Disclaimer: I don't own the GW characters – am just borrowing to torment for my amusement

Warnings: Swearing, yaoi, violence, hints of long past NCS

Pairings: Primarily 3x2, past/presentish 1x2, past 3x4 and 1x3

A/N: Another multi-part fic before I finished posting Domino! Hopefully this won't slow down any updates for Domino and I will try to post updates weekly for both of these. I just managed to write the first two chapters and the whole plan of this in one night – jet lag and switching time zones are really messing with my sleeping pattern!

Chapter One

Knife Skills

The sound of a scream, the rustle of tent fabric and the sudden heavy movement of booted feet woke Trowa up from a not so deep sleep. For a moment, he thought he was dreaming. He frequently dreamt of death and violence, the past as both a mercenary and a Gundam pilot haunting his sleeping hours while during the daylight he tried to forget. However, the scream was high pitched. Female. And familiar. It took only a few seconds for the gun he slept with to be produced along with the thin knife and for him to jump out of the bed and head out of the temporary tent to the sound of the disturbance.

Catherine and Eli's tent was not far from Trowa's in the circuses temporary structures. He slept separately from them as he lived his life constantly in the presence of his "sister" and nephew that at night it was the only time he could be alone. Solitary. As he had been. Before the war, when he was still nameless, No-Name. The night was cold as he ran, his long legs carrying him the distance swiftly. In the ten years since the war, he'd grown taller, his now 6"4 frame filled out due to his constant training and performances – the trapeze act that the circus had now become famous for. He'd even allowed the Ring Master to use his image on the promotional poster – an image in which he was shirtless. Catherine had nudged him when they saw the proofs and seemed to be either having some kind of spasm or was winking excessively. He had chosen winking as the option.

"You look handsome… you'll get all the girls in with that…"

His shoulders and wrists still ached from the days two performances, his body starting to heal less readily than when he was teenager, the left wrist still strapped up as he had been weary and exhausted after the night's final performance. It didn't help that his sleep was disturbed with the thought of Catherine and Eli. And Alexei Nabokov. Mostly him. The thought of returning to the mercenary boy he'd been, to the blades he'd been so skilled at wielding, the methods of torture he'd been taught often flashed through his head when he thought of Nabokov. And that was all he could think of now.

Trowa could hear the sound of shuffling feet and the tent flap was open to where Catherine and Eli slept. His heart leapt in his chest, heated blood was pumping through his veins and despite the chilled air and the fact he was only dressed in a baggy white t-shirt and shorts, Trowa felt as though he burned. He wouldn't dare. Nabokov wouldn't. He was the master manipulator. He was using the courts, lawyers, the legal system and bribery to claim custody of the five year old boy that he had suddenly taken an interest in that had not been there the prior years. He wouldn't be so… open. So brutal. He had been insidious. Questioning Catherine's suitability as a mother due to her low earnings and using Trowa's life and experiences to try and retrieve custody of the boy. A boy he'd met less than five times in the five years he'd been born. He tried to convince himself that Nabokov wouldn't but with a sickness, he put the knife between his teeth and held out his gun as he entered the tent.

"This is a message from Alexei. I believe he wanted me to say die bitch," the male voice said in heavily accented Russian.

The man's back was turned to Trowa, Catherine was on the floor, the bedding tangled in her limbs and her eyes were full of tears. And with an awful realisation, he saw the small bed, the one with dinosaur bedding was empty. Catherine's big eyes glanced behind the man and she exchanged the shortest of looks with Trowa as he crept up behind him. He gently dropped his weapons to the floor, the man too preoccupied with killing the young woman in front of him to hear the sound of a quiet killer. Trowa approached the man, putting him in what appeared a headlock. The proximity to the man meant that Trowa could smell alcohol, something cheap and the smell of perspiration. The man was a mercenary. His clothing was threadbare and ill fitting. It was lean times for mercs. Peace never was when the money was earned.

"The brother…" the man muttered.

"Where are you taking him?"

"To his father…where a boy belongs."

In an instant, Trowa's forceful hands snapped the neck and dropped the man in front of him. Catherine screamed as the body collapsed in front of her. The instantaneous loss of life shocking her in its brutality. Trowa knelt down to his sister, still wrapped in the blankets from her bed and lifted her head up a little more forcefully than was necessary. She was shivering but from shock or cold he was not sure.

