By ChibiQuatre (7.23.02)
A/N: Look, my return to GW on FFN!!! ^.^ It's taken a long time because of summer school and homework and stuff... but I'm back, and have I got a story to tell! Actually, I think I "borrowed" the whole plague idea from some other anime series (I think it's "The Wind" or something like that?) whose general plot is that the citizens have their memories wiped and then have to learn to regain them - or something. ^^* But I dunno... Pairings are mainly 3x4 but also 1x2, 5xS, LNxZM & 11x13.
Disclaimer: Oh! That I had the GW Boys to have and cherish forever, and EAT UP their cuteness! ::squeals::
***
"Another day goes past, time wasting each sigh ... Fly, fly higher than you ever dreamed. I'm coming to wisk you away..."
Quatre hummed to the music, loud and echoing in his overly-large mansion. He didn't usually hum aloud to himself, even though his mind was always alight with a tune. And he didn't usually send his servants off for the next month, though free weekends were common. But then again, Trowa didn't usually come to visit.
The blonde smiled. He hadn't seen Trowa for 2 years. He wondered how his fellow pilot would have changed. Duo he knew of - Duo had come to visit not a few months after they destroyed their Gundams. He told Quatre of Heero, and how Duo was now living with him... of course, now Heero knew of Quatre's sexual preferences too. It wasn't hard opening up to Heero, though, especially since Duo was a babbler and could drag things out of even the most silent of people.
Duo hadn't changed a bit, except the fire in his eyes was even hotter - that was Heero's doing. Everything about him was the same: same hair, same reverend's attire, same silver cross around the neck. And it was obvious that Heero loved him for it. The two worked for the Preventer Organization now. The covert Heero had only grown more silent, more so than Trowa who would always chatter with the blonde... given the privacy and the opportunity. 'Yes,' Quatre thought goodnaturedly. 'Duo the blabbermouth and Heero the statue are perfect for each other.'
Now, *Trowa* and him, for example...
Quatre blushed. Caught up in the melody, he had almost lopped off the nails on his left hand. He probably would not have even noticed until Trowa had sat down for chowder and picked out two of his 5 missing fingertips, and queried, "Hey, oysters?" That would ruin soup for Trowa. No, he couldn't let that happen. He shuddered and flipped channels hurriedly, raw clam juice dripping down his elbows.
Click. " - alk Show, 694.2 coming to you live from Colony 04! Today, with special guest Jiminie Glique on - "
Click. " - and simply mix the fertilizer into the second bag. When we come back in a few minutes, we'll tell you how to finish transplanting your geraniums. For a healthy flowerbed, don't miss it, only here on Radio 04, Green 4U!"
Click. " - but no one seems to know where the outbreak started. Airborne buggers, they are. It seems that only the first stage is amnesia, sometimes paranoia or schizophrenia. Untreated, it develops into a full-blown shut-down of the immune -"
Click. Quatre sighed, and the radio went dead. He'd decided that between chopping off his hand, mingling both oyster juice and blood on his marble floor, or listening to music, he'd better just turn off all distractions and focus on the chowder. He remembered it was the food that most reminded him of Catherine while he was away from her, and Quatre knew how important it was to make the taller boy feel at home; when it came to Trowa, he always remembered the little details. He wanted Trowa to enjoy lunch, after all... that is, if Quatre ever made it that far. "Ick, better clean up this mess."
He swooped down on the floor, sponging up the spill, and stood up too quickly as he went to throw it out. His head pounded, darkness engulfing his eyesight, and he vaguely registered reaching for the countertop to steady his balance. A minute later, his eyesight returned. "Damned headrush..." he muttered, jerking the nearest window open. A fresh breeze ruffled his hair. He inhaled deeply, remembering many things a wind like this always brought. He remembered his childhood, leaving out the painful parts with his disagreeable father, and stood there daydreaming until he remembered Trowa and a sudden noise threw him back into reality.
The doorbell rang.
***
"Good?"
"Great, Quatre, as always. You always did make them the best."
Trowa had been living at Quatre's mansion going on two weeks now. It was his third visit to 04; he usually never strayed far from Catherine or his home colony of 03, but he had convinced the circus to give him leave. They had a new target for Catherine, as Quatre understood. He would need all the practice he could get, and Trowa's being there would not give the kid any training.
Besides, no matter how Trowa would never let on, he had missed Quatre.
