* Burning Roses. *

* Rating: Pg-13/ R for some points.

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

Disclaimer: You know, disclaimers aren't too bad…hell, one usually gets to write some rather amusing scenarios in which one has gained possession of G.W or S.M. and thusly wreaks havoc on said shows. (Killing Mamoru off, slaughtering anything of pink origin and so on, or just torturing them all.) But, well, lets face it. No one wants to hear that they are as poor as the soil animals piddle on, now do they? And, I  unfortunately have not much to my name. Just a bunch of plushies, horses and bishies, and about ten dollars, which I will not give anyone. Notice that among my worldly goods, GW or SM was not mentioned? Yes. And what can we conclude from that? Simple. I own nadda, but my plot and insanity.

Summary: :: Sputters incredulously when she find her ice cream and frozen yogurts gone. Sighing, because there in the corner of the freezer was a certain Squirrel's calling card, an acorn. " Might as well go shopping, I needed to do that anyways." Pulls out her wallet, with a charming picture of a unicorn on the front and opens it. Her jaw drops…. Then she smiles. " Damn good thing I'm an author." Grabs a piece of paper and starts writing. She finishes and opens her wallet again. 100 dollars stare back at her. : Oh, but I'm not all that bad am I? With the cows and all? :: Shrugs then mounts her silver horse and rides off to the store. Fun fun.

Of course sucking up to the author isn't a crime. Who ever told you that? ::grinz::

I am glad you love this story so much. It's been a blast writing it. :: Scratches head:: Though, it sometimes confuses me. Eh, well….:: turns beet red at all the good compliments.:: God your too nice. I think I'm going to die from acute blood rush. That really doesn't sound fun -_-. And thank you for the luck. I'll need it in math.

I'll try to make the chapters longer, but I can't not do the detailing. That would annoy the voices in my head. They like being through perfectionists. ::Winces under the sudden attack of a head ache.:: I know T-man outa chara and it sometimes drives me nuts (again) but, I think I can fix that. Well, see I'm so white that if the sun hits my skin just so, I can blind someone with my paleness.

The outcome of the couples will surprise some people, I think….then again, maybe not. I'm not as secretive and mysterious as I like to think.

We're at insanity, we've been there, done that, so does anyone want a t-shirt? I know it's a bad cliffie. I think it'll give the wanted effect though.

Oh you guys are going to hate me for what I just did. Forget hate, your going to gut me and hamstring me then take away all my pens and papers and my computer so I can't write anymore. After of course you make me heal Trowa. And I am not talking about his heart.  

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Chapter Twenty-Eight. (Good Lord….) 

One week. One miserable, lifeless week. Trowa sighed imperceptibly, leaning back in his plush chair. The very one he had sat in that one night, keeping vigil over Serena's sleep.

 Shaking the thought from his mind, Trowa stood up easily, a motion so fluid it would have made water weep ice shards with envy. He shouldn't be so damn concerned about a simple girl. If you wanted to be perfectly honest, she was an annoyance. Ever since she had first arrived.

It had been nothing but chaos, mayhem and a dash of pandemonium occasionally and one had a party. (He had never been to keen on parties. Stuffy affairs really.) Mentally, he ran a checklist of all the things that Serena had gotten him into since she had come to his castle.

1. She dared to mock him, acting as though she had not seen anything wrong with his appearance.

2. She had brought that…girl, Relena with her.

3. First night, she runs about the castle, dressed in a towel and threatening the residents with certain, if not flashy, death by peashooter. What kind of psychopath used peashooters anyways? It was common knowledge that any one who was some one used eye lash curlers. Duh.

4. Then, she goes and advertises herself for blood donations to the hungry/thirsty. That was plain idiocy.

5. She had the gall to actually insult him day in and day out. By calling him gay, for one. That was annoyance at play, right there. Indeed it was.

6. Well, there really was no number six, it just added to the sound goodness of the whole list.

7. No number seven either.

8.  And, then the kicker. She made him feel like he was human. How cruel was that? It was like saying, "Here you go, you genetic mistake, feel like a normal human even though you're a walking reason why cousins, brothers and sisters should not have the hard and heavy liquor at a make out party." Boy, did that make him feel GOOD. Can we feel the sarcasm?