"Catherine. How many?"

"Eli…Trowa… they got him."

"I'm aware. How many men?"

Her eyes, watery and large in the darkness looked startled by his tone. He had no time and he knew he was being harsh with her but he needed to leave. Every second was important.

"Four." Her eyes glanced to the body behind Trowa. "Three now."

"Which direction?"

"Back of the tent."

The tents were lined up alongside a wood of interminable size. The Big Top and main attractions were in the clearing that had a main road not far from it. The trailers and tents for the performers and animals were at the back of this, far away from the main road and offered a route directly into the woods. Trowa had not scouted the area, not checked the size of the woods and was unsure if anyone fleeing towards the woods would have to double back on themselves and approach the main road or whether there was a way through. He hadn't needed to know these things for so many years. He was a civilian. A circus performer. An uncle. Not a soldier. Not a mercenary.

He rose to his feet grabbing his weapons and leaving a startled Catherine on the floor. The tent had a rip in it done by a serrated blade, the way the fabric hung showing him that much. Serrated blades. Sadistic sons of bitches.

"Scream, Catherine. Scream as loud as you can."

"Trowa…"

"Get help. Get everyone awake."

"Wha… what are… you going to do?"

"Get him back."

He left, jogging towards the woods, knife in one hand, the gun in the other. For a second there was silence but as he ducked into the trees, the sound of Catherine's screams could be heard.

He smiled, a sad smile on an otherwise expressionless face.

'You will not wish to see this, sister,' he thought.

The men had been noisy around the camp once they'd retrieved their quarry. It was easier for Trowa to think of Eli as something to retrieve. If he thought about the boy, the nephew who idolised him, his shadow then he would lose all sense of reason, all the power he had would be gone and he would be a feral beast thrashing through the woods. He had not been known for infiltration and stealth during the war for no reason. In fact, there was only person he'd ever met who could at least compete – Duo Maxwell for all the jokes and talk was perhaps just as adapt at stealth, though more so in an urban environment.

He stopped for a second once he was completely concealed in the trees and leaned against a trunk, taking a deep breath. The initial heat of the moment had started to evaporate and the sweat on his skin was chilling him to the bone. Or maybe it was the thought of Eli, not in his bed with dinosaur covers and spaceship pyjamas with his mother close by. He tried to banish the thought of Eli being carried by harsh men, men the like that Trowa had known as a boy, for a second he thought he might be sick. The images of his own childhood had flooded to the forefront of his mind. The moments of abuse, the moments he'd been far too young to understand at the time, the hands of drunk and callous men with a boy not old enough to defend himself. He learnt. No-Name learnt but not before things had happened. He steadied himself and took a few deep breaths. That was the life he never wanted for Eli. He stood straight and cocked his head to one side to listen to the world around him.

They couldn't move as fast as he could. He was agile, his body honed and trained, flexible. They were three mercenaries who had drunk cheap booze to get up the nerve to kidnap a little boy and kill a woman. They also had the boy. Unless Eli was knocked out, he couldn't imagine the boy not resisting. It was true Eli was a quiet boy. Catherine often despaired of it when she found him sat with his uncle. They'd fix the Jeeps and trucks that transported the circus performers and equipment. They'd sit together and draw. Eli would watch his uncle train and tell him when he was doing good and bad. They'd look after the lions. She'd smile and pretend she was angry with them. Putting her hands on her hips and pouting she'd look at them.

"What are my two boys up to?"

Trowa would share a small conspiring smile with his nephew which Eli would return as she stalked towards them, grabbing her son for a kiss and a ruffle of hair and leaving Trowa with a touch on his shoulder, his arm. She was very aware of the boundaries of their relationship after the years in close quarters. Maybe now she understood that he needed the space. She had been over-protective towards him for long enough. She did even vaguely regretted throwing the knife at Heero Yuy. Though perhaps not for the startled expression in deep blue eyes. The man who had saved the world, the hero of the free world was someone Catherine had managed to scare with a well-placed knife. She only wished that Alexei had feared her knife throwing skills.

