Chapter 7 - And Here Are We
It was a gentle touch that drew her from her sleep the morning after, a warm pressure against the curve of her cover-clad shoulder, accompanied by the softly spoken name that once seemed almost foreign, and that she now answered to more readily than she would have ever expected. "Serenity."
"T-Trowa?" the young woman croaked out as she shifted into a position halfway to sitting up, immediately after lifting a hand in a defensive gesture against her aching throat. Through faintly blurred vision, she saw the man in question nod his head lightly before carefully easing her breakfast tray onto the stretch of bed before her.
Silence followed, as Usagi took a brief moment to sit up and draw her tray onto her lap, making a half-hearted effort to keep her bed sheet wrapped around her shoulders to cover that which her undershirt failed to hide, while Trowa's lanky form found rest against the patch of wall beside the bedroom's door.
The chair Heero had occupied the night before remained as it was, overturned and out of place against the bare floor, and wholly ignored by Trowa. And though Usagi mutely searched the tall youth's downcast features, the same disregard was awarded her, and the telltale mark of bruises that surely encircled her neck like bands of a collar.
However, the breakfast of herbal tea and warm gruel sweetened with honey, substituted in place of the usual meal said enough. The others, or at the very least Trowa, knew what had come to pass, and would therefore raise no questions.
The consideration that Trowa had displayed by the breakfast he presented her brightened Usagi's spirit (as it was further proof that her captors, sans Heero, weren't evil), and though she was forced to eat more slowly than she would have liked (due to the state of her throat), her vigor was undiminished, and soon she'd polished off the bowl's contents and sipped contentedly at the mug of tea.
"You shouldn't provoke him."
Usagi's gaze flashed upward, and back to the stationary frame that leaned against the wall; nothing about Trowa's posture had changed, though his own eyes slowly lifted to find hers. "It's not like I meant to," she replied dejectedly, lowering her hands and cradling the cup between them.
"He.. rarely displays such.. fury," Trowa went on haltingly, as though he were treading into territory that made him uneasy; hearing him speak in a way so opposite to the eloquent manner he had so effortlessly demonstrated in the past was unsettling. "However, given these.. circumstances..."
Usagi wasn't so sure 'fury' was the right word to describe that which Heero had embodied, though she said nothing to the contrary as she turned her attention back down to her tea. She had said something to cause him to react in such a terrifyingly violent way, and yet... there had never been a single spark of any emotion in his eyes, in his tone, in him throughout the attack.
"Circumstances?" she finally echoed, looking to Trowa again, "You mean because of how much.. he hates me?" There was an uncomfortable sort of pull at her heart with those words; being hated without knowing why, and for having done nothing wrong had a way of getting to her, even if said hatred came from an enemy who'd kill her without a second thought.
There was no answer forthcoming.
"Trowa, why does Heero hate me so much?" Usagi pressed quietly, head bowing as trembling fingers brushed their tips over her injured throat. "I didn't mean to.. to hurt him that first night he spoke to me, really, I didn't!" She shook her head, brows furrowed together. "Is that why he-"
"No. He knows what came to pass was no fault of yours," Trowa said lowly. "And I cannot answer your first question."
Usagi couldn't help but wonder if, though he couldn't answer, he knew the reason all the same.
He gathered her empty bowl and mug in a fashion that had become ritualistic to his tending of her meals, and it was just as he lifted the tray that Usagi spoke to him again, her voice still so very soft and full of questioning. "Trowa, why are you here? Why are any of you here?"
"I believe you already know the answer to that question, Serenity," he responded evenly and just as quietly, as he shifted the tray across the length of one forearm, and reached for the door's handle.
"No, I don't mean because of.. of what Heero said, or because you follow Heero. There's more to it, there's got to be more to all of this," Usagi said quickly, shaking her head as she looked to him. "Why?" she murmured tremulously, repeating her desperate plea from the night earlier. "Why are you here? Why does it have to be this way? Why must this world end...?"
There was no answer rewarded to her, as Trowa turned and stepped through the opened door, either unable or unwilling to reply.
"Please! Please tell me! I want to-" The final word stuck to her tongue, even as a tremor of memory wracked her petite form. Heero had beseeched this of her last night, as he slowly wrung the life from her body; he'd told her to understand.
