Disclaimer:Don't own them (and you might not want them back after what I do to them anyway)

Warnings: Trowa POV, angst, 4+3 (implied 4x3).

Setting: AU, set two years after the war of AC195, EW didn't happen.

Quoted lyrics from "London Rain" (Heather Nova)

Just Might Break

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't be like this, I should..." you break off with a sigh and something within me constricts and stabs at my patience. It takes all my strength and self-control not to give in to temptation and snap at you.

Instead I flinch away, move to sit in the slightly worn chair in the corner of my bedroom. You curl up, folded in on yourself on my bed, hurt written on your features now, along with self-pity. I really can't stand it when you get like this. It's as if I can't tell you anything that's wrong with us or you'll get down and you'll mope and I'll be back to square one, having to remind you to do everything or you'll never get anything done. Then you'll sit there and angst about how terrible things are for you and how you never do anything right! You're impossible, I can't stand it, but I can't work out what to do. And it hurts because you never used to be like this, you always seemed so in control, earnest and willing. No, nearly always. Perhaps I just didn't know you well enough. Perhaps it was all an act on both our parts.

I have to admit to myself this mistake, on my part also. I should have left you months ago, before this got too far. Now I've given you a deadline, hoping to soften the blow. I shouldn't have even given that much, should have gone through with my first attempt to end this unhappy union. If only I could have been stronger. But you looked at me so lost with those pleading desperate eyes. How can your eyes still look like a child's despite all that you've been through, all the good and the bad that you've done?

Your shirt is beginning to show a damp mark. And I sit still as you cry and I feel ashamed. What could I do? I've always attempted to please people I've cared for, they've been few and far between I know. I can't stand to hurt them. That's why I stay away from as many as possible, to avoid having to be kind and considerate and help all the time. I listen to people's problems, I'm diplomatic, and I tell people what they want to hear. I know I've brought this on myself in that way.

I could have, should have stood firm, instead I gave in, crumbled under that childlike plea for help, for love. And it's all so tiring, all this human interaction. It wears me out more than piloting Heavyarms, more than spying, more than being alone. But I can't be alone either. I've been there, I've wallowed painfully, horribly in my loneliness and I promised myself when I found you, Quatre, never again. I'm not anti-social, does that surprise you to hear. No, I'm not like Heero; he actually doesn't like most people's companionship. I'm just asocial, because I need to please, because I'm so scared of hurting people or upsetting them. Simply to be around others for too long wears me out, makes me tired, brings out a side of me that I don't like too much but is definitely there.

Duo would probably call it my "bitchy side", and I do have one, I admit it. I'm not a nameless mystery and I do have emotions. I just feel uncomfortable showing them, because that makes people like you, and need you and want you to be with them constantly and it all gets too much and strangles me. Breathe. Watching you now I feel suffocated simply by being in the same room, we're still fighting even without words. You trying so hard not to cry, me doing all I can to hold myself back from comforting you and giving in all over again.

You see, it's reached the point now that I can't go on like this. It's too much pressure and it's too much hard work. It took me a long time to find 'me' again after I'd tried to dispose of feelings and emotions for so long. It got me through the war, but it ate me alive. And now Quatre, though I love you dearly, I can't keep giving myself to you, don't you understand? I can't do everything for you and be there twenty-four seven because it's getting hard to find me under everything spinning round my head that I should remind you to do! Something has to give, and I'm selfish enough that it is going to be you.

But I don't tell you my problems, do I, because that might make you dislike me, or get angry and hurt and I'd feel like the scum of the Colonies. So I just say "it's alright" and "we can try, of course", just like last time. I disgust myself on occasion. So I sit here, with my knees drawn up to my chin and my head resting on them, eyes not quite shut looking everywhere else but at you. And then there are tears and they are mine. That's another reason I can't stand this me. I never used to cry, never used to be so weak-willed and fragile. Another reason to hate me, I'm as screwed up as you are. If I could just get through one round of tremulous confrontation without weeping, this would be so much simpler. But I might still love you, Quatre, so much it hurts, and you're so clueless it hurts, and so I cry. And try to think of other things to stop the tears.

"Trowa?" You've stopped your sulking, or brooding or whatever you want to call it, and you've turned, half uncurled, to face me. Finally you've noticed something about me, something other than yourself! Bitch-mode on. Just push me a little further; sometimes I swear the only way I'll ever get out of this is to get pissed off at you, so just keep on pushing, my dear Quatre.

"Trowa, look at me." It's a demand, an order, and you might have actually done it this time. God, how I hate it when you take that superior tone, like I was your employee or slave. That's why I won't take a job working for you...but it never lasts long enough, the anger, and it's never hate at you. Maybe it's at the fact that I like being told what to do, so I hate myself, just a little more. Truth be told, I hate only what you do, not you, because I know if you knew how much it affected me, you'd stop. Or try at least; you're not very good at restraining yourself when you want something, are you.

No, I won't go there, I'm dealing with you now, not how you were, or how you've been before. But they're too similar sometimes. Still, my potential surge of vitriol and rebellion has passed and I mumble a 'doesn't matter'. You look for a moment like you'll come over here, take my chin to make me look at you, and I hate that too! Then you stop, halfway to standing, on your knees at the edge of the bed, the tangle of blue and white sheets around you feet. Instead you hang your head, and I want to wring your neck, but you don't mean to incense me, and I'm being unreasonable now. In this mood, in this situation, in this room where we replay such torrid, tear-filled scenes every few weeks, I loose focus at times. I'd never loose control, I've sworn that to myself, but my sense of proportion and rationality fly so far away. I close my eyes now to push it down, to regain my balance as my mind whirls.

The line of an old song drifts through my scattered thoughts.

When somebody needs you, well, there's no drug like that.

Maybe whoever wrote that really believed it. I can't, or if I do, then it's the kind of drug that will make you feel wonderful, high and invincible, only to demand more of your mind and body than you have to give. Ultimately it will leave you bruised and tattered and spent on the floor. That's how you leave me Quatre, and even as tonight I tried to confess this to you, you go and demand more, turn this into something about you.

But you love me, you don't have to tell me so many times, I know anyway. You're transparent in that way, I know your lies, I know you. I know your love, and it feels so good, and how can I be so dense as to want to let go of that?

But I love you, and you're not intentionally selfish, no more that I am; yet you seem so oblivious. For one so empathetic, I don't understand how you can be so blind, my love?

But I hate me. Perhaps you don't see it as clearly as you use to, now I've found some peace and I don't take it out on me any more. Do I take it out on you now? I'm sorry, if I do. But I doubt you even notice any more.

That's why I backed out three months ago when I told you I thought we should end things. You looked so lost, confused and unseeing as you begged me to at least try. And you promised things would be different now that you knew that I had problems with how we were together. How could you not have known? I was shocked into acquiescing. But here we are tonight, repeating the same scene, you with your same lines, you same hopes, as if nothing I've done or said in the interim has made one blind bit of difference! I can't keep doing this, love. 'Love', it seems so flimsy and uncertain an endearment just now. This love, if it still warrants such address, is not the kind of passion or hunger that I felt last year, even six months ago. It has faded and been chipped away at by you and me both and I wish dearly that I knew what will happen in a month or even a week.

Everything is so fragile right now, including me. Help me with this, love, I can't be strong forever. I need you to take some of the slack, to shoulder some of the burden.

Or I might just break.