Author's Notes

To all of the people waiting on the Price of Peace to be finished, fear not, it is not on the backburner and once Christmas rolls around I promise that it will be finished. Until then, I thought I'd try a little gothic allegory for a while. This isn't going to be that long, probably only eight chapters. When I started writing this it was going to be a one-shot and full of sap. I love Trowa paired with my original character Roddy, so I simply thought I'd write a sappy "how they met" story. I guess I was in a strange mood. My roommate and fellow writer, Jinakel Wohess, got Angel Sanctuary in on the same day that I started writing this fic and the whole story just took a strange turn.

Not wanting to give away the plot or some of the surprise, I would just want to say that his story starts off slow and the characters are a bit flat, but that's for a reason. This is an allegorical tale (a metaphor of sorts) one to be told with beautiful, gothic images so the characters do suffer a bit. But fear not, we do delve into the psyche of most of the characters good and bad. I now you have no idea as to what I'm talking about, so just read. J  Without further adieu, I give you Occulus Infernum

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing, but I so wish that I did.

Occulus Infernum

Chapter 1

Roddy Adelphia stared blankly from the utterly pristine teacher's parking lot at her new teaching assignment.  It was like no place she'd ever seen, other than the expensiveness of the cars, which ranged from older, classic American vehicles, to that of newer more expensive Asian and European cars, the parking lot was void of trash of any kind, with newly pressed asphalt and perfectly, crisply lined yellow and white spaces. It wasn't hard to tell that her new assignment was of the upper crust, something vastly different than she was used to. She was more accustomed to a lower class working environment, with little to no school funding but with a high interest in learning from students.

She stepped out of her eggplant purple Chevy Lumina to get a better look about the grounds; it was utterly ridiculous the amount of money these teachers had. She snorted and closed the door, locking it and walked towards the school. She shouldn't have been surprised, at her old assignment the teachers there warned her about the stark lines between poor public school and filthy rich private school. One woman from her previous place of employment even tried to convince Roddy to stay, but the increase in pay was what took her attention. Now Roddy could see the severe differences in teacher salaries.

Not only were the differences in the teacher's salaries rather severe, the grounds of this school were immaculate. She stopped along her journey from the teacher parking lot to the front door of the school and stared. It was just like the picture from the pamphlet included in her assignment package. The school sat on what looked to be a 42-acre site deep in the heart of up-state New York. A warm breeze rustled the oak and maple trees that amply surrounded the campus, and the emerald, flawlessly cut lawn sparkled like that of a movie. She shook her head from the shock and kept moving towards the entrance. The school in itself was a feast to the eyes, tall white marble column entrance laid upon the deep, blood red brick of the actual building. The three-story main building was where she was headed, to register and get her room assignment; she felt more like she was entering a hotel or government capitol building rather than a place of high school education.

She climbed the concrete steps to the front entrance. Over the front entrance door read a simple sign in Old English script OUR LADY OF THE IMACULATE CONCEPTION. Roddy sighed inwardly, and opened the white painted wooden door.  It was just what she expected. The hallways were spotless with the floor being so waxed that she could see up her own skirt. She smirked as she walked down the hallway and eyed the whitewashed walls and the honey-colored lockers. She even chuckled a bit at the large sign that stretched over her head that read WELCOME BACK STUDENTS AND TEACHERS.  She stared blankly at the large sign and smile, she'd never been here before, she could only imagine the excitement of a new student as they walked into the hallways of OLIC.

"You look like you're lost," a gentle feminine voice piped up from behind her. Roddy turned and look at the most genuinely pretty face she'd seen in while. The woman was a bit shorter than her, and Roddy was short without her massive high heels. The woman had unbelievably smooth, pale skin that shone erotically in the soft hallway lights. Her luxuriously thick, russet hair was up in a tight bun at the nape of her neck, and her brown eyes shown with genuine care and worry. The woman was wearing a modest calf-length, navy blue skirt and white shell that neither accentuated nor detracted from her figure.

"I am just a bit." Roddy replied with a confused smile.

"I'm Jina Wohess, you must be the new teacher." She said offering a strong handshake. Roddy took the hand and shook just as firmly, never breaking eye contact.

"Yes, Roddy Adelphia, I'm looking for the main office."

"Follow me, I know how confusing OLIC can be on your first visit." Jina said stepping in front of Roddy and walking them both towards the office. Roddy quickly caught up in step with Jina and they were soon walking side by side.

"What exactly do you teach here?"

"I got my degree in deaf education, but mostly I teach a muted Biology class."

