Wings of Love Part X (10) (3x4, 4x3)

Disclaimor: Gundam Wing is © Sunrise. Gavin is © me (Kasage) 2001.

March 3rd, AC 197 :: 01:39

Trowa writhed in his sleep, trapped in the same realistic nightmare that he fought with every night. Every night he was surrounded by this strange feeling of pain, hate, and depression that followed him into the next day. Sometimes he swore he saw a thousand undulating creatures, chewing upon him in his dreams, seeking to destroy him with their teeth and sometimes claws. Most of the time, he thought he was dead, be chewed upon by maggots and worms in his grave. However, these dreams had been going on for as long as two years now, and he was beginning to wonder what they meant.

The Latin man groaned in his sleep and rolled on his side. His whole soul hurt, and there were more of the strange squirming creatures now- and others, new winged creatures like bats attacking him. He tried to push them away, but it just enticed them more. "Stop! Go away!" The pain got sharper. They-they were tearing him apart. He screamed. "What do you want with me! NO!"

His body began vibrating violently and suddenly Trowa's eyes opened wide into the half-lit face of someone he at first thought was one of them. "No-" A hand clamped over his mouth.

"Hush it, Trowa. You want a wake up the whole group of 'em." Cobalt eyes looked at him with a strange hushed worry, as chestnut hair glinted in the dim light. The raven lifted his hand from Trowa's mouth to let him speak.

"Duo?" Trowa's bare chest was dripping with sweat, and his eyes glazed and staring somewhere beyond the startled face of the Shinigami. Rapid breath escaped his lips. Soemthing was very wrong with Trowa. Duo didn't know just what, but it was more than the death of Quatre that was eating away at his buddy.

"Dang, that must have been some nightmare." He offered a hand to help Trowa out of his cot. "What's happened."

The Lion sat up and shook his head, putting a hand at the bridge of his nose to pinch off a strange headache. "I'm not sure ... I have ... I have these dreams every night."

"Never heard you scream before. No wonder you're so quiet. You should see a shrink."

He though about his dream for a moment, knitting his brows together recalling the foreign, yet frightening pain. It was a very odd pain-one that gave him a feeling that if it continued it would cause far worse than death.

"I don't think a psychiatrist would help ..." whispered Trowa finally.

It was Duo's turn to quirk his eyebrows. "Then what the Hell is wrong with you?" He was really worried, and it was coming off as anger instead of concern.

"I told you, I don't know!" Trowa snapped.

Duo leaped back at the outburst, suddenly frightened by the rage evident in the Lion's features. /That's not Trowa .../ the Shinigami thought. /What the Hell is wrong with him./

The anger faded as quickly as it came, and blazing green eyes faded once again to the familiar, cold emerald. The hand returned to his forehead, and Trowa began applying pressure, trying to soothe the migraine a little. "I'm sorry, Duo. I don't know what came over me."

/I don't know either./ the Shinigami thought to himself. /I don't know either./

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March 3rd, A.C. 197 :: 05:17

"We haven't got much sleep tonight," muttered Gavin. His white hair was a mess, and he was tired.

The little red-haired girl just giggled. "Don't worry, it's Saturday."

"Yeah, but we've been up aaaaaall night."

Mariemaia cocked her head. "I thought you said you don't sleep much?"

"But I /do/ sleep!"

"Oh, yeah, sorry." Ice blue eyes gave him a sympathetic look. "You could have told me you wanted to sleep some, but I've never had a sleep-over before."

"You know sleep-over does contain the word 'sleep'."

More giggles ensued. "I guess it does."

Gavin sighed. He really hadn't wanted to do this sleep-over thing. He'd never done one before, and it took away from the time he spent with Quatre. Quatre needed him right now, but he couldn't stay on the Boat for long-only at night and when he locked himself in his room. He never had dealt well with the living, but now that Mariemaia had forced friendship upon him, he didn't have a choice but to learn.

"Hey, Gavin." The voice of the young Khushrenada broke his daze. "You okay?"

"Yeah ..."

"You're just being quiet."

"I'm always quiet."

"Oh ..." She remained silent for a moment. "Is there a dead person here?"

"Huh?"

"A dead person. 'Cause if there was I was gonna say "Hi." I don't wanna be rude."

"Oh. No ..."

"Did you know Treize?"

"Huh ... Yeah, he was like Quatre."

"Oh. Cool. You see, when I was in a coma, I swore he came to me, and he had these huge and beautiful wings. He told me that if I act with my heart and learn his mistakes I'll be a good leader someday- he said he ddn't wnat me to make his mistakes. I think ... I think if I were still alive, I would be happy for him to be my dad. I wish I knew him ..."