And asking for that which he'd demanded of her was frightening.
The click of the door settling back into place in its frame lingered in the otherwise still air, marking Trowa's departure as much as it did Usagi's lapse back into solitude.
She had grown accustomed to the drawn out hours that separated meals, and to being alone during this time. However, these periods before had been filled with desolation and mourning for the lives of her dear ones she'd thought lost. Now, left with a far less depressing mindset, Usagi's focus revolved around retrieving her crystal, escaping, and ending Heero's psychotic scheme and tyranny over the other men in the house. But, given her lack of resources in all these areas, her own planning wasn't going half as well as she would have liked...
Hadn't she always turned to Ami-chan when brain-power was needed? Though she'd never taken for granted her genius-friend's thinking skills, Usagi never realized how much she relied on them until she went through the same plan twice in the same hour, both times finding the mental blueprints ended in pre-meditated failure.
More than anything, Usagi wished that someone was here with her, one of her senshi and best friends.. It wouldn't be so bad if she had someone else to help her.. And more than anything, she wanted Mamoru to tell her that everything was going to be okay in the end.
Sighing, she decided to take a break from her unsuccessful plotting and unproductive bout of thinking; the sooner she got out of here, the better, but it wasn't as though she were working with time constraints, and getting frustrated wouldn't do her any good.. And she was fairly certain that she wasn't going to find any spare bottles of acid lying around in the kitchen cupboards (the prime ingredient to the first batch of failed escape plans, as it were).
Without a task to occupy herself with, boredom threatened to set in. Such was not to be though, for at the very moment Usagi was ready to fling herself across the length of her bed and stare upside down at the bare, bland walls of her room, there came an unexpected knock on her door.
Before she had even a chance to reply, the guest made himself known; Duo stepped into the room, followed closely behind by what appeared to be a trunk of some sort. The braided youth nursed one arm within the confines of a cloth sling, and half-way hunched over, he was dragging the large, oak unit with one hand, struggling only slightly under its weight.
Peering up through the uneven fringe of brown hair that fell across his brow, he huffed loudly before dropping his cargo entirely, and settled the now freed hand on the jut of one hip as he straightened. "Man, see what I gotta go through for you?" he sighed with a shake of his head, "Where else would you get service like this, I ask you?"
"...Five star hotels, and they don't kidnap-"
"Rhetorical question, it was a rhetorical question!" Duo cut in with another huff.
Usagi swallowed down the rest of what she'd been about to add, and inched to the edge of her bed to have a better look at what he'd brought. An instinctive pout of self-pity pulled at the curves of her lips when she considered all the nasty sort of things a chest like the one Duo was hovering over had the potential of carrying.
Noticing that Duo hadn't in fact moved from his position, her gaze flittered from the trunk to the man beside it, worry adding to the expression she wore so that her thin brows were beginning to pinch together.
"Well? Aren't you going to ask me what it is?" He sounded a bit exasperated, when he finally spoke again.
"No, thank you," she countered politely; her neck still hurt, after all.
With an exaggerated roll of his eyes, Duo dropped to his knees, before fiddling with the front of the trunk with his good hand. "See? This is why Quatre shoulda been the one to come in here with this crap. It's so not fair that I'm the guy that always gets stuck with this stuff," he griped.
Usagi thought it best to let him complain to himself undisturbed. Slowly, she was curling around her drawn-in knees, as though she might shield herself from whatever it was the darkly clad youth was going to unleash in her room. Though she still considered Duo one of the four men who weren't wholly bad, she could hardly ignore what had come to pass in her room the night prior- for all she knew, Heero had ordered Duo to come and torture her some more.
An audible, rusty sort of click was given, as was a victorious bark of laughter from Duo. "There we go.. and.. done." The lid was flung back, and Usagi gave a squeal before burying her face in the folds of her arms and the tops of her knees.
"What the- Will you knock it off? Geez!"
She shook her head, still hidden, and gave a muffled, "Nuh-uh."
"Cut it out! Look.. Look, dammit! I didn't go through all this trouble just so you could sit there playing hedgehog! Will you look already?"
Hesitantly, she lifted her face, and slowly cracked open her right eye to see what awaited her. Still kneeling before the chest, Duo had twisted enough that the section of brightly colored material he held up in a fist was visible.