" Muted?"

"The theory of evolution is not exactly boasted in a Catholic school, besides, it was a pun" Jina chuckled low and rolled her eyes. Roddy smiled acknowledging that fact and continued to walk down the expansive hallway of her new school.

"What about you, why have you arrived so highly decorated by Father Lived?"

"I'm going to be the new Literature teacher."

"Ah yes, Sister Mary Francis passed over the summer. You're going to have some large shoes to fill. Mary Francis taught here for over 25 years."  Jina smiled at Roddy knowingly.

"I'm sure I can manage." Roddy responded smiling back.  The clicking sounds of fingers hitting computer keys and the tell-tale beep of the telephone signaled Roddy that they'd indeed reached the office. It was a small door, something that she would have thought was a classroom had it not been for the placard outside of the honey-colored door plainly marked with black letters that read OFFICE. Jina, being as polite as possible, held the door for Roddy and followed her in.

Everything in the office seemed to be moving quite fast, people were ushering up and down the small walkway between desks. The UPS man was pushing his large cart and the small, dark-haired vividly blue-eyed secretary was answering phones, filling out paperwork for the UPS man, and playing some strange card game on her computer screen. Jina smiled at the woman behind the dark brown oak desk; the secretary smiled back but put a forefinger up in the air as to hold all conversation while she was on the phone. Roddy looked down at the placard on her desk and it read Hilde Schbeiker.

"You must be Roddy Adelphia," Hilde stated as she hung up the phone smiling and offering a firm handshake.

"Does everyone know me around here?" Roddy looked to Jina who only shrugged as an answer.

"Father Lived gave us all a bio so we'd know who you were. You're a lot prettier than your picture." Roddy smirked and nodded her head.

"Does Father Lived have my assignment?" Hilde, smiling in her movements, looked around her desk and picked up three different colored pieces of paper and handed them to Roddy, who nodded in return.

Just as quickly as Hilde had come to talk to Roddy her attentions quickly swayed to the familiar baritone that echoed down the hall and into the open office door. Roddy and Jina both looked, trying to see what Hilde was staring so intently at, then Jina smiled warmly and knowingly.

"Father Maxwell, the one man that looks too damn good to be a priest." Jina whispered in Roddy's ear at hearing the voice come down the hall. Roddy looked at Jina with shocked amber eyes but was quickly returned to the door of the office to the most beautiful violet eyes she'd ever seen. He was smiling jovially, two small dimples appearing on the side of his round cheeks. Chestnut bangs messily hung over his forehead but not too much for Roddy could still see the large violet eyes. He was talking to man behind him, obviously a fellow teacher that looked stern and quiet. It was an Asian man, probably Japanese, with messy, thick chocolate locks and deep-set sapphire eyes. They were discussing, mostly Father Maxwell, the intricacies of the first day of school until entering the office. The man behind Father Maxwell made a fleeting glance at Jina and a slight smirk aligned his features. Roddy turned to look at Jina, who was also smirking, then back to the two men at the office entrance.

"You must be the new teacher," Maxwell said walking quickly towards the coffee maker, winking at Hilde on his way in.

"Yes, Roddy…"

"Adelphia, we already know. You're a lot more striking than your picture." Maxwell commented, raising her hand to his lips and kissing it. Roddy blushed slightly then pulled her hand away for safe measure; he was a priest after all.

"I'm Father Duo Maxwell, most people call me Duo, and I teach Religion Studies. This silent man right here making lustful eye contact with Jina is Heero Yuy, he teaches Calculus." Roddy offered a hand to Heero and they both shook hands firmly.

"You're the Heero Yuy that's helped OLIC win the Calculus bowl five years in a row."

"Hai," he responded in a deep guttural Japanese. Roddy jumped back, a bit frightened by the throaty response but Jina stilled her.

"Don't be frightened, he's just being over dramatic." Jina said smiling at Heero then back at Roddy.

"You keep up with OLIC?" Heero asked, his voice much softer than before. Roddy smiled and tried to look at ease with the strange man.

"I try. I've been teaching for as long as any of you and I try to keep up with my colleagues in the field. I was extremely excited when I got a letter from OLIC."

"Welcome. Excuse me." Heero said walking over to the coffee machine and getting himself and Jina some coffee. Roddy cocked her eyebrow and smiled then looked at Hilde.

