Notes: My first GW fic, although its been years since I first saw the show. Go figure.
Summary: At the circus, Trowa Barton lives a fairly contented life without most of his memories. That all changes when Quatre arrives. Shounen-ai implied.
Because He Was Crying"How long are you going to wait?"
The one addressed did not answer. Trowa Barton's fingers merely slowed in their
exploration of the velvet contours of his worn blue blanket. He had taken ill
for the past few days, and had remained bed-ridden for over half of them.
Outside his small makeshift tent, Trowa could hear the trumps of the elephants.
If he concentrated hard enough he could even feel the tension of the lions as
they paced around in their cages. The circus show would be starting without him
soon, as they had for many days.
"He's calling. Can't you hear him?"
Trowa's hand stilled on the coverlet, but he did not reply.
"He came to you, and you pushed him away."
Finally, Trowa turned his head away from the portal, "Cathy told me to
leave the tent, and I didn't know that boy."
"Your memory did not recognize him...but your soul did," the stranger
shifted in the shadows.
Trowa Barton came face to face with himself.
The questioner carried Trowa's impassive face, and his voice held Trowa's
smooth tone. An uncomfortably familiar green eye looked over the reclining
invalid.
"How long are you going to play the
fool?"
Trowa fidgeted and his hands floundered. He had few belongings, and still wore
some of the patchwork garments of his clown uniform. Its red seams provided a
pathway for his lost fingers to follow.
"Cathy wants to protect me from the war. She told me to stay with
her," Trowa's voice grew more confident as his fingers traced the lacy
diamond-shaped web," I like it here. I like watching over the lions, and
being able to stay with the people who care about me."
"You don't want to remember me. You keep trying to talk me away."
"It doesn't matter to me if I never remember," His fingers ran along,
trying to find a path that would lead them out of the geometric maze.
"Is this what you chose then, living an incomplete existence? Wishing not
even to know your true name?"
"My name?" The fingers searched desperately now.
"Goodbye, my shadow. You are less than even what I was," the figure
wearing a black turtleneck and a bitter smile began to melt into the darkness.
"Wait, who are you?" Trowa's hands flew out of their cage and reached out of their own accord.
"Nanashi." The reply echoed impossibly against the soft fabric of the tent walls.
Trowa's
palms were empty.
***
"Trowa."
A
cool hand smoothed over his brow. Slowly the person before Trowa began to
unblur, and he loosened his subconscious hold on the sheets. The tent was warm
and dark like a mother's womb, protecting its charge from all the dangers of
the outside world.
"Cathy?"
The worried wrinkles on his sister's forehead vanished as she smiled,
"Your fever's finally broken, and so has your nightmare from the way you
were tossing and turning. Do you want anything to drink? Water?" Trowa
nodded and watched the redhead busy herself at the tableside where a flowery
pitcher was standing.
"You
call her sister. But is she truly yours?" A small voice asked unobtrusively in the
back of his head. Trowa noticed the rim of the ceramic was chipped before he
mentally answered back, "She found me in the wreckage of a mobile suit.
She nursed me back to health. She gave me a home, and new memories when I had
none. How could I not be bound to her?"
Cathy had begun to pour. The voice was silent for a minute. Brooding.
"But he found you too, and you cast him away."
"That's...different," Trowa protested weakly. He had never
noticed before, but the sunflowers on the ceramic were faded. Their once
cheerful yellow faces looked like stains.
"He's crying. Can't you feel him? Or is your heart so cold...Trowa
Barton?"
"Trowa," Catherine smiled at him with a glass in one hand. Trowa took
the welcomed distraction gratefully. The water washed down his parched throat,
and away the foul guilt in his heart.
The fever was more tenacious.
Three
days had passed before it released its fiery grasp on Trowa. Three days, until
Trowa could sit as he sat now, upon the hay-strewn floor, gingerly stroking one
of the lions in their cages. Trowa's half mask was back on, and so were
additional ruffles that accompanied his costume.
"Hello?"
There was a blond head peeking shyly around the tent entrance. It was the boy.
Quatre. There was something in the visitor's hand. Trowa shifted away from the
bars, and the lioness withdrew.
"Hello, Trowa," Quatre beamed. His smile fell a little when no spark
of happy recognition greeted him. "I know that Catherine, your sister,
told me to stay away the last time I was here, but I -". The lioness
rumbled with interest. She had returned near the bars after deeming the
stranger was not a threat. Trowa watched with something akin to detachment.
What would Quatre do in face of such adversity? The grip on the case in
Quatre's hands tightened. The youth suddenly shoved the box into Trowa's lap with
hurried words, "Please accept this!" The lioness shrank back, but
returned to her vantage point. Trowa startled, but opened the black box. The
metallic sheen of a finely wrought flute was revealed.
"I know you don't remember a lot of things. That's it's probably better
that way," Quatre's eyebrows drew down in regret, "But I thought
you'd be sad if you didn't have music anymore. You seemed to like playing the
flute very much." Trowa eyed the instrument harshly. The lioness's tail
wavered in playful curiosity. Slowly Trowa fingered the flute, and lifted it to
his mouth.
Mechanical memory. The knowledge needed to do procedures. A person who forgets
his name will not easily forget how to ride a bike.
As Trowa's mouth brushed the metal, Quatre tried to calm shaking hands behind
his back; and yet, the Arab's gaze on Trowa's lips remained steadfast. Trowa
was about to exhale. The silence made him hesitate.
"I'm sorry," Trowa put down the flute and fumbled for words, "I do not think I can play." No, that was not it, Trowa knew he could play; his fingers itched and tingled. But it was as if he did not want to be the only one to…only one…to…
"We used to duet."
…break the silence.
