Unbreakable


April 14, 1912: 3:00 AM


"Sleeping," thought Quatre. "She's sleeping. Oh god, I hope she's sleeping."

Quatre hurriedly fumbled with the knots tied tightly and complex on his wrists, struggling through the pain and tears with what would have been otherwise a simple task. Every noise he heard made him flinch violently and paranoia grabbed his spine like some nightmare fist. Everything was coming to head in Quatre's life, all things terrifying and bad were reaching out to get him and Quatre could do nothing about it. Fate wanted to torture him it seemed.

Trying to keep his mind off the subject of the monsters surrounding him, he pushed away the dreary thoughts and concentrated on one thing: Trowa.

"I don't know why I feel this way," he thought, "But if it can get me through this, I'd spend eternity thinking of him."

Smiling as he thought of Trowa, Quatre finally loosened the final knot at his feet and stood up, able to stretch for the first time in hours. Immediately he pulled the gag from his mouth, being able to rest his jaw for the first time in hours.

After a few minutes of massaging his jaw, he immediately began tugging away at the knots on his wrists with his teeth, keeping his mind on survival. A floorboard creaked and Quatre jumped, stepping away from the door. After several moments of silence, he sighed and began tugging away again.

"Stop it, she's asleep. She's not going to get you right now..."

The closet door flew open and before Quatre knew what was happening, he was tugged from the closet roughly and slammed up against the wall. He screamed out as his shoulder made another sickening sound.

"Wow, I'm really surprised. You managed to get out of the ropes. I'm pretty good with those. Maybe you're not as pathetic as I thought," spat the old woman, before slapping Quatre across the face, causing Quatre to yell out.

"Or maybe you are. Oh well, doesn't matter now..." She bent over and grabbed the gag, and then stuffing it into Quatre's mouth firmly. Coughing, Quatre instinctively reached for the gag, but Francis grabbed his wrists and began dragging him out into the hallway.


Trowa was asleep on the cot. Barely. It wouldn't have taken a lot to have woken him up at this point as his arm was handcuffed to the pipe above his cot, causing the blood to drain out of his hand and create a tingling feeling in his fingertips. Then there was the constant snoring of the guard sitting outside the door, and the second guard systematically tapping on the wall with his night-stick. But Trowa managed to block out the noises of the people around him and shut his mind off. But any little disturbance would wake him up. Like the two crashing then thumping sounds that were right outside the door.

Trowa sat right up, eyeing the door. The hallway outside it had gone silent, the guards fallen on top of each other, unconscious.

A figure stepped into the room softly, his feet almost making no sound. He was an Asian boy, no older than Trowa himself, with his hair slicked back into a tiny, tight ponytail. He wore what almost looked like pajama's, perfectly white.

"Trowa Barton, I would presume," the boy asked.

Trowa nodded.

"Wufei Chang. It's an honor. Let me help you with that," he said deadpanned, pointing to the handcuffs that suspended Trowa from the pipe.

"Much appreciated," Trowa said, deadpanned as well.

Wufei walked over and unlocked the handcuffs with the keys he took off of the unconscious guards. Finally free of it, Trowa rubbed his red wrists, though he couldn't feel his hand doing so because it was asleep.

"Let us hurry, we have very litle time," Wufei stated.

Trowa nodded and stood up, following the young boy out of the room.


"Don't bother kicking and screaming," Francis said as she led Quatre out of the hallway into the brutally cold ocean air. "Honestly, it'll be over quicker than you think. Especially if you let the water fill your lungs."

Quatre gasped and his eyes grew wide with fear, and tried to tug the other way, but Francis pulled on his arm, jerking him foroward.

"Don't run little rabbit," she snapped, pulling him foroward even more, all but throwing him down a flight of stairs to the third class deck.

Faster than Quatre could process, they were already at the back of the boat. Quatre looked down at the white foam produced from the propellers and saw in them his own death. He imagined himself in the water below and remembered what Trowa had told him. He didn't want his skin shredded. That was the last thing he wanted.

