that have been deemed incurable for years! I can’t believe that you needed to do a background check on her!"

"You can’t be too careful," he growled in response.

The young Arabian sighed in frustration. When it comes to being paranoid, Rashid takes the cake. <But then again,> he thought, <nobody could really blame him after all the disappearing tricks I pulled on him back when I was still a Gundam pilot.> He waved the big Maganac away as he opened a comm channel and smiled as a woman’s face popped into view.

"Winner Research Laboratories medical division, Clara speaking, how may I help you?"

"Hello, my name is Quatre Raberba Winner and I would like to speak to Dr. Mallory please," he told the middle-aged woman.

"I’m sorry, but Dr. Mallory has already left for the airport. I’m her secretary. Is there anyway I could help you, Mr. Winner?"

"I wanted to confirm our meeting tomorrow for lunch. You see, I just arrived today and I only found out about the meeting a few hours ago."

The woman nodded as she tapped at the computer by her side. She smiled at him and nodded. "Yes, sir, you are scheduled to meet Dr. Mallory at the Marco Polo cafe tomorrow at noon."

Quatre thanked the lady and closed the channel. He took one look at the remaining two stacks of papers on his desk and sighed as he pulled one folder off a stack. It was a good thing they were pretty short stacks.

*-*-*-*-*-*

Three hours later, he closed the last folder and blinked bleary eyes at the small clock on his desk.

Eight o’clock.

<No wonder I’m starving,> he thought as he made his way towards the dining room.

He got to the room at the same time Trowa did and they ate together. Quatre did most of the talking while Trowa opted to remain silent and listen to the oddly comforting sound of the other boy’s voice. At the moment, he was telling Trowa how paranoid Rashid was getting.

"You know how protective the Maganacs are of you," Trowa said as he sipped from a glass of water. "In a way, I think that it’s a good thing. At least you won’t be too surprised when you do meet them."

"But that’s what makes meeting them interesting!" Quatre replied. "How can I be at ease with a person when I already know everything that has ever happened in his life?"

"I guess you’ll just have to live with it."

Quatre rolled his eyes as he looked at the plate before him. His eyes lit up as an idea struck him.

"Why don’t you come with me tomorrow?" The blonde said excitedly. "I’m going to be meeting someone and it would be nice if you could give me your impression."

Trowa looked deep in thought while Quatre watched him tensely. The Arabian’s face fell as Trowa shook his head.

"It would do you well to remember that this would be a business meeting, my friend," the brown-haired boy pointed out. "What would that person think if you showed up with someone when it was decided that only the two of you would meet?"

Quatre nodded at the logic of his words and conceded the point. He dropped the subject and decided to talk about something more on the light side -- like Wufei and Sally’s upcoming wedding.

*-*-*-*-*-*

Quatre shifted on his feet as he watched the maître’d leading him to the table that had been reserved for the meeting. Although he had first heard of Dr. Mallory from Iria when she’d signed on as the head of medical R and D for the Winner foundation, he had no idea what she looked like. He tried imagining her in a lab coat fumbling with medical instruments, but the only image that he could come up with was that of Professor H.

They passed several tables with regal, middle-aged people sitting having lunch and he thought that Dr. Mallory must be about forty or fifty years old. To his surprise, the man showed him to his table and he found a woman in her mid-twenties sitting there, smiling at him.

She got up and extended her hand.

"Mr. Winner, I presume?"

Dumbfounded, Quatre took her hand and shook it. She was about five feet four inches tall and had raven black hair that was done in a perfect French twist kept in place by a single long pin. Her grey eyes sparkled intelligently as he stared at her with an amusingly shocked expression on his face. The maître’d guided him into his seat while the woman waited patiently for him to regain his senses.

"You-you wouldn’t happen to be Dr. Christiana Mallory would you?" he asked hesitantly.

The woman laughed lightly at his question and replied, "I am, although I seem to get the same reaction from people who’ve never met me before." A wry smile came to her face. "Maybe you were expecting someone, say..., older?"

Quatre gave her a guilty smile and conceded the point. "I must admit, I never expected someone who’s done so much to be so young...."

"Nor do most people expect someone who heads one of the most influential families to be likewise," she countered with ease.

"Touché," Quatre laughed as they were served drinks. He picked up his goblet, gave her a slight toast, and sipped from it before continuing. "Anyway, back to the business at hand. It would seem that you have some sort of project that you wanted to pursue and you wanted to have my approval before starting it."

The woman nodded as they were given menus. Conversation stopped for a moment and they both silently regarded each other from the corners of their eyes.

The tinkling of a charm bracelet caught Quatre’s attention and he looked at the woman’s left wrist. The source of the sound was a delicate gold bracelet with tiny gold crosses and angels dangling at intervals. It sort of reminded him of Duo and Trowa who both wore crosses although for entirely different reasons. She looked very professional in her grey suit and skirt, but there was something about her that he just couldn’t put his finger on.... It was like she was hiding something beneath the mask of openness that she was showing him.

Dr. Mallory in turn watched the blonde Arabian. She smiled inwardly as she watched him studying her. She wanted to laugh out loud as he visibly colored when she asked him if there was anything wrong. <I could read him so well,> she thought, <face and eyes give him away, but there is definitely something very unusual about him.>

The waiter came back to take their orders and they were about to start talking again when a sharp shriek pierced the air. They both turned to see a young child, about five sniffling while his harried parents tried to soothe him but only managed to make him cry up an even worse storm. Quatre watched as the doctor excused herself and walked calmly to the sniffling child. She gently placed her hands on his shoulders and crouched down whispered to him when he looked up at her. To Quatre’s amazement, a smile broke over the child’s face and he gave her a hug before returning to his parents. Dr. Mallory got up and waved at the couple and their son before returning to the table.

"Dr. Mallory..."

"Please, Mr. Winner," she interrupted, "call me Christiana. In my opinion, ‘Dr. Mallory’ is much better suited for conferences and written articles." She winked mischievously at him, "besides, it makes me feel old."

"Christiana," Quatre whispered and continued with a smile, "call me Quatre. It’s much for the same reason."

Christiana nodded and said, "so, Quatre, what were you about to ask me?"

"Well, uh, how did you do that?" He said nodding in the general direction of the family. "You know, calm the little boy."

"Oh, I just talked to him a bit," she said as she laid her hands delicately on the table., "the way it was, the kid was just a little upset. I found out that the best way to get someone to listen is to talk to them in terms that they understand."

Quatre nodded in understanding while Christiana dug out a small folder from her briefcase. She handed the file over to him and he scanned the folder. It bore the logo of the Winner foundation and aside from that, nothing else revealed anything about its contents. He opened it and raised his eyebrows in surprise as he read through the proposal.

"When did you come up with this idea?" Quatre asked as he gestured to the documents lying on the table.

"I came up with the concept a few years ago," she replied with a wistful smile. "The truth is, I’ve completely forgotten about it until I happened to catch the evening news a couple of months ago. That was when I started doing research on the topic during my free time. I then realized how great a need there was for rehabilitation centers for war victims even after two years of peace."

Quatre looked appreciatively at the woman sitting before him. It wasn’t everyday that one of his top executives would come up with an idea that would benefit people in such a profound way. "If I give you permission to push through with the project, where would you put up the very first center?"

"L3."

The answer was given without even as much as a thought and Quatre became even more curious. "Any particular reason?"

He saw a dark expression suddenly come over Christiana’s face, but it disappeared just as quickly. He really needed to have a serious chat with this female.

"That was where I grew up," she said a little sadly. "I don’t really remember that much about what happened, but the conditions at that time were horrifying. I wouldn’t be surprised at the number of people who are suffering from post war trauma there."

Throughout the rest of the meal, Quatre listened to Christiana as she defended her idea. He felt as though she had taken the time to consider every question he could come up with and had an answer for all of them.

<Now I know why Iria raves about her so much,> he thought as she successfully answered yet another one of his queries. <She’s unbelievable!>

Quatre had come up with his decision even before dessert was served. He held out his hand and smiled as they both got up to leave.

"Congratulations. I now formally give you permission to push through with the project," he said as she took his hand. "I’ll have the papers signed and delivered to you in the morning." A thought occurred to him then and he continued, "do you already have the prospective location for the center?"

As he’d expected, she had an answer even for that one. "Yes, I do. I’ve checked the holdings of the Winner foundation and found a building that’s not in use that also happens to be perfect for the center. It’s located in one of the quieter suburban areas in one of the L3 colonies. I’ve had a team do a maintenance check on the building and found out that it’s still in perfect shape."

The young Arabian shook his head in amusement. "And I suppose you also know how long it will take to renovate the place?"

The woman smiled, her grey eyes, sparkling and replied, "two months, tops."

They made arrangements to work closely together on the project and had set a date to go over the plans once they were both in L3. As Quatre watched the taxi currently bearing Dr. Mallory make its way back to her hotel, he couldn’t help but think about the thought that kept nagging him throughout their discussion. She was definitely trying to hide something, but Quatre told himself that it’s really none of his business unless it starts to interfere with her work -- then it would be his business.

*-*-*-*-*-*

Quatre looked into Trowa’s room as he made his way to his office. He’d arrived earlier than he’d expected and decided to start clearing up some of the stuff that his father had left scattered all over the place when he’d died. He changed into more comfortable clothes and leaned on the doorway leading into his best friend’s room.

Trowa was napping on the bed. It seemed that the medication that the doctors had ordered him to take were making him sleepy most of the time. They had explained that the medication was needed to strengthen the newly healed bone because it would still be pretty weak since Trowa had insisted that he literally walk out of the hospital.

The young man sighed and closed the door as quietly as he could before heading down to his office. He’d found a bunch of files that belonged to his father and wanted to go through them so that he would be able to keep things in order. There was a folder that said ‘personal’ and he’d put off going through it while he took care of the more pertinent files. Having the rest of the day with nothing left to do, he decided that now would be as good as any to go through the files.

He quickly scanned the documents it contained. They were mostly messages from colleagues, relatives and friends. The bulk of them said the same things -- How are you? What have you been up to? How are the children? -- boring stuff. He’d come to the last file and his eyes went wide as he gaped at the name on the sender’s space.

Reginald Lorenger.

Quatre gulped audibly and his hands shook as he opened the file. It was a message addressed to his father and it had had been sent thirteen years ago.

"How are you my friend?" It read. "Things here in L3 have gotten from bad to worse, I am afraid. Battles are being fought in the very streets that we live in and no one is being spared. Just a week ago, Kristen and I happened upon an orphaned boy, probably around the age of your son Quatre. He had been living off the remains of the war by looting dead bodies.

"He had a strong character about him and I decided to adopt him even before my dear daughter started pleading. As odd as it would seem, he does not have a name. How can someone survive in this world without a name, you ask? I do not know. This war has already taken so much from the people of the colonies and to think that it had also deprived this young boy of his own name and identity grated at my soul.

"Kristen gave him his name. Alexander. You should have seen the look on his face as he accepted his new identity. He was just brimming with happiness. I would like him to come and meet both you and your son soon. In the meantime, keep yourself and your family safe. Sincerely, Reginald Lorenger."

Quatre closed his eyes and dropped his head into his hands. "Did you mean for me to find this, father?" He whispered into the still room.

He didn’t expect an answer, but he couldn’t help feeling that his father was with him then, silently guiding him to see more of what has been. He renamed and moved the file to another folder and accessed some files from another one his father’s databases. There, he found a file on Reginald Lorenger as well as the location of the hard copies of everything that his father had on his friend. He got up from his seat and started for the file room. There, he found what he was looking for and took the bulging envelope to read at a seat near one of the windows.

The file contained deals that his father conducted with Mr. Lorenger as well as some odd pictures of them together and of the Lorenger family. He picked up a picture and stared at it. It showed his father smiling at a beautiful blonde woman while Mr. Lorenger held a woman who was carrying an infant in her arms. On the back of the picture read ‘Dominic’s christening, AC 171.’ Quatre knew that the woman his father held must have been his mother since she’d died when he was young and had been left in the care of his numerous sisters. He looked through all of the pictures and was mildly surprised to see several shots of a very young Trowa in the bunch.

He arranged the photographs in two neat stacks -- the ones that showed his father, and the ones that didn’t, the latter having more pictures. He bound them in two ribbons and took them with him after he replaced the file. He would keep the ones of his father and give the rest to Trowa, he decided. Quatre arrived at Trowa’s door just as the latter was stretching from his medication-induced nap.

"Sleep well?" Quatre asked as he sat on the bed.

"Hn," Trowa murmured as he nodded. "I can’t wait to get off these things. My muscles are starting to feel like mush. So, how was your meeting?"

"It was okay," he replied as he fingered the wrapped bunch in his hands. "Dr. Mallory was really nice and she wanted to ask me if she could put up a war trauma center in L3. It was just something I couldn’t refuse. If I know Christiana, she’d probably already packed and on her way to L3 even as we speak." He looked at Trowa to see his reaction.

His friend sat motionless, his face blank as if trying to weigh his words. The L3 colonies were the worst hit by the wars and one of its colonies was supposed to have become the literal ‘meteor’ of Project Meteor. If there was a place more badly in need of support, it was L3. Trowa wondered about the woman that he should have met along with Quatre that day. It was a bit unbelievable that one woman would have the courage to try and heal the wounds of a tattered and torn colony. The corners of his mouth twitched a little at the thought. It was about time that someone started taking care of the mess that Treize and Mariemaia had left.

"That’s good to hear," he said as he noticed the wad of paper in Quatre’s hands. "So, what are those? Loose notes?"

"Hardly," the blonde Arabian said quietly. He was starting to have second thoughts about showing Trowa the pictures. He might not take kindly to him prying into his past.

He was about to shove the bunch into his pocket when a piece floated out of the bunch and landed on Trowa’s lap. The boy’s face was unreadable as he looked at the picture. It showed him in a baseball uniform while Nic taught him how to hold the bat properly while Kristen cheered them on.

"Where did you get this?" Trowa said a guarded tone coming into his voice.

"I-I, well," Quatre stammered. "I found them in one of my father’s files along with some letters addressed to my father from Mr. Lorenger. I, well, I thought that you might like to have them."

He finished his words as he handed the bunch of pictures to Trowa who took them with slightly shaking hands. He watched his friend go through the photographs and smile a bit, probably at some recalled memory.