 Yeah, he nodded, that just about covered it. So, why in hell was he so concerned and jealous over a guy, whom by his judgments was at least twenty years older then her. Not that he looked physically so, but he did smell it. He wasn't human.

Trowa didn't know what he was. Perhaps that's why he was so worried over the girl. Yeah, that had to be it.

Ah, who the bloody hell was he kidding? You can lie to every one else but not to yourself.

Cupid, he thought darkly, I'm gonna shove that toy arrow set up your….

As Serena didn't know that she was currently the reason for Cupid being hung up with a wedgie that could top all wedgies by his little huggies diapers, she was able to carry on her day with a clear conscience.

And at about that moment, she was learning that her mother, surprise, flaming surprise, had been a rather good shot with a bow and arrow (or a peashooter, though the woman probably didn't run around clad in a few droplets of water and a scandalously short towel).

Her informant, Heero as he had introduced himself as thus, was asking her if she wished for him to teach her.

She looked at him, closely. "Are you mad? Of course I want to learn. Show me?"

Was that a smile, she saw ghosting about his lips? Surely not. She blinked and it was gone. Well, she thought bemused; I guess lack of sleep does cause hallucinations. Better sleep better from now on.

When someone pulls something out of thin air, the general reaction of whoever's watching is to stare in disbelief and try to pick his or her jaw up off the floor. Well, Serena was not the 'general' or even normal. She'd employed that trick too many times to be awed by it now.

Still, one tends to be startled when a quiver of arrows and a bow, strung and ready appear in a pair of hands that had held nothing moments previous.

It was a neat trick.

Almost fearful, one of Serena's slim hands reached out and took the bow from him. Her eyes danced over the weapon/-hunting tool. Her mother had used one… and now she was going to learn. She felt the familiar stinging of tears beneath her eyes and smiled warmly at the man standing a few feet from her, still holding the quiver and watching her carefully.

"Thank You," she whispered, " for what you are doing for me."

"Your mother would have wanted you to learn." He brushed her words of gratitude off like they were just flies, but still, Serena was too happy to be hurt. 

Running. It may not have been the best approach to the 'problem', but it was all Trowa was interested in at the moment. So, he was running through the trees, all four paws slicing through the soil and undergrowth before being lifted up and away.

Running. Maybe he was flying. Or floating.

He felt all the troubles of the castle; Serena included fade as he left them behind. All there was in his world, was the scent of the trees and the muscles off his body coiling and releasing, the air whispering through his sensitive nose into his lungs then back out again.  

Suddenly, he was back to being the old introverted Trowa and not the Trowa he'd become with Serena around. Suddenly, he was himself again.

Or maybe he had always been himself and it was a just a new facet of his hidden personality. It could have been that….

No. Don't think. Just run. Fly. Forget those things.

Fly, they say, be free they say. Blah blah blah. Poor little beastie boy. Running never gets anyone anywhere, I think he'll have to figure that out for himself though. A little knowledge is a powerful thing. But a lot hurts. He'll find out.

Serena notched the arrow to the bow, then under his careful tutelage corrected her stance and lifted the bow to draw the string back. The shaft of the arrow caressed her fingers gently, as she stared down the wooden shaft taking aim.

Beside her, Heero's hand whispered against her own, moving her fingers to the right position then drifting away again leaving her alone.

Her world shrank and narrowed till there was only her, the target and the bow and arrow. She drew the arrow back further and released her breath. Her lungs shifted again, pulling air in.

" Sere, that's my girl. Both eyes open, darling. You need to see with all of you, not half. That's it. Release you breath and let the tension flow from you. Good girl."

Her mother's voice drifted to her on the winds of a far off memory. That's right, her mum had taught her to shoot before. A small kid bow and carved sticks with feathers fixed to the back of them. Serena smiled, lethargic with the memory as her eyes drifted half closed.

The trees flashed by him as he ran, blurring into the same intense emerald hue of his eyes. His lips were stretched into as much of a smile as the facial structure would allow. Basically, he was grinning like a wolf would, and he was sorely tempted to let his tongue hang from his mouth.

A very familiar scent tickled his nose and he slowed to an easy lope scenting the air. Yes he was sure that it was Serena's. No other could smell like that. And he was close to her now. Such a shame that other man was with her otherwise he would have went to see her. Despite all that he had tried to tell himself…

Serena shifted her weight and slowly released the arrow. It whistled through the air, cutting through the particles like a hot knife through butter. Her eyes snapped open and she watched the black feathers on the arrow spin as it flew.

