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Long Lost
Disclaimer: I still don't own GW or any of its characters. I tried, but Evilnmalice outbid me. (Fortunately it didn't pay up, so it doesn't own them either.)
Warnings: None
Pairings: so far, only 3x4, we'll see how things develop
Archive: Desolation Angels.
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Chapter Eight: Ghosts Whispered
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Relena gripped the back of Quatre's seat with white knuckles as Trowa spun them around another corner on two wheels.
"Got your seatbelt on?" the acrobat asked belatedly.
"As if I wouldn't," Relena glowered. "You really /do/ think you're immortal, don't you?"
Trowa shrugged, his expression bland, and brought Quatre's E-type to a screaming halt on the Peacecraft mansion's lawn.
The blonde scowled disapprovingly as he opened the door. "I don't mind fast—I mean, it's supposed to go fast—but couldn't you go easier on the landing? I have awful visions of what could happen to my car." He offered a hand to Relena—who tried not to let on she was trembling—and helped her crawl out of the back seat.
"Sorry," Trowa said, finally apologetic. "I got a little carried away."
He slipped his hand into Quatre's, and Relena bit back a sudden stab of jealousy as the two boys followed her to the front door. It was, she decided, completely natural—the happiest lovers in the world would have difficulty matching the delighted radiance that all but emanated from those two. If she was envious of the happiness they'd found together, that she'd tried for but never quite reached—well, so would anybody. Somehow, they managed to sustain themselves on the glimpses and stolen nights their long-distance relationship could afford them. Trowa stayed with the circus because he truly loved it, but it kept him travelling. And Quatre, while he might have wished otherwise, could no more run off and join him than she could.
But they loved each other fiercely, any idiot could see that, and they kept on. And she was witnessing firsthand the way one would drop everything else without hesitation if they other needed him.
So who /wouldn't/ be jealous of a love like that?
"Relena...?" Quatre's soft voice broke into her thoughts, and she realised she was fumbling with the key in the rusted lock. "Are you all right?"
She nodded, turning the key hastily, glancing back at them as the mechanism creaked reluctantly open.
"Do you two ever fight?" she asked abruptly.
She could tell her question had startled them, but at the same time that it was not the first time they'd been asked. She watched the progression in both their eyes, from startled surprise to mild guilt to curiosity.
"Sometimes," they said at once.
Relena's gently-raised eyebrow relayed her disbelief eloquently enough, and Quatre chuckled.
"Not often, no. We don't see each other often enough to waste time fighting—no matter how nice it is to make up after," he added slyly, and Relena rolled her eyes. "But we've had our share, I promise you. Now, are we going in?"
Relena nodded, still not completely convinced, and ushered them inside. "I'm not quite sure what we're looking for," she admitted, as the dust and age of the place assaulted them. Trowa sneezed. "Journals, I suppose, records—books, disks, anything at all."
Trowa nodded-somehow, when he did it, it looked like a salute. "Anywhere in particular we should start?"
Relena shook her head. "I don't know where anything is, except what Zechs showed me last week."
"Then why don't we all stick together, at least until we have a better idea of the layout?" Trowa suggested, and Relena smiled at him gratefully, wondering if he didn't want to go off alone either, or if she was just that transparent to him.
It was hours, though, before they had acquired a "better idea" of the mansion's grounds. The former home of the Sanq royal family had been abandoned abruptly, and allowed over the years to degrade further into disrepair. What the young detectives found, then, were the charred, dust-covered remnants of the inhabitants' hasty retreat.
Quatre brushed his fingers across the faded spine of some aged book, its pages long-since damaged by smoke til they were unrecognisable. "How it must have felt," he said softly, "to leave all this behind...to run away, to know your home was falling apart...."
"I imagine," Relena agreed, "that it must have been incredible once."
"And full of people." Trowa added his nostalgic whisper to theirs. "Did you stop to look at the ballroom as we passed? You can tell it was spellbinding—you can almost see them there, still, in a really strange way...."
Three solemn nods, before they resumed their search anew, dispelling the sleeping ghosts of an age long-ended that hovered in the shadows.