Quatre glanced over his shoulder at the picture until he came to one that showed a teenage girl giving Trowa a noogie. He’d come upon several of the girl’s picture in the bunch. "Trowa," he said tentatively, "was that girl Kristen?"

Trowa nodded. "Yeah, that’s her. Most of these pictures were taken when we were on summer break. I remember that, though Kristen loved going to school, she loved having time to spend with us. It was as though she knew that she’d die soon." He looked up at the blonde boy beside him. "Thank you," he whispered as he lovingly bound the photographs in the ribbon and placed them on the nightstand. "You don’t know how much it means to me to have even the smallest thing to remember them by."

Hearing those words from Trowa, Quatre immediately knew that he’d done the right thing.

*-*-*-*-*-*

"Master Quatre..., please wake up."

Quatre rubbed his eyes and looked up with a slightly confused expression on his face. Rashid was gently shaking his shoulder and pointing at the time. He stretched and felt some of his bones pop as he tried to work out the kinks of having slept at his desk -- again.

It had been seven weeks since his conversation with Trowa and he was in L3, having joined Christiana to supervise the renovations being done to the trauma center. He had left for the colony two weeks ago to see how the work was progressing. Trowa had gone to the Preventer headquarters to visit Wufei and Sally and would be joining him in L3 in about a week to meet Catherine as well as to attend the opening of the center.

He’d been working closely with Dr. Mallory and marveled at the way she was able to inspire all the people connected with the project. Much to his agitation, the unnerving thought that there was something not entirely right about Dr. Mallory was still lingering in his mind. He knew that he needed to do something about it before he went nuts!

Quatre walked out of the office followed by Rashid who was briefing him on the latest developments. Everything was going according to schedule and the team that would run the center have arrived. Dr. Mallory’s request to transfer to the center a week ago came as a surprise to him since he thought that she would remain in R and D where she had already done so much. He has yet to give her an answer since she was too much of an asset in the medical R and D department.

They came up to her just as she was ordering two burly men to put the reception desk down. He could see over the top of her head and it still unnerved him at times. Quatre was still getting used to being tall. It was strange the way all five of them practically shot up in height after the war, much to Duo’s joy. He still looked much the same way he did at fifteen except that his face took a more finely chiseled look. He still remembered the way Rashid elbowed him knowingly when they passed a group of girls. It was funny the way they turned red when he smiled at them.

"A little more to the left..., no, that’s too far..., just a bit more..., perfect!" Christiana smiled and nodded in thanks as the men started to secure the reception desk in place.

She turned on her heel and nearly bumped her forehead on Quatre’s chin, since the latter had been standing just a bit too close. She waved her hands apologetically and he raised his hand to indicate that it was alright. He surveyed the room that was to serve as a reception area. The place in itself used to be a recreation complex that had been shut down during the war. The former bedrooms were cleaned and redecorated and the rest of the facilities were fixed. Some of the rooms on the lower floor were converted to offices and therapy rooms for the staff. The place had been done in neutral and warm colors making it warm and comforting. The only place that was stark white was the medical ward because although the place was primarily a trauma center, it would also have a fully equipped hospital of its own.

"Things look good," he greeted her as he surveyed the scene. "Looks like you have your work cut out for you."

"I aim to please," she piped in as she showed him the chart she’d been holding. "Everything and everyone’s already here and all that’s left is for a general clean-up to be done and we could start the operations. As it is, I have most of the people in the colony showing up and asking me if the place is already open."

Quatre nodded as they walked, although his mind had already started drifting away from her words. About a week ago, he noticed that he was starting to pay a lot of attention to Christiana. He’d caught himself watching her more than once and wondered if anyone had noticed. He hoped that Rashid didn’t notice the way he ogled at the older woman -- the way her hips moved as she walked, the way her lips curved when she smiled, even the way she writes on her clipboard. Add to that the nagging gut feeling of his and you had a perfect recipe for a bewitched Quatre.

He snapped out of his thoughts just in time to hear her last statement.

"I need to know your answer regarding my request for a transfer."

"I’ll tell you my decision over dinner," he replied, thinking of a way to kill two birds with one stone. "That way, we could talk some more."

"Is there something about me that you want to know?" she asked him coyly, but Quatre noted that the guarded tone was back in her voice.

"I’ll make you a deal," he said with a smile. "For every question that you answer, you get to ask me a question."

Christiana tapped her chin with her pen thoughtfully. Just as Quatre thought she would refuse, she smiled and said, "it’s a deal. So, where do you want to meet?"

"How about the hotel restaurant? I hear that they serve good food," Quatre said as they walked to the door. "Say about seven?"

"Okay," she said as he hailed a cab for her. "See you then," she whispered playfully before the cab sped off.

He allowed himself a slight smile. It was now just a matter of time before he would be able to get rid of that feeling that had been plaguing him for a while.

*-*-*-*-*-*

Quatre ran a brush through his mostly damp hair and looked at himself in the mirror. He was dressed to kill in a black tuxedo with a red rose for a boutonniere. He looked at his surroundings and he felt the ends of his lips quirk a little. He’d felt awfully alone in the huge suite that Rashid had booked for him when he got there, having spent close to three years being crammed into small rooms and safehouses with four other pilots. He mentally rehearsed some of the questions he would ask Christiana, most of which would be on behalf of Trowa, while rehearsing his own answers to the prospective questions that she could throw his way.

He gulped down the lump in his throat as he picked up the roses he had bought for her and walked out of the door.

It was a clear night out and the hotel restaurant had set up some tables in the terrace for those who wished to dine outdoors. He was led to his table and sighed in relief because, for once, he arrived at a ‘meeting’ ahead of Christiana. He had only just managed to calm himself when she stepped into the terrace which just about managed to stop the beating of his heart in the process.

She was dressed in a short, black, silk dress that stopped an inch or three above her knees and managed to hug every curve of her well-toned torso before flowing into a swirling skirt that accented every minute movement of her hips. The thin straps of the dress showed off the milky white skin of her shoulders and her hair was done in the perpetual French twist but this time, locks of twisted black hair framed her face.

Quatre watched her like a small animal entranced by bright light as she made her way to the table. Several heads turned at the sight of her and audible slaps were heard coming from some of the tables. Quatre practically jumped out of his seat and pulled out a chair for her after he offered her the flowers and she rewarded him with a smile as he took his seat.

"So, what’s your answer?" Christiana said.

"Huh?" The word was out of his mouth before he knew it. <Wrong answer>, he thought as he mentally kicked himself. "I, uh, decided to let you have the position." <Now that’s a better one.>

Christiana giggled demurely at his reaction and Quatre noticed a tinkling sound and looked at her wrist. It was the same charm bracelet that she wore when they first met -- the one with the crosses and angels.

They had just finished giving their orders to the waiter when a roving string quartet stopped at their table and played them some songs. He’d known that they made an occasional appearance in the place, and had requested via Rashid that they play them several songs.

"This is just perfect," Christiana sighed as she closed her eyes and enjoyed the music. Quatre was resisting the urge to hold her hand when she opened her eyes. "What was it you wanted to ask me?"

"Oh, that," he said, momentarily unaware of what she was talking about. "You once mentioned that you grew up in L3. I want to know if you’ve heard of the family name Lorenger."

Christiana’s eyebrows met in concentration and she snapped her fingers as she replied, "yes, I have heard of them. It was said that they were all killed in mid AC 188. What do you want to know about them?"

"I want to know more about them," Quatre said, his eyes intense. "I want to know why they were killed and what happened to the colony after they died."

"There’s really not much to tell," she said, fiddling with her bracelet. "They were accused of treason and executed. It was horrible. It was bad enough that the parents were killed, but the children were also killed for no better reason than being their children. The colonies were silent for almost two years after the incident. Everyone was afraid that they would suffer the same fate that Reginald Lorenger did." She looked him straight in the eyes. "Now it’s my turn. I was led to believe that the young head of the Winner foundation was an absentee for a long while before and after his father’s death. No one knows where he went and what he did, but now that you’re here, I want to know why you never took the foundation in your hands until only recently."

"You could call it a teenage whim," Quatre said with a smile. There was no way he was going to tell her that he was a Gundam pilot. "I kept running off to do what I wanted until I finally realized that my place was with my family and that the foundation needed me to take care of things, so I came back."

Christiana scrutinized him thoroughly. She knew that he was telling the truth from the look in his eyes, but she couldn’t help feeling that he wasn’t being entirely truthful. Their drinks arrived and she sipped her juice as he asked her his next question. They traded small talk and some other light questions throughout dinner and then Christiana popped a question that Quatre didn’t expect.

"Why do you really want to know about the Lorengers?"

Quatre looked at her, thoroughly confused. "What do you mean?"

Christiana gazed at him intently as she replied. "You knew more than the average person knew about the Lorengers. The massacre happened ten years ago and, if memory serves me correctly, the very mention of their name was banned. All the records of their existence were destroyed and none, other than the people who were at the colony at that time knew of the massacre. You couldn’t have been there at the time and your knowledge surprises me. Most people would have just let the dead rest in peace."

"Because I want to know the truth," Quatre said. He was getting a bit uncomfortable. "My father and Reginald Lorenger were very good friends. As luck would have it, one of my friends is somewhat related to the Lorengers. It hurt him so much to see the only family he ever knew die. He’s lived a life without an identity and no one to turn to." Quatre clenched his fists in anger. "I just thought that maybe I could help him get through the grief he’s been carrying all these years if I knew more about them."

Christiana clasped his hands in hers. He looked at her quizzically as she led him out of the dining area to the surrounding gardens. They walked for a while in total silence until they were near the stand of trees near the back of the place. Christiana flipped her hair over her shoulder and faced him.

"I want you to know that I understand how your friend feels," she said quietly. "I, too, grew up with no past to speak of -- just an empty space in my memory."

Quatre’s eyes widened in shock at the revelation. <So this was what she’s been trying to hide,> he thought as she continued.

"Although I wasn’t there when it happened, I’ve heard enough. Nothing was left of the Lorengers but blackened bones and ashes. I was one of the children who roamed the streets looking for ways to survive. Some of the children then said that they heard screaming coming from the house as they died in the flames. It was something that no one should ever hear. As orphans, we did our best to keep ourselves alive." Christiana bowed her head at the memory. "One night was all it took for me to make my fall from grace -- to lose all honor and self-respect I had left in me.

"All of them were dead drunk and didn’t know what they were doing. I was too weak and too afraid. I didn’t get a chance to run. The next thing I knew, two of the men were holding me down while the other ripped off my clothes and raped me."

Christiana clutched her arms and shivered while Quatre took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. She had obviously been hiding all this for a long time. He wished for her to stop, but she went on with her story.

"They did it over and over until the first light of dawn broke in the horizon. By then, I was practically dead. I had thought that they were planning to finish me off since I heard them arguing. Instead, one of the men took pity upon me and left me money -- enough to buy some clothes and food. I did everything I could to earn enough money, but I never let anyone touch me again. I left for Earth soon after and started fresh there, I got a job and managed to study and work at the same time. And now, here I am." She looked at Quatre with a melancholic smile and whispered, "Your friend probably knows how hard it was to survive here at that time. He is so lucky to have found a friend willing to help him face the ghosts of his past."

He looked with renewed respect at the woman before him. He saw a tear drop roll down her cheek and cupped her face as he wiped it away with his thumb. He looked deeply into her grey eyes and kissed her tenderly as he cradled her in his arms. He became surprised when she tentatively returned his kiss and felt her arms around him. For them, it felt like time stopped. Nothing existed save the two of them.

Quatre’s eyes flew open when Christiana broke their kiss and rested her head on his chest, listening to the rapid beat of his heart. She shut her eyes and had calmed down as they slowly swayed to the music that drifted from the main building of the hotel. He tucked her head beneath his chin and sighed as he held her tighter. He took in the smell of her hair and the warmth of her body pressed close to his. An intense wave of desire ran through him, but his rational mind fought against it. This was not the time.

They smiled at each other as they broke the kiss and made their way back to the hotel, their hands clasped together. The elevator stopped at their floor and they both got out. Their rooms were on the same floor, five doors apart. Quatre walked her to her door and waited patiently as she slid her card key in and opened the door. He was about to leave when she held on to his hand and gently pulled him into her suite.

The inside was pretty much the same with a sitting room and a sliding glass door that led to a balcony. Their footsteps were muffled by the plush carpeting and Quatre could make out the open door leading to the bedroom in the darkness of the room.

Christiana stood on tiptoes as she took Quatre’s mouth in a tender, lingering kiss.

He responded by gently opening her mouth and exploring it with his tongue. He wrapped his arms tightly around her as he probed deeper into her mouth, running his tongue over her palate, touching her tongue with his. Her lips tasted so sweet and he would have devoured her at that moment if he could. A slow fire began to creep steadily through his body as they moved deeper into the kiss. One of his arms moved to her waist as the other wrapped possessively around her shoulders. He couldn’t deny it any longer even if his mind berated him for allowing things to get where they were now. He wanted her. Oh, yes, he wanted her so badly that he would go through hell and back if it meant being able to spend even just one night with her.

They broke the kiss and looked at each other while desperately trying to get much-needed air into their lungs. Their lips were both slightly swollen at the intensity of the kiss. Christiana bit her bottom lip as she looked at him with eyes that were so dilated, they looked black. Quatre’s own clear, sapphire-blue eyes had darkened into a deeper shade of blue.

"Quatre, I’m so sorry...," she whispered.

"For what?" He said, stroking her cheek with the back of his hand.

"I never should have brought you here," she said, a half-smile on her lips. "This was really a stupid idea and...."

"Christiana," he said as he slipped his jacket off her shoulders, touching the warm skin beneath. "It’s not entirely your fault," he said wryly, "I also let myself be led."

"You can leave if you want to...," she began before he silenced her with a kiss.

"Not in a million years," he murmured as he moved his lips from hers to kiss her neck, sucking at the tender skin, drinking in her scent. "I want you, Christiana... but only if you’ll have me."

Christiana took his head between her hands and made him look her in the eyes. Her voice trembled as she said the words that her body had already been screaming.

"Make love to me, Quatre," she whispered, "don’t leave me alone with my memories. Take them away. Make me forget."

He kissed her eyelids as he guided her into the bedroom. The maid had turned the bed down for the night and the smell of incense hung in the room. Quatre pulled the long pin that held her hair in place and watched in fascination as the wave of black, gossamer stands fell about her face and shoulders. He reached out to run his fingers through her hair and marveled at the softness. He lifted her in his arms and set her down on the white satin sheets. He could see that she was breathing hard from the way her breasts moved beneath the thin silk of the dress as he joined her on the bed.

