It's back! The stunning conclusion is finally here for all of you who have been patiently and impatiently waiting for it. I'm kind of sad that it's over, even though there will be an epilogue after this. I'm also kind of mortified that I started writing this story in August, and now it's February. But I'll say this: I can't complain anymore when my favorite authors take forever to add a chapter to their own stories because I can't even do it myself. On that note, enjoy the last "official" chapter of Parapsychology.
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"It's five past the hour, please breathe before you all suffocate yourselves," a light tenor voice, unfamiliar without its echoing cadences, requested. A chorus of exhalations resounded through the room, still pitch-dark and cold as the tomb. Trowa, blowing on his chilled hands, glanced about frantically.
"Lights…somebody put the lights on…dammit, Wufei! Get the lights!"
The Chinese man grumbled, giving a hard elbow to the old light switch. The chandelier overhead flickered, the flame-shaped bulbs flickering with age, the filaments glowing weakly. They pulsed on with a stronger light a few moments later, and everyone leaned expectantly towards the bed.
"Quatre?" Trowa asked, visibly shaking, long fingers crossed. The lithe form still lay prone in the coffin, but its eyes were wide open, liquid blue and wet with tears, real tears that had waited two hundred years to be shed. A small smile played on thin, rosy lips.
"Are you just going to stare at me? This coffin is very uncomfortable, you know," he remarked.
Trowa let out a shuddering gasp and collapsed to tears, standing by the bedside with his hand clasped over his mouth, body shuddering with paroxysms. Heero calmly walked over and wrenched the rotting wooden sides of the casket apart with his bare hands, tossing them aside and nearly decking Wufei with a thick chunk of moist wood. Catherine held out a perfumed hand, gently helping the boy to rise to wobbly feet.
"Careful," she admonished as his knees started buckling, "if Princess Bride has taught me nothing else, it's that coming back to life means noodly legs for a while."
Quatre nodded, draping himself over Catherine for support. She was surprised at just how light he was.
"Everything feel all right to you, kiddo?" Duo asked. "You don't have your spleen up around your trachea, do you?"
The blonde wiggled slightly. "If my spleen is out of place, I wouldn't be able to tell. You wouldn't even know I had my skull smashed in," he stated, rapping his knuckles on his head. Duo chuckled, fluttering about the room; picking up his miscellaneous bits and bobs.
"Barton, will you shut up? Nataku, you're a grown man, quit bawling already!" Wufei groused.
Heero glared at his Chinese colleague. "Leave Trowa alone, he's been through hell these past couple of days and hasn't been able to really cope yet."
Wufei muttered something under his breath and skulked out of the room, his ebon ponytail whipping behind him as he moved.
"Man, he's a jackass sometimes," Duo sighed as soon as he was out of earshot. The violet-eyed man dropped another jar into a duffel bag and moved to drape his arms about his lover's shoulders. Heero smiled slightly, ruffling his long bangs.
"Ignore him, he's just tired. You did well tonight, Duo. Trowa's never going to be able to repay you for it."
Duo nodded slightly, whimpering tiredly. "Uh-huh. But I don't want him to have to repay me, I'm just glad he's going to be happy for once…if he ever gets out of his post-traumatic funk."
"Trowa?" Quatre asked quietly, still draped limply over Catherine, looking like a slightly dirty rag doll, bits of coffin smudged in his hair, the wet wood dirtying his good clothes. "Could you maybe take me downstairs? I'd like to change out of my funeral clothes, and possibly get some sleep."
His voice seemed to snap Trowa from his spasms, and he quickly wiped his eyes, replacing his stoic's mask.
"Yeah, sure, Quatre," he replied stiffly, voice sounding broken. He scooped up the blonde in his arms, the young Frenchman slinging his limp wrists about his lover's neck. Quatre rested his head on Trowa's shoulder, eyelids fluttering open and closed.
"For somebody who's only been alive ten minutes, I'm exhausted," he murmured.
