Smoke and Mirrors.
The shadow crept through the doorway, then paused by the tall figure that stood by the lion cage. The shadow smiled, a bittersweet expression of painful memories, and continued to the tall man's quarters, where she left her offering before vanishing.
Trowa patted the head of his favorite lion one more time and made his way tiredly to his trailer. All he wanted was sleep. His bed called a siren song to him, and nothing was going to keep him from it. But still, a slight chill ran down his back as he approached his home, knowing that something would happen.
His entire mind, body, and soul froze when he saw what was sitting on his window frame. A rose, its petals as pure white as the virgin snow, lying on a single scrap of creamy parchment. Picking it up, the long stem of the rose smooth as silk against his fingers, he read the note, his heart in his throat.
Know you, it read, in a simple, elegant script that was somehow familiar to him, even though he was quite sure he'd never seen that particular handwriting before. It was signed Smoke and Mirrors. It should have sounded threatening, especially considering his secret identity as a Gundam pilot, but somehow he knew that it wasn't. It felt… soothing. Soft, like the handwriting. Not threatening.
Puzzled, carrying the rose, he made his way into his apartment and put the rose in a vase, then headed to bed. His dreams were filled with the soft flow of white hair, the crash of waves, and a gleam of twisted, shattered silver.
He hurried at closing up that night, filled with a strange sense of anticipation even though he couldn't really know whether the someone would leave another gift or not. Somehow, though, he knew, warned by the same chill he had felt the night before, that the someone was there, watching.
He crept up to the trailer, listening with all of his considerable senses, searching for the someone. He was making his way up the steps, silently as the cats he lived with, when he heard the betraying creak of a footstep on the floor inside. Silently triumphant, he burst through the door and looked around.
Nothing except the sigh of the wind through the open window.
He rushed over and looked out, but didn't see anything. Defeated, he pulled back and turned to survey the room, looking for what he knew was there.
Sitting on the table was one perfect yellow rose, stem smooth and thornless, resting on a scrap of parchment as before. Heart in his throat, he picked it up, knowing somehow that he should stop, not read, throw it and the rose and the gifts of the night before away and never think about this again. Somehow he knew that this would change his life forever, but somehow, he just didn't care.
Miss you, it said, in the same simple but elegant script as the other one. Miss you, Smoke and Mirrors. His fist started to close, started to crush the note and all it meant into a ball of nothing, but then he stopped, forced his fingers to open and he laid the note out on the table, smoothing the wrinkles out with the tender hands of a lover. Then, shaken, he left everything sitting on the table where he had found it, and stumbled to bed.
When he slept, he dreamt of a smooth expanse of glittering gilded sand and two expressive golden eyes, filled with tears, tears that overflowed to drown him for his sins.
The next evening he approached his trailer whistling, not even bothering to be quiet, and indeed going out of his way to make a lot of noise. Just as he expected, he heard nothing when he reached the porch and sat down, because the person would have left quickly and noiselessly the second he or she heard him coming. So he sat there for a moment and just waited.
Sure enough, a moment later he saw a shadow creeping across the wide expanse of the lawn in front of him. Soundlessly as the cats he spent his days with, he uncoiled from his sitting position and sprung across the yard with one long leap. The shadow tried to flee, but he reached out and caught at the black cloak before the person wearing it could escape.
When the struggle ended, and the person slumped in his grip, he reached out and slowly drew the hood back. Somehow he knew, even before he saw her face, who it was. But he avoided her tawny eyes, and instead looked down to what she held in her hand. He took the crimson rose from her, and looked uncomprehending as the thorns on the stem drew a single drop of blood from his finger, a drop that welled and spilled onto the note wrapped around the stem, a tiny crimson stain that spread into the creamy parchment. Slowly, as if in a dream, he unrolled the note and stared at what was written there, somehow knowing that everything in his life, everything that had happened before, was leading up to this moment, and he didn't even know who he really was. The one thing he did know, however, was who the person was.
Love you, Smoke and Mirrors, the note said. He crushed it in his fist as he raised his eyes to meet the sad golden ones of Midii Une.
"Get out."
She didn't look surprised. No, not surprised
at all, just sad. She just looked at him, looked at him with her breaking heart
in her eyes, and smiled a sad little smile that he remembered from so long ago.
"I couldn't expect more, could I?
To you, love's not real. Only death is. Everything else is just smoke and
mirrors to you, isn't it?"
His only answer was the tormented
gleam in his emerald eyes.
She smiled again, a twist of the lips
that held more sadness then real joy, and turned to leave. He made a harsh
noise in his throat, and she whirled back to face him, hope in her eyes. But
then he turned away, so he didn't see that fragile ember of hope shrivel and
burn into ash, leaving her eyes cold and dead, just empty, lifeless shells.
This time when she turned and left, she didn't look back.
The next
morning, Trowa staggered from his bedroom, his eyes still heavy with sleep,
only to stop in surprise in the doorway. Midii sat at
the table, the red rose in her slender hands. The scarred surface of the table
was covered with rose petal, in white and yellow and red. The rose she held in
her hand had only three petals left, and a few drops of blood drawn from her
hands by the thorned stem of the rose, held
carelessly in her hands, fell among the soft petals on the table. He stared in
shock at those few small drops, scattered among the torn symbols of the love
that she had given him like drops of blood from her very heart, broken by him
with a few words he never truly meant. Then he heard her voice, a soft murmur in
the silence of the room, and he realized what she was saying.
"He loves me not," she said
as a petal fell.
"He loves me," she said, as
once more a scrap of crimson fluttered down to the tabletop. And he saw that
there was only one petal left on the rose.
"He love
me not," and the last petal fell. But before it could touch the tabletop,
he crossed the room in one stride and scooped it out of the air. Holding it in
his calloused palms, he held up his big hands and blew the petal towards her,
his soft breath caressing her face like a lover's touch. She sighed, closing
her eyes and catching the petal between her lips as she drew the scent of him
around her like a blanket to warm her on the cold nights ahead.
"Don't be too certain of
that," he said on a whisper, and she opened her eyes, afraid to hope. She
didn't want to hope again, not if it was going to be crushed again by a
careless shrug of his broad shoulders.
He smiled, not the bitter curve that
was so accustomed to resting on his lips but a real smile, one of true joy, and
reached out to cup her pale cheek in his hand. "I know you," he said,
caressing her cheek. "I need you."
Then he leaned down and kissed her,
the rose petal caught between their lips as their breath mingled. Then he pulled
back, just enough to whisper the truth he had held in his heart for years.
"I love you."