He missed Quatre a lot, actually. He missed everything about him, from has sweet, passive character all the way down to the way the sun gleamed off his freshly washed, tousled hair. For that was the beauty of being a blonde, Trowa mused over homemade waffles and syrup... the sunlight always advertised *them*.
"You know, Trowa, I sure missed you. Are you sure you have to leave next week?"
Trowa smiled one of his fleeting, half-smiles. He'd heard from an braided bird that Quatre wasn't really - straight. Coincidentally, a stony-faced, cobalt-eyed bird had confirmed the sentiment, winking behind his companion's back as if to say, "Go for it." Because the Japanese bird knew something the American one did not; Trowa was gay too.
Everything he'd seen since his arrival at the Winner palace only affirmed Quatre's unique lifestyle, and now Trowa was one-hundred percent sure he was correct in assuming Quatre had a large albeit hidden crush on him. He'd desperately wanted Trowa to visit, pleading loneliness rather than heartache. And whenever Trowa was around, the blonde seemed forgetful of things he'd needed to do. Once he'd forgotten to turn the stove off and wound up evaporating the entire contents of his once-full kettle. Another time he'd been so absentminded so as to leave the doors unlocked. He was confused when Trowa pointed it out, but happy all the same that he was being watched.
Trowa thought it was cute.
But Quatre would never make the first move. So Trowa would have to do it himself... "I missed you too, little one."
Quatre gushed and seemed to forget he was holding his fork. It fell with a clatter onto his plate, and Quatre, stunned, looked at the offensive object. He sat there, hand paused in midair, looking confused about the whole setup; was it time to eat? Had he been eating? He stared at the plate dejectedly as he suddenly realized he had no recollection of ever eating or of ever cooking such a breakfast. He was silent for so long, in fact, that Trowa was about to reach for his shoulder. But the look on Quatre's face was one the emerald-eyed youth would never forget, for Quatre looked up and suddenly Trowa's stomach gave a lurch. Quatre's face was blank - even worse than confused. He seemed lost in his own house.
Trowa blinked, as Quatre pointed to the waffles and asked genuinely, "Did you make these?"
Something was wrong.
***
That was when Trowa started to worry. As he looked back on the days, he realized that the little things his precious Quatre had forgotten to do were all done in earnest; it wasn't exactly his presence that was driving the blonde into the empty, mindless place he was in now. It was something else.
Needless to say, Trowa did not leave the next week.
He had phoned Catherine the same night and informed her there was something awry at Quatre's. She listened with concern, as he knew she would, but it was obvious she thought Trowa simply wanted to stay with Quatre longer. Her "Goodbye" at the end of the conversation held a trace of betrayal. She thought he was lying to her.
However, Trowa had more important things to take care of than dealing with jealous sisters. Quatre's situation only worsened in the next week; the blonde was forgetting more important things, like how to tie shoelaces, which items of clothing to put on first, and even went so far as to wonder at shutting the door. By that time, Quatre had Trowa going; he had no idea what was troubling the blonde, because everytime he asked, Quatre seemed not to recollect any forgetfulness at all. Reminiscent of mild amnesia or perhaps Alzheimer's Disease, it was unnerving Trowa, and his only solace was in seeing Quatre free from worry. If it had been the other way around, he knew that Quatre would have felt the same way.
At the moment, Quatre was sleeping upstairs. After acting weary and lost with himself in the living room, he'd been relieved when Trowa asked if he wanted to go up to his room. "I'll be okay, Quatre. Don't worry about me; I feel at home here. I can entertain myself, you know."
"I know, it's just..." Again, he'd faded out and some part of his face fell as he thought.
Trowa, taking a farfetched guess at the dilemma, teased, "Shall I accompany you up to your room?"
At this, Quatre's face lit up and a weight seemed to have lifted. "Please, yes." Trowa smiled and took Quatre's arm, the blonde walking closer to him than was normal, and Trowa thought about ready to ask Quatre formally if he would be his boyfriend. However...
"Where are you going?"
Quatre had turned and was leading them quite aways down another corridor, in the opposite direction of his bedroom. "I'm going... to my room?"
It was a question that scared Trowa very much; he frowned. "But your room is that way, Quat," he murmured softly, pointing behind them.