"They've been dating for almost three months now, if you couldn't tell from the google eyes." Hilde informed her of Heero and Jina's relationship status. Roddy nodded and smiled politely then looked down at her room assignment. She smiled politely once again and left the office, idly searching for her room. Room 203, it was obviously on the second floor so she headed towards the stair.  Once she reached the second floor landing she surveyed the hallways; once again pristine cleanliness washed over the honeyed walls. There were joyful posters hanging in the hallway, their only reasons to motivate and stimulate the students to deeper thoughts. She smirked inwardly, pretty soon students would be filling up these hallways and she would start her new year at a new school; it was all so exciting to her. She smiled, smoothed her skirt and walked down the hallway a bit faster, glancing at the room numbers atop the doors.

Roddy noticed a trend in all of the rooms around hers and on the second floor. All the rooms on this floor either pertained to English, Foreign Language, or History. They all had the floors sectioned off to make it easier for the students to get to class. The numbers on the doors were numbered rather oddly; mostly not in a recurring fashion even skipping whole numbers altogether. Roddy sighed in defeat, thinking that she'd completely passed her door, she dug into her satchel to pull out the papers that Hilde had given her. Not watching the front of her and being utterly preoccupied, Roddy crashed head on into an unknown taller person. Papers went flying everywhere, the sound of a coffee cup crashing into the floor echoed throughout the dark morning hallways and Roddy went slamming to the ground, landing on her backside with a hard thwack.

When the smoke cleared and the last piece of paper had officially settled to the ground, Roddy finally looked up to see a stoic tanned male. She could see that her inattentiveness caused him to spill a good portion of his hot coffee all over his prior crisp, blue oxford shirt. Some of the creamy, bittersweet liquid trickled from his bushy dirty brown bangs onto his navy blue dress slacks. He'd obviously had a hand-full of paperwork, no doubt his lesson plan, and now it was scattered all over the hallway and around the both of them. Roddy looked around frantically for something that was salvageable and her eyes landed on a pair of black, square-framed glasses and she leaned over to reach for the pair and handed it to him in a sort of apology. He snatched them quickly from her hand and placed them on his face adjusting them slightly so that they wouldn't slip down his sticky face.

"I'm so sorry," Roddy said standing and offering a hand to him after picking up a load of sticky, brown stained papers. He jumped up without her help, snatched the papers with equal disdain as his glasses and stormed towards his classroom. She stared after him apologetically, grabbed her satchel from the floor and walked towards the bathroom to get some paper towels to clean herself and the mess up.

When she returned from her bathroom venture back to the puddle of brown coffee in the middle of the floor she realized that the man she'd bumped into earlier had changed into a crisp white shirt and was diligently on his hands and knees wiping up the puddle of coffee. She blushed slightly as she stood in front of the closing bathroom door, the squeak of the door alerting him to her presence.

"Who are you?" he asked softly, soaking brown liquid into a weak paper towel. She was shocked. Did he not get the memo? Everyone else on the faculty knew whom she was, where she was born and all of her credentials since birth. They even knew that her picture didn't do her justice. She cocked an eyebrow at this enigma and cleared her throat.

"I'm Roddy Adelphia, the new Literature teacher." She said getting down on her knees next to him and helping soak up the coffee from the floor. He looked up at her with intense complexity in his green eyes then back down to his task.

"Your picture doesn't do you justice," he replied so softly that if the hallway weren't dead silent she wouldn't have been able to hear his reply. He looked from the task over to the window that had a stream of sunlight gleaming through it. She finally got a good chance to look at him and was instantly impressed. His skin was an olive tan that was saved for those of Spanish descent, creamy and mocha with just a hint of cinnamon coloring and oh so smooth. His hair wasn't dirty brown like she originally thought, but a silky auburn that shined like the golden sun and drooped messily into his large almond-shaped green eyes. It was almost a shame that his glasses covered the jade orbs. Almost. The glasses added something to his character; the glasses made him surlier, studious and academic, and even added a bit of innocent sex appeal to him. Roddy was floored.

"You should watch where you're going from now on." He said as he finished cleaning up his side of the mote of coffee. Roddy narrowed her eyes and watched him walk away, his lithe body emanating confidence in every smooth step of his gait.

"Looks like you've spilled your coffee," a kind tenor voice sounded behind her. Roddy turned to see the shining face of a kind blonde male with pale features and a bit of a pinkish blush highlighting his cheeks. He bent down and started to help her clean the spot smiling all the while.

"You're the new teacher." He said kindly, "I'm Quatre Raberba Winner, I teach History, Government and Economics. It's nice to meet you."

"Roddy Adelphia," Roddy said trying to offer a hand but realizing that it was covered with cold, sticky coffee and offered Quatre a smile instead.