Christiana surrendered to the moment and let Quatre take the lead in their lovemaking. She felt him gently push her down on the bed as he lay on top of her. He was heavy, but not uncomfortably so. In fact, the very feeling of having him so close made her feel safe and secure. He was kissing her again, his lips sucking at hers while she felt his hand rest upon her thigh, making their slow trek higher. She gasped into his mouth when she felt him squeeze her buttocks and an electric shock came over her.

He moved his lips from hers and was once again plundering her neck. He could smell the clean scent of her skin and it was making him go mad with desire. He bit her neck lightly and smiled when he heard her gasp and felt her body stiffen. He moved his mouth to her shoulder and encountered the strap of her dress.

"Turn over," he whispered to her ear and she complied.

He shifted the black silk of her hair and located the top of the zipper. He pulled it slowly down and kissed every inch of skin it exposed as it made its way down. He smiled a little when he saw that she wasn’t wearing a bra beneath the dress. He gently lifted her up to a sitting position and placed his hands under the dress on her waist, then he ran his hands up her body, taking the dress with them and over her head. He tossed the dress to the floor and laid her back down. Seeing that she still had her panties on, he hooked two fingers on her hips and soon they followed the same course of flight that their predecessor did.

Quatre was already heaving as he felt himself grow hard at the sight of the naked woman before him, not quite sure what to do next. He had asked his sisters about sex before, but he never really thought about it much. He sat back on his heels and just looked at her watching him. She rose off the bed and crawled towards him. He breathed in her scent deeply as she touched his face.

"What’s wrong?"

The expression on her face was worried and it almost killed him. "I-I don’t know what..." he left the sentence hanging.

Christiana laughed softly as she began to unbutton his shirt. "Maybe it would help if we got you out of these things first, hmm?"

Quatre took her mouth again as her hands moved to finish unbuttoning his shirt. He deepened the kiss as he felt her hands push the shirt off his shoulders and kicked it off the bed. He lay her back on the bed and paused for a moment to unbuckle the belt at his waist and fumble with the suddenly constricting pair of pants. He tossed his pants and his boxers to the side of the bed and lay down on top of her once more, placing his body between her legs.

She felt his manhood rubbing against her and moaned. She didn’t need her eyes to see that he was unbelievably hard and that his member was unusually big. Once again, she felt his mouth on hers in an effort to silence her and she returned his hungry kisses with just as much passion. She felt his mouth on her neck and on her shoulders as his arms wrapped themselves around her waist, pressing their bodies closer. She gave an articulate cry as Quatre took her left nipple in his mouth and began to suck. Her breathing became more ragged as he lightly grazed the sensitive skin with his teeth and bit down lightly. She wove her fingers through his hair as he proceeded to suckle. The sensations were putting her mind into overload.

Quatre lifted his gaze and looked at the writhing woman beneath him. The her nipples had become dark from building passion, as had her lips. From the look of urgency on her face, he knew that he must have been doing this right. He moved to her other nipple and did the same thing as his hands fondled her breasts. He felt himself get even harder, if that was possible, at the thought that this beautiful woman had given herself freely to him. He released her nipples and laid his head on her soft, flat belly as he tried to get his breathing under control. He wanted this moment to last and it wouldn’t do them both any good if it was over to soon.

He felt her shift beneath him and he looked up at her. She had propped herself up on her elbows and was regarding him with a curious expression. He moved up to take her mouth once more, not quite tired of their sweetness and was surprised when she laid him down on the bed and sat straddling him.

With the pale moonlight on her back, she looked like a statue of a pagan goddess. Her white skin shone with an unnatural sheen while her hair seemed to drink in the very light. The very image was at odds with the tinkling of the gold bracelet on her wrist with its angels and crosses and their very tableau seemed to mock the very things that they stood for.

She rested her hands on either side of his head and moved to kiss his hair. Her breasts hung low enough for Quatre to catch them in his mouth and he wrapped his arms around her pulling her down on him. He uttered a small sound of protest as she managed to wriggle out of his grasp and she sat on his belly, his member pressed on the crack between her buttocks.

Slowly, she settled on top of him and began to kiss him tenderly on the mouth. It was a slow kind of kiss where emotions run deep enough to touch. Quatre closed his eyes and sighed as her lips moved from his lips. She kissed his eyelids, his cheeks, using her lips to touch the way a blind man would use his hands. He held her loosely as she moved to kiss his neck in the same sweet and agonizingly slow motions that she used when she kissed his mouth. If there was such a thing as dying from pleasure, he knew that he would have died in her arms that night.

She toyed with his nipples and he looked at her with an expression of mixed passion and curiosity. He nearly dislodged her when she pinched them both, totally unprepared for the intensity of the sensation from such an action. He lay gasping on the bed as she took one of his nipples and bit down. Hard. She was just plain driving him crazy!

He became aware that she’d moved off him and was now sitting on her heels between his legs. He sat up and they just looked at each other. Both of them were covered in a light sheen of sweat from their exertions and were breathing hard.

He gestured for her to come closer and he held her, tucking her head beneath his chin. He felt her rubbing her cheek on his shoulder as she wrapped her arms around him. In the silence of the room, they could hear their hearts beating in rhythm -- two different individuals that have somehow come together and completed each other. Quatre smiled at the workings of fate. His quest to find out more of Trowa’s troubled past has led him to this woman he now held.

"Quatre...."

He looked down to see her looking up at him with liquid eyes. She was just so beautiful.

"Sh," he whispered, "we don’t have to go all the way if you don’t want to. I won’t force you."

"I don’t doubt that," she whispered as she slid from his grasp. "But I want to make you happy."

Quatre was about to ask her what she mean when he felt her mouth touching his member. He felt his heart drop as she took the throbbing organ into her mouth and begin to suck. Christiana was surprised when she found that the tips of her fingers didn’t connect.

Quatre was forced back onto the bed and he clutched the white sheets as Christiana continued with her ministrations. If he was feeling hot before, he was molten now. It felt like liquid metal was coursing through his veins with each movement she made.

Christiana abandoned the organ she’d been sucking on and kissed the sensitive skin on his scrotum. She could feel him writhing under her ministrations and knew that this must be Quatre’s first time. She sucked on his balls and heard him groan in the pleasure/pain that it elicited. She took his member back into her mouth and moaned when he came into her mouth.

She swallowed as much of his fluid as she could and watched him as his body jerked a little from the aftershocks of his climax. She swept her hair over her shoulder and kissed him when she was sure that he could already see her clearly. He kissed her back and in one motion, had her back down on the bed.

She lay silently on the bed as she felt Quatre’s hands on her inner thighs spreading her legs. She bit the inside of the mouth to keep from screaming as she felt his lips on her thighs and moving closer to her opening. All semblance of rational thought in Christiana’s mind shattered when those lips touched her there. She was burning alive from the inside out. She clutched his hair tightly as she drowned in the sensations. Quatre released his hold on her and silenced her gasping with his kiss.

"Tell me you want me to do it, Christiana," he whispered to her ear.

Desperate gasps were his only answer and he stroked her with his hands, bringing her onto newer heights of need. When he was sure that she would be capable of answering, he asked her again. "Tell me you want me to do it."

"Yes," she said in a whisper almost to quiet to hear. "Please, Quatre...."

He gave her a peck on the lips and held onto her hips. He positioned himself outside her opening and slid slowly in. He gritted his teeth as he forced his member into her. He knew that the penetration must have hurt Christiana, but the sensation of being enclosed by such a tight space prodded him on until his entire length was encased in her. He paused to catch his breath as he looked at her.

His lover’s eyes were shut tight and her knuckles were white from clutching at the sheets. He could hear her labored breathing as she opened her eyes to gaze upon him and at the sight of their bodies connected in the most intimate way possible. He saw her throat ripple as she swallowed and he kissed her gently, as though it could somehow alleviate the pain he had caused her.

He began moving in and out of her, willing himself to go even deeper. Quatre’s hot lips descended upon Christiana’s face, her neck, her breasts as their bodies found a rhythm and the initial pain of the union had faded to the pleasure of the moment. Her own hands clutched at Quatre desperately as they moved.

"Say my name," he whispered to her, knowing that he was about to come a second time.

"Quatre...." Christiana breathed and she screamed as her body stiffened at climax and felt Quatre come inside of her. She felt as though her soul had left her corporeal body and was only now returning as the waves of passion rolled over her like a tide, leaving her exhausted yet strangely satisfied. She felt the bed shift as Quatre settled in beside her. She snuggled up to him as he covered them both with the blanket. Christiana was nearly shocked out of her sex induced sleepiness by the words that Quatre murmured as sleep claimed him.

"I love you."

*-*-*-*-*-*

Grey eyes opened sleepily as Christiana woke up. It was still dark out and, from the glow on the small digital clock on her night table, she knew that there would still be at least three hours before dawn.

She sighed as she turned over and bumped into the figure beside her. The figure gave a slight murmur before once again settling into the rhythmic breathing of sleep. Christiana gathered up some of the sheets and wrapped it around her body as she gazed upon the sleeping form of Quatre. The events of the night before came back to her in a rush and she almost reeled at the onslaught of memory. A voice in the back of her mind chided her.

<You promised yourself that you wouldn’t let another man touch you that way again. Looks like you can’t keep a promise even to yourself.>

She felt herself shiver at the spite in that voice, but she continued to look at the man beside her, no longer the boy that everyone had always took him for. He looked even more beautiful in his sleep with his longish blonde hair tousled on the pillow and the peaceful expression on his face. She reached a hand out to touch a lock of hair that had fallen over his face and stopped herself. It wouldn’t be right. How could a person like her hope to be worthy of an angel like Quatre?

She slipped out of the bed and went into the bathroom, stopping only long enough to grab a silk robe from her closet. She put it on and turned on the lights. Warm yellow light filled the maroon and cream tiled room and she padded to the sink to splash her face with water to drive the last vestiges of sleep from her face. The icy-cold water felt good as it made contact with her skin. She looked at the mirror as she patted her face dry with a small towel.

On the outside, she hasn’t really changed that much from the time she left L3 with the exception of the longer length of hair and the loss of the innocent sparkle in her eyes. She shook her head in denial as the voice in her head returned.

<Have you changed that much?> It criticized her. <Have you no more honor left in you that any man could claim you with just a few kind words from their lips?>

<Quatre’s not like that,> she reasoned desperately, <he, he told me that he loved me.>

<That’s because you banged him up so good that he’d say anything to make you happy. No man would be willing to pass up the chance to add one Christiana Mallory to their list of conquests. I shudder to think of what your dear parents would have said if they knew what you were doing. They’d have been so disappointed in you, my dear, in fact, I do believe that they’re turning in their graves at the moment.>

Her legs gave way and soon she was sitting on the cold tile, shivering from the ice in that voice. The image of faceless people whispering to her soothingly as she cried flashed through her mind as she heard the tinkling of the bracelet on her arm. She wanted to rip it off and throw it away. As much as she treasured the only link she had to her past, she hated it for being the constant reminder of a past that she could not recall.

She wanted to laugh at herself. She was sparring with her own subconscious and acting like an idiot from memories that should have been buried along with her past. She switched off the lights and proceeded to curl up in an overstuffed chair beside the bed, content to watch the blonde angel that had graced her with his attention that night.

In about an hour, she saw him shift on the bed and lay an arm on the space that she’d vacated earlier. He stirred and looked around when he saw that he was alone on the bed. He was about to call out her name when he saw her on the chair still wearing the white silk robe. He gestured for her to come back to bed, but she shook her head and looked down instead, not willing to meet his gaze, as though the light in those sapphire orbs would consume her.

"Last night shouldn’t have happened, Quatre," she whispered, "I... I really don’t know what came over me. I’m so sorry... I made a terrible mistake and I dragged you into it."

Quatre looked at her, dumbfounded. He didn’t expect to hear this after a night of unbridled passion. He knew that he’d touched a side of Christiana that no one else knew about last night, but now, she had her usual assortment of walls around her and she was locking him out. He stepped out of the bed and, ignoring all vestiges of modesty, made his way to her side. He lifted her chin with his hands and forced her to look into his eyes. He gasped when he saw the blankness in them.

"Last night was not a mistake," he told her, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Why was she doing this to him? "If you think that I would care what other people will think when they find out about us, you’re wrong. You are the only one I care about. Only you."

He lifted her out of the seat and carried her back to the bed. He tossed her robe aside as they curled up under the covers, their arms around each other. Quatre planted a tender kiss on her lips and he once again drifted off to sleep.

Christiana remained awake a while longer, listening to him breath and savoring the warmth of his arms around her. He held her tight enough to ensure that she wouldn’t be going anywhere before they were ready to leave for the center and she gave up trying to get loose.

<If you only knew how I desperately want to believe you, Quatre...> she said to herself as she laid her head on his chest. <If only I had met you under different circumstances....>

*-*-*-*-*-*

Trowa turned in bed as he groped for the phone on the nightstand. He’d arrive in L3 a couple of days ago with Catherine and would be returning to Earth with Quatre as soon as his business at the colony was done. His fingers connected with the handle of the phone and lifted the instrument and mumbled a sleepy ‘hello’ before he found out that he’d been holding it upside down. He righted it and said ‘hello’ again, this time a bit more clearly.

He blinked at the voice over the line and looked at the clock beside him. "Do you realize that it’s three o’clock in the morning?" He listened to the person over the line and was shocked awake by what he had to say. "You can’t be serious!" Silence. "Oh my God, you are. Look, you should really think this through first." He felt the bed shift beside him and said, "look, I’ll drop by this afternoon and we can talk about this when we’re both good and awake. Meanwhile, postpone your plans until then, okay? Good. Ja." He put down the phone and laid back down with a sigh. An arm snaked around him and he kissed the woman to whom they belonged to.

"Who was that, Trowa?" Catherine asked as she wrapped the sheet around her naked form.

"Quatre," he sighed as he wrapped his arms around her. "He’s about to make the craziest, most spontaneous, and insane decision of his life."

"And what would that be, hmm?" she whispered as she kissed him.

"He wants to ask that female doctor to marry him."