"Oh! I, uh... it must have slipped my mind then. Sorry... Trowa?" He took a good long look at their entwined arms, then back up to Trowa, then a half-wild look around him and blushed. "You - you can go back downstairs, Trowa. No need to walk with me."
Trowa, panicking inside, steered Quatre gently in the other direction and grinned painfully as they reached Quatre's door. There was something wrong, and damned if Trowa didn't find out what it was. Quatre was lost, which left Trowa feeling empty and unsure what was happening to his life. A month ago, Quatre had been in good health. He was his usual perky self, the Quatre Trowa always remembered. Suddenly, things had changed. No, not so suddenly, but suddenly enough in Trowa's calmed lifestyle for him to put himself on guard for any odd behavior from Quatre.
And Quatre was definitely exhibiting more and more odd behavior these days. He was more withdrawn, though still cheerful most of the time. Trowa felt he was still an accurate judge of Quatre's appropriate behavior, as he had known him best during the war and talked only with him late into the nights about the things that mattered besides the hell that was war - life, dreams, love... The last month had only cemented the friendship, and just when Trowa felt ready to commit himself further, the abnormal behavior from Quatre threw distance between them. Trowa wasn't put off at all; by now, he would do anything for his little Quatre, but... he didn't know *what* to do.
He sighed resignedly; his spirit had been falling lately, and he turned on the television. He didn't usually watch it. He knew for a fact that it was here only as appeasement for Quatre's servants, who were away. They had little to entertain themselves with, and hours of mindless dribble would make them happy as a bee in a flowerbed. Trowa never watched because he had better things to do, but he now flipped lazily through the channels, allowing the apathy and despair to take over when Quatre wasn't around to notice. Slowly, through the channel surfing, he felt the tension ease out of him. A few minutes later, a history program put him to sleep, only to be awoken by the familiar roaring of lions in the following documentary, "Nature Gone Wild." He resumed the surfing, now at peace.
Two and a half minutes later, the tension returned full blast as Trowa landed on the Colonial News Network, returning from commercial. The spokesman, William Belaqua, dictated from white notecards. "We have Doctor Grumman here, today, welcome Doctor. Please, we've heard the government's side of this devastating illness. Tell us the scientists' point of view."
"Well," spoke the bearded man opposite Belaqua. "We're still unsure of how something of this scale has spread, since the virus is airborn and cannot travel through space. Presumably, the outbreak on 04 has been contained." Trowa's heart lurched; Colony 04! Grumman continued, "Our only other guess is that the spread occurred through use of spaceships and shuttles, as long as the virus had a carrier to settle on until the craft landed on another colony. This is how we explain the same outbreak on Colonies 02, 03 and 05.
"Colony 01 has not been affected yet, and a good thing say politicians because the heads of Space's current peacemakers have made it a sort of headquarters for themselves. A colleague of mine, very involved in politics and and the Eve Wars, believes the initial goal of this outbreak was a plot to destroy such peace and was therefore intended as a biological weapon. However, this does not explain why Colony 04 has been infected and 01 has not."
"Thank you, Doctor. We have talked to some of these colleagues of yours, and we've heard much the same thing. But I'm hoping you can give us a better idea of what this disease *is*, from the medical perspective. I mean, it has all the greatest doctors baffled."
"Ah, yes. Yes it does. Well, as to what it is exactly, we're still working on that. Through close examination and testing, we have learned that, aside from being airborn, Endozonafen serezone, that's the technial nomenclature for this virus, is noncommunicable. Friends and relatives need have no fear of touching their loved ones.
"As for symptoms, we've also had some very drastic results. It all depends on the person; our subjects reacted differently in regards to their own scenario. Generally, the symptoms begin with small, brief periods of amnesia, maybe lasting three or four seconds in which the subject has no idea whatsoever of his intentions or whereabouts or even who he is. This amnesia will gradually lengthen until it consumes the subject's memory in its entirety and the subject can no longer function in even the simplest of tasks without another's aid. The continuum of this disease is still being researched, but this amnesia has appeared in every single case we've had. The timeline of brief to heavy amnesia can initiate anywhere between two and ten weeks.
"One and four weeks," mouthed Trowa silently. His eyes were glued to the screen as they never had been. What they were talking about seemed to coincide wtih Quatre's behavior. He would have to take great care in keeping touch with the outside world from now on. He cursed his ignorance and focused once again on Grumman.
