Warnings: Angst, Spouse Abuse, Future Yaoi, Strong Language.
Author Notes: ^_^ Heero appears in this chapter. Yay! Thanks still to all my wonderful friends. *winks* Love you all! (Wow, this introduction is really short. ^_~ I think it's a new record for me!)
Good Enough
(working title)
by: Burn
***
He returned to an empty house.
The photos on the fridge were still there for him when he walked through the door, standing as a silent reminder for what once was. He stopped briefly, as he did almost every day, to look at them. He brushed his fingers lightly over one or two, cursing himself when tears formed in the corner of his tired blue eyes.
Six years.
It had been six years since that time, the last time he'd been really, truly happy. Now and again he wondered if he could ever be that way again, but he eventually remembered the guilt and incomplete penance. He had to give up part of his livelihood for the livelihood of all the others that had been lost. It was only fair.
He lowered his eyes to the ground, leaning against the side of the refrigerator for support as his mind reeled. Never again. He couldn't ever be that happy again – wouldn't let himself ruin his progress thus far. He had to take the pain for all the others he'd hurt.
The colonies, soldiers, innocents…
He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, clenching a fist.
Trowa.
An unexpected voice pulled him from the shadows of his mind.
"It's been a long time, hasn't it?"
He recognized the voice immediately. Heero. He dropped in from time to time, staying for a day or sometimes a week depending on the occasion. But eventually he always left, returning to either his wandering or Relena. Quatre turned his head from the memories hanging from magnets on the fridge, looking with a soul weary expression at Heero. He nodded, once.
"Yes. It has."
Heero's medium footsteps sounded impossibly loud against the tiled kitchen floor as he walked closer, never taking his eyes from the exhausted, dead aqua eyes staring at him with hidden pain. They echoed in Quatre's ears, acting as murder on his stress-loaded brain. But the blue eyes regarded him steadily, always with that aching, soul deep pain.
"How've you been, Heero?" Always the polite one, he was. Some things never changed.
"Fine."
A small, bitter smirk formed on small lips just before they twisted around equally bitter words.
"It's nice to know one of us is."
Heero seemed to ignore this remark, instead brushing a fingertip over the surface of one of the pictures he'd earlier been studying. "She looked different, back then."
A nod. "We all did."
"No." Heero shook his head, though his hand did not stray from the photo. "Not all of us." He turned to look Quatre pointedly in the eyes. "You're still just the same."
Surprise flared briefly in his features, a defensive look taking its place directly after. "No, Heero, I think you're mistaken," he started, but Heero narrowed his eyes.
"No," he said, sternly. "You're just the same."
He pulled the photograph he'd been fingering from its place on the fridge. He held it next to Quatre's face, his eyes flickering between the two. Comparing.
"Just the same," he repeated. "Just a little older. More tired. But you're still the same person." He smirked, a small tug at the corner of his lips as he shook his head. "Still blaming yourself for everything." He pressed the picture into Quatre's small hand. "Look at that picture again, Quatre, and then tell me you're not still the same person."
Then he left the room.
Quatre stared after him for a few minutes, clutching the picture tightly within his tiny grasp. He eventually tore his gaze away, transferring it to the photos remaining on the fridge. Dorothy, young and beautiful beckoned to him. He looked back down at the picture in his hands, his resolve swaying.
He had been sixteen when it was taken, young and weighed down by the deaths of thousands. A guilty conscience, but good intentions.
Good intentions don't get you anywhere, he reminded himself sullenly.
He studied the picture of a younger, happier him, held it in his hands. Admired it. He could see Heero watching him from the doorway.
He ripped it in half, let the pieces drop, watched them flutter to the floor. He frowned, raising his eyes to meet Heero's. He spoke softly.
"It was my fault. But I'm going to make up for it."
"How?"
Quatre's mind froze. He didn't have an answer for that.
"I don't know," he said slowly. Deliberately. "But I'm going to. This I promise you."
He looked back down to the ripped picture on the tiled floor. Straight down the center. He'd been ripped apart
A smirk. Not much different than I am now. "I'll fix it the only way I know how."
"What about Trowa?"
He blinked. "… Trowa?"
"Don't play ignorant, Quatre." The voice was stern. His mind swerved.
It had been real, once upon a time in a fairy tale somewhere far away.
He'd been happy, once…
"What about him?"
Heero's eyes narrowed. "How are you going to fix things with Trowa?"
Quietly. "I can't."
A disgusted, almost exasperated sigh. "Quatre."
"What?"
"Look at me."
No answer. Refused to do it.
"…No."
A rough hand grabbed his chin, turned it to look at him. Burning Prussian eyes. He swallowed. "What do you want me to say, Heero? I can't do anything about Trowa."
Heero's eyes hardened. "Let him forgive you."
The hand released his chin, and Heero walked away.
***