Catherine was stunned. She’d that Quatre was raving about a great doctor from Trowa, but that was only barely two months ago. She looked incredulously at him, wondering if he was pulling her leg. The rather troubled look on Trowa’s face showed that he WAS serious and she settled down on the bed, snuggling up to him.

"So what are you going to do about it?"

Trowa closed weary eyes as he replied. "As his friend, I know that I have to talk to him. You know, make sure that he’s thoroughly thought this through and everything. I can’t force him not to propose to her, after all, he’s already of age."

Catherine nudged his chin with her head and said, "I’m pretty sure that he’ll listen to whatever you have to say to him, after all, just by telling you about it in advance means that he values your opinion. In the meantime," she said as she kissed his lips deeply. "Maybe we could go back to where we left off."

Trowa smiled and wrapped his arms around her, managing to rid her of the sheet in the process. Quatre and his sudden aspiration for wedding bells could wait. Meanwhile, he had more important things to take care of first.

*-*-*-*-*-*

Quatre mingled with the guests and smiled, perfectly hiding the turmoil inside of him. It was the night that marked the opening of the Faith Post-War Trauma Center and he was nervous as hell.

Christiana had arrived early and had wandered off somewhere before Trowa and Catherine showed up. Heero, Wufei and Duo were also mingling and exchanging pleasantries with the Maganacs and some of the representatives of the other colonies. He was a little disappointed since he hadn’t managed to introduce Trowa to Christiana but was still a bit sore from the elbow Duo gave him when he introduced him to her.

He fingered the black velvet box in his jacket and sighed. He and Trowa had had a very thorough discussion a few days ago and he knew that his mind was made up. He wanted to marry her and tonight would be the night he’d ask her for her hand in marriage. That is, if he could find her and lead her to a secluded enough place to actually propose!

<You’d think that a person wearing a white dress would be easy to find when almost all the rest are wearing black,> he thought as he scanned the crowd. <I wonder where she is.>

"Penny for your thoughts?"

Quatre turned and looked straight into a smiling Noin in the company of one cheerful Mirialdo Peacecraft. He looked over his shoulder in time to see Relena glomp on to Heero while the latter tried his best to shake her off. He shook his head and gave the couple beside him a brilliant smile. He hadn’t seen them at all since the war ended but rumor has it that they’ve been patrolling the outermost colonies.

"I’m glad to see that you two were able to come," Quatre said as he shook Mirialdo’s hand. "I wasn’t counting on Relena coming though."

Mirialdo laughed at his observation. "Well, you know Relena. Any opportunity to hound Heero Yuy she’ll take." He looked at the grand lobby of the facility and nodded in satisfaction. "You did a great job on this one, Quatre. I’m sure that the colonies would be grateful at the effort the Winner foundation gave to helping the colonies heal its wounds."

"This wasn’t my idea, actually," he replied as he scanned the crowd. "Dr. Mallory suggested this venture about two months ago. All I did was approve of the project and supervise." He sighed as he sipped the champagne in his hand. "I’d introduce you two, but as you can see, said scientist is currently difficult to locate."

Noin laughed as Mirialdo tugged at her arm. "Well, good luck in finding her, then. We just want to say hello to the others."

Quatre smiled wistfully as he watched the two make their way through the crowd. <Now there’s a couple that have seen it through thick and thin,> he thought. Suddenly, a flash of white silk caught his eye and he turned just in time to see Christiana walk out of the building towards the surrounding garden.

<Well, its now or never.>

Taking a deep breath, he excused himself from his guests and made his slow way to the same exit Christiana had gone out of.

Outside, it was wonderfully quiet. Once the heavy glass doors shut, the only sounds one would hear were the wind gently dancing through the leaves of the surrounding trees and the occasional sounds made by the nocturnal animals. He could see her walking farther out and leaned on a nearby railing to watch.

She had a white shawl over her shoulders to keep the wind at bay and her long dress shimmered as it clung to her body. Her hair was down, for once, and unadorned. Quatre longed to run his fingers through those raven tresses once again. He made his silent way towards her. She had stopped walking and was just looking at the night sky. It was wonderful how the colony’s sky looked like the real thing. He was about two steps away when he heard her sigh. She yelped when he touched her shoulder lightly and found her mouth locked in a kiss when she turned to face the person who’d startled her.

"Quatre, I’d appreciate it very much if you didn’t do that," she whispered when he let her lips go. "You’d just make me die younger by giving me a heart attack."

"I can’t have that now, can I?" He said as he wove his fingers with hers. "Not after all this."

"You’d be lacking a directress," she replied lightly. "It would certainly be hard to find someone to fill in my position," she joked.

His eyes softened at her comment as he looked deep into her eyes. "In more ways than you know." He wrapped a surprised Christiana in his arms and breathed in her scent. He rubbed his face lightly on her hair as he held her tighter.

Christiana’s mind was whirling. <What’s gotten into Quatre?> she thought. She knew that he wasn’t drunk or anything and the way he was acting scared her even more than when she was struggling to survive in the colonies. A alarm went through her brain when he let her go and reached into his pocket. Before she could react, he had gotten down on one knee and was holding up a velvet box containing a diamond ring.

"Christiana Mallory," Quatre whispered, "will you marry me?"

She nearly fainted even before he’d said the words. One look at the ring said it all. She looked at the hopeful expression on his face and reached out to touch the ring. Barely a centimeter away from it, her hand stopped and she clenched it into a tight fist. No. Quatre deserved someone better that her. Someone who could give him what he needed and would be able to return his love. What would he do with someone like her? In a rush, the words of the men who’d used her came back. Such a pretty toy. You’re not too good for anyone. Everyone’s plaything.

She hung her head as she willed away the tears that threatened to come. She’d already shed too many tears. There was no good enough reason for her to shed any more. She heard Quatre stand up and touched her shoulder lightly in concern. With effort, she whispered her answer.

"Gomen nasai, Quatre. I... I can’t."

The words she said killed him more surely than a fleet of advancing virgo units. Quatre took her by the shoulders and said, "why, Christiana? Is there someone else?"

Silence was all she answered. He’d never understand her reasons.

"Souka," Quatre said as he shoved the ring back into his pocket. "Naze? Naze, Christiana? Why did you lead me to believe that I was the only one? Why did you lie to me?"

"I never said anything to you. You believed what you wanted to believe," she said, steel in her voice. <Yes, argue with him,> she thought, <it would hurt him less if you part this way. At least he’d get over you sooner.>

"What about that night at the hotel?" Quatre said angrily. "Did you make up that story about your life so that I’d take pity on you? Was that just a ploy to get me into your bed?"

Before she knew what she was doing, she’d slapped him. She was surprised at the anger raging inside her. There was no mistaking the look of disgust in his eyes as she turned and walked away. She was half expecting to hear Quatre scream at her but silently thanked the gods that he didn’t. She arrived at her office and collapsed in a sobbing heap as soon as she’d locked the door, unable to keep the tears at bay any longer. It had to be done and she knew it. But if what she did was right, why did it have to hurt so much?

*-*-*-*-*-*

Duo looked at the sulking boy on the other side of the pool and sighed. Quatre had been that way since they’d left L3 for Earth a couple of weeks ago. They were all assembled at Quatre’s desert mansion for vacation as well as in preparation for Wufei’s wedding which was a month away. He and Heero were on summer break and the both of them and Trowa were to serve as ushers while Quatre had been drafted to be the best man. The five ex-pilots were all lounging around the pool while Sally was overseeing the people fitting her bridesmaids.

Trowa was also looking worriedly at his friend. He knew that Christiana must have turned him down, but he never expected him to carry on moping about it, after all, he’d seemed glad that she HAD turned him down at that time. Still, he found it odd that Quatre refused to talk about it or mention the incident for that matter. He looked up to see Duo take a seat beside him on the pool’s edge, feet dangling lazily in the water.

"What’s wrong with him?" Duo asked Trowa. "You’d think that he’d have been over whatever it was by now."

"Duo, don’t you think that maybe Quatre’s worried about something that wouldn’t just blow over in a day or two?"

"Still, I kinda know that expression...," Duo said thoughtfully and he snapped his fingers. "He’s either did something he knows that he’d regret for the rest of his life or...," he said with a wink, "he’d been dumped big time." Duo was too satisfied with himself to notice Trowa’s reaction of total shock. He had, after all, been right on both counts.

Wufei joined them soon with a worried expression on his face. "We’d better do something about Quatre’s mood or my best man’s going to look like he’s attending a funeral. What the heck could have gotten him this depressed?"

Trowa couldn’t take it anymore and stood up. He left the two surprised men at the poolside and made his way back into the house. He needed to make some calls. If Quatre wouldn’t tell him what happened, there was only one other person who would know what was wrong with the blonde Arabian.

*-*-*-*-*-*

Trowa had absolutely no idea what could have possessed him to go there. He’d set up an appointment to see Dr. Mallory and was now waiting for her inside her office. It had all been easy enough. Catherine wasn’t the type to ask him where he’s going as long as she knows that he’d be safe. Since he was known in the Winner foundation to be a close friend of Quatre, he could get privileged information as well as obtain audiences that, ordinarily, would have required going through a lot of red tape.

<Quatre would flip if he knew what I was doing,> he said to himself as he examined several figurines that dotted the display case near the window.

Just then, he heard the sound of the door opening and Dr. Mallory stepped in. She was wearing the usual lab coat over her navy blue pants suit. She was already talking even before she laid eyes on him.

"It’s been a long time, Trowa Bar-," she stopped in mid-sentence and her eyes widened a bit as she viewed him. "You’re not Trowa Barton," she said in a matter-of-fact manner.

Trowa was too shocked to reply. He just stared at the woman before him, uttering a single name in response to her statement.

"Kristen...."

*-*-*-*-*-*

Quatre stood by a large picture window as he watched the rain fall. Trowa had left a couple of days ago and he wouldn’t tell anyone where he was going, only stopping to reassure everyone that he’d be back in time for Wufei’s wedding. He found it strange that even Catherine didn’t know where he went. All that he’d told her was that he had some urgent business to attend to.

Raucous laughter filled the room that night. They had decided to give Wufei a stag party while the women gave Sally a bridal shower at the other end of the mansion. Duo was currently trying to get Wufei drunk while Heero and Rashid were trying to convince him that he himself was already too drunk.

It was all really funny, but he still didn’t feel like laughing. He’d made it pretty clear to Christiana that he didn’t want to marry her and now he felt like self-destructing for making such a stupid decision. Wasn’t it him who’d said that he didn’t care what other people would say? Wasn’t it him who told her he loved her? Never mind that she never once did say those words, he knew that she loved him too.

<Stupid, weak, pathetic Quatre,> he said to himself as a flash of lightning lit up the sky and the low rumble of thunder followed its wake. <Why did you have to say it? Why did you have to hurt her? Hell, why did she let you hurt herself?>

A wine goblet was shoved into his hands by an intoxicated Duo. The latter was so buzzed that he was blinking almost every two seconds.

"Yo, Quatre," he slurred, "why don’ cha join the party? Wufei’s still no fun even at his own stag party."

He eyed the wine in the goblet. It was blood red. He went to the center of the celebration and downed the goblet in one swift gulp, earning shocked looks from everyone and even managing to shock Duo into a practically sober state. He handed the crystal to a servant and sat down with his friends and comrades.

<Maybe this is exactly what I need to get her out of my head,> he thought as a dumbfounded Duo handed him another goblet full of the liquor. <I should really enjoy myself, after all, this is supposed to be a happy time.>

"Quatre, are you okay?" Heero asked as he downed his sixth glass.

"Hmm?" He mumbled as he looked at the Japanese. " ‘S something wrong?"

"Well, you’ve had six glasses of wine already...." Wufei started.

"So?" Quatre said defensibly. "Duo’s already had almost three times that much and I don’t see any of you complaining!"

Heero rolled his eyes. Quatre was definitely buzzed. "Him we’re used to seeing drunk out of his mind. You, well..., you’re more, shall we say, reserved."

Quatre looked at the circle of concerned faces around him. Duo looked like he knew something and Quatre glared at him. The long-haired man laughed out loud and lay gasping on the floor as Heero, Wufei, Mirialdo, Rashid, and the rest of the Maganacs looked at him like he’d gone out of his mind.

"Soo~oooo," Duo sang out, leering at Quatre. "What’s her name and when and why did she dump you?"

Quatre grabbed the wine bottle and took a long swig, hoping that it would be enough to make him pass out. He wished that Trowa was there to help him out not gallivanting about someplace.

"This is because of a girl?" Heero said, disbelieving.

"Out with it, Quatre," Wufei said giving the blonde a steel gaze.

"Quatre, if there’s any way...."

Said Arabian never heard the rest of Mirialdo Peacecraft’s sentence. He’d thankfully passed out.

Duo looked at the former Gundam pilot lying senseless on one of the pillows. He poked him on the side and signed that he was not faking it. Soon they had him tucked into bed and they were back in the room again.

"You guys have any idea who the girl could be?" Duo said as he popped a peanut into his mouth.

"Dorothy?" Heero guessed.

"Couldn’t be," Mirialdo said as he drank some champagne. "She nearly killed him once and Quatre’s hardly the type who gets attracted to people who want to kill him."

"I guess that’s more your sister’s type, ne?" Duo countered.

Mirialdo’s only reply was a derisive snort.

Everyone gave their own speculations regarding Quatre’s mystery girl, each of them regretting that Trowa wasn’t around. He’d have known who it was.

They had come up with what must have been twenty names before Duo snapped his fingers and stood up, nearly toppling the table.

"Watch it!" Wufei shouted.

"I know who it is!" Duo said triumphantly. "It’s got to be the doctor he introduced us to. Whas’ her name? Cara..., Chira, no," Duo tapped his head with his fist. "I can’t remember her name," he mumbled.

"Christiana," Heero supplied, "I believe her name was Christiana Mallory. The new head of Faith Center?"

"Yeah, that’s the one," Duo said as he took a seat. "She’s pretty."

"She’s also seven years older than him," Wufei supplied.

Everyone was silent as they considered some more views. They traded glances at each other and after a few minutes, a collective ‘Nah, couldn’t be’ erupted from their mouths and they continued their drinking spree, the subject of Quatre’s failed attempt at courtship momentarily forgotten.

*-*-*-*-*-*

"I beg your pardon?"

Trowa just stared at the woman looking at him with a slightly confused expression. He’d recognize that face anywhere. The only problem was that the person he knew who possessed that face was already dead and buried. "I-I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else," he replied sheepishly.