"You're going to be for a while," Duo remarked. "It's part of the downside of being resurrected like this. But hey, it's a small price to pay when the other option was being dead, right?"
Quatre chuckled, nodding briefly. "Mm. Good night, everyone. And thank you."
~^~
"I haven't thanked you yet," Quatre remarked as they plodded down the stairs, moving with a methodic slowness so as not to stumble down the stone steps. "I've put you through so much, I've made you suffer so badly. I'm so sorry for everything…"
Trowa blinked tiredly, dark bags sagging under his eyes. "What are you apologizing for?"
The blonde Frenchman stroked the bandaged palm tenderly.
"This," he said, and moved his fingers to rest briefly on his lover's ribcage. "And this. I've made you cry so much, and I don't want to see you cry ever again, Trowa. Please don't."
Trowa bowed his head slightly, rounding the corner into the familiar corridor where their rooms were. "All right."
They nudged the door open, and walked straight into the bathroom, sidestepping the pile of dirty laundry on the floor and the bags of equipment. Trowa swatted the light switch with his elbow as they walked past, setting Quatre down on the marble countertop as the harsh halogen lighting flickered on.
"Bath or shower?" Trowa inquired, eyes darting between the monstrous whirlpool bath and the equally large freestanding shower. "You're getting one, either way."
Quatre bit his lip, swinging his legs a little. "I think I want to try and stand up. You'll help me though, won't you, Trowa?"
He nodded and walked over to the stainless steel towel rack, lifting off an armload of fluffy sage green towels and dropping them with a terrycloth thump onto the tiled floor. He opened the shower door and turned the taps on, water instantly gushing forth. Quatre was mildly amazed by this, but too worn out to really care how he was going to get cleaned, modern marvel or not. With fumbling, weary fingers he unbuttoned, unbuckled and unlaced every last stitch of clothing, dropping them to the floor with an apathetic carelessness.
"I want to burn those. Can we?" he asked, still seated on the counter.
"I'll strike the match myself," the jade-eyed American replied, shucking off his own clothes and dropping them to the floor before extending one olive hand to his partner. Quatre slithered off the countertop bonelessly, not rising immediately, but still managing to stand more or less on his own. He flashed a winning, albeit exhausted, smile and allowed his lover to guide him into the shower as steam billowed over the top.
"If it's too much for you, sit," Trowa instructed, motioning to the little built-in bench seat. "Don't pretend you're okay for me, Quatre. I know you went through just as much as I did."
The blue-eyed young man nodded and immediately sat down. "It's too much, my head's starting to get all fuzzy."
Trowa smiled with the kind of warm understanding that one will only see a few times in their life, extracting a bottle of shampoo from a caddy rack suspended from the showerhead tubing and dumping the lime green liquid into his hands. His auburn hair was soaked now, plastered to his face in one inglorious clump, and as he leaned over to massage the shampoo into Quatre's hair, the blonde reached up with one pale hand and slicked it back.
"I want to see all of my Trowa," he explained simply, sliding over for him to sit as well. Had circumstances been slightly different, and both men were not so weak and wearisome that it was a challenge just to hold a bar of soap flat in their palms, the moment of intimacy would have been spent far differently. The thought had crossed Trowa's mind briefly, as he slid lathered hands across smooth skin, missing nothing. The fleeting vision of Quatre pressed against the shower wall, whimpering in pleasure, had tickled him, but Trowa was not cruel and knew that neither of them could even really stand, let alone have the energy for passionate lovemaking. It could wait.
Quatre watched with mild interest as the shampoo suds swirled down the drain, and with it, the fetters of his past life, the blood and grime of two hundred years of heartache and agony washing away. He shifted, kneeling on the bench, a little surprised he could manage swinging his legs up underneath him, and leaning over until he was practically on top of Trowa. The shower pelted hot water at him, spraying a halo of steamy water about him.
"As tired as I am, I have one more request," he said, stroking one tanned arm.