In disbelief, Usagi gazed at the pile of garments that the trunk housed. Vestments of every imaginable color were displayed, soft and glossy in the light of the afternoon sun that spilled through her window. Her mouth drooped open faintly, so that a tiny 'o' shown on her pale visage.
"Now you're impressed, huh? You better be," Duo said with a smirk that didn't quite reach his eyes, as he gingerly removed one of the vestments and laid it out on the bed next to her. The style was contrastingly clinging and flowing, from the look of it, cut to favor a woman's want for modesty in particular areas, though far more revealing in other less sensual spots of the body. Shimmering aqua and deeper blues were sewn together in a way that made the dress appear almost gypsy like in nature, if not for the shortness to the layers of skirt.
Before she'd had more than a few seconds time to gaze in rapture over the prettyness of it, another was thrown atop of it, the color a blend of shimmering purples and browns, cut in a likewise fashion that was asymmetrical as it was foreign, and promptly followed by one of silver and green, another of gold and pink, another of red and black, another of yellow and blue, onward and onward as a rainbow waterfall until the trunk was quite empty and her bed quite full of the dresses.
And all the while, Usagi's transfixed stare grew wider and wider, and she only remembered to blink once Duo had shut the lid to the trunk once more and taken a seat on the top of it.
"Wow." She could not tear her gaze from the assortment of dresses that were heaped upon her mattress, her tiny hands itching to bury themselves into the pile of clothing, though she hesitated. "Are these.. for me..?"
"Yep."
"Where did they come from? I've never seen anything like these...!" Usagi let out a sigh of delight as she lifted one of the dresses delicately, the cloth nearly weightless. "Ohh... Are these from Paris?"
"Hah!" Duo let out a bray of laughter, "As though any of Them could fashion up these designs." He gave an amused shake of his head. "You'll have to ask Trowa who exactly tailored these... might have been Cathy..." The braided youth grew oddly silent, and if Usagi hadn't been quite so preoccupied with inspecting the dresses, she may have questioned it.
"Oh, I bet they're all my size!" Usagi gushed, holding one of the dresses against her chest and pulling at the waist to see if it would fit about her. Euphoric and impulsive, she dropped the garment and began to immediately tug down the ruined kimono she'd donned a few hours ago.
"What- HEY- I'm still here!" Duo stared slack jawed at her, utterly confused by her behavior and frozen in place.
Though she'd yet to actually expose herself, Usagi let out a tiny shriek, bunching the material up against her chest, her cheeks a glowing shade of crimson. "Turn AROUND!" she hollered, embarrassed. "Stop LOOKING!"
"I'm sorry!" Duo hollered back at her, eyes widening before he slapped a palm over them. "I didn't see anything worth seeing, I swear!"
"I SAID TURN AROUND!" Usagi howled, her voice ringing in the room, her embarrassment reaching new heights at Duo's choice of words.
"It's not like I told you to start stripping!" He lifted his uninjured arm, wagging a reproaching finger at her... Unfortunately, the hand that was covering his eyes was the one he gestured with, and though his eyes remained tightly shut, this did little to dissuade the hysteria.
Usagi's wails reached new octaves.
Neither had heard the sound of the door opening, to signal Quatre's entrance, which was understandable given the scene he'd walked in on, as was the incredulous expression he wore.
"What is going on in here...?"
Usagi and Duo both silenced, looking to him. Quatre seemed paler then the first time she'd met him, his fair locks disheveled and the sea green eyes, flickering between them with mute inquiry, seemed a bit dull above the dark half circles of exhaustion residing under them. Weary and somewhat gaunt, he still retained the air of welcoming amiability when his sight met Usagi's.
She lifted her arm, leveling a condemning finger toward the braided youth's face. "Duo tried to get a free peep-show!"
"Free peep-show implies there's actually something worth paying for - and I'd beg to differ on that point," Duo retorted through the snide grin he aimed her way.
Quatre sighed, thin hands rubbing at his temples, as though trying to alleviate a headache, as it became apparent that the two would be quite content to resume their argument, with or without his presence. "Duo, please take the chest back to the cellar." Though he'd issued the request very politely and calmly, there was a definite note of finality.