Christiana laughed at that. "It’s okay, no harm done," she said waving her hand dismissively. "Seriously, now, though. Who are you?"

Trowa wanted to laugh. She was as sharp as a knife. "And hello to you too, Dr. Mallory," he greeted. "It’s nice of you to meet me in such short notice."

She shook her head in amusement as she sat down behind her desk. "As I’ve said, you are not Trowa Barton," she said as she leaned on the desk, "the Trowa Barton I know is tall, blonde, handsome and an undeniably egocentric, cocky idiot who cares for nothing but for his family to rule the world. I see that you are none of the things that I’ve described." Her steel grey eyes bored into his. "So who are you?"

"I am Trowa Barton," he said as he took a seat before her, matching her gaze with his own. "I took on the identity of the Trowa that you knew when he was murdered."

Dr. Mallory considered his words silently, weighing the truth they contained. She surprised him when she laughed and extended her hand to shake his.

"The world has become a better place, then," she said as she shook his hand. "It could use less of power-hungry people like him." Grey eyes glinting, she continued, "so what can I do for you?"

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat as he looked at the open, relaxed expression on her face. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

"Well?"

"I, uh, well, I came here to ask you something a little personal," he began. "It’s about Quatre."

She nodded for him to continue but she was starting to wonder. <What could he want to know?> she thought.

"I know that my friend proposed to you," Trowa said as he thought, <might as well get it over with.> "I also know that you’ve turned him down and now he’s so depressed, we’re afraid that he might accidentally hurt himself," he looked at her, pleading. "He’s so in love with you, Christiana, why did you turn him down?"

"I have my reasons," she said as she stood and opened the door to her office. "I believe that we are at the end of our discussion, Mr. Barton. I admire your loyalty to Mr. Winner, but I would much rather let what happened remain between him and me."

Trowa nodded to her once as he left the office. He’d pretty much expected that answer but only wanted to meet Dr. Mallory himself. Quatre had been right when he’d told him about her. Beneath the cheerful face that she puts up, she keeps herself locked within walls that no one would be able to break from without. His friend has always been attracted to danger and intrigue, but he wondered at how much of a danger Quatre would be in if he continued to pursue this woman.

*-*-*-*-*-*

Duo looked at his surroundings and let out a long low breath. He was standing at the altar waiting along with the other pilots.

Trowa had come back a couple of weeks ago. It seemed that he went to L3, although he refused to talk about the reason why. He’d managed to talk Quatre out of his mood and the Arabian was now in a state of mild melancholy.

All six men took their positions at the altar as the guests filed in. The music sounded as the bridesmaids walked down the aisle. Everyone looked in wonder as Sally entered accompanied by Harold. He’d been drafted to act as the father of the bride since he was the only one of the scientists that hadn’t lost all of his marbles. He even managed to look decent once out of his Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses.

Sally was radiant in her white gown. She could feel her heart pounding as Harold handed her to her husband-to-be, pausing to give the old man a peck on the cheek.

The music stopped and the crowd silenced as the cardinal began to speak.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the union of this couple in holy matrimony." He turned to Wufei and said, "do you Chang Wufei take this woman, Sally Poe, to be your lawfully wedded wife to have and to hold, for richer and poorer, in sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live till death do you part?"

"I do," he said solemnly.

"Now," the cardinal said with a smile. "Do you, Sally Poe, take this man, Chang Wufei, to be your lawfully wedded husband to have and to hold, for richer and poorer, in sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live till death do you part?"

She looked at him and whispered, "I do."

The cardinal straightened himself and said to the gathering, "if there is someone in this church that will object to this union, come and sayeth forth now or forever hold your peace."

No one uttered a sound, much to the relief of those gathered at the altar. With a sweeping gesture, the cardinal turned to the couple and said, "by the power vested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride."

Everyone gathered in the cathedral clapped their hands and hollered as the couple kissed each other.

Quatre forced a smile to his lips as he politely clapped his own hands. In the back of his mind, he saw what could have been his and Christiana’s wedding -- all of their friends gathered, Christiana looking radiant in a white satin gown, him having butterflies in his stomach as she walked down the aisle....

<But that’s all it’s going to be,> he said to himself as he joined the others for a group picture. <Just another dream.>

*-*-*-*-*-*

"Good grief, Quatre, couldn’t you lighten up?"

The blonde felt Duo nudge him on the ribs and he gave him a dark look. He knew that he should show a bit more enthusiasm, but he didn’t feel like it. Fact is, just by seeing Sally and Wufei together made him feel worse.

"Aw, c’mon!" Duo said, slapping his forehead in exasperation. "It couldn’t have been that bad! I mean, I’ve been dumped several times before, but I never carried on for as long as you have! Get on with your life, man!"

"Duo’s right," Trowa agreed as he took a seat beside Quatre. "You’ve got to pull yourself together."

"Easy for you to say," Quatre murmured, "you’ve got Catherine." He took a sip of his juice and looked at the liquid. He’d just about given up on liquor. The first and the last time he’d gotten drunk, he’d had a hell of a hangover. "Look, just forget about me, okay? This is the happiest moment in Wufei and Sally’s lives! Let’s just enjoy it."

Trowa sighed and, clamping his hand on Quatre’s arm, dragged the blonde to a secluded corner of the hall. He looked up at him quizzically and waited for Trowa’s explanation. He was surprised at the irritated glare that he got from him.

"Quatre, I’ve just about had it with this," he began, "all we are doing is try to bring back the Quatre that we all know and love. Don’t you see how worried everyone is about you?" Trowa gestured lightly to the people around them. "I have a confession to make, although I know that you might really start to hate me for it." He saw Quatre’s eyes narrow at the statement. "I went to L3 almost a month ago not because I had personal business, but to meet with Dr. Mallory."

Quatre’s eyes widened in shock at the revelation. "Trowa, you didn’t...."

"I did," he said, cutting him off. "I tried to ask her about the two of you, but all she did was evade all of my questions."

"You shouldn’t have done that Trowa," Quatre said, sitting down. He couldn’t begin to imagine the possible mess that Trowa unintentionally made. "She made it perfectly clear that she didn’t want to marry me and that was it. End of story."

"I take it she never explained herself, did she?" Trowa said sitting down beside him.

Quatre sighed. "No, she didn’t. Fact is, I’m just as confused as you are. I guess dwelling on this is just grating on my nerves."

"No kidding," he replied as he took a champagne glass from a passing waiter. "Say, Duo and Heero plan to do some work with the other scientists. Seems like they’re trying to rebuild some old mobile suits for a museum. They said that they’d make everything functional except for the weaponry. In a way, it would be sort of like a simulator. A hands-on exhibit, if you will. You want to come along?"

"Sounds like fun," Quatre said, a smile finally coming to his face. "I kinda miss Professor H. I say that it’s about time I paid him a visit."

*-*-*-*-*-*

Dr. Mallory shut the folder in front of her and laid her head on the table, wishing that her headache would go away. It’s been two months since the center opened and she was swamped with work. People have been coming in by the droves and her initial staff had practically tripled to meet with the demands of the center. Just by keeping track of the names and number of the staff members was already hard enough work, but to oversee the placement of the patients for the programs was enough to drain her.

Most of the cases that they got said that they’ve been having nightmares that wouldn’t go away even after almost three years of peace. They complained about hearing voices in their heads, screams and pleading of the dying and the rain of gunfire upon the city. Treating them would be very hard since they’ve all lost a loved one one way or another in the war. Some of the other cases were more on rehabilitating war injuries. Since Winner Research has developed new methods of reconstructive surgery and more advanced prosthetics, people as far as Earth have come to see what they could do for them.

"Dr. Mallory?"

Christiana looked up to see her assistant, Gail, who was peeking in from the doorway. "Yes?"

"I just want to remind you that you have counseling in twenty minutes," she replied as she handed her a chart. She closed the door and took a seat in front of the desk. "Really, Christiana, you should take a break. We could handle the cases here and you could just handle the managerial aspect of the center. There’s really no need for you to even meet the patients."

"Gail, that would be a direct violation of the Hippocratic oath, don’t you think?" she replied with a smile. "What good is a non-practicing doctor? The least I could do is help out even if I only handle five to twelve patients. As it is, everyone already have their hands full and they really could use my help."

Gail laughed as she and Christiana left the room. "You’re a better person than I am, Christiana Mallory. ‘Know what?" she said as she turned to look at her. "The guy who finally gets your hand in marriage would be able to count himself lucky to have someone like you." With that, she left a dumbfounded Christiana, her lab coat swishing behind her.

<If you only knew how close I came to getting married, Gail,> Christiana thought as she walked to the therapy room. <If you only knew how close.>

She opened the door to the room to find a man standing with his back to her. She stood before the couch and opened the chart. All the while the man didn’t make a move to look at her.

"Good evening, Mister...," she said as she looked at the chart. "...Voineir. I’m Dr. Mallory and I will be your counselor for your stay here in Faith Center."

The man turned to look at her and Christiana dropped the chart while her face paled. She could feel a lump form in her throat while her mind screamed, wishing that all this was just a hallucination. He took several steps closer while Christiana backed up until her back came in contact with the wall. The man smiled wickedly as he used his right hand to keep her pinned to the wall while his left caressed her cheek. She ducked her face so as not to let him see the fear in her eyes.

"Still beautiful, I see," he murmured, "skin still soft as a baby’s and smells just as nice." He yanked at her hair and kissed her forcefully on the lips. "Lips are still as sweet as when I had them. Could the rest of you be the same?"

Christiana kneed him in the groin and ran out of the room as he collapsed in a heap. She headed for her office and locked herself in. <This couldn’t be happening,> she thought as she clutched herself to keep herself from trembling as she punched in the number that would alert security.

The man who’d shown up practically at her door was one of the men who’d raped her.

*-*-*-*-*-*

Trowa used the back of his hand to wipe away the sweat that had begun to form on his forehead and it left a black streak of grease in its wake. He gave Duo and Quatre mock glares as they laughed at him. Heero was talking to Dr. J as they went over the plans to reconfigure the systems for the mobile suits on display.

They were all in L1 where the museum was to be put up. He was surprised at the number of people who’d volunteered to help out -- most of which were former White Fang and OZ soldiers. Most of the older men hardly spared them a glance while others looked at them with respect in their eyes, knowing that they were the former Gundam pilots.

It has been a month since they’d started working on the museum and everything was almost finished. Heero and Duo would be going back to the university in less than a month -- just in time to attend the opening of the exhibit.

"Hey, Trowa! Do you think you could spare some time off from your daydreaming to come and have lunch with us?!"

He looked down at Duo, Heero and Quatre who were standing below the Heavyarms Custom that he’d been working on and waved at them. Grabbing the retractable cable, he slid towards the ground and soon, the four of them were sitting at the museum’s cafeteria eating.

"Isn’t this great?" Duo said, sipping from a glass of orange juice. "We get to work on the Gundams again without having the guilt of using them on people."

Heero nodded in agreement and filched a piece of fish off Duo’s plate.

"So, what subjects are you taking next semester?" He asked, cutting off Duo’s protests. "I know for a fact that you’ve been eyeing that Anthropology course that teaches nothing but sex."

Duo’s face reddened as Quatre and Trowa looked at him with raised eyebrows. "You didn’t have to say that out loud, Yuy," he mumbled under his breath.

"It’s more as an effort to bring you down a notch, Maxwell," he sniffed. "And you just confirmed my suspicions. You didn’t deny it, so you really were considering taking the course!"

Duo slid down into his seat. "And here I thought I was the psychology major!"

Quatre was about to say something when one of the other men on the museum crew came up to their table.

"Who among you’s Trowa Barton?" He asked, looking from one to the others.

"I’m Trowa Barton."

The man nodded and he gestured for him to get up. "Dr. J says that you’ve got a call in the office. Says it’s urgent."

Trowa nodded to the man and was starting for the door when Quatre got up. He gestured for his friend to sit back down saying, "don’t worry. I’m sure it’s not that serious."

He made his way through the corridors and finally entered the museum office. Dr. J signaled for him to take the call at the inner office and he turned on the receiver unit as soon as the door shut. Trowa was surprised to see the face of Dr. Gail Medrian appear on the screen. He’d expected Catherine, but not the second highest ranking officer of Faith Center to be his caller.

"Dr. Medrian," he began, "this is a surprise." He noted the worried expression on her face and asked what was wrong.

"Trowa...," she said trying to hold back tears. "Christiana’s disappeared. I have a bad feeling she’s been kidnapped."

Trowa just gaped at the woman. <Kidnapped?> he thought, <why? Why would anyone want to kidnap her?> He regained his composure and asked, "are you sure that she isn’t just sick or something?"

Gail shook her head sadly. "I tried calling her at home, but all I could get was the answering machine. When I tried to visit, she wasn’t there. In fact, I talked to some of her neighbors and they said that she hasn’t been around for days. I had the keys to her house and when I got there, everything was still in perfect order except there was just no sign of her anywhere. I mean, it isn’t like Christiana to leave town without her laptop and briefcase and both items were in her study."

He considered her words carefully before answering. There was no need to make Gail more worried. "How long has she been gone?"

"Two weeks."

"I take it Quatre doesn’t know about this." Gail looked down guiltily as he continued. "Why didn’t you tell him? Why me?"

"I don’t know," she said, waving her hands, not knowing what to do. "It’s just that Mr. Winner has been pretty busy lately, not to mention that something seems to be bothering him... I just didn’t want to scare him any more than needed."

"Have you gone to the authorities yet?"

"Yes. They haven’t found any clues yet either." She looked pleadingly at him. "Trowa, could you please come here, even if its only for a little while, and look into things yourself? You might be able to find things that the investigators have missed. Please?"

Trowa was silent a bit as he considered the request. He didn’t want to leave Quatre again without explaining but he knew that he had to help find Christiana in the event that things were as serious as Gail said they were. <Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place,> he thought as he looked back at the woman in the screen, <but I can’t just stand by without doing anything.> "Okay, I’ll come. I’ll call you when I get there. Meanwhile, just stay calm."

Gail watched the blank screen before her as she clutched her head in her hands. She wasn’t entirely sure when Christiana’d disappeared, but she was extremely worried nonetheless. Her friend had been pretty down a few months ago, and just as when she was sure that she’d gotten over whatever it was, she disappeared. Sighing, she had just gotten up when the message received sign flashed on the screen and the adjacent printer stared humming. She waited for it to stop and picked up the note. She legs went weak as she held onto the desk, the paper floating down to the floor. <Oh, Trowa,> she thought as tears came to her eyes, <please, please get here soon.>

On the paper was written a few simple words -- The first drops of blood will flow. Long live the White Fang.