Trowa looked up sharply. A heated blush spread
crimson hues across Quatre's cheeks, "That is, we did the first time when
we met. I played the violin with you. But you had to leave for a mission, so I
did not see you again for a long time. We never got another chance to play
together."
"Mission? We're we comrades in arms?" Trowa was surprised. This boy
was a soldier? The lioness in her cage rounded in her pacing, and approached.
"I-I'm sorry, Trowa," something in the pilot of Sandrock sudden withdrew, and Trowa felt bereft without the other's warmth. It was only in its absence that Trowa realized Quatre had exuded an aura of welcome that had enveloped him slowly since first eye contact. And now, that blessing began to drain away from Trowa's body.
"Sorry?"
"You don't remember, do you? We were friends, but I shot you down while I
was in Wing Zero," Quatre's gaze was directed at the floor. For the
briefest of moments, Trowa saw something heavy and dark flit through the
youth's eyes. Then Quatre moved his hand to cover them. When Quatre unveiled
his face and looked up again, the emotion had passed and his mouth had curved
into an unstable smile, " You probably don't even know what a Wing Zero
is, but I thought you were dead, Trowa. But you're alive! You're really alive
and here! You…you seem...really happy. So, I'm happy too. I promise, I won't
bother you again. I just need to see you Trowa. It's enough…" Quatre
trailed off. He said the words so earnestly, but the edges of his lashes were
dewy with the precursor of tears. Despite his smile, the Arabian had begun to
take further steps back.
Pain. Crushing pain.
The
brutal wreckage from which he'd been pulled out remained the last sharp point
in Trowa's otherwise dull memory. Betrayal. Was that the feeling that now
filled Trowa's bones? How could something so horrific be connected to the person
who stood in front of him? Trowa did not see the connection. The warmth had
been taken away so abruptly, and his cold-numbed tongue stumbled to convey that
reassurance, "I'm sorry, I don't remember you."
Quatre, now farther away from him (Trowa would almost say too far), looked
down, "It's okay. I'm just glad I got to meet you Trowa. I'm very glad,
even if we never see each other again. It was a terrible mistake. I'm sorry.
Please, I -"
The blonde boy with the sad blue eyes smiled guiltily again at Trowa. Silenced
by the seeming impassivity of Trowa's concentrated stare, Quatre bowed, and
left with his cheeks still wet. The lioness pressed desperately against her
cage, but their visitor did not look back.
Quatre was gone, but Trowa still stood there without understanding – and he was still cold.
Less than 24 hours later.
"Trowa!" Catherine Bloom called into Trowa's tent, the blades for her
knife-throwing act clanging sharply against her thigh. Trowa was sitting on his
bed. He had taken off his costume, and was dressed in normal civilian clothes.
His clown mask lay discarded on the floor.
"Cathy."
"What
are you doing out of costume?" Cathy took a clip out of her hair. The ornament
had once been a color as bright as sunshine, but what had been purchased so easily
and cheaply promised its own result. She tossed the tarnished yellow into a
nearby wastebasket and rummaged through her bag for a replacement that did not
exist, "Our act is starting in fifteen minutes. And whoa, boy, is the
ringmaster itching to have you back. You're the only one that won't flinch when
I throw my blades. We tried with Gary, but he was so chicken that his knees
turned to butter. You should have seen th-"
"I have to go back."
Cathy halted in shock.
"I've only stayed this long to tell you."
"W-What do you mean, Trowa?" The purse dropped to the ground, forgotten.
Trowa did not explain. It would be insulting if he believed the one he called "sister" did not understand him. An insult to him and Cathy both.
"Go
back?! Go back to what?! Nothing waits for you out there. Only the
battlefield!" Catherine's words erupted like lava as she made a wide
gesture at the door. Her boot trampled over her purse, but she did not notice;
she was far too agitated and angry. Trowa did not answer; his cool green gaze
remained clear. Cathy swiftly changed tactics, "Please, I lost my little
brother once. Don't take the one I call brother now away!"
Trowa rose swiftly to embrace his sister.
"I'm sorry. But he's calling me."
Catherine stiffened, and she did not ask the
question for which she already knew the answer. The answer that had stared at
her days ago with azure eyes…the one who would take the second person she
called brother away. Still, she tried, "Stay. Stay for me. Isn't that
enough?"
Trowa embrace tightened.
At the circus, he enjoyed quiet nights, drowsing by the fireside with Cathy and their circus companions as they ate dinner and sang old songs. Trowa had curled asleep alongside the lions during the first few days. He came to know well the comforting purrs and protective warmth of the large cats. It was the same warmth the people here exuded, the same one that Cathy held that had made the loss of is personal history, and his identity, trivial. He recalled Cathy's hearty laugh when he first donned on his flamboyant costume. He was sure he had never had the pleasure of making someone laugh so heartily.
Quatre…
Quatre hadn't laughed, but he'd smiled. The blond youth had poked his head shyly into the circus tent, looking half-nervous and half-scared as if Trowa would lash at him or throw him out. Trowa recalled the boy's gift. He wondered at the flute, wondered how he had played it. Quatre would know, Trowa wondered if the youth di-
Cathy's hold became near suffocating, and Trowa's wandering thoughts were trapped.
But…the
only tangible connection between him and the stranger had been this gift. Just
this gift. The cold metal of a flute, recalled only by Trowa's fingertips. Was
it enough?
"Isn't this life enough? Aren't I enough? Why?" Cathy echoed Trowa's
contemplations, burying further in his warmth. But Trowa could no longer seem
to share in hers.
"It was a terrible mistake. I'm sorry. Please, I- ".
Never…never had Trowa seen such a sad smile. Trowa buried his face in his sister's hair.
"Because Cathy…he's crying."
Because, deep inside Trowa, the boy called Nanashi knew Quatre must be cold, too.
The End
Next – Epilogue
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