Trowa wished he did. Catherine could be formidable when she wanted to be. As he listened, calming his own breathing, he could determine their direction. They had not gained much of a head start on him. They sounded loud, their boots heavy, movements sloppy and one of them carrying a wriggling child. Indeed, now that his own heart had stopped beating out of his chest and the objectivity could return, he knew they were easy prey. Like his lions, Trowa had been a caged animal for so long, confined to civility and peace, but if he was let out of the cage…

He pursued, his bare feet making his movement virtually silent. He knew he should feel discomfort but his mind was elsewhere, his body was a tool for this mission and he would feel the pain later. He stopped for a second as the voices were suddenly becoming more audible. The men were speaking in Russian and Trowa understood some of the words. His own nationality had been obscure, his own circumstances of birth completely unknown yet he knew from his genetics he was likely of European descent. He could be Russian for all he knew. But that thought chilled him. He wouldn't even want to be born on the same soil as Alexei. He knew some Russian. He knew pieces of many languages. Being among mercenaries meant many nationalities and he learnt any words he could. It had not been to say many of them but to understand what was being said around him. To know when to run. To know when to have a knife to fight back with. Things Eli would never have to learn.

They had stopped and were arguing about direction, Trowa understood enough as he continued his silent approach. The darkness of the night and the trees meant that it was difficult to see but his eyes had adjusted, the stars and a full moon providing enough light for his green eyes. They were not like him. They had torches and they had come into his view. They were doing sweeping arcs around the vicinity. Obviously they were waiting for the rendezvous with their comrade. Listening out for the fourth man in this collection of worthless paid guns. He crouched to the ground to avoid detection as he made his approach to the collection of men.

Two were arguing while the third had deposited Eli on the floor. He looked at his nephew. So like Catherine. He was crying silently, shoulders hunched and sobbing. He remembered saying to Eli that boys didn't cry after a cut on a scrap of metal left lying carelessly around the circus grounds. It was as though boy was taking his advice. It seemed his temperament was a bad influence on Eli. It would help if he'd screamed loudly – as soon as the men had got him from his bed. It would have allowed precious moments for Trowa to be in the nearby tent and have them dead before they left the circus camp. He wouldn't have needed long.

One of the men announced he was going to piss and Trowa watched carefully as he walked away from the group. It made him think of the lions. Predators sought weaknesses, separate and conquer. The man walked unnecessarily far away.

'Bad move,' Trowa thought, he put the gun in the back of the waist band of his shorts with the safety on. There was no need for a gun tonight but he didn't want to lose the reassuring metal of the weapon. Tonight was for his knife. The man found a tree that he'd deemed appropriate. He had obscured himself completely from his comrades which was beyond stupid.

Trowa's steps were not heard as the man went to unzip his fly. His hand had started the movement, the sounds of the zip seemed loud and unnatural against the woods gentle swaying of branches. The man had no time to react as the blade sliced through his neck, the artery severed, his body taking only a few moments to fall and bleed out on the floor. Satisfied with the lack of noise and the effective quickness of his death, Trowa knelt to pat down the man briefly to try and find some information. He found a wallet and he borrowed the dead man's torch to see. The wallet had cash in various currencies – dollars, pounds, Euros and nothing else. He threw it to the ground and stood up, realising his knees were now covered in not just dirt from the floor but blood. There were few seconds before the other two would realise that the man lying dead had not returned swiftly enough so he used the trees for cover, crouching to avoid the torches spinning arcs.

The man with Eli had a hand on the boys shoulder. A hand that Trowa wanted to cut off. His nephew was utterly terrified. Catherine had decided that Eli shouldn't know Trowa's past, there were no stories of mobile suit battles, no stories of gun play and certainly no violence. They had stopped the knife throwing act years before as Eli had got upset when he was too young to understand fully. Why was mommy throwing knives at Uncky Trowa? It made no sense to the boy and upset him. It stopped and Trowa began his solo trapeze act while Catherine worked on the candy concession.

For a second, Trowa doubted Catherine's mothering, the over-protective streak he knew well. Eli had been far too sheltered. Yet he had been complicit. By five, Trowa had already been in a mercenary group so that for him, the fact Eli didn't know blood and pain and death by five was an improvement. He wanted to keep the boy pure. Now Alexei had destroyed that wish. It made him even more sure that the man would never touch the boy again. He may have got Catherine pregnant but Alexei Nabokov was no father. He would die before he got near Eli again.