*-*-*-*-*-*

Christiana hugged here knees tighter as she lifted her head and looked at the blank walls of her prison. Her watch told her that she’d already been there for over two weeks, yet it seemed that she’d been there for years. She felt the pain of the bruises and scratches that covered her body underneath her clothes and lab coat. She’d tried to escape almost as soon as she’d gotten there but she was caught. Her captors familiarized her with the punishment she would once again taste in the event that she should once again try to escape. A method that she already knew too well.

The door to her cell slid open and a man came into the room. It was Sam Voineir. He’d been the one who kidnapped her. Following her home from work one night, he ambushed and abducted her right at her own doorstep. She’d woken up trussed up like a turkey with an anesthetic-induced headache. He had been sitting in the room when she’d woken up wearing the white band on the arm that indicated that he belonged to the White Fang.

"I see you’re awake, Christiana," he said as he reached out to touch her and she scooted away from him. "Or do you prefer to be called Angela? That was your name, wasn’t it? It would suit you a lot better than ‘Christiana Mallory.’ Your new name would suit a more refined woman, not a little slut like you."

"What the hell do you want from me?" Christiana asked through gritted teeth. "I am just a doctor who’s working to help the colony back to its feet. What’s the use in taking me here?"

"Plenty," he said as he whipped out a gun and pointed it her way. "You see, young Mr. Winner did such a good job in advertising that center of yours, you’ve become a celebrity of sorts both in the colonies and on Earth. You," he continued as he sat down beside her, keeping the gun close to her temple, "have become a symbol of peace. Much like the Queen of the World, Relena Peacecraft. Although it would have been a lot better if we could get dear Miss Relena, we decided that you were a lot more accessible. Not to mention much more fun to play with...."

She let out a low whimper as he nuzzled her neck, making sure that the gun was still trained straight at her. He was starting to undo her clothes when she kneed him in the groin. He went down and the gun clattered to the floor near the entrance. Christiana, still weak from fear, crawled toward the weapon and just as she was about to reach it, the panel slid open and another member of the group entered with his gun trained at her.

"Naughty girl," he said and kicked her in the ribs. He watched her curl up in a ball at his feet, clutching her injured side. "It seems as though you haven’t learned your lesson from the time you first tried to escape." He leered at her suggestively as he lifted her to her feet and cupped her face in his hand. "Or are you doing this because this is exactly what you want? Do you always try to escape because you want us fuck you?"

Christiana tried to slap him but he shoved her. She looked up at him from where she’d fallen, her eyes shining in anger. "Damn you," she whispered with barely controlled fury. "Damn you all to hell."

Sam had recovered from her initial attack and made his way wobbly to his companion’s side. "Hey, Conrad, what do you say we tie her up and have our fun? We could take turns holding her down."

Conrad shook his head and looked at Sam. "Negative. I came here looking for you. We’re about to make our move and soon we’ll be able to put an end to this joke of a peace the colonies have established with Earth and set up our own free nation. We’ll kill the bitch and broadcast it all over the world. Then they’ll know what we think of their ‘peace.’ "

Sam glanced once at Christiana’s direction and looked at his friend again. "But isn’t it a shame that we have to kill her so soon? Just as when I was really staring to have fun...."

Conrad let out a cruel laugh as he patted his shoulder. "You can have your fun, my friend before the execution. It’s not going to matter what condition she’s in when she dies. Just as long as you don’t damage that beautiful face of hers." He leaned over and kissed her hard on the lips, his arms holding her tight enough to bruise. "Hmmm, sweet still, I see," he murmured as he let her fall down on the floor. "If you don’t mind Sam, I just might join you in your fun."

The both laughed as the panel slid shut, once again leaving Christiana in the blessed dimness of the room. At first, she sat unmoving until her mind registered the conversation and she started shaking as she sobbed. For once in all her life as a survivor, she truly wished that she was dead.

*-*-*-*-*-*

Trowa looked at the note Gail handed him. It made it painfully clear what the people who’d taken Christiana planned. Her death would be the first of many that would be reaped by the horseman known as war.

He looked at the woman standing beside him and asked, "do you have any idea where this message was sent?"

Gail shook her head. "By the time I was able to get the printout, the line was already closed. There’s no way to find out where it could have been sent."

Trowa considered the matter. He wouldn’t be able to solve this mystery alone. At the least, he would need Heero and Duo, both experts in breaking into files and bases unseen. Unfortunately, to be able to get to them, he’d have to get through Quatre who he’d left with them. He’d be sure to notice that something was up if the three of them suddenly disappear.

Gail looked nervously at the grim expression on the quiet man’s face and wondered if she’d done the right thing. She knew that she should have informed Mr. Winner first and foremost of Christiana’s disappearance, but she was afraid that he might panic. Seeing the grim look on Trowa’s face, she knew that the message on the paper was no joke. Someone was really holding Christiana hostage and was planning to kill her, probably for the benefit of every human on Earth and the colonies. She was shocked out of her thoughts as Trowa spoke up.

"Do you know where I could access a computer with a scrambler connected to the internet?" He said as he picked up a small note pad from Gail’s desk. "I need to do some hacking."

She nodded and led him into Christiana’s office. Once there, she opened her computer and enabled the scrambler that Christiana loaded just for fun. The scrambler would prevent anyone from being able to trace the computer’s location in case someone noticed that there was someone poking around in secret files. The software was never marketed and was only found in computers that belonged to the Winner Foundation and not even all of them had the program.

Trowa sat at the console and looked for arms supply. There were fifty major dealers of armaments in L3 ranging from small hand guns to mobile suits and almost all of them have shut down operations since the war ended. Some of them became small businesses that catered only to the still-popular sport of paint ball wargames while five of the fifty companies were still active, often catering to the Preventers. Trowa looked for all the bulk orders that came out of the companies and was a little frustrated when he traced all of them back to Preventer headquarters. The need for the orders were reasonable since there were still places they patrolled that needed tight policing. Frustrated, he printed out the orders and decided to look them over manually since he’d been staring at the computer for over five hours already.

He visibly jumped when the phone rang and Gail rushed to answer it.

She said something to the mouthpiece before turning to him. "It’s for you."

Trowa’s eyebrows arched in surprise as he got up to answer the call. He was surprised to see Duo’s face on the screen.

"Hey, Trowa! How’re you doin’?" The American greeted as he gave him a wide grin. "We’ve been wondering where you’ve gone off to, ‘ya know. The museum’s about to open and so--"

"Listen, Duo," he cut him off, "I can’t make the opening and please tell the scientists and Quatre that I’m sorry." He looked hard at Duo and continued. "Is Quatre anywhere near you?" He let out a relieved sigh when he saw Duo shake his head no. "Good. Do you think you and Heero could slip from under his nose and join me here in L3? I really need you two."

"Whoa, this sounds serious," Duo breathed. "What’s the big emergency?"

"I can’t tell you over the link. You and Heero have to get here fast. All I can say is that it’s a matter of life and death."

*-*-*-*-*-*

"Those guys are crazy!"

Trowa watched Duo pace angrily in the living room of the apartment that the three former Gundam pilots were sharing. He’d just finished telling them about Christiana’s abduction and the letter that had been sent to Faith Center. Heero had taken it stonily, as always, but Duo was really heating up over the entire thing.

"What have you got so far?" Heero asked him, ignoring the fuming American.

He handed the sheaf of papers to Heero. "I’ve printed out the orders from the five ammunition companies here in L3 as well as all the shipments of ammo that have arrived here. All of them lead back to the Preventers and, frankly, I don't know what other lead I could follow."

Heero scrutinized the list, looking at all the details that were on the papers. His eyes lit up when he came to page three. "This is a bogey," he said, pointing at an order dated just two months ago. "Higher up the page listed a similar order just two weeks before this one. The Preventers wouldn’t have needed another supply since the other order was already large enough to last for a good five months."

"How do you know that’s the one?" Duo asked, Heero’s remark finally was able to get through his ranting. "It could have easily been the other one."

"Where was I then?" Heero asked Duo.

"Aw, c’mon, Heero! You and I were at the museum sweating our butts off putting Wing and Deathscythe together! What does that have to do with all this?" Duo replied, exasperated.

"Plenty," he replied with a smile. "On the date of the delivery, I was at the Preventer headquarters. You do remember that I visited Wufei on an errand for Professor O, don’t you? I was there when Wufei received the orders. That’s how I know that the later one was the bogey."

Trowa scrutinized the orders and found another fifteen shipments to be the same. He looked through the contents of the deliveries and it made his blood run cold. It was a whole lot of ammunition. These people weren’t just going out to prove a point, they were playing for keeps. Trowa just felt the stakes on Christiana’s life get higher. It would seem like her death would be the beginning of another war. Much like the death of President Heero Yuy.

"Do you think you can trace the source?" Duo asked Heero.

"Does Dr. J have a mechanical claw?" Heero asked him sarcastically. "Duo, you of all people should know that I’ve trained for this all my life and all of it’s not going to fade with just a couple of years of peace."

"What are we waiting for?!" The long-haired American said as he started for the door. "Let’s go bag us a group of trigger-happy White Fangs!"

*-*-*-*-*-*

Trowa looked at the building where Heero had traced all of the deliveries to. It had been masterfully executed. All of the deliveries were registered to the Preventers and they were rerouted enough times to send Heero into more than one wild-goose chase before ending up at this location. Heero had admitted that whoever was responsible for the shipments was paranoidly careful, but not careful enough to elude a committed Heero Yuy. They’d all agreed that Trowa should do a reconnaissance of the place first to see if they were indeed correct. Heero and Duo would be waiting outside as back-up. The partners had managed to secure the equipment they used in Nairobi as well as a good amount of ammo in case they needed to shoot their way out if things went wrong.

They had arranged for Trowa to get into the complex by hitching a ride under one of the delivery vans as they stopped for a clearance check. After that, he was on his own. All he had to do was find out what was in the complex and if Christiana was being held there and then get out. It would then be a job for the Preventers to deal with the rest.

Trowa held on for dear life underneath the large cargo truck as it lumbered into the complex. It entered a building and, just as he was about to let go, he felt the floor shift as it descended on well-oiled motors and chains into the lower bowels of the building. By the time the truck finished its descent, Trowa’s ears were humming along with the machine. He let go finally as he saw the truck take its place beside several others. What he saw in the room made his blood run cold.

The room was huge and filled with weaponry ranging from rifles and pistols to mobile suits. It scared him to think of what could happen if the war was to proceed. Not even the Preventers would be able to stand against the array of weaponry gathered there. He slipped out of the room as soon as the coast was clear and made his way around the complex, carefully planting bombs where he could. In the event that he was captured, both Heero and Duo had back-up systems that could activate the explosives even if his unit was deactivated. He heard two men talking and hid within the shadows of the corridors. They passed by him, totally oblivious of his presence. He decided to trail them, marking them as one of the higher-ups by the cocky way they moved.

"So, when are we going to move?" The taller one asked.

"As soon as I say we do. She’s gonna die and everyone’s going to see that we really mean business."

"Conrad, you will tell me when, right?" The man said as he shook out short, ash blonde hair out of his cap. "I really want to have as much of her as I can before we kill her."

Trowa must have let out a snarl then. He saw the two men whirl around to face him as he pounced on the taller man. The other one pushed a button in a panel and soon, Trowa was being held facedown on the floor with at least twenty guns pointed directly at his back.

"Bastard, how’d he get in?" The man he’d attacked said.

"I’ve already sent men out to find that out, Sam," the red-haired Conrad said. "What I want to know is who sent him."

Trowa just gave them his patented blank stare and smiled inwardly while they questioned him, knowing that his training was kicking in and that they wouldn’t be able to get anything out of him. They started hitting him then. At first, it was just slaps and punches. Still, he wouldn’t say a word nor cry out in pain. A rifle butt to the temple finally knocked him out.

*-*-*-*-*-*

He woke up to feel his head lying on something soft and warm and wondered if he was dreaming. The room he was in was dark with no windows to speak of nor visible doors. He felt a hand softly caressing his forehead and turned to look up. He gulped down the lump in his throat when he saw Christiana and he was even more surprised to find that he was lying on her lap. Trowa tried to get up, but a wave of dizziness had him back on the ground a second later, clutching his head.

"I suppose it would be too late to ask you not to move," Christiana scolded in a quiet voice. "They brought you in here a couple of hours ago. I did the best I could with the cut on your head, but your dizziness should subside in about another half hour."

Trowa couldn’t understand how she could still be calm. She could probably die tomorrow, yet here she was tending to his wounds. He looked her in the eye and noticed the tired look within the grey orbs. It looked as though the very life in those eyes have been sucked from her, leaving nothing but a shell. He noticed the tear at the hem of her lab gown and felt his forehead. A makeshift bandage had been wrapped around it. He gingerly lifted himself to a sitting position, preferring to stay at a lighter portion of the cell.

"Why are you here, Trowa?" she asked, unwilling to meet his gaze. "How did you find me? Why did you even bother?"

"Because everyone was worried about you," he answered simply. "Gail called me to tell me about your disappearance and I recruited some friends to help me with the investigation. Unfortunately for me, I got caught."

"Does Quatre know about this?"

Trowa shook his head. "We all decided that it would be too much pressure on him. We left him in L1 so that we could find you and we stumbled into another, more sinister plot...."

"A plot to once again liberate the colonies, I know," she said, hugging her knees to her chest. "I’ve heard it before, Trowa and I am sick and tired of it all."

Trowa was quiet for a while. "Do you know that they are planning to kill you to signal the start of the revolution?"

A slight nod of the head was her answer. "I know, but what difference is it going to make?"

The impersonal tone of her voice scared him even more than the soldiers that could be guarding the room. Something was horribly wrong with this woman. Not only was she drained of the spark that she had, she was also ready to forsake her own life. It was then that he noticed that she was doing her best to stay in the shadows.

He tried to get closer, but she only scuttled farther away. Finally able to corner her, he grabbed her arm and pulled her into the meager circle of grey. He let her go and she slumped to the ground, still with eyes cast downward. She wrapped her arms around her body and tried to curl up into a ball. The long sleeve of her white lab gown inched up her arm a bit and Trowa’s eyes narrowed. He clutched her right arm and, ignoring her protests, slid the sleeve up.