"With pleasure." Grabbing one of the handles, Duo dragged the empty chest back through the doorframe, Quatre stepping lightly out of his way. Duo did pause however, looking back long enough to make a face at Usagi - his jaw jutted out as his lower lip tugged down at the corners, and he crossed his eyes.
Not to be outdone, Usagi stuck out her tongue, the tips of her index fingers pulling down her lower eye lids.
With a small shake of his head, Quatre closed the door so as to physically block the two of them off from one another. "There now... That's better," he stated softly after a moment. Clasping his hands loosely before him, Quatre smiled warmly. "Let's put your dresses away, shall we?"
Without waiting for her response, Quatre gathered up an armful of the garments and made his way to the armoire. The rays of the sun trickling in through the windows cast a warm, golden sheen on the pale youth as he pulled open the wide, oak doors and began situating her dresses on the hangers within.
His features were so gentle, lines of laughter the only creases showing at the corners of his sea-green eyes, his tousled, corn-silk hair practically luminous in the sunlight. Usagi could only stand there staring, once again finding herself questioning how someone like Quatre - kind and friendly, angelically handsome and so polite - could associate himself with someone like Heero... Her tender heart ached for Quatre, and for the three others who were so willing to follow a remorseless killer into Hell, simply because he bade them to follow.
Quatre paused, his hand absently smoothing the layers of one of the dresses still draped over a slender forearm... his shoulders had suddenly grown rigid, and when his eyes found hers, an echo of her own pain, mingled with confusion, shown in their depths. A forlorn smile lifted the edges of his lips as he walked slowly back toward her, laying additional dresses over the ones he already carried, and wordlessly filling her arms with the remainder. "Come, let's work together, we will have this chore finished in no time."
Forcing herself to smile back at him, Usagi nodded, and the two set about the task of filling the once empty wardrobe.
"Have you decided which to wear first, Serenity?" Quatre asked pleasantly.
For some reason, Usagi had a feeling that small talk was to simply distract her from dwelling on her prior line of thoughts, though she wasn't sure why... If that was his ploy, it certainly worked. "Oh, yes! I'm going to wear this one, it's perfect," Usagi said, tugging at the skirts of one of the ensembles. She smiled widely, her fingers toying with the soft fabric. It had been such an unexpectedly touching gesture, to receive gorgeous, fresh clothing from her captors, after having been forced to wear the same thing for days and days on end... It was only now that the large armoire was slowly filling up with the mountain of dresses that it dawned on her...
She was likely going to be here for quite some time, if the number of outfits was any indication.
They both grew silent, focused on filling the wardrobe with the exotic clothing.
"Quatre..?"
"Hmm?" Having finished with the dresses he'd carried over, he set to work on the ones Usagi still held.
"Can't you call me just.. just Usagi?" She felt the tiniest spark of nervousness in the pit of her stomach. It wasn't an outlandish request by any means - and yet, it seemed so odd to have to ask.
"Just... Usagi?" Quatre repeated back to her, eyebrows quirked quite high, the remainder his expression revealing nothing of his internal thoughts on the matter.
"Yeah..." She nodded enthusiastically, feeling her cheeks heating with a blush from the odd way he was looking at her. She busied herself with the dresses, the ones she'd hung up appearing in sloppy disarray next to Quatre's orderly line. "Nobody calls me Serenity. Back home, I'm just..."
Silly!
Usagi-chan!
Dumpling-Head!
Dear friend!
Usako...
"Just Usagi," Quatre finished for her, his sweet voice fully comprehending.
She nodded quickly as she fiddled with a clothes hanger. "Do you ever miss.. your home, Quatre?" Heero had said he was from Earth - he never mentioned anything of the others. Usagi wondered where exactly 'home' was, for these individuals, and if it was also Earth.
"Of course I do. We all do... The others may not admit to it so readily, but I know that there is a longing for home that can't ever entirely be erased. There are days when each of us have been absolutely homesick..." Quatre's hand fluttered to press against his chest, over his heart for a moment.
It was almost impossible, thinking of Wufei, of Trowa, of Duo, as being as wretched and sorrowful as she felt when she missed her home and all of her friends. And yet, hearing Quatre speak like this, knowing that deep down the four men were capable of feeling exactly as she did...
