Dragon Lady: Ooh, look, I'm being good and posting a third chapter! ^_^
Ken: It's about time.
Trowa: Why do you care? I'm her Gundam Wing muse, I should be the one worried about when she completes GW stories.
Ken: Yeah, well, she's not gonna even look at the Digimon stories until she does something with her Gundam Wing ones, so I might as well push her to get her done as soon as possible.
Trowa: *nods* True.
Dragon Lady: *waves arms* Hello, you're talking about me like I'm not even here!
Ken: *ignores dl* So do you think your story is coming along all right?
Dragon Lady: *is indignant* Trowa's story? Hey! I'm the one that's writing it!
Trowa: It's going well enough.
Dragon Lady: Well of course it is, that's because I'm writing it!
Ken: So, Dragon Lady (who is only our medium for typing out these ingenious fics, btw), doesn't own Lois Duncan's Down A Dark Hall, which is what this story is based on.
Trowa: Enjoy.
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Sinister Shadows
By: DigimonDragonLady
There came a knocking at the door. Quatre mumbled in his sleep, turning over to avoid opening his eyes to any harsh light.
"Quatre? Are you awake?"
"No. Go away," Quatre grumbled, covering his head with a pillow and burrowing deeper into his warm sheets.
The door opened anyway. One of the major downsides to having no inside lock on his door, Quatre noted, anyone could barge in at any time. He reluctantly sat up and blinked sleepily at the intruder.
"Not a morning person?" Trowa asked, almost sympathetically.
"Mm," Quatre replied, trying to rid his mouth of that cottony feeling so he could talk. "I've got an alarm clock in my bags somewhere, but I didn't feel like digging it out last night, or I would have been up earlier."
"We shouldn't have kept you up so late last night," Trowa frowned.
Quatre knew that he was worrying about him in that silent way of his. "No, its all right, honestly," he assured Trowa quickly. "It wasn't your fault. I enjoyed talking with you, and Duo, and Heero. I just had a hard time getting to sleep last night, that's all. I guess I must have been too excited, or nervous, or something…"
Trowa nodded his understanding.
"So, what's going on?" Quatre inquired, stifling a yawn.
"You missed breakfast, but Ms. Noin said to go talk to Hilde if you were hungry."
"Missed breakfast?" Quatre asked. "What time is it?"
"Almost eleven."
"Really? That late? Wow, doesn't feel like it to me," Quatre rubbed his eyes sleepily. "Hilde?" he asked after a moment.
"The kitchen hand," Trowa answered.
"The girl who served us dinner last night?"
"I suppose so, yes."
"Hmm. I'm not really so hungry that I couldn't wait until lunch. But what I really need right now is a nice hot shower," he swung his feet over the edge of the bed and stretched.
"I'll wait for you," Trowa offered, "and we could see if Duo and Heero wanted to go on a tour of the grounds with us, if that's what you want to do. There's supposed to be a pond and orchard."
"Sounds like fun," Quatre smiled and opened up his suit case to dig through it for some clothes. He glanced out the window before ducking his head back down again. "Looks like a nice day to be outside, too."
Trowa picked up the unintentional stress on the word "outside". He too looked out the window and then back at Quatre. "I'm sure we could all use a little fresh air," he said.
"And some open spaces," Quatre agreed. "For such an enormous home, St. Gabrielle's feels so…cramped. It's going to end up making me claustrophobic," he laughed softly, and then stopped abruptly with an uncomfortable cough. Apparently the building wasn't too fond of laughter.
"I'll be right back," he promised Trowa and slipped out of his room in search of the bathroom.
* * *
Quatre soon returned to find Trowa seated at the window box, patiently awaiting him. His eyes were closed, soft brown bangs covered his face, and the sunlight played over it, bathing it with a soft warm glow. Quatre paused for a moment to marvel over the boys incredible beauty, before remembering and reminding himself with a stern mental lecture that it was not something he should be doing.
Even if he did have a crush on the other boy, Trowa didn't feel the same way about him. Quatre was only a friend to him, and he shouldn't go falling head over heels in love with Trowa when it was impossible to have him.
"I'm back," he informed him, forcing a cheerful note into his tone and reluctantly breaking the calm spell.
Trowa's eyes opened and looked at him, examining his appearance, and Quatre tried not to tremble helplessly under the piercing intensity of his stare. It felt as if Trowa was seeing right through him, and reading his whole life like a book. Finally, Trowa nodded, rising gracefully and walking toward Quatre.
"Then we'll go get Duo and Heero."
Quatre followed Trowa until they reached what he guessed must be Heero's room. He knew where Duo's room was, because the active boy had pointed it out to him on the way back to dinner the night before.
He was curious as to why Trowa hadn't gone to Duo's room first and then to Heero's, as Duo's room was slightly closer to his own, but he let the question go unvoiced as Trowa knocked on the door and they stood waiting.
"Who is it?" Heero's voice called out.
"It's Trowa and Quatre, Heero," Trowa answered. "We wanted to know if you and Duo would like to go for a walk around the grounds with us."
There was a moment of silence in which Quatre could detect a slight flurry of movement from inside the room, and then the door opened.
Quatre blinked in surprise to see Duo standing there framed in the door way, and he held his tongue and tried to put a damper on his curiosity. He glanced at Trowa out of the corner of his eye. Had the brunette guessed that Duo would be here? Is that why he had lead them to Heero's room first?
Or maybe Duo had told him at breakfast that this was where he would be. Anyway, its really none of my business, Quatre reminded himself.
"Heero will go with you guys," Duo said. "But I'm gonna stay inside. I wanted to write a letter to the church today. Ms. Une promised that she'd get it mailed for me when she goes by the village next."
"That sounds fine," Quatre said.
"Don't worry, Duo, we won't kidnap Heero for too long," Trowa promised him.
Duo grinned and waved his hand dismissively. "Nah, I'm not worried about it. Heero's a big boy now, I'm sure he can take care of himself."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Heero grunted, appearing at the door behind Duo.
Duo moved out of the doorway to let him through to the hall. "Have fun," he instructed cheerfully. "Behave yourself, Heero, and play nice with the other kids." Duo winked at Quatre, and Quatre attempted to stifle his giggles with his hand at the dark scowl on Heero's face.
"Baka," Heero accused Duo affectionately, still wearing his mock scowl.
"Always," Duo agreed with a smile. "See you guys later."
As the three of them walked down the hall Quatre frowned thoughtfully. "Heero?" he asked, looking at the Japanese boy.
"Hn."
"What's 'baka' mean?"
Heero laughed for the first time that Quatre had heard, and he stared at him in amazement. "It means fool or idiot," Heero answered, slipping back into his impassive stone mask.
"Don't you think it hurts Duo's feelings to be called an idiot?"
"He's quite used to the term, Quatre," Heero said. "We've been close friends since childhood, and it hasn't phased him yet, he's always thought it an incredibly fun word to use. Duo's like rubber," he explained. "He bounces right back."
"You'd know best, Heero."
"You'll see," Heero answered.
* * *
Heero, Trowa, and Quatre were relaxing at the pond, which had really turned out to be more of a very small lake. Quatre sighed in contentment as a small breeze stirred through the trees around them, and he turned his face into it to breath in the smell of the fresh green grass and the scent of peaches from the old orchard.
Trowa had been right in the assumption that getting outdoors would make him feel better. Much better, in fact.
He turned his gaze on the shimmering blue waters of the lake, and on Trowa, who was skipping rocks he found from the bank out over the ripples of waves that the light wind made. Quatre himself was curled up under the shade of an enormous old oak tree, while Heero was stretched out on one of the limbs above him; though how he had gotten up there was beyond Quatre.
"Its such a shame Duo isn't here to enjoy this with us," Quatre commented. "He seems like the type that lives for the outdoors."
"Oh, he is," Heero replied, "and usually he'd be here in a heartbeat, but I think he was very intent on writing that letter to the church."
"The church?"
"Sister Helen and Father Maxwell. They've been his only family since his parents died when he was three years old."
"Oh." Quatre wasn't sure what to say to that. He could recall Duo mentioning a Father Maxwell and a sister Helen the previous night. Quatre didn't want to aggravate the situation and seem like he was prying into Duo's personal life. And it seemed like that, especially since it wasn't Duo telling him, but Heero; but he couldn't help but ask, "Father Maxwell, is that where Duo got his last name?"
"Mmm," Heero said in agreement. "Duo didn't know his parents names, so he took the name of the Maxwell church instead."
"How sad."
"Father Maxwell is a wonderful man, and he offers all the orphans a proper home. He does his best to get them all adopted to, that's how I came to live with my sister Relena, but Duo just never wanted to be anywhere but the church. He really did think of it as his real home."
"That's sweet," Quatre smiled. "So…you're an orphan too, Heero? Like Duo at the church?"
"Hai."
"I take it that means yes…" Quatre shrugged apologetically at his inability to understand any Japanese, but Heero only chuckled softly and nodded.
"That's where I first met Duo."
"I'm so sorry, that you both lost your parents. At least I've still got my father. Not that he wants me around very much. I've got twenty-nine sisters, but I remind him more of my mother than any of them." Quatre sighed, "So he doesn't want me very often. I guess that's why he sent me here, really. Far away from him."
"That means that everyone here has lost at least one parent," Trowa said, coming to sit next to Quatre. "Interesting that we have such a thing in common."
"Suspicious you mean," Heero said.
"Yes," Trowa answered thoughtfully. "Does it mean something?"
"Who knows?" Quatre shrugged helplessly. "I'm beginning to think that I'll never understand."
"What was it like for you, Trowa?" Heero asked, "loosing your family?"
"I didn't loose my whole family," Trowa said softly. "I still have Cathy, my blood sister, and…well, the circus. My parents have always worked at the circus, Catherine and I grew up there with all the lions and clowns and snake charmers and everything else you might see there."
"How exciting," Quatre exclaimed.
"They died when I was around seven, so I still remember them pretty well. They were both trapeze artists, they had an act together and everything. But, one night they left us in the care of the ringmasters wife and went out for dinner to a nearby city. They were killed by a drunk driver."
"I'm sorry," Quatre said, putting a gentle hand on Trowa's shoulder.
"I was asleep when it happened, but I woke up in my room, and my mother and father were standing there at the edge of my bed, looking down at me. And they seemed really sad. I tried to talk to them, asking them what was wrong, but they didn't answer me, and I guess I fell back asleep. When I woke up the next morning, everybody was crying and saying how sorry they were for me, and that's when I found out that they were dead. But when I told everyone that I had seen them, no one would believe me."
"Wow…" Quatre whispered. "You saw your parents, after they were supposed to be dead?" Trowa nodded and Quatre bit his lip. "I…I never knew my mother, because she died giving birth to me…but I used to see her in dreams a lot. When I was younger mostly. She'd come to me, and tell me things, and then I'd wake up and go on with my life, and then there'd be this sense of déjà vu when the things she told me started to come true…"
Quatre stopped and listened to himself. He laughed uncomfortably. "I bet we'd sound really funny to anyone listening in on this conversation. The abnormal teenagers of the St. Gabrielle Institute."
"But we're finding out more and more that we have in common," Heero muttered. "Dreams about those people that have died in our lives…" He shook his head. "It just doesn't seem to make any sense."
They were thankfully interrupted by Duo, who was jogging toward them, waving and calling their names.
"Hey, you guys, I brought us lunch!" he shouted as he came nearer, brandishing a large hamper of food at them. "Ms. Noin said that we could eat out here if we wanted, and Hilde packed it for us!"
He sat down on the ground and began to pull things out of the basket. "So watcha been talking about while I was inside?" he asked.
"Nothing much," Heero said.
"Just enjoying the weather," Trowa agreed.
"Ah, well, I finished my letter a while ago, and I was going to come join you sooner, but I got this overwhelming desire to draw a picture, and so I sat down at my desk and just started to draw. And guess what? It turned into a picture of you, Quatre!" He smiled.
"Really?" Quatre asked. "A picture of me? Could I see it when we get back, Duo?"
"Sure," the boy responded cheerfully. "If you'd like."
And thoughts of the drawing were pushed aside while they settled down to the meal before them.
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Trowa: Not a bad chapter.
Ken: *agrees* No, it wasn't.
Dragon Lady: I liked it. *is still being ignored by her muses*
Ken: So we'll get to see another part soon, right?
Trowa: ASAP
Ken: *satisfied* Good.
Dragon Lady: *growls in frustration* Hello! Talk to me!
Ken: So, with the promise of the next chapter soon…
Trowa: Remember to support your local muses. ///_^
Ken: Donate reviews.
Dragon Lady: *frowns thoughtfully* Donate reviews? *blinks* Is that anything like donating blood? You make it sound like it would hurt.
Ken: ^^;;