Quatre started kicking a squirming, trying to tear himself away from his aunts grip, but to his dismay, she was stronger. Stronger than a woman probably should be, but the fact remained. With another bone-cracking twist of his shoulder he was pressed against the railing, feeling his ribs grate against the metal railing.

"Stop right there!"

Qautre and Francis both spun their heads around as a voice broke the air. Quatre felt his heart jump into his throat and his eyes got wide and misty.

"Trowa!"

Trowa held a gun in his left hand, pointed at Francis.

Wufei stood next to Trowa with a pistol held at his side. "If you value your life, and I'm sure you do, please release the boy," Wufei stated.

Francis scowled as she felt defeat begin to creep up to grab her by the throat. But with the kind of woman she was, she was not about to allow such insolent brats to be the end of her.

Francis grabbed Quatre by the neck and held him over the railing. "Tro...wa..." Quatre forced out, his airway being blocked by the forcive hand of his aunt.

"Now, the way I see it," Francis began. "I am the one holding the right cards. How about you hand those guns over to me and I might let the kid live..."

"I'm afraid that's not an option," Trowa replied.

Suddenly, a crack broke the air of the quiet night, echoing in the darkness before everything going silent. The waves against the ship didn't even register. Qautre reached up to his face after a moment of silence and felt the new presence on his face. He pulled his hand back and spied the liquid there. Crimson red and it smelled of the very essense of life. Slowly he turned to his aunt. She was shivering in fear and shock. Suddenly, he was set free, her vice grip unable to hold him anymore. He fell to the floor and scooted back away from her, moving towards Trowa.

Francis looked down at her nightgown. Where there would normally be white, dark red stained her chest. She looked at the giant stain unbeleiving. You couldn't tell if she were in pain or not. It might just not be registering yet, but she was shocked, that much was for sure.

Then the only sound heard was her falling to her knees and collapsing with a thunk, barely inches away from where Quatre lay.

Quatre stared down at Francis' dead body. It was still so quiet. And Quatre screamed...


Trowa sat by and watched as Quatre lay sleeping on his bed, waiting for the other to awake again. When he passed out after screaming like a rabbit, he'd finally collapsed in Trowa's arms, out of exhaustion. While he was unconscious, a doctor had tended to his arm. It wasn't nearly as bad as it seemed, though it would take a few days for the swelling to go down. Trowa gingerly brushed Quatre's hair out of his face. Trowa couldn't help but feel a yearning deep inside of himself to take care of this boy. This boy who had been through so much and had lost so many at such a young age.

He couldn't help it. He sat up and leaned over the sleeping boy, bending over his face and stealing a kiss.

"Don't worry anymore," Trowa whispered to the sleeping Quatre, "You won't have to worry ever again. I'm here now."

Quatre stirred in his sleep, unconsciously chattering the approval of Trowa's words.


Quatre opened his eyes as the morning broke into the windows, scratching at Quatre's eyes to wake up, wake up now. He tried to sit up in bed, but found there was a weight on his arm. Allowing his eyes to adjust to the morning, he turned at looked at the figure next to him.

Quatre gasped and felt his eyes swell with tears. "Trowa!" he excitedly yelled.

Trowa was awakened by his name being called. He looked up, feeling groggy, his back sore from sleeping perched over his sleeping angel. The one he would protect.

"Trowa? You're okay!" Quatre almost squealed with excitement.

Trowa cracked a small smile out of the right side of his mouth, something he did not do often. "It wasn't me that needed worrying over."

With the sudden realization of what had happened the night earlier Quatre slumped back onto his pillow. "Oh god, Trowa. What happened to her?"

"I'm sorry Quatre. She was going to hurt you. I had to."

Quatre squeezed his eyes shut. "No... It can't be. She was all I had left. I didn't like her, but she was family."

Trowa slipped his hand into Quatre's. "Do you think..."

Quatre looked down at where Trowa was holding him. "Yes?" Quatre said inquisitively.

"Do you think...I could be your family now?"

Quatre felt the organ in his chest swell up. What was he going to do? He felt the urge to grab this boy and hold him close, whisper that he was all he wanted in a family. But could he? He was so confused, the memories of the past few weeks bearing down on him with the force of a stone.