From her peripheral vision she saw a vaguely familiar rich cinnamon hued wolf like form blur through the trees. And right into the path of the arrow.

Her blood froze as her heart leaped into her throat and clung to her tonsils like a lifeline. She was running before she had the chance to process any thoughts, screaming for Trowa to stop, to turn, move out of the arrow's path. Anything. But, he was not hearing her.

Serena's scent was suddenly tainted by fear. And the aroma cut into the delicate tissue of his nostrils. If there had been a rope tied about his waist that had suddenly been pulled taught he couldn't have stopped faster. His claws dug into the earth, giving the friction needed to slow his momentum; he rose to his hind legs before he had fully stopped.

Something was flying at him. His pupils dilated, focusing on the object, but even if he'd acted then he wouldn't have escaped the arrow. He could only watch, a spectator in an act written by some unknown playwright and being acted by someone he was not familiar with and didn't care for.

He did have the time to look up and meet the clouded blue eyes that belonged to Serena as she raced towards him, to see the arrow gripped in her hand, to hear her screams for him to do something and not stand there. Each tear that flew from her sweet face, he saw.

Perhaps it was by some small mercy that he didn't feel the arrow bury itself into his flesh, but he did feel the impact. In shock, he looked down at the shaft, one clawed hand held it, before his eyes rolled back.

Serena nearly tripped over a vine but she gained her balance and kept going, even as the shaft of the arrow bloomed over Trowa's heart. He stared at her, shock in his beautiful eyes, before one hand clasped over the wound, the shaft of the arrow jutting through his fingers.

Time slowed to a crawl.

He looked back up at her, confusion and accusation and something else in his eyes.

Then those gems rolled back in his head and he was falling.

Falling

        Just 

               Like

                     Her

                         Tears.

With a scream, Serena sat up and clapped a hand over her mouth. Wildly, her eyes looked around and landed on the still figure in the bed. She pulled her hands from her lips and ran a hand through her damp hair. Just a nightmare. Just a horrible nightmare.

Standing on pudding-for-legs, she wavered over to the bed and stared down at Trowa's sleeping form, the covers hiding the white bandages across his chest.

Her hand, of it's own accord, reached out and touched his furred cheek. The fur there was soft as velvet, she noted guiltily.

Kneeling, she took one of his hands into her own and held it tightly. She noticed his hand was so much bigger then hers. So much stronger. And yet, here he was. Nearly dead because of her. Weak, little her.

Now there was an irony if she'd ever heard of one.

" I'll probably never stop telling you I'm sorry." She muttered dryly, "And I know sorry doesn't take back what I did, but I really am sorry. I'd rather have been the one to take that damned arrow instead of you."

It escaped her notice that she was holding his hand to her heart, and there were now tears in her eyes. "God, I am so stupid. If I had of paid more attention to what I was doing instead of daydreaming, you'd be just fine. It's all my fault. Trowa, if I'll never ask you for anything again, but his. Please, wake up and at least let me know you're-" she swallowed harshly, trying not to sob, " okay and that everything will be all right. I don't care if you don't ever forgive me. Just please wake up. Wake up, please?"

Her words were an echo of the past and here it was that she finally broke down.

" I always hurt the ones I love. It's all my fault. Mum died because of me and now you might die too. I never meant for any of this to happen. I never ::sob:: It was all my fault she was killed."

She rested her forehead on the edge of the bed, hot tears running down her cheek and scalding her tender flesh. Each tear held a small piece of her broken heart, broken by the memories. 

End Chapter

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::Winces as she reads over the chapter:: Oh boy. I don't think I like that twist of events. Not to mention the cliff hanger I just gave you. Please don't burn me at a stake… I burn way too easily. 

Well, I at least hope you enjoyed the new part. By the way, I'd say we're getting to the climax of the story. And I must ask you for a favor. Tell me what you think about my newest idea for Something Like Human. I'll need your opinions, whatever they may be, to help me flesh out the story since it's still in the outline stages.

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 the Chapter: Don't let the voices in your head tell you what to do. You might end up writing something horrible then hate yourself for it. ::gets another sudden headache, and curses::