"I suppose this is not the best of first days," he asked as they both finally finished cleaning up the mess and throwing away the sticky paper towels. Quatre reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a moistened towel to clean the gummy liquid from Roddy's hands.

"All first days are hectic," she smiled thankfully and threw the well-used towelette into the trashcan behind her.

"Very true, it was only a year ago that I was in your position. What exactly are you looking for?"

"My room, 203."

"Sister Mary Francis's old room. Literature, what an exciting subject." Quatre said walking down the hallway the same direction as the other man had disappeared. Roddy quickly followed.

"Sister Mary Francis was a sweet lady, and her death was rather untimely. She will be sorely missed at OLIC." Quatre talked as he strolled calmly down the hallway, Roddy catching up with him and keeping in stride beside him.

"She must have been quite a woman." Roddy answered.

"Yes, she was rather kind. Here is your room." Quatre said smiling nicely and standing in front of room 203. Roddy looked around and noticed that the mystery man she'd run into earlier was teaching across the hallway. It was obvious that he taught Spanish by the various multicolored posters that were hanging outside on his bulletin board and by the colorful posters displayed in his room, one reading OLÈ in bright, bold orange block letters. Roddy was concentrating on the room so intensely that she didn't notice that the mystery man was sitting peacefully at his desk staring back. She didn't notice until he got from his desk and walked over to the door, closing it with a loud emphatic thump. Roddy jumped slightly at the force of the door's closing and her eyes widened in angered shock; this man has a lot of nerve.

"Don't mind him, that's just Mr. Barton, he doesn't talk very much." Quatre said from behind Roddy. She turned and smiled at him, thanked him for showing her to her classroom and unlocked the door.

When she entered the room and turned on the light, she was amazed to note that the room was already decorated with brightly colored posters much like those in Barton's room. Barton, what a mystery, he was quiet, handsome, and a Spanish teacher; he was probably just shy. Roddy walked over to her large oak desk and sat her satchel down pulling out the essentials for her lesson. Actually the first day was always a blow off, a time for everyone to get to know everyone. Especially for her to be a new senior Literature teacher, they were probably used to the Sister's teaching style. She rummage through the small, tattered brown bag and pulled out her lesson plan, some various books including a volume of Shakespeare's greatest works, and some other things to bring out her personal flavor in the room. She also pulled out some chalk but turned to look at the board and noticed that it was a dry-erase board instead.

"I guess I'm a little old fashion," she said, staring down at the multi-colored case of Crayola™ chalk. She would just have to borrow some. But from who? She couldn't ask Barton, she'd already made a lasting impression on him as it was. She couldn't even think of finding Quatre's room, at least not until she figured out the numbering system, and she really didn't want to have to walk back downstairs for one dry-erase marker. She put the chalk case back onto the desk, swallowed her pride, and started towards her friendly across the hall neighbor.

She knocked quietly on the still closed door, hoping that he wasn't in the room, but hearing him inside. In the back of her mind she wished that he wouldn't answer so she wouldn't have to deal with his churlish attitude. She was about to turn away, realizing that she'd been standing there for some minutes and he'd still not answered, when she heard the creak of the wooden door open. He stood defiantly at the door like a strong, overprotective lion. He stared at her with equal disdain and annoyance, his face nothing but a stoic mask.

"I was wondering if I could borrow a dry-erase marker," Roddy said warily with a friendly smile on her face. He pushed the door open further and turned away. Roddy assumed that this meant she could enter his classroom, so she haphazardly followed him in.

"You see I'm not used to teaching at schools that don't have chalk boards so I figured that this school would have chalk boards. You can imagine my surprise when I saw a dry-erase board instead and I was holding this large carton of multi-colored chalk. I guess that's a thing of the past in teaching technology, I can remember being a kid and thinking that it was a pain in the ass to use chalk boards because you had to take the erasers outside and pound them together and the dust would get everywhere. I remembered being the one that always got picked for that job and wishing that someone would come up with something better, now they have and I'm not even ready to move on. I guess I'm just used to the past…" As Roddy rambled on about chalkboards vs. dry-erase boards like it was her Master thesis, Trowa had walked to his desk, picked up a green marker and was at the moment staring at her with bemusement.

"Marker. Go." He said with a punctuated staccato, one so disturbed and guttural that Roddy got the point and stopped rambling. She kindly took the marker and backed her way towards the classroom exit.

"Thank you, I'll give it to you at the end of the day." She said as she exited the room.

"Keep it." he said quietly and closed the door behind her, leaving Roddy once again standing in the vast hallway alone.