"Things were so different there... Scholarly pursuits, artistry, poetry. Wufei and I were at the top of our class. And Trowa was so gifted..." He continued, caught up in his reminiscing. "Duo couldn't be bothered to apply himself fully to any one subject or area- Life is too short, he would say, to pick just one!"
"I..." Usagi began, unable to finish her sentiment.
I want to go home...
There was no reason to say it. What she wanted didn't matter against what she must do, to protect everyone, to save Quatre, Trowa, Duo, and even Wufei...
She knew they weren't so different from her, and as Quatre spoke, he painted an entirely different portrait from the one she'd initially seen of these men. He might have been talking about her own dear friends! If only she could show them that they didn't have to obey Heero's insane orders.
"All of us, smiling! Can you imagine! Laughter and music..." There was a poignant silence, and Quatre laughed breathlessly. It wasn't a happy sound. "But," Quatre closed the doors of the armoire, the sound dissipating the nostalgia he'd invoked. "All of us know that the importance of Heero's goal greatly outweighs any bought of homesickness we may experience."
"It doesn't have to, Quatre."
He smiled indulgently, but she interrupted him before he could respond.
"No, listen to me, just for a moment," she began softly, urgently. "It doesn't have to at all..." Usagi grabbed one of his hands between her own, shaking her head in plain denial of what he'd said of this mission of Heero's being more important than his desire for his home. "There is nothing more important then family and friends! The people we love should always be the most important! But even the people you don't know, or don't care about-"
"Usagi-"
She kept going, refusing to let him attempt to justify the title of Harbinger of Destruction that Heero was prepared to bestow upon them all. "Even the people you don't care about, they're important too! You can't just forget about them, or that they have homes and friends that they love. You can't forget that! It's not okay to! If we don't remember them, or devote even a tiny piece of our hearts to them, then who will?"
"Heero's course is the only one-"
Heero. It always came back to him. "Forget about Heero, for one second, Quatre! What if there was another course? What if you had a choice?"
Quatre said nothing, and Usagi felt hope rising as he carefully averted his gaze, turning his chin down and away from her. He.. He did not want to follow Heero! He couldn't look at her from the tiny flame of conscience that still burned within him!
Usagi ducked down a few inches, repositioning under his downcast eyes, refusing to let him look away. "You do have a choice in this! Why must it be this way? Why does our world have to end? What good does that do for anyone?"
Looking into her shining, beseeching blue eyes, there was an immeasurable sadness pervading Quatre's countenance. "Usagi..." Quatre's gaze suddenly grew distant. "...They're back." His free hand pressed to his chest, over his heart once more. "And Trowa.. he's..." With hardly an effort, he extracted his captured hand from hers.
Panic flared, and Usagi scampered after him as Quatre headed to the door. She was so sure she'd been on the brink of breaking through to one of them, of being able to show Quatre reason in this perpetual prison where Heero's diabolic plan was the only twisted clarity afforded to his four cohorts. "No, no, don't go, I'm sorry!" She stubbornly clung to his arm, trembling. "Stay! Don't go!"
"I must, Usagi. You've done nothing wrong. Please," Quatre pleaded quietly, his sight continuously flickering toward the closed door, and then back down to her. Usagi could hear nothing in the hallway outside, and she could only guess that her words were the cause of Quatre's anxiety. "Let go. I will use force, if you give me no other option."
Usagi bit her lip, and shook her head, refusing to willingly release him. "No. I don't believe you would hurt me."
Quatre's hand rested across his heart once again as his eyes closed. When they opened, he appeared so genuinely weary that Usagi couldn't help but slacken her grip.
"Thank you," he whispered. She didn't fight as he carefully pulled free his arm.
Hesitating at the door, Quatre turned back to her. "You aren't at all as I imagined you would be, Usagi..." There was such conflicting joy and aching sadness painted across his features, from this revelation. "For what has happened to you," his sight briefly flitted to her injured throat, and she self-consciously covered the marks with a delicate hand. "And for what will come to pass," he looked away now, "I am truly sorry."
Usagi slowly sank to the floor, arms curling around her knees.
"...We were not supposed to keep you. That was never part of the plan."
With those final words, Usagi was left alone.
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Hello, my darlings! I have returned from the black-hole! New chapters forthcoming, please forgive me for taking so long.
Hearts,
- Zangai