"So that's where he went ..." The boy murmured. "I always wondered ..."

"What?"

"Treize, I wondered where he flew to. He came to watch over you."

The red head looked around as if he were right there with her. "Where, where is he?"

"Not /right/ here, silly, just around."

"Oh. Would you be able to see him if he were here?"

"Uh-huh."

"What about me?"

"Uh ... I'm not sure. Probably not, but he was your father, so maybe."

"I bet I'd see Q-chan."

"Quatre's still in the world of the dead."

"Tell him I said "Hi" next time you see him."

She had said this before, he remembered thjat conversation so well ...

//*

"I don't know if he'll remember you ..." He faltered. Would Mariemaia understand. She'd already sat through his explaination of the Underworld, and Quatre's significance, but this ... It had never come up. He hoped it wouldn't upset her.

"What do you mean? How could he forget me? He saved my life ... /I/ was the reason he died. Because he came to save me, he had to ... Had to die ..." She sniffed back a sob. It still hurt to know that she was the reason Quatre was not at home, safe with his beloved Trowa-kun.

Gavin choked a bit. He had never had Quatre's full story related to him. Of course he would remember Mariemaia ... If she was so close to how he died. But ...

"Why do they forget?"

"Huh? Oh ... I think, its just the shock of leaving the body ... leaving the Earth-plane. Its meant to make Death easier, but even I don't understand."

"So, you don't know everything about the World of the Dead."

"Nope. Do you know everything about Earth?"

"Good point."

//**

He returned his mind to the real world, remembering what Quatre had told him.

"He misses you."

"Huh."

"Quatre."



The girl leaned back in her bed and looked up at the ceiling, and the glow-in-the-dark stars that Lady Une had painted there. She wondered what Q-chan was going through. He must miss Trowa-kun, and all the living people. She wondered what it was like to be dead-to be alone and confused, with noone to embrace you because you were just a ghost. "Can I go with you?"

"Huh?"

"Go to the World of the Dead. I wanna go with you."

"Uh ..." Gavin didn't know how to answer. He'd never thought about bringing another person. Was it possible? He didn't know. Violet eyes looked back at Mariemaia perplexed. Her eyes met his with a smile.

"So?"

"I-I don't know. Maybe ..."

"Can you ask?"

"There's noone to ask."

"Maybe someone knows."

Gavin stared off into the distance. "Maybe ..." /It would be nice to not be alone .../

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March 3rd, A.C. 197:: 08:33

Trowa stared blankly at the paper in front of him, news directly from the L-4 colony cluster. The front page headline hit him with a mixture of pain and horrow:

Winner Heir Takes Gay Lover

It was horrible, as if all the two were- well, were an unscrupulous couple involved in purely passsionate romps around various places in the world during the war and up to now. Most of it, in fact, were pure lies. Liesw that stung. He and Quatre had shared some nights of passionate embrace yet, but Quatre was more than just a lover. He was his koi, his soul-mate. He had loved Quatre.

And now they were smearing his name and all those close to him with the over-blown scandal. He didn't even understand how anyone in the press found out about him and Quatre's romance. The total people that knew about their romance was less than twenty, and the only one that might let it slip was Duo- and even he wasn't that stupid. He could even be ... The lion choked on the thought ... Sensitive.

Green eyes continued to read through the slander as he sipped on his morning coffee. It was disgusting- weak American coffee that Duo had made. Hadn't the Shinigami heard of Espresso ... No wait, if this little caffeine made him hyper, the Latin would hate to see what an Espresso would do to the bouncy braid-boy.

Speak of the devil, the Raven had just flipped a chiar backwards and was now sitting across from the man whom he'd found disturbed in the middle of the night. "What do you want, Gringo?" he said irritably.

Duo had decided to ignore the half-derogatory "Gringo", that was as common to him as "Gaijin" was from Heero. "Hey man, what's eatin' ya?"

Trowa flashed to his dream briefly, but shook it away. "Look." He gestured to the headline.

Purple-blue eyes nearly popped out of there sockets. "Whoa, no wonder you're pissed."

"Nice phrasing."

"Sorry."

"No, you're not."

The braid-boy grinned. God, how could he do that at a time like this? "Did you even read the article, or ar you illiterate?"



"Uh, illiterate. No I can read." He took the article from Trowa and glaced over it. "Man, they make you sound like a male whore or somethin'."

"Again, I admire your use of the English language."

"I told you, I'm sorry!"

"Can it, Maxwell."

"Sure." Trowa waited, he knew that Duo couldn't stay shut up for long. Some days he was certain the Death God had medication, and forgot to take it.