Trowa broke another smile as he was the fretful look in the other boys eyes. "It's okay Quatre. I can wait for your answer."

Quatre shook his head. "No. I have my answer. I don't know how..." Quatre shut his eyes again. He had never felt like this before. It seemed wrong, but more of him was saying 'who cares?'. "I don't know how to say it to you."

Trowa leaned over the boy in the bed, appearing almost animalistic. "Do not tell me then. Show me Quatre. Show me now what you feel. And don't hold back."

"Okay..." Quatre whispered smally, sitting up, minding his shoulder. He took one look at Trowa's eyes and he knew how he felt. There was no confusion, just the two of them. He leaned in towards Trowa's waiting lips and kissed them gingerly, feeling the pressure being returned to him gladly.

Quatre pulled back and looked into Trowa's eyes again, those eyes that he knew now he loved so much.

"See? That wasn't so hard now, was it?" Trowa said.

Quatre smiled widely before pulling Trowa back onto him with his good arm, smothering the boy with slow, intimate kisses.

"Quatre, I..." Trowa began between kisses. "I've never had the privelage of feeling this with anybody."

"Neither have I," replied Quatre before applying more kisses to Trowa's ready lips.

"I've been waiting so long for someone to call home. I'm so glad...it's you."


"So, Duo! You gotta spend some time up in first class, ne?"

"Yeah!" said Duo. "And all I had to do was tell a little bit of a truth!"

"Must have been like pulling steel needles through ya teeth!"

Duo threw his dirty shirt at his friend before picking up his clean one and buttoning it up.

"Where you off to now?" Duo's friend asked.

"Just got a little appointment to keep. See you suckers later," Duo yelled as he left the cabin.


"This is yours to keep."

Treize held out the statue Duo had been admiring the night before, the large black cat with a golden cross across it's back.

Duo stared at it in awe. "Wait... you're giving this to me?"

"It's what I said, isn't it? It was yours the moment you laid your eyes on it."

Almost expecting to get his hand slapped with a ruler or a whip, he slowly reached up and took the smallish statue out of Trieze's hands.

"Thank...thank you so very much," Duo said.

Treize nodded. "No need to thank me. This is my thanks for helping me bring that terrible woman to justice."

"It's too bad she had to die," Duo said solemnly.

"From where I was standing, that was the only way she could be stopped. She's got quite the criminal record. It's just that the police don't know about it yet."

Duo harumphed. "It's amazing what people will do for money."

Treize grinned. "Yes, I've had some people go to extreme measures to get their hands on the smallest chunk of gold. I'm very lucky there are people like you around, that try to earn what they keep."

"Thanks!" Duo said, reveling in the compliment. "Well, I'd better be off. Don't want to keep the party waiting for me."

Treize looked at Duo slightly sideways. "Party? Why, it's not even noon."

"Eh, well, there's no harm in starting before everyone else. The early bird catches the worm, as they say!"

Treize chuckled. "Thank you again, Duo."


"Oh, no, Trowa," Quatre whispered as he felt the fasten of his pant loosen.

"Am I going too fast for you?" Trowa asked before continuing.

"I don't know...maybe...I can't think."

Trowa pulled his hand up to Quatre's face and brushed aside the bangs clinging to Quatre's forehead from the sweat. "It's okay."

"Let's just lay here for a while," Quatre suggested, rolling over to his side. Trowa cradled his head on Quatre's shoulder and held the two of them close together, enjoying the feel of Quatre's skin against his own chest.

"This is nice," Trowa said sincerely, kissing Quatre's cheek, causing Quatre to smile.

"Trowa? What will happen after this? Where will I go?" Quatre asked, clutching at Trowa's back.

"I don't know," Trowa replied. "Too bad we can't stay in this room forever."

"I know," Quatre said, smiling again. "I think that would be heaven for me." Quatre sighed once more. "But the reality is, we can't."

Trowa nodded solemly. "That's very true. But whatever way we can stay together, let's try. You're worth it."

Quatre craned his neck back and kissed Trowa once again, cradling the other boys face with his hand. "So are you."