Dreaming in Technicolor
Disclaimer: I own maybe seventy-five cents. Do you think that's enough money to buy the rights to Gundam Wing? Didn't think so.
The following is a short side-piece to "Holly, Ivy, Mistletoe." While it may be prudent to read said story, it is not entirely necessary. The story takes place in AC 199-AC 200, after the crisis of Endless Waltz, and is told from the scintillatingly green eyes of one Trowa Barton. The focal pairing for this story is 3x4…though there may be smatterings of others.
I was told once that one who dreams has a troubled mind. I wasn't sure if I believed that, for I never seemed to be troubled by my dreams, they were always too surreal to mean anything of great importance. And I dream in color, unlike so many, who can only see black and white when their subconscious comes calling. Why do I linger on such dreaming? I don't know. Maybe it's because we as humans spend most of our lives sleeping. Or maybe it's because I'm dreaming now, as I lie here.
I shouldn't be. Lying here, dreaming, that is. I don't belong here, it isn't my place, it isn't my time. I almost died, and for once, not in the cockpit of a mobile suit. I wasn't on a battlefield, nor were my fingers wrapped around a gun. I was an innocent. And I don't belong here. Not when I finally have something, someone, to live for.
My name is Trowa Barton, and I feel that it is imperative to tell you my story, just in case. Just in case I never leave this dreaming, just in case I never return home. I was a Gundam Pilot, 03, pilot of Heavyarms. I fought in the war for peace, I brought peace to the Earth Sphere Unified Nation. Not alone, of course, there were the other pilots and all of our allies who were willing to stand beside us even when no one else believed in our potentials. Quatre always believed. Quatre. I wonder if he even knows, if anyone bothered to tell him. I make him suffer, I push his kind heart too far sometimes. This will probably kill him.
What happened? I wasn't careful, that's what. A Gundam Pilot trained to watch his every step and be wary of his every movement wasn't careful. And I let my guard down. The price I have to pay is to lie here, dreaming, while the world around me goes on. It was three days before Christmas, but now…now is oblivious to me.
I loved Quatre. He's been my grounding force, my safety, and my reason for existence these many long years. Whenever my faith was challenged, he was there to back me up. And while we acted as if we were casual friends, it was all charade, to mask our true emotions. We all wear masks sometimes. Not even the other pilots knew how deep our feelings ran. My life after the war began to follow his, growing inexorably closer with the passage of time. I had everything planned, like a detailed mission. I would begin to phase myself out of the circus I'd called home for so long, take up painting, my secret guilty pleasure. Quatre had extended the offer that I could move in with him, share the mansion he was caged within. And I had saved every last penny, squeezed every bit of copper from them, so I could buy him a promise, a pledge, a ring to bind us together until long past eternity. But the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.
"Hi Trowa, I was wondering if I could ask you to do me a favor."
I cringed. "What kind of favor, Cathy?"
"Well…Dominic, our high-wire artist, he's out sick and we have a show tonight. And since I know how good at it you are, I was wondering if you'd take his place."
"Cathy, I told you before, I'm done with the circus, I've retired. Isn't there somebody else you can call?"
"No. You're my last hope, Trowa. We need the high-wire act, the show depends on it, and it's our Christmas show too. Please, Trowa. You'll never have to do anything for me ever again if you just do this one show."
"But I can't, Cathy. I have plans for tonight, and if I blow them off I'll be in serious trouble. I'm sorry."
One thing about my sister, she's the most stubborn person you'll ever find, and I knew this. I knew she couldn't take no for an answer. "It's him, isn't it? You love him more than you love me, is that it? You don't care about your older sister anymore. You'd like to see the circus lose money on its biggest night, wouldn't you, Trowa?"
"Cathy…" I am the perpetual sucker for guilt trips such as these. "What time do you need me?"
She assured me that it would be my last performance, that as soon as my act was over I could leave and never come back. She swore that Quatre would be sympathetic to her and understand. But still, I felt miserable having to call him and tell him.
"Winner Enterprises International, Quatre Winner speaking."
"It's me," I answered morosely.
Quatre looked relieved to see me, which made it all the more painful. "Trowa! Oh, I'm having the worst day, if it weren't for the fact that you'll be coming later, I think I'd have to jump out the window."
"Um, yeah, about that…"
"What do you mean? You're coming, aren't you? Please tell me you're still coming, Trowa."
The expression on his face, magnified by the video screen, was breaking me. "I'm so sorry, Quatre."
"It's Catherine again, right? She needs you at the circus, doesn't she?"
"Quatre, I tried to tell her, but she wouldn't listen. I don't want to do this, but she laid her usual guilt trip on thicker than usual and I gave in. I know I promised you, and I really am sorry."
"You did promise me, Trowa. You promised that you'd be here for me. I need you too, and I don't think it's fair that you keep having to brush one of us aside for the other. Maybe we shouldn't…"
"No! No, don't even suggest that. It's just for tonight, Quatre, I swear. And I'll board the first shuttle to L4 as soon as I'm done, and I will do everything and anything you ask of me to make it up to you. I care for my sister, but I love you. I promise I'll be there, Quatre. I promise you."
"All right, Trowa. But I mean it. If you don't come tonight, then maybe you shouldn't come at all. My heart is too precious to me to be trifled with, Trowa Barton."