Finally, the Shinigami couldn't stand it any longer. "Quatre doesn't cross dress! He wore pink, but he never wore women's stuff!"

"You can't keep quiet can you?"

"Yeah, but damn!"

"Duo ..."

"I know, sorry." He paused. "So ... What are you gonna do about it?"

"What do you mean?"

"About this!" he said gesturing to the paper.

"There's nothing I can do. They'll just find more dirt. Eventually it will blow over. Besides, I don't even know who slipped."

"Yeah, but you can find out! They'll be making up stories about- Hell, about me and Heero before long, and you know who'll believe that one. Then Relena'll stomp down here with false accusations and-"

"What, do you like Heero or something."

"Hell, no!" Duo sulked at the table for a moment. "He pinched me once."

"Good lord ..."

"No really ... I swear, if he asks me into bed with him and Relena-"

"Stop there. I don't want to hear what your over active imagination comes up with when it has nothing better to do than torture me. Heero and Relena haven't even seen each other since the Mariemaia Uprising- not including Quatre's funeral."

"Okay ... But, they would be a cute couple."

"Cute's not the word for it. Then again, the idea of you and Heero is even more horrifying."

"This is what I'm saying."

"Okay, but you picked a starnge way to do it."

"You know, you and Noin should date."

"What!"

"No, I mean, she lost Zechs, you lost Quatre."

"Um, no. Noin is ... Well, she's Noin. Nice, but- Duo, I am not ready to date and neither is she. Have some respect."

"Okay. I just wanted to lighten things up."

"I know. Its not like you ever mean any harm."

"Hey look, its Noin."

"God, Duo."

The ebony haired woman opted to join them. "Sorry if I'm intruding, but I saw the paper. I can't believe it. That's such a horrible lie. You really loved Quatre." Violet eyes looked at the youth with a sincere expression.

"Thank you, Noin."

"I mean it. I've never seen two people so in love. Do you want to know what my intuition thinks?"

"Enlighten us, Miss Noin," snickered the Shinigami.

"Get a life, Maxwell."

"Whoa, some woman didn't have her morning coffee. Or is that PMS?"

"Duo, why don't you go check out the weaponry. Commander Noin and I need to talk business."

"But I wanna he- Oh, you two want some alone time."

"Stop it, before I hit you, you disrespectful bastard!" lashed Trowa.

"Damn, Trowa! Sorry, Noin, he did this last night too."

"Duo, why don't you let Trowa be. He's a little stressed."

"Okay, later Trowa."

"Yeah ... Uh, sorry Duo."

The braided boy shrugged him off. "Doesn't matter."

As the raven clad youth walked away, Noin turned her attention back to the brown haired Latin. "Okay, this may sound strange, but something tells me its no accident that this has come out on L-4 so soon after Quatre's death."

"What do you mean?" Trowa was confuse. What purpose could this slander have to anyone?

"What I mean is, this is too great a coincidence. If my suspicions are correct, the Barton Followers are trying to use this to gain control of L-4, not to mention bait you. That may not be it, but I'd keep my eye on L-4. It's a very important cluster, and the Barton Followers would do just about anything to gain control of it."

Trowa sat back in his chair. This made sense. Many people in the world were homophobic, afraid of that type of foreign relationship. This over-exagerrated story could turn a lot of people suspicious, and others mutinous to the "morality" of the Preventers. It was an unnecessary complication in an already difficult scenario.

All the more reason to get rid o the Barton Followers as soon as possible.

"What do you think we should do, Noin?"

"I'm not sure. We need to plant some bugs, that for certain. Also, the headquarters we raided the 14th was a decoy. We need to find the real center, and put an end to this Barton nonsense."

"Spying then. Maybe we can find another Treize loyalist. It would be helpful."

Noin nodded, black hair waving up and down in front of her eyes as did so. "That woul be tricky. Its hard to trust anyone, though we might have luck searching out weaponry."

"And land us with more decoys, not a good idea. I hate to say this, but we could use Zechs Merquise's intuition right about now."

"I know what you mean. He was my rod. Its - its hard working without him."

Trowa nodded. "Maybe, maybe he made it to the other side-to a better place."

"I hope so. So, what are we going to do?"

"Assign some errands for six weeks, and reconvene on April 14th, a month and fortnight away. By then, we should have more information about the intent of the BF and decide some course of action until then."

"And you?"

"I'm borrowing you, Sally, Wu-fei, and Duo. We have to find Heero Yuy."

TBC.

Authors Notes:

The reference to ADHD is not meant to be derogatory. Some of my best friends and have that disorder. (And luckily have the BEST sense of humors in the world.)