Trowa looked up inquisitively, not voicing the 'what?' that his eyes so clearly posed.
"Will you kiss me, Trowa?"
Their mouths met in a flash of electric contact, a charge of warm thrill passing from skin to skin that surged down their spines and fanned out along their bodies. Slick arms wrapped about each other, clinging wetly to heated flesh, slipping as they held as tightly as they could. Quatre's lips parted willingly, softly whimpering as he arched his slender neck. Trowa made some guttural noise from deep in his larynx, slipping his tongue in to tenderly mate with his lover's. The temperature around them seemed to soar, as if the droplets of water were instantly turning to steam as they made contact with their skin. Quatre broke away with a gasp, eyes unfocused for a moment or two, cheeks flushed and lips sufficiently bruised.
"If I didn't believe I was alive before, I believe it now," he stated, dropping his wet head onto Trowa's chest. "In a way, though, I think I'm glad I died. If I hadn't, I would have never met you, and we'd never have this."
Trowa shook his head, his hair starting to fall back into his eyes. "You'd have found me some other way. As another person, another Quatre, slightly different but still the same. Still the pretty face and the kind heart I fell in love with the first time around."
"You talk a lot when you're tired," he observed with a yawn. "Let's go to bed."
Trowa smiled, leaning over and turning off the taps. "Sounds like a plan to me."
Though his legs shook violently, and he had to cling to Trowa with an iron grip, Quatre managed to step out of the shower himself. Trowa acknowledged this with a smile, wrapping him in a thick, fluffy green towel and slinging one around his own slender waist. He held out his arms for his lover, as if he were a mere child, and Quatre gratefully accepted the offer, swinging up into a warm and comfortable embrace, long legs dangling inelegantly over his affianced's arm. They staggered into the bedroom together, the ocean-eyed young man artistically bending backwards to peel back the silky blankets. The towels were shucked, tossed with the dirty laundry to the floor with the careless apathy of two young men who could hardly remember their own names.
"This is…was…Trois' bed," Quatre remarked, slipping his still-wet body under the covers, snuggling against one of the overstuffed pillows. Trowa nodded, climbing in and spooning up beside the blonde. "I fell asleep in this bed more times than I did my own bed. It still smells a little like him. Like oil paints and strong coffee."
"Hn," the green-eyed New Englander replied, the mattress springs creaking and squealing as he shifted. "Well, it's my bed now, and you're my Quatre. Trois can fuck off."
Quatre would have commented on the lack of logic in that statement, seeing as how Trowa was, or was at some point in time, that selfsame man. But he was far too tired, and not in the mood to argue with the deliciously warm and indelibly wonderful creature lying beside him.
"Good night, Quatre."
"Love you, Trowa."
They fell asleep looking into each other's eyes, lulled by the cool emerald green of the forests and tranquil blue waters, and they were content to stay there for some indeterminate time, just as long as there was warmth and loving embraces and the soft sound of the one person who meant more than anything breathing the name of his lover.
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It was late in the afternoon when the Wing Agency returned home and later still when they finally reconvened with Willowisp, though minus their stalwart leader. They were sprawled across the couches and stuffed armchairs in the living room, Zechs and Noin recounting their adventures with the Kennebunkport lighthouse ghost that they did not see at all whatsoever the entire weekend they were there. Catherine had sunk into one of the armchairs, legs swung up over the arms, indulging herself in another manga she'd tucked in her bag. Duo was rocking back and forth in time to his Game Boy, gyrating about on the couch cushion as his thumbs rapidly moved over the buttons. Heero was reading some thick tome, glancing up every now and then.
"You should jump right now," he stated.
"Wha? Jump wh…aw, shit, I died! Thanks, Heero," Duo groused, having to start all over again. Thankfully, he'd only been on the second level.
"I did warn you. You're just not quick enough, Shinigami no baka."
Duo stuck his tongue out. "That's right, Shinigami is no baka."