Grumman was talking again. "Furthermore, subjects handle infection differently, and we've seen deviants from the general amnesia. Quite frequently, we've recorded subjects with both the amnesiac quality plus an added component of schizophrenia and or paranoia. These patients have been rather - volatile - and had to be quarantined before their madness panicked others. From there, the subject will drift off into coma-like sleep, only to be woken when he desires. It's near deathlike, and only the patient seems able to shake it off. A group of twenty men can't wake him up if he doesn't want to, it seems.
"And lastly... We've even seen... I hate to bring this up, because the medical facilities are encouraged not to spread this around... but we've even seen a few expirations. This is the usual result from those with schizophrenia and paranoia. We believe the mentail trauma has something to do with the terminal element..."
Trowa was dumbfounded. As Grumman rambled on, Trowa's green eyes were glassy as he sat motionless on the couch, trying to process the information. Amnesia - Quatre had that already, Trowa just hadn't recognized nor realized how immediate the danger was - schizophrenia, paranoia, coma... death...
It was all flying around too quickly in Trowa's mind; he couldn't listen to the broadcast anymore. Death? Quatre? The two words shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath! Preposterous. Trowa wondered, dully, if this was perhaps some trick by the government. Maybe Earth had finally wanted to get its revenge and played a second, altered joke similar to that of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds all those centuries ago. Then, and Trowa was to look back later on this and see it as a moment of insane weakness on his part, maybe it was Quatre's sick idea of a joke, maybe something to get Trowa moving and out of the closet before the blonde couldn't wait anymore.
No, he decided. He couldn't go around accusing his love - he did love him now, even in the midst of his forgetfulness Trowa still loved him. He lay down on the couch, worrying doubly for Quatre because Quatre certainly couldn't worry for himself anymore. "How, Quatre? Tell me how I can help..." For an hour, he drifted in and out of troubled sleep, unsure when he actually fell asleep or woke up. The only thing he knew for sure was that he had to do something.
***
Trowa made Quatre dinner that night, and Quatre laughed like usual. Trowa was silent, as he normally was, and Quatre's chatter filled the kitchen with a beautiful twinkle that Trowa enjoyed; it helped ease his mind. Now, it didn't seem like Quatre was in much danger. He was much saner; how could he die?
Then, when Quatre forgot which hand held the knife and which hand held the fork, and had to look at Trowa's example when he thought the boy wasn't looking, Trowa knew he had to act. Later that night, while Quatre was cleaning the table, Trowa snuck off to call an old friend.
He knew Duo was on 02 because Quatre had mentioned talking to him not one month ago. Duo's face flashed on the vidscreen, and it was unlike anything Trowa remembered. Upon seeing his friend, Duo's face scrunched and quite suddenly he was bawling, his hands over his face as he tried to no avail to keep the tears in. Trowa was alarmed; he'd never had to deal with this before, and Duo was the last person he'd expected it from... aside from Quatre.
Without a word of greeting or salutations, he asked, "Duo, what's wrong??"
"Tro... Trowa, man, it's Heero."
Trowa's face took on a look of impassiveness that bordered on concern. He knew the two were together, and Duo crying meant only one thing...
Duo, interpreting Trowa's look, said impatiently, "No, Tro, it's not like that..."
"Heero still there then?" In the background, he heard Quatre running the tap.
"... Yeah. No... I mean, Trowa, I'm so lost. I don't know what to do."
Trowa was confused but sympathetic. "Tell me what's wrong." From the background he heard the soft clanging of dishes being set out to dry.
"Trowa... " Duo's voice came in great, sobbing gasps. "You know that amnesia thing? That stupid little bug thing that eats away at your mind?"
Trowa froze. "The amnesia thing?" That meant...
"Heero's got it."
***
TSUDUKU...
Ahh! What will happen? It's got *HEERO* too!? Sorry it's so long... I was trying to make it captivating ^^*. Hope it worked.
Note: "Grumman" is a name taken out of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials novel trilogy... just because I liked it ^.^. Good series though; I recommend it highly.
Hope no one was too confused this go around; I promise things will get clearer as I write more. Shorter chapters next time, too... promise! PLEASE though, tell me what you think. I got this idea from my brother, L3ULL3TPR00F (a.k.a. l3ULL3TPR00F), but I didn't copy XÞ. ChibiQuatre dun steal. n_n Questions? Comments? Hate mail? (teehee) PLEASE TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!!!