Her entire arm was mottled with cuts and bruises at different stages of healing. His eyes wandered to the part of her leg showing from under her lab gown and saw that it was also covered with bruises. He gingerly lifted up her chin and saw the characteristic black and blue peering out from the open top buttons of her blouse.

"What have they done to you?" he whispered when he finally regained his voice.

Christiana let out a hollow, bitter laugh. "I was hoping that you and the others would be spared from seeing me like this." She then met his eyes and he watched, pained as tears flowed down her cheeks as she continued. "If I die, I don’t want Quatre’s last image of me to be like this. I don’t want him to see me this way...."

Trowa wrapped her in his arms as she cried. She’d been subjected to a nightmare for the past two weeks and he gave her whatever comfort he could to ease her pain. He hated those men for plotting to revive the war. He hated them for what they did to Christiana.

A muffled explosion sounded and Trowa got up, helping Christiana to her feet. She was about to ask him questions when he put a finger to his lips and started feeling the wall, looking for the door.

"What’s going on?" she whispered as his fingers finally located the indention that marked the door frame.

"Heero and Duo have arrived," he said, pulling out a small explosive from out of his pocket and placing it to the door. "I didn’t want to raise your hopes up too much because I didn’t know if they would try to get me out or just trigger the explosives I planted throughout the base. From the sound of things, they opted for the former." Trowa stood to the side of the door and motioned for Christiana to do the same.

Christiana nodded silently and plastered herself to the wall as he triggered the explosive. A muffled whoosh was all that came out and soon, they were both running for the exit. Neither of them knew the layout of this part of the base, and Trowa only used his knowledge of bases and sheer luck to get them out. A guard was unlucky enough to run into them around a corner and soon, he was lying motionless with his neck at an unnatural angle.

Trowa checked the gun and smiled grimly when he noted that the magazine was full. They continued on with their flight until they came to a stairway. Since the outside was little more than a two-story warehouse, they chose to go up. It was there when Christiana missed a step and a slight cracking sounded as she fell in a heap on the floor. Trowa rushed to her side and noted the swelling that was starting to build on her right ankle.

"Trowa, you have to get out of here," she whispered, wincing in pain. "Meet up with Duo and Heero and just blow the place up."

"With you in it? No way," he replied and he helped her to her feet, letting her lean on his shoulder. "How would I be able to face Quatre knowing that I left you to die?"

After managing to elude several more soldiers, they came upon one of the bombs that he’d planted earlier. A grin broke through Trowa’s grim facade and they made more steady progress to the exit. Several chain explosions were heard and they knew that they must be close to Heero and Duo. They rounded another corner and came face to face with Conrad, Sam and five other soldiers.

"Well, well, well, lookie here," Sam said, training his gun at the pair. "Looks like soldier boy wants to play hero and rescue the damsel in distress."

Trowa just gave him a dark stare as he looked at the man. He knew that this one was probably the most responsible for the marks on Christiana’s flesh as well as some other acts. He maneuvered Christiana behind him and decided to face the men himself.

"Not gonna work, little boy," Sam said, pulling out a knife from his pocket. "I’m gonna enjoy cutting you up."

Trowa had been concentrating too much on Sam and was startled when he heard Christiana shriek as Conrad pulled her from behind him. He tried to reach out to her and was greeted by six guns all pointed at his head.

"Let’s let the little lady watch her knight get killed," Conrad sneered as he held her by the waist. "This should prove to be very interesting."

Christina watched in horror as Trowa’s gun was taken from him and Sam rushed at him with the knife. Trowa dodged a bit but managed to get cut on the shoulder. Sam lunged for him again, but this time, having little room to move, got slashed diagonally on the torso. Christiana wanted to beg for them to stop, but Conrad just held onto her not giving her an inch of space to move. After a few more strikes, Trowa was bleeding but had managed to reply with a number of quick open hand strikes, leaving dark bruises, a broken nose, and a cut lip on his opponent.

"You’ll pay for that, you brat," the older man said as he spat out blood. "This time, I’m going to finish you!"

Christiana watched in horror as Sam pulled out his gun and aimed at Trowa. She saw the young man move to dodge when something caught her eye.

A glitter of gold.

Christiana’s eyes widened and she shoved her elbow into Conrad’s gut with the strength afforded her by an adrenaline rush.

The sound of a gunshot.

Trowa watched in sick fascination as Christiana’s body jerked slightly, marking the entry of the bullet. She’d shoved him at the last second and had taken the bullet meant for him. He turned just in time to catch her as she fell to the ground. She was hit on the left side of her chest and her breathing was shallow. She was losing a dangerous amount of blood.

"Bastards," he whispered through gritted teeth as Conrad took aim at Trowa’s head.

"We were planning to kill her anyway," he said nonchalantly. "It just so happens that she decided to die a little earlier. So sorry, but you’ll have to go, too."

Trowa heard the shot, but was surprised to see Conrad collapse to the floor, dead. He looked up in time to see Heero and Duo along with some of the Maganacs rushing towards them. The rest of the soldiers dropped their guns in surrender.

"Damn! We’re too late!" Duo cried in frustration when he saw Trowa cradling Christiana’s body.

"Somebody get the medics!"

Trowa was blind and deaf to the events surrounding him. His gaze was transfixed to the dying woman in his arms. He saw her struggling to open her eyes and he clasped her hand tighter in his.

"Trowa?" Christiana whispered weakly. "Trowa..., are you there?"

"I’m right here," he whispered, "why? Why did you do such a stupid thing like that?"

Christiana managed to crack a small smile. "I didn’t want you to get hurt... not anymore... I want you to live." She coughed up some blood and Trowa felt like panicking as her skin started to feel clammy.

"Don’t die on me," he whispered, "don’t die, Christiana, for me, for Quatre, for Gail, for everyone. You still have a long way to go and a lot to do." A tear rolled down his cheek and she reached out with a bloody hand to brush it away, careful not to get any blood on his face.

"Smile for me, Trowa," Christiana whispered, her eyes growing dim. "Please...." He gave her a wistful smile that she returned. "Arigatou...." She then closed her eyes, a smile on her lips.

Trowa was in shock at her stillness and did not move as the medics put her on life support and attached a bag of blood and dextrose to her arm. He was still kneeling on the ground as Duo approached him.

"Well, this is a fine mess these guys made!" The American said sarcastically. "We found the weapons cache as well as the falsified documents that would implicate the Preventers in their plot to cause another war. Looks like they planned this to the letter. Imagine, being able to...." He looked at the still-staring Trowa and snapped his fingers in front of his face. "Hey! Will you quit staring?! She’s going to be fine. You don’t need to worry about anything. I’m sure Quatre’s not going to hold you responsible for anything that’s happened to her!"

"It’s not that, Duo," Trowa replied, standing up. "She took the bullet meant for me," he said, looking at the American, "I know that even you are not so dedicated that you’d take a bullet for anyone."

"Ouch. That hurt, Trowa," Duo said with a grimace. "Seriously, though, is that what’s bothering you?"

"I don’t know, maybe," Trowa answered as he turned to leave when Duo stopped him.

"Hey, you dropped something," Duo said as he bent over and picked something up from the floor. He looked at the item and snickered, "then again, maybe she dropped something. You can give this to Christiana when she wakes up."

Trowa moved to catch the item that Duo tossed to him, wincing a little from one of his stab wounds. He opened his palm to reveal a delicate charm bracelet of crosses and angels, its lock broken. One look at the item sent Trowa staggering and Duo rushed over to help him while Heero asked him what was wrong. A memory flashed vividly through Trowa’s mind as he clutched the item in his fist, struggling to keep his tears from flowing.

*-*-*-*-*-*

"Oneechan!"

Kristen turned to see her little brother rushing up to her from the stairs as she closed the front door. She’d come home late from band practice and it looked like Alex had been waiting for her at the top of the stairs all this time. "Hi, kiddo!" she greeted as he gave her a big hug. "What’s up?"

He presented her with a crookedly wrapped box and greeted her happy birthday. He smiled brightly as she gave him another hug and they plopped down on the sofa.

"I can’t believe that you remembered my birthday," Kristen said as she held the package.

"Open it!" he shrieked excitedly.

"Let me read the card first," she said trying to needle him. On the card was written six words -- Happy fourteenth birthday, oneechan. Love, Alex. She watched him practically bouncing with energy as she carefully unwrapped the package.

Her eyebrows rose when the wrapping revealed a jeweler’s box. She gave him a quizzical look and he pleaded with her to finish opening the package.

The shock on her face would be forever engraved in his mind as she lifted the delicate bracelet from its velvet bed. He reached out to take the bracelet and fastened it around her left wrist.

"Alex...," she whispered as she looked at the beautiful craftsmanship. "I... I don’t know what to say...."

"How about a thank you?" he said as he flicked at an angel charm. "You know, there’s only one of this in the whole world. The owner of the store said that he made this for a special person and he only showed it to me because he knew that I was looking for a really unique gift."

"Why angels and crosses?"

"Well," he began, "the cross is for the hope you gave me. The angel is you." He looked at her solemnly and continued. "You are my guardian angel, always there for me. I just wanted you to know how special you really are."

*-*-*-*-*-*

Trowa let the tears flow silently as he held onto Duo, needing for all the world something to keep him in touch with reality when his very world was crumbling once again. His guardian angel, always there for him. Kristen. It was the same bracelet that he’d given her on her fourteenth birthday.

"Trowa, what the hell’s wrong?" Duo asked him when he’d managed to calm down.

Trowa guided Duo and Heero someplace where they could sit down. Slowly, he began telling them about the bracelet and how Christiana must have been the sister he’d thought dead all these years. By the time he was through, Duo looked like his eyes were about to fall out of his head and Heero was, for once, totally dumbfounded.

"You mean, the reason why she took that bullet for you was because she was your sister?" Duo said slowly.

Trowa nodded his head. "She must have suffered some sort of amnesia since she didn’t recognize me when we first saw each other," he leaned back on the wall and whispered, "what am I going to do?"

"First, we have to get you to a medic," Heero said, pulling Trowa to his feet. "I don’t care if those wounds are shallow. You are not going to risk getting yourself infected when a family reunion is staring you in the face."

*-*-*-*-*-*

Trowa waited alone outside the observation window of Faith Center’s intensive care unit. Only family members were allowed this far and not even Quatre was allowed to come in. He didn’t explain to the blonde Arabian about Kristen, opting to let his sister do the explaining if she wakes up. <No,> Trowa said to himself, <not if, when she wakes up.>

The doctors had done their best to revive her and they gave her a thirty-seventy chance of surviving given the nature of her wound. The fact that she was able to respond to treatment after being clinically dead for twelve minutes was already a miracle in itself but all that was left was a waiting game. The doctors gave her forty-eight hours. If she didn’t wake up within that timeframe, she would be declared brain-dead. Nothing else would be able to bring her back.

It had already been forty hours and she still wasn’t waking up. Trowa was already losing all hope that she would ever wake up. He fingered the bracelet in his hand and wondered if he should breach protocol and let Quatre in so that he could see her one last time. In his mind’s eye, he could see his best friend kneeling before the glass partition silently mouthing her name. He decided against it. It would be too painful for them both because this time, they would both lose someone they love.

Gail walked into the room and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Aren’t you going to get any sleep?" She asked, concern evident in her voice. "You’re not going to help her any by making yourself sick, you know."

"Could I go in?" He asked her as he stood up. "I could bring a chair with me and watch over her. That way, when she wakes up, she’ll know that she isn’t alone."

Gail looked at him and nodded her consent. There was no reason not to let him do it. She stood outside the window as Trowa dragged a seat beside the bed, amidst all the gadgets connected to her friend. She brushed a tear from her eye as she rushed from the room. She would never be able to remain passive when it came to Christiana, not when they’ve been friends for almost four years.

Trowa brought out the bracelet from his pocket, its clasp mended, and placed it around her left wrist just as he had done when he was seven. "You remember me now, don’t you, oneechan?" he whispered as he stroked her hair. "You knew who I was and you tried to protect me, just like you always did." He moved his hand to clasp hers. "Don’t go...," he said as fresh tears slid down his cheeks. "I still need you. You can’t leave now, not when everything is finally falling into place. You and Quatre can be together. You have to understand that he loves you so much. Oh, Kristen...."

He laid his head down on the bed, and fell asleep, still holding her hand in his.

*-*-*-*-*-*

Trowa woke up when he felt someone squeezing his hand. He opened bleary eyes and his ears registered the bleep of an even heartbeat from the EKG unit. His eyes opened wide as he saw Kristen stir in the bed and open, not grey eyes, but eyes a dizzying shade of emerald green. Gail had told him about finding the contact lenses in her eyes and that she’d removed them when she saw that they weren’t necessary for sight.

She tried to smile despite the tube shoved down her throat and clasped his hand tighter. She was breathing easily and the color was starting to return to her cheeks. The time on the clock read six in the evening -- it had been exactly fifty hours.

Gail had kept her an additional week in the intensive care unit, reasoning that it was so that she could sufficiently recover from her ordeal. During that time, Trowa was always by her side keeping her company. He watched as she got a little bit stronger each day and marveled at her sheer will to live. It was mid-afternoon on the third day since she woke up when he finally asked her the inevitable question.

"How?" Trowa whispered as he sat on the bed beside her. "How did you survive?"

"It’s a very long and very sad story, Alex," she said as she laid down on the pile of pillows behind her. "I don’t think you’d like to hear this one out."

"That’s where you’re wrong," he countered, "if you’re here, oniichan could also be alive. I know-"

"No," she sighed shaking her head, "Nic died that night. Other than the two of us, no one survived the fire."

Trowa shook his head in disbelief as he got up. "That can’t be! If you were able to get out, then oniichan would have been able to get out as well. It’s just not possible...."

The look she gave him then silenced him. "Nic is dead, Alex," she whispered with barely controlled anger and bitterness in her voice. "He died trying to save the two of us."

Trowa sat back down on the bed, his legs unwilling to support him as he listened to Kristen tell him about her escape and how she managed to survive.

**********************

KRISTEN’S TALE:

After Nic tossed you out the window, we began moving back in, desperately looking for another way out. We spotted a window that had been left open in the basement and tried to get out through there. Nic helped me climb out of the window and told me to run for the bushes. I did as he’d told me and ran. I saw his body begin to rise out of the opening when a group of four soldiers rounded a corner. They saw him and waited until he got clear, letting him think that he’d be able to get away.