Hilde shrugged indifferently, swallowing a pair of bright blue-and-yellow caplets, medication for her still-suffering stomach. The lobster refused to die, she had stated with a melodramatic sweep of her hand, and she should have foreseen it with her "psychic powers."
"Ah, poor me! What's a girl to do when she is taunted by something that tasted so good?" she wailed, pretending to shed tears. Duo rolled his eyes and ignored her completely.
"Onna, you're a disaster. I can't leave you by yourself for one minute without you getting hurt, can I?" Wufei groused, gesturing to the light cast that covered his wife's hand and wrist. Sally retorted something acerbic and in Chinese, a reply that made Heero twitch. It was something one did not say to their husbands unless they were Sally Po or had very good insurance policies. Everyone knew, though, that their constant bickering and cursing was really just a front, the fire-breathing really some secret language they shared. Wufei was actually voicing his concern, and Sally acknowledging it. She'd tripped on a wire Walker had tugged loose from the gaffer's tape that had secured it to the floor, falling halfway down the spiral lighthouse stairs, fracturing her wrist.
"Did you meet with your proposed misfortune, Wufei?"
He snorted. "Of course. Barton was a quivering mass of onna, the ghost had no sense of justice, and it was a mission that hardly called for my talents. All in all, it was a complete waste of my time. Indeed, I met with my misfortune."
Sally smirked. "Good."
Noin bounced her burbling child on her knee, glancing around with consternation. "Where the hell is Trowa? This is his business, why isn't he at the meeting?"
Zechs shrugged. "Maybe he's in the office, taking a call. That damn phone doesn't stop ringing whether we're here or not."
The cluster of scientists all paused in their camaraderie moments later, though, as they heard the sound of feet shuffling down the stairs slowly, and the murmur of a familiar baritone voice. But it was coupled with a new voice, at least, new to the members of the Willowisp faction. A light, airy tenor that sounded merry and youthful, joined with a slightly bouncy step.
"Ahem, everyone," Trowa coughed, stepping into the room with the most impassive expression on his face, as if nothing had changed and he was still the quiet, morosely stoic man they'd seen a weekend ago, arguing with Duo over a sandwich purloined from the kitchen counter. That was before he broke out into an uncharacteristic grin, laughing at something only he seemed to find funny.
"Trowa, are you all right?" Sally asked, pursing her lips. "You're not yourself."
Hilde's eyes went wide and with an excited squeal she clapped her hands together and propelled herself from the chair she had occupied. "My prediction came true, didn't it?!"
"Everyone," he repeated solemnly, "this is Quatre Winner…my fiancé."
A young man dressed in a celadon sweater and jeans slowly stepped into the room, each step deliberate and careful as he moved on slightly unsteady legs. He smiled warmly, ocean blue eyes bright from underneath a fringe of soft blonde hair that curled around his ears delicately. The group of researchers, all eight of them, were struck dumb at the sight of this newcomer, who was growing quite pink with a healthy blush that blossomed over the apples of his cheeks. Sally's coalition had never before laid eyes on such a handsome creature, and the others hadn't seen much of Quatre since the night of his fateful rebirth. When he had ventured into public, he was a pale, listless little thing still too wearisome for conversation.
"Fuck me, he's gorgeous! Trowa, where the hell did you dig up somebody this good-looking?" Hilde cried suddenly, breaking the spell that had been woven over the room. Quatre laughed, running a hand through his bangs.
"In the cemetery behind Peacecraft Castle," he stated quite honestly.
She looked stunned, mouth opening and closing as though she were a fish flopping on some wind-worn pier, eyes darting frantically from coworker to coworker for answers.
Heero shrugged. "Can't argue with him there."
"We have the calluses to prove it," Wufei added with the same cool indifference.
Noin shook her head, still bouncing the squirming Walker in her lap. Trowa and Quatre merely smiled, crossing the room and flopping into the same leather armchair.
"You owe us an explanation, Barton, so start talking," she demanded.
"And don't you leave out a single detail," Sally put in. "Because this sounds almost too weird