Carpe Diem: Part 1 of 3

Dentelle noir

Warnings: Fluff, Get-together. Un-beta'd. PG-13 this chapter--may change.

Summary AU. 3x4. They say it's fate when you meet the same person three times in one day. Trowa Barton,though, just can't seem to get the timing right when it comes to the beautiful blonde he keeps bumping into.

It all started with a book. I was hurrying down the bustling city street, my Starbucks in my hand and my briefcase tucked tightly under my arm. I was on my way to visit my agent and go over any last minute problems with the book release scheduled for tonight. It was my book-- The second book published with "Trowa Barton" as its author, actually. Everyone was going to be asking me about a third tonight, and that just pissed me off. I just didn't have one, and why could people NEVER be happy with what they had?

My first book had been an action story, and the one being launched today was its sequel. I did not want to do a third in the same genre. I was sick of wars and stoic heroes. My agent, Wufei Chang, told me to try something romantic and uplifting, and I scoffed at him. Every time I turned around all I saw was people closed in their own worlds and bumping, hitting, pushing past everyone around them just to get to their own destinations a quarter second faster. It was sickening. How was I supposed to write something about the good in humanity when this was what was all around me? I saw a man reading a book—my book? What did it matter?-- while he navigated the sidewalk like a bulldozer.

You would have thought that since I saw him coming I would have been able to avoid him, but I swerved to the left, stepping onto the door step of the little bakery/coffee shop to avoid him. Stupidly, though, the idiot hadn't even bothered to see what I was doing, and even though I had given him the whole goddamn sidewalk, he plowed right into me, his shoulder knocking me back with such force that I went stumbling into the bakery door.

Which some idiot on a phone ("No, Dan, I don't know what you're talking about? I-what? That's not what I meant! Look, can't we just... work this out?") was opening, just in time to make me fly into the shop and skid on the tile floor, my coffee flipping back and completely soaking my crisp white business shirt in scalding dark roast.

"HOLY SHIT!" the man on the phone squeaked, and dropped his phone, the dainty little instrument popping apart into about three pieces. I knew he would go to pick it up like most—

He walked right over the remains of his phone and yelled for a towel, and began to blot my shirt, "Are you alright?! Are you burnt?" he asked frantically. The clearest blue eyes I had ever seen looked up into my eyes, worry for a perfect stranger glittering in them. He was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful, too, with soft features and cherub-blonde hair but an inner strength that I could see from the furrow his brows. He was probably wondering if I was going to sue him.

"I'm alright...Just... Fuck." My shirt was completely ruined, which I wouldn't really care that much about, except I was on my way to a business meeting! "Murphy's fucking law" I grunted, and it was true. The only day that I cared... THIS happened?

The blonde smiled softly, "I bet you were on your way to something important, right?" The blonde asked. He had handed me the towel by now, and was retrieving the pieces of his phone, sticking them back together. It started ringing as soon as it was re-connected, but he just glared at it for a moment, then stuffed it into his pocket.

"Meeting with my agent." I replied with a grunt, gingerly pulling myself off the tile floor and shaking the dirt and coffee drips off myself. Thankfully my coat had been mostly saved (and what wasn't was hardly noticeable, since my coat was a deep brown, just like my hair).

"Are you an actor?" The blonde asked, blinking in surprised, "You really don't seem the type... Not talkative enough."

"Writer," I responded in one word. Perhaps he was right about my lack of chatter; I never used a phrase when one word would do all the work I needed. I personally hated idle chit-chat. Everything I recorded was integral to the story, character, symbolism. It all had a meaning. Why spend time on the 'hello' and 'how de'do's of the world when they didn't do anything but add weight? I didn't find a need for all that.

"A writer! That makes much more sense. Well, this was one heck of a 'hello' right? Hello! My name's Quatre." The blonde said, rummaging through what seemed like a gym bag, holding his own coffee aloft in his other hand.

I envied his coffee. I also thought it was funny that he would make such a point of saying the greeting that I had just been rallying against, yet, with those soft blue eyes and a big bright smile looking expectantly at me, I couldn't say anything BUT: "Hello."

"I...Have a clean T-shirt if it will help you?" The blonde said, pulling out a white sporty T from the gym bag and gesturing it my way, "It's a medium...a little big for me, maybe too small for you... I'm sorry it's all I have..."

"Talk about giving people the shirt off your back," I said in surprise.

Behind the bakery counter the server burst out laughing, his braid swinging behind him as he cackled madly. Even the blonde was grinning, wiping a tear from his eye, "Duo's always saying that stuff about me. I never realized it could be taken literally...You must be quite an interesting writer."

"Not really," I responded easily, "I've only written two published books, and people only read them for the explosions and hot teenage pilots, I think. My writing skill is barely part of the equation."

The blonde laughed...and it was the most musical and beautiful thing I had ever heard... Right on the wings of that thought, I could hear Wufei on my shoulder telling me in that elitist know-it-all voice he reserved especially for advice to me: "Carpe Diem, Barton! Or you'll never stop seeing the miserable side of everything."

"I'm actually having a book launch tonight. It's going to be quite the party... Would you like to come? I could give you your shirt back them..." I asked, suddenly feeling nervous, but remembering Wufei's words, and produced a slim card—it was an invitation and free-pass to get in. I knew, though, I wasn't asking him to come as a way to thank him for his assistance or to give him back the shirt. I think he was well aware of it too, because he blushed.

The phone in his pocket began to ring again with renewed vigor, and he bit his lip. "I- I'm sorry...I would have liked to go, but... I'm supposed to be having dinner tonight...with my boyfriend. I'm sorry..." and he smiled sadly, holding the phone in his hand as it rang like crazy.

I nodded softly, "I'm sorry. Of course you are. That was very abrupt of me. I just... Carpe Diem, you know?"

Quatre smiled brightly, warming up to me again and chirped, "Definitely!" But that damn phone just kept ringing! The blonde seemed to be getting frustrated with it too. He grabbed his coffee and stuffed the invitation into his gym bag, zipping it closed, and then moving back towards the door, waving backwards at me sadly, and then his face turned hard as he opened the phone and yelled into it, "WHAT Dan!? –No, I didn't hang up on you! A guy stumbled into me and my phone—Why are you so angry!?" and then he was gone, out in the street and off on his way.

The man behind the counter clicked his tongue, getting my attention, and he sighed, "All the good ones are taken," as a condolence. "Why don't you change in the bathroom, dude? By the way—Have I read your book?"

I lifted a brow, "And I would know if you've read my book...how?" I said cynically. I wasn't in the best spirits, now that the sunny blonde was gone and I was now LATE on top of being covered in coffee and hassled. My inner cynic was kicking the inner Wufei for making me think I just might have had a chance with the blonde.

"You never gave Quatre your name, you know, Author-Boy. Real smooth, I mean, asking him out before introductions? Good one." The server said as he wiped down the display case.

Christ. He was absolutely right. I sighed in defeat, "My name is Trowa. Trowa Barton...if he happens to be back here..."

"Oh, he will be. He is every day. You can bring his shirt back here too, dude. I'll make sure he gets it." And that was what I thought would be the last of that meeting. The city was huge. Unless he decided at the last minute to attend the book signing and launch, I didn't think I'd ever see him again.

Little did I know, Fate was out to make my life a little brighter. Apparently fate was sick of my war-books too. Who knows, maybe she was a fan?

TBC