"I know. I will see you tonight, Quatre. Love you."
That was the last time I heard his voice, before it happened, of course. I left for the circus thinking that he was still furious with me, and he probably was. His engagement ring, three years' worth of scrimping and saving those meager paychecks, I wore around my neck that night, on a piece of cord I'd found in a dresser drawer. But how was I to know I would lose it that night when the cord snapped, along with bone and muscle and flesh? How was I to know that the wire they put up was old and weak and worn? And how was I ever supposed to know that it would break while I stood upon it, with no net below me, only cold, hard ground?
I can remember thinking, as I fell, I'm going to die. I live through that whole damn war and I'm going to die now. And I can remember my last conscious thoughts were of Quatre, and how I'd let him down once again. But I don't remember the pain, I don't remember anything of the actual accident other than those brief thoughts and the shock of falling. Now I'm here, dreaming, waiting to wake up from all of this.
I'm not dead, though. I'd know if I were dead, and I'm pretty sure I'm merely in some kind of suspension, as if I'd been jettisoned from the Vayeate all over again. Sometimes that thought worries me, that there is the possibility I'll wake up with amnesia again and not remember those who love me. But if I can remember everything here, in my dreaming state, then would I not remember them when I wake? Or rather, if I wake?
They come to visit me in my dreams, everyone…except Heero. He wouldn't bother with something so trivial, I suppose, he's always had his own agenda. And I'm sure if Sally didn't make him, Wufei wouldn't either. I see a lot of Duo, though, and Hilde. But mostly it's Quatre, coming day after day to my dreams, trying to put on a brave face, yet the fear and the pain always slips through. He stays longer than anyone else, and when he goes, he's never that far.
"It's Friday again, Trowa. My day off. I can spend the whole day with you today, even though you don't seem to care that much. The doctors say you're breathing on your own, but I think they're lying, because the respirator is still in here. These days they'll do anything to cheer me up. It was Groundhog Day yesterday, the damn thing saw its shadow, six more weeks of winter. I don't know how it can't see its shadow. Everyone keeps telling me I should take you off life support, that it's time for me to move on, but I won't do it. I can't, Trowa, I can't voluntarily kill you knowing that some part of you, deep in your soul, hasn't died yet. They just don't understand that I can feel things like that, they think I'm crazy with grief. Maybe I am, though. Because if you die, Trowa, then I'll have to die too. If you're gone, then there's nothing left for me to live for in this world. So you have to get better, and you have to wake up. Every day I die a little more, Trowa, and sooner or later a day will come when I've lost all my hope."
It's as if his voice was a clarion call, cutting through the fog of those Technicolor dreams. He was pulling my soul back from the edge, as I had done to his years before. My eyes opened slowly, painfully, and I found myself cocooned in tubes and wire, taped and strapped in like some mad scientist's creation, machines buzzing and whirring about me. My left leg burned with agony, but it was pain I could bear. Quatre was crying, not noticing that I had evaded my dreamscape for the somber colors of reality and the stark whiteness and medicinal stench of the hospital where I've lain for months untold. I feebly lifted a hand, gauzed and bandaged and crisscrossed with tubes, and placed it upon his. He let out a horrified cry, staring at me like a wild-eyed beast.
"Trowa!"
I could manage only a faint and haggard smile, lips and tongue beyond commanding into action. It was enough for Quatre, though. He ran to the door, screaming and crying for doctors, a skittish little creature bred on months of false sleep and malnourishment. And he returned to my side long before any of those damned doctors came.
"Trowa…"
I smiled again, and he started weeping harder, kissing numbed and scarred flesh, gripping my hand, promising that he would never let such a thing happen to me again. I realized the irony of the situation at that moment, that Catherine and I had agreed. It had been my last performance indeed. I learned, after regaining most conscious thought and some feeble use of my tortured vocal chords that my left leg was all but paralyzed, held together with gundanium rods—more irony, that now I am part Gundam myself after so long wanting to be rid of the damned thing—and braced with steel and titanium. And the three years I'd spent garnering the courage to finally propose to my dear Quatre, and to obtain for him a suitable ring, were wasted in the months of my absence from humanity.
Things aren't as bad now that I'm out of the coma, I suppose. Healing has been slow, for both me and for Quatre. The others tell me, when he's not around, that he became a recluse and depressed while I was "away." He's lost a lot of his happiness, not even visiting me seems to cheer him up. A few times I've tried telling him about the ring, but he doesn't seem to be listening, or a doctor will come in with more sedatives. I may have come out of a coma, but the doctors seem anxious to put me back into one, with all of the medication they put me on. I'm reduced to an invalid in a torpor, a dreaming fool.
Maybe I'm never going to escape this dream, maybe I'll be trapped within my own watercolor visions of life as it should have been, rather than what it is. I might never leave this bed at this rate, nor will I get my chance to apologize to Quatre for ever hurting him. I always seem to hurt him. I suppose until my day comes, the day God finally pays me back for always wronging me, I'll just have to keep dreaming. Dreaming in Technicolor.
A portion of all reviews will be donated to the Trowa Barton Charity Fund, supplying Trowa with stuff he really needs, like Oxy-Clean and doorknobs and Yu-Gi-Oh cards. Please help a Trowa Barton in need, donate.