Just two steps away from me, they shot him on the leg. I saw him fall and I bit my lip to keep from screaming his name. He looked at me, silently telling me to get away when the four ganged up on him. I was too scared to move and watched in horror as they beat him up and shot him several times, wanting him to beg for mercy. It was just like Nic not to utter a single word and accepted everything they dealt in silence.

Finally tired of their game, their leader leveled a pistol at his forehead and shot him point blank. I could still remember the look in Nic’s eyes when he died and it continues to haunt me still. I wanted to run up and clutch his body and will them to kill me too but I knew that Nic would have given up his life for nothing if I did.

I watched as they dragged his body and threw him back into the house to be consumed by the flames. I must have run then because I heard sounds of pursuit. I didn’t care. At the time, I thought that they could do anything to me and I wouldn’t even blink. I was dead inside, my whole world shattered. I remember falling into a river and then blackness. When I opened my eyes, I was at the riverbank a lot further downstream. I didn’t know who I was or how I god there. All that was left of my past was a single gold bracelet around my left wrist.

I hid in the slums, looking for food where I could find it and sometimes a warm place to stay, usually in the company of another group of orphans. I became known as Angela in the streets, from the bracelet I always wore, the one that you gave me on my fourteenth birthday. At the age of sixteen, I had picked up a lot of tricks in the trade -- I knew how to pick open locks in a matter of seconds, I knew where to find the best fences as well as the people who ruled the streets. I had become well known in the streets -- the good kid, the one you needed when you wanted a job done right, Angela the shadow. Unfortunately, all of this wasn’t enough to protect me.

I was out late in the streets one night having just completed a delivery for a drug boss when three drunks stumbled upon me. It was bad enough that they were dead drunk and that I wouldn’t be able to talk my way out of my predicament, but they were also OZ soldiers and they were armed. I didn’t have enough time to get away before they dragged me into a seedy hotel room. They raped me over and over again, probably because I was the only sex they’ve had in weeks. One of the men was Sam Voineir.

I felt like I was almost dead by the time the sun came up. I lay on the bed that reeked of blood and sweat and their fluid mixed with mine. One of the men must’ve had a conscience and left me with enough money that he said he hoped would help me through in what little way possible. My body was wracked in sobs as I clutched myself. In my mind, I thought that no amount of soap and water would be able to wash away the dirtiness that clung to me. I was tainted forever.

My days went by pretty much the same way. During the day, I played messenger for the criminal lowlifes in the city while I hid in fear each night, hoping that I be able to make it to see another sunrise. There was this man, Remy, one of the small-time bosses. He took me in and gave me a place to stay. In exchange, I would work solely for him. He knew my story and did his best to protect me. I’d told him that I wanted to have a fresh start -- somewhere where no one knew who I was, where I could live a normal life.

With his help, money came by to me so fast that in about a year’s time, I was able to save enough for a ticket out of the colonies and would still have enough to start a new life on Earth. Remy watched me as I packed what meager possessions I had.

"So, Angela," he said as he took a drag on his cigarette. "What are you going to do now?"

"We’ve been through this already, Remy," I said as I closed my suitcase. "I’m going to go to Earth. Hopefully, I’ll be able to study and get myself a decent job and a place to stay."

"Then what? Do you know how to survive in that place?"

"I’ll learn. Just as I had learned how to survive here." I turned to him and clasped his hands in mine. He was about twenty-six and had lived on the streets for most of his life. It bothered me a little that he worried so much every time I left to go on my deliveries. "I’m going to go straight. No more running, no more hiding." I planted a kiss on his forehead. "And if I’m able to save enough, I’ll come back and take you there with me. I guess it would be my way of returning the favor."

He snorted at that remark. "Girl, you make of yourself what you can. Don’t worry about ol’ Remy. I can take care of myself." He chucked my chin lovingly and continued. "Remember, no matter what happens, you do what you feel is right, ‘kay? I just hope you find what you’re lookin’ for where you’re goin’."

I left L3 that day and started my new life on Earth. I was able to afford a small apartment in a middle class neighborhood and get a job at a local bookstore as well as manage to get into school. Thanks to a friend of Remy’s I had become Christina Mallory with a complete history that was airtight to the letter.

I had wanted to make good upon my promise to Remy and worked hard trying to raise enough to convince him join me on Earth. It was just a few days before his birthday, the day I was going to remind him of my offer when Jacques, Remy’s friend, came over wearing a disguise. Apparently, he didn’t want to risk anyone finding out who I really was and decided to talk to me in secret. I nearly went into shock at the news he brought me.

Remy was dead. He had been killed at a raid.

I didn’t want to believe him. I didn’t want to believe that the only person on that God-forsaken colony that I could call a friend was dead at the hands of OZ. Jacques let me play out my anger until I had composed myself. He handed me an envelope that he said Remy wanted me to have in case anything happened to him. It was full of money. Not counterfeit, but the real thing. I smiled at the irony of it all. Even in death, Remy still watched over me. Inside, he left a note saying that he must have been so careless to get himself killed. He also wrote that he wished that I had found what I was looking for.

That was eight years ago. Jacques had died within two years after Remy’s death. It turned out that he was suffering from a form of wasting disease and had helped me as a final favor to his friend before he died.

My life became the semblance of normalcy after that, with no one having a single clue to my true identity. I studied and worked at the same time and managed to get a degree in biotechnology. That was when I was recruited into the Winner research facilities. I worked with Quatre’s sister and became good friends with her. Soon, they were asking me to head pioneering projects and research until I finally became the head of Faith Center.

**********************

Trowa looked at his sister and just held her. He marveled at the strength she showed to get where she was now but it also made him sad. He never expected her to become like this. In a way, she reminded him of Duo. He had hidden all of his own feelings from them all and made healing his fellow pilots emotionally his priority, never once thinking about himself. Trowa held Kristen to him in the same way she held him when he was seven, willing his calmness seep into her, comforting her.

Kristen breathed in deeply and sighed. She hadn’t wanted to burden her brother with her problems, but once she started talking, everything just poured out of her. The strange thing was, it had made her feel better. Somehow, the very act of confessing everything to someone she knew wouldn’t think differently of her alleviated the hurt and anger inside. <If I should die now, I’d die happy,> she thought.

"So now what?" Trowa asked as he held her. "What are you going to do?"

Kristen just shrugged. "I’ll definitely go back to work," she said, closing her eyes. "I hope things blow over soon and maybe we could all finally have some peace."

"What about Quatre?"

Kristen looked up to gaze into his deep green eyes. "What about him?"

Trowa smiled wryly as he let her go. "Unlike an issue, oneechan, Quatre is not going to just get up and fade away, you know."

Kristen hung her head and let out a sigh. "I’m sure he told you about my refusal."

He touched her shoulder lightly and cupped her face, willing her to look up at him. "No, he didn’t," he said softly, "but his actions told me everything. I don’t know what happened between you two, but I want to know why you turned him down."

"What I’d like to know is how you came to know him," Kristen countered. "I find it a little interesting to find my little brother friends with someone who came from as far away as L4."

Trowa sat back and told her everything -- Operation Meteor, circumstances surrounding his new name, the Gundams, and how he met Quatre and the other pilots. Kristen’s eyes widened in shock at his revelations. She never expected something like this.

By the time he was finished, she was reeling. Her brother and Quatre were Gundam pilots? It was a bit too much for her.

"Now it’s your turn," Trowa said taking her hands in his. "Why’d you turn him down?"

"I turned him down because I don’t deserve someone like him," she said, a trace of sadness in her voice. "He deserves someone who he could love with all his heart and who could return the love he has to give, not someone like me. I refused so that he would forget about everything and find someone more deserving of an angel like him."

Trowa looked at her in shock. That was not the answer he expected. "You know what?" he said, a little anger edging into his voice. "That’s just plain selfish of you."

She looked at him with a mixture of incredulity and hurt. "I thought you of all people would understand."

"I’m sorry, because I don’t," Trowa retorted. "Quatre’s been so depressed since that night and only until recently did he stop acting as if his world had suddenly come to an end. Dammit, oneechan, he’s so in love with you and you can’t even let yourself believe that you could be loved back." He shook her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. "Don’t sell yourself short, believing that you don’t deserve someone like him. You could have at least offered him an explanation."

"He wouldn’t have understood," she whispered as she hung her head.

"The hell he wouldn’t," Trowa whispered harshly. "He’s been hurt in this war just like every one of us. You could have told him that you were the devil himself and he still would have loved you, if he knew that the person that he’d fallen in love with was still there."

Kristen closed her eyes and twin tears fell from them. "But now it’s too late...."

"No, it’s not," Trowa whispered gently, lifting her chin so their eyes met. "I want to know if you love him."

Kristen looked at him, for once trusting in another. "Yes. I love him so much, I’d die for him if I have to."

Trowa nodded satisfied. "Tell him that," he said as he gave her a hug. "Tell him everything and he’ll understand, and, by God, he’ll love you more for it."

Kristen returned his embrace, for once feeling the mask of lies and deceit she’s woven around herself crumble. She would tell Quatre the truth and even if her brother was wrong about his assumption, she knew that she’d be doing the right thing.

*-*-*-*-*-*

She was transferred to another room shortly after and was besieged by friends and acquaintances as well as the media. Gail stopped by more than once, lecturing her about the foolishness of standing in the way of a speeding bullet. Through all this, Kristen maintained a cheerful face, continuing to scan each drove of visitors that came to see her. Unfortunately, the one person that she wanted to see in that crowd was suspiciously absent. It seemed that Quatre had more important things to take care of than to come over for a visit.

Kristen was taking a nap when she felt something touch her lips. She opened her eyes and nearly fell into shock when she saw Quatre. A part of her said that she was only dreaming while the other part was screaming that this was as real as it could get.

"So, how are you?" he asked her as he settled into the seat beside the bed.

"I’ve been a whole lot better," she joked. "as Trowa and Gail have pointed out over and over again, opting to take a bullet meant for someone else wasn’t exactly the brightest of ideas."

Quatre laughed as he kissed her softly on the lips. She closed her eyes and savored the sensation of his lips on hers. It had seemed like an eternity since they’d kissed this way. "Trowa said that you had something to tell me," he whispered as they broke the kiss. "He said that you were now ready to tell the truth."

Kristen closed her eyes and took a deep breath. This time she would tell him everything and let him judge her. Quatre settled down as Kristen told him the same story she’d told Trowa -- how their brother Nic had saved her from the fire, how her family died, how she survived. Through it all, Quatre maintained a neutral face. It was impossible to tell what the normally expressive Arabian was thinking.

After telling the tale, she nervously waited for Quatre’s reaction. To her surprise, he took her in his arms and held her as he tight. Laying her head on his chest, she savored the sound of his heart beating beside her. It was comforting to hear that beat, so close to her own.

"Did you ever think for one moment that I’d think of you differently?" Quatre asked her as he lifted her chin to look into her eyes, and losing himself into their emerald depths. "I told you once before that it doesn’t matter to me what happened in your past. I know the person I see before me. This is the person I love." He fished in his pocket and produced the familiar velvet box. He opened the lid and the diamond ring it contained blazed with the fire from the light of the setting sun filtering in from the window. "The offer still stands. Only now, something’s changed," he said as he got down on one knee before the side of the bed. "I no longer ask this of Christiana Mallory, but of Kristen Toran Lorenger: will you marry me?"

"Yes," she whispered as he slipped the ring into her finger, her eyes wet with tears of joy.

"I love you, Kristen," he said as he took her in his arms. "Forever."

*-*-*-*-*-*

Trowa waited patiently at the altar beside Quatre as he waited for his sister to walk down the aisle. They were all once again gathered at the same church where, almost six months ago, Wufei and Sally had exchanged vows. It was Christmas and they had chosen to get married on a day when there was hope enough for all the people in the world.

Kristen walked down the aisle in a magnificent white gown. This time, Professor H had been drafted to act as the father of the bride since he was the closest person to a father figure that Quatre could think of.

He marveled at her as she shyly took her place beside him, looking even lovelier than ever.

The cardinal looked at the young couple and sighed a little as he began to speak.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the union of this couple in holy matrimony." He turned to Quatre and said, "do you Quatre Raberba Winner take this woman, Kristen Toran Lorenger, to be your lawfully wedded wife to have and to hold, for richer and poorer, in sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live till death do you part?"

"I do," he said solemnly.

The cardinal nodded solemnly as he turned to Kristen and smiled. "Do you, Kristen Toran Lorenger, take this man, Quatre Raberba Winner, to be your lawfully wedded husband to have and to hold, for richer and poorer, in sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live till death do you part?"

"Even beyond forever," she whispered as Quatre squeezed her hand in affection.

The cardinal straightened himself and said to the gathering, "if there is someone in this place that will object to this union, come and sayeth forth now or forever hold your peace."

The silence in the cathedral was overwhelming and lasted for a good three minutes. After the silent ordeal, the cardinal turned to the couple with a sweeping gesture and said, "by the power vested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride."

Quatre wrapped Kristen in his arms as he kissed her tenderly as the gathering clapped and cheered. Trowa watched as the sister he loved and his best friend shared the sacred kiss. To him it was a union of two angels that have come to his life -- one from the present and one from the past. He knew without a doubt that all angels watched from heaven and were singing their songs of hope, not just for mankind, but also for the new beginning of the two angels that have graced his life.

He wrapped his fingers around Catherine’s as they walked over to congratulate the newlyweded couple, a smile of peace and happiness on his face.

------------------------ The End -----------------------

"Ahh! Finally! WAI!!!!"

BANG! PLOP!

Lady Aria had been stretching her arms over her head and managed to tip the chair back and fell into a heap. She is now lying motionless on the floor with chibi Gundams and their respective pilots, not to mention a few lemons, hovering in an erratic dance over her head -- spirals taking the place of her eyes. Terri happened to pass by and regarded the fallen writer mournfully. She stopped to pluck an enthusiastic chibi Duo from its flight and plopped him on her shoulder.

"Not again," she said.

She and the chibi Duo both shook their heads in dismay. The little Duo whispered something into her ear and she smiled.

"You are so right," he said to him, gathering all the floating lemons and making a beeline for the kitchen. After all, when you do have lemons, make lemonade!