One of the other men realised his friend had not returned and shouted an order to keep a hold of the boy. Trowa couldn't help the slightest smiles to cross his face. Alexei's mistake had been not to kill him first. If Trowa was dead, Catherine would have quickly followed and his son would be easily obtained. Leaving a former Gundam pilot alive was stupid.

'Never underestimate any of us. This will be your mistake, Alexei. He'll be forever out of your reach after this.'

A beam of torchlight indicated that the man was moving and Trowa stayed hidden. It took only a few moments for him to find the body of his fallen comrade. The knife was raised to repeat the action he'd completed moments before but the man was surprisingly quick. His eyes met Trowa's green, the one visible eye showing a moment of panic. It had been a long time since he'd been involved in close quarter combat and the slowness of his limbs was disconcerting. His injuries and strains from his trapeze acts hampering his abilities from his war time physique. The man died quickly but not before he could shout.

"Run!" the man shouted, a second later the knife slit his throat, the cut less precise and blood spraying over the leaves, tree and Trowa's torso. The men fell but not before the warning was given.

'Shit,' he thought and chased after the sound of running and crashing through undergrowth.

The final man was bright blonde, his hair standing out in the gloom. Trowa ran after him and calculated. The way the man was holding Eli was problematic. He couldn't shoot the man as he ran away as the bullet could go through the body and into Eli. It left only one option. He wanted this over quick. The knife span from his fingers with skilled ease. Catherine wasn't the only one adapt at throwing blades.

A groan was heard as the knife lodged in the man's shoulder blades and Eli was dropped and rolled to the side. Trowa approached his nephew who looked scared and confused. He knelt down to see the boy was uninjured. A few cuts and scrapes but nothing more.

"Eli… I need you to look away. Can you do that for me?"

The boy nodded.

"Look that way," he said pointing towards the other way from the man who was groaning and clawing the ground to get away.

Trowa stood and approached the man, he leant down and grabbed the knife from his back, the scream of pain reverberated loudly. He glanced at Eli who was holding his small hands over his ears and looking in the opposite direction. Trowa forcefully kicked the man over so that he was face up, his eyes were blue, that he noticed as he knelt down and put his knee hard into the man's chest.

The man laughed. "We're only the first."

"I would expect no less of Alexei."

"You can't always protect the boy… he'll get what he wants…he always does."

The man's eyes widened as Trowa drove the knife into the man's heart and then removed it swiftly. The arterial spray started, staining the white t shirt he had slept in, some of his neck and a few splatters on his face. It had been so long since he'd killed but there was still the satisfaction of knowing that these worthless men would not walk the earth. He rose back to his feet, raising bloody hands to his face and then looked over to Eli. He had not looked away for the whole time.

Trowa registered what he would look like. He was covered in other men's blood, in his hair, on his face, the gentle uncle who fixed cars, who drew, was not who Eli had seen. It was the mercenary, the soldier, the killer, the murderer. The monster. He didn't know what to say to the boy, instead, he dropped to his knees next to his nephew and rested his hands gently on shivering shoulders.

"Look at me, it's me, Trowa."

Eli wouldn't look. His eyes darted to where the body was. Trowa's body was obscuring the gruesome image but boy's wide dark eyes were full of unshed tears and his lips trembled.

"They were bad men, Eli. Bad men."

Eli nodded but avoided looking at Trowa.

"Are you tired?"

The boy nodded again.

"Can I carry you back to mommy?"

Little hands suddenly gripped his bloody shoulders and Trowa wrapped his arms around his precious nephew. He lifted him gently into his arms and began to walk back to the circuses camp.

"I'll never let anything happen to you," he said gently, as fingers held tightly to the now red t shirt.

He never would. But right now he would need back up. And there were very few people he would trust to protect Eli. And there was only one he could call.

A man dressed in black with a long rope of hair. The man who had not expected to survive a war and called himself the God of Death. The man with a dubious past and even more dubious present.

He needed Duo Maxwell.

He needed Shinigami.