Travelling in Circles: Chapter 4
Sorry this is taking me ages, I've been having a bit of trouble with it. I hope you like it.
Thank you everyone, especially Aayanna for all your lovely reviews :)
Warnings and Disclaimers in Chapter 1
***
Duo smiled, but his smile was not as delighted as Quatre's. He was very happy for his friend, of course, but Quatre's blissful smile reminded him of how much he wanted to see Heero again. He vowed to start searching harder rather than sulking or worrying.
Quatre handed Duo the letter which Sally Po had sent them. It was neat and concise. Duo read it to himself.
"Quatre Robaba Winner,
I have information about the whereabouts of Trowa Barton. Meet me tomorrow at 10.00 in your hotel lobby,
Regards,
Sally Po"
Duo was glad for Quatre. Although Sally Po could sometimes seem distant, she was always fair, and it would not occur to her to make something like this up. If she said she had information, then you could be pretty sure that it was something good. She had a soldier's mind, and a great memory for little details.
Duo's only worry now was what would happen when they did find Trowa. As he had said to Quatre, he didn't think he'd have too many problems with Trowa rejecting him, they seemed so close already, if he didn't know better, he might have thought they were lovers already. Then again, there was the possibility that Trowa was straight.
Duo wracked his memory, while Quatre chattered nervously about how excited he was, for any dates he could think of Trowa going on. He came up not surprisingly blankly, when it came to going out, Trowa was almost as reclusive as Heero. There was that girl at the circus, Catherine, but Duo was a good judge of relationships usually, and he was pretty sure there was nothing there.
The fact that she thought of Trowa as her brother convinced him. He couldn't think of Trowa sleeping with someone who thought of him in that way, and he didn't think that was what she wanted from him either, she seemed more intent on building up a family for herself.
She must have had bad experiences with her own family to want to build a new one, Duo mused. Most people he had met wanted to keep the one they'd got. Then again, he wasn't the expert on families; neither he nor most of the pilots had the most usual relationships with their parents, which went a way to explaining their lifestyles.
Duo was broken out of his reverie by the sound of Quatre wondering out loud what he should wear when he went to meet Trowa, and whether they should offer to take Sally Po out to eat before they started pumping her for information.
Duo laughed at Quatre's nerves, although he was sure that he was really worrying about the same things that Duo was, and just not wanting to talk about them. Duo took Quatre's hand and swung it.
"Don't worry, Quatre, man, it'll be fine. We'll see this woman, she'll tell us what she knows and we'll go from there. No use worrying what happens after that. I don't want to be the one that spoils the party for you, but she might not know as much you want her too. We'll just have to wait and see."
Quatre was almost bouncing up and down on the spot, since Duo had prevented him from walking about to release some of his feelings. "I know she might not find Trowa for us, but I can't help hoping that she does. I'm so excited, Duo, I don't know how I'm going to stand waiting until tomorrow.
Duo almost sighed. He wanted Quatre to be happy, but the though of him bouncing for so long even started to wear him out. He started to form a plan to keep Quatre occupied.
***
During the night, Duo and Quatre managed to play every board game the hotel owned, including Risk, Chess, Scrabble and Monopoly. Quatre, not surprisingly, had won Risk and Chess, whereas Duo had surprised Quatre by having quite a large vocabulary, and managing to win Scrabble. Neither of them had won Monopoly, as they had persuaded the rather bored receptionist to join them, and she had managed to bankrupt them both.
At 6.00, Duo's high had worn off, so he went and had a nap, whilst Quatre, who was still very excited, went out to buy some bread for their breakfast. He found a nearby bakery that had opened, and brought the bread up to Duo's room, where they both ate it sitting on the bed, and made an awful mess with all the crumbs. Duo felt rather guilty about what the cleaning people would think, so whilst Quatre went off to have a shower, he tried to get rid of the evidence out of the window. This was not very successful, and attracted rather a large amount of pigeons, as well as annoying the people walking below, so he soon gave up on the idea.
Sally arrived promptly at 10.00, looking smart, with her hair in its usually twists. The two pilots, who had been on the lookout for her for the past hour, jumped up at her arrival. Quatre tried to curb his enthusiasm, but couldn't stop the large smile that appeared on his face.
He walked quickly towards Sally Po, with Duo alongside him, and greeted her warmly. She returned the greeting, with not as much warmth, perhaps, but then she was not counting on it as much as Quatre was. She was fond of the Gundam pilots, though, and respected them, so she was willing to help them out when the contacted her.
"Quatre, Duo, it's nice to see you both."
"Yes, it's nice to see you too, it's been a while" said Quatre. He was obviously desperate to get past this stage in the conversation, but his inbred sense of politeness wouldn't let him.
Sally seemed to sense Quatre's discomfort and impatience, so she got straight to the point. "Is there somewhere where we can talk privately, all three of us? I don't really want to talk about this in the lobby of a hotel."
Quatre immediately said "Of course. We can go to a cafe if you'd rather, or you can come up to our rooms."
Sally considered this. "Well go to a cafe, I think. Not that anyone should be listening, but it's good practice to change the locations of your meetings.
Quatre and Duo shared a rueful smile at this obvious war-technique, they too had been finding it hard to give up old habits, but they didn't say anything.
They went to one of the nearest cafes, Quatre's politeness being enough to yield to other peoples' requests, but his impatience being too strong to wait for much longer. He needed to know what Sally knew, and now she was here, he couldn't stand waiting any more.
Sally sat down and made a show of looking at the menu and ordering, so the other two followed suit. Then she turned to them, and started to speak.
"I told you I have information on where Trowa is, and I do. One month ago, I was told that there was a new circus setting up in the outskirts of Paris. It was the birthday of a friend of mine, so we decided to go there to celebrate. When we were there, I noticed that the manager's name was T. Burton. I thought it could possibly be Trowa, and when I got back I looked for information on the manager of the circus to see if I was right. The search I did didn't uncover any background material at all, which is unusual, because there is usually something. I didn't look any further, because I thought if it was Trowa, I wanted to respect his privacy. I haven't told anyone else, but I thought he'd want you to find him."
Quatre thanked Sally profusely, and got from her all of the details that she could remember about the circus. When they had finished their coffee, he and Duo said their goodbyes, and the two boys walked, or in Quatre's case skipped, back to the hotel.
"I'm so excited Duo. We'll go over there now, and see if it's him, shall we?"
"I suppose so. I don't want you to get your hopes up too high, though Quatre."
"I'm sure this is him, but don't worry about me. I won't be too disappointed if it isn't"
They got a ride to the area in which the circus was, and then walked up to the main entrance. There were a few people scattered about, but they were hurrying to get out of the spattering rain, and it looked quite desolate otherwise.
Duo approached one of the circus people, who was cleaning the animal cages, and asked them where he could find the manager. "Mr Barton is in his office" he was told, and the man pointed to a large trailer, which obviously served as a mobile office.
They entered the office, and a familiar face looked up from behind his usual curtain of hair.
"Trowa!" exclaimed Quatre.
Trowa looked shocked. Duo noted the moment with surprise, as he thought it might be the only spontaneous emotion he would ever see crossing the stoic pilot's face. "Quatre?" he said
"I wanted to see you, Trowa. Duo and I were looking for you. It's been a long while, I wondered what had happened to you. I missed you, Trowa"
"I missed you too, Quatre."
Trowa didn't seem to have anything else to say, so Quatre went on rather awkwardly "Well, I can see you've been doing well. This is a nice place" Quatre trailed off, and they looked at each other, both of them feeling foolish, and not knowing what to say.
Suddenly a small boy burst into the room, breaking the silence and panting quickly to Trowa, "There's trouble with the lions, Sir, Rachel says she needs you there"
Trowa looked slightly annoyed, but turned to Quatre. "I have to go and help them." he said "I'll be back soon."
Quatre nodded and watched him as he walked swiftly out of the door, not waiting for the boy to lead the way, sure of his position and where he was going.
Duo turned to Quatre. "You didn't tell him!" he said, with a mixture of hurt and annoyance.
Quatre looked back at him, and the expression in his eyes was akin to panic. "I'm sorry Duo. I just didn't know what to say. I really don't know how he'll react. Now I've got here I can't bring myself to say it at all."
Duo softened, and his petulant expression disappeared. "Hey, don't worry about it, you haven't seen each other for a while, and I know how hard it is. How about I leave you two to get up to date, and you can think about telling him later."
Quatre's smile was a grateful one. "Thank you Duo. I couldn't handle being rushed into this, but you don't have to go if you don't want to."
"It's no problem, and you two'd probably connect better if I wasn't here. I'll go and have a look 'round, and I'll see you later. Tell Trowa I had to go off, and I'm sorry I couldn't speak to him more."
"I will. Thanks again Duo"
"Have fun!" said Duo, with a wink, and left, letting the door bang behind him.
Once Duo had gone, the room seemed much emptier, and the pale sunlight falling through the window seemed to Quatre to give the place an even more lonely look. He wondered how Trowa lived here all alone, then he wondered if perhaps Trowa liked being alone, and was annoyed at Quatre for disturbing his peace. This thought worried him greatly, he knew if anyone apart from Trowa had disturbed him on his island without him inviting them, he would have been secretly very annoyed.
What if Trowa felt the same way? He didn't want to annoy Trowa, and he knew the other pilot wouldn't be rude, and chuck him out, but what if he was just trying to think of the words to say to get rid of him?
Quatre couldn't stand it. He got up, and scribbled a note to Trowa, which he left on the desk, with the name of their hotel on it, and he left the circus with a heavy heart.