* Burning Roses. *

* Rating: Pg-13/ R for some points. (Beware The joke of this chapter.)

Pairings: Oh, lovely, we've got ourselves a triangle. Noooo, wait, it's better then that. It's a freaking rectangle!

Disclaimer: There is no disclaimer. Isn't that just mind-boggling? :: Idiot lays singed on the ground muttering things to himself and cursing Silver with all his worth. So, he burnt her papers to try and get warm. What's the big deal? Not like he was burning something important…:: But, I don't own anything. So don't sue unless you want two pieces of lint and a monkey. And No, you can't have my monkey. She's my baby so…So neah.

Summary:

Ahh, you honor me with your praise. ::bows humbly, though there is nonetheless an insane smile on her face:: By the way, I enjoyed reading your story Good Riddance. Lovely way of dying by laughter. Never got around to reviewing, but since you're here now….. I have lost count of how many times I fell out of my chair in giggle spaz out fits. Honest to all that is insane and Unholy.

DAHH!! ::Jumps up and clings to the nearest pole, clearly ignoring the freaked out people reading over her shoulder. The pole was twenty feet away…:: My god, that's freaky. A friend at my school says 'Indeed' all the time. Wow. ::Jumps down from pole as though it was the most normal thing in the world to scream and jump twenty feet from a sitting position to a pole and hold on for dear life.:: But, the best way to keep people out of your room is to get a possessed door that barks. Or moo's. As I said before, cows are evil. And not the good evil, either. They are the bad evil.

I'd say Wufie is hiding somewhere, hugging himself and praying like there was no tomorrow.  :: A voice, a new one, shouts in her head. "My name is Wufei, baka onna!!" Silver is so startled she falls out of her chair with a curse. "What are you DOING in my HEAD!!!?" Wufei shouts back gruffly, "It's the only reasonably safe place that the demon can't get me." Silver's picks herself up and dusts herself off, arching an eyebrow. "Reasonably Safe? Boy, are you on crack. And by Demon, I take it you mean Relena?" Wufei screams and starts rocking himself. Silver, "Right then. Okay, well, fine stay there, but touch anything, and I will steal your katana and use it to shave your head." ::

Oh, don't bother with looking for any more doors. I destroyed all others I've got around here. Didn't want any noses where they don't belong. But your welcome to look if you want. And, can I please get my weapons back? :: insanely huge dewy eyes and big tears:: Pwease? Pweety pwease with ice cream and acorns on top?? Hmmm?

Jealousy is a horrible disease of the heart, and right now, Trowa is starting to get ill. Serena is so close to finding out more of her mother and….well, with every chapter we get closer to something.

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Chapter Twenty-Seven. 

Well, Serena thought with no small amount of bitter irony, no matter how hard I tried to forget the past it wall just has to come back and slap me upside the head now doesn't it? What did I ever do to deserve this anyways? I'm cursed, that's the only logical explanation for all this. How else would I have ended up in a freaking Goth castle with a Beast and three fairies a vampire(deseased) and a ….creepy guy?

A creepy guy that had to have known my mother. What the hell is wrong with the world?

Fate just loves nibbling on my ass, no?

And, if that weren't enough, here they were, they being that strange guy, Trowa, Duo, and a hormone enlightened Quatre, standing in a hall –close quarters of course- staring at each other.

 STARING! Of all the things they could be doing right now, like her digging up facts about her mother from that guy, they were staring at one another as though at any moment one of them would grow another head and start doing the can-can. In only a napkin, no less.

Oh, she wasn't angry. If someone were to ask her why she was shifting her height and gnashing her teeth, she could quite honestly say that she was not angry.

She was stark, raving mad!

Why?

As soon as she figured that out she'd get back to you on that.

However at the moment, she wanted nothing more then to shove her fist down both egomaniacs throats, tell them to stop attempting to skin each other alive with their eyes and force that guy to tell her what he knew of her mother.

Now, Serena is not as dumb as her hair hue would denote. Rather, she knew quite well why Trowa was so on edge. It was called Jealousy.

Nasty little beast of an emotion. Very dark.

And, the stranger was only acting the way he was, was because he had been rather rudely pinned to the ground after all. It was only natural that he be wary.

But, it was much easier to peg it all off on testosterone.

Trowa glared at the dark figure, the dark one glared back in what can only be described as a Death and Horror to you and yours glare. Creepy….

Yes, much easier.

Serena gave up. It took too much energy to be angry for something that was out of hands. Instead she settled her stomach which she felt as though there were snakes chasing around the butterflies and centered her sharp gaze on the stranger.

" You saved me," she shot a pointed look at Trowa, he met her gaze yet he still didn't relax his stance; her eyes flashed back to the other male, "Did you know my mother?"

The tension in the room, which had been strung tight like a violin string straining and trembling gave with a near audible 'twang'. As a result, the glare war was declared over for now and those arctic, near lifeless eyes fastened themselves fully on her.

She had the oddest thought that he was staring strait into her, dissecting all her thoughts and secrets and emotion with his eyes. It was a silly notion, but that was how it felt to her. The gaze was hard, intense, but she resisted the urge to look away knowing in some odd way that she was being tested.

Well, she'd be damned if she was going bow out of this silent challenge to her strength. She'd witnessed the murder of her mother and had not completely broken, and only at six years of age, she'd survived the rough child hood forced to serve her brother and sister's whim and time and time again become the mediator between them when they fought.

She'd been the grunt of all the village kids jokes, used for target practice and constantly tortured by her brother.

Was she going to allow herself to be judged as weak?

Feh, hell no. They all could kiss her lily-white bum for all she cared. She wasn't going to let anyone think her pathetic.

Brave child, he admitted. And smart. She knew what he was doing. He admired that. It was rare that someone, other then that beast, could stand up to the full weight of his gaze. It was half the reason he was as feared as he was among his enemies. The other half being that he was ruthless and refused to let his chosen prey live. He'd earned himself the reputation as a Grim Reaper. Death, was he to them. They all died. One way or another, sooner or later.

And of course it should be only expected that Duo should add his opinion.

Ahh, yes, the comic relief, which often sprang up at the wrong time. Every story has one.

He directed his comment to Trowa where it would gain the fullest effect. "Hey, man, the creeps checking out your lady. He's invading your territory. You gonna let him do that?"

Trowa tensed further, his head lifting a little so that he towered over all present.

And there goes the neighborhood…. I guess I should just stop with these little quips and get back to writing.

Serena's eyebrow twitched and she stomped her foot dangerously close to Duo.

But not quite on him. The little fairy was about as pale as a sheet and trembling from the absolute fear that he was this close to becoming one with the red carpet. He breathed a sigh of relief that was short lived when he realized he was caught. She was standing on his braid. He panicked. The startled to struggle with all the strength of a hell cat.

" Yes, I knew your mother."

The collective attention of the room snapped from Duo's struggles back to the stranger then to Serena to watch her reaction.

She kept her face carefully blank, not allowing herself to hope for something that may not have been there at all. However, that did not stop her from searching his eyes, wanting to now more.  Needing to know more. She hardly remembered her mother. Just soft "I love you's," as she was tucked into bed and a gentle lullaby. A few images of a pale silver-haired woman leaning against a tree trunk and reading to her children as they hung upon her every word.

What was her mother's favorite color? Her favorite flower? Was she anything like her mother? All these questions, and she may have found someone to answer them. May have…

Every muscle within her was tightly tensed, a bow string, she hung to that slim hope that today she would be closer to a mother she hadn't had the chance to remember. Her gut quivered, the urgency in her eyes nearly tangible as she pierced the stranger with the electric blue of her eyes.

"Tell me.  All that you know about, I want you to tell me everything. What books she liked, what she was like, was she beautiful. Everything." Her voice was strained, hesitant but forceful.

Trowa felt something, a white hot dart of something shoot through his hear at the look of painful hope on her face. He felt as though he was loosing something he never had in the first place.

He was certain that this was going to change everything between Serena and him.

Again.

End Chapter

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I just have to say that I love the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Yes. I love them a lot. Ever since I first heard them. I must have been six. Wow. Long time. Then again, I could have my years wrong. Lesse I was about 3 feet high, so I had to have been under 8….well, anyways. I just love them. ::Cheesy Grin::

Joke of the Chapter: A single Mother asks her 10-year-old son if he knows about the birds and the bees.  "I don't want to know!" the child says, bursting into tears. "Promise me you won't tell me!"  Confused, the mother asks him what's wrong.  "Oh, Mom," the boy sobs. "When I was six, I got the 'There's no Santa speech.'  At seven, I got the 'There's no Easter Bunny' speech.  When I was eight, you hit me with the 'There's no tooth fairy' speech. If you're going to tell me that grownups don't really get laid, I'll have nothing left to live for!"

Advice for Chapter: Fall in love. Just don't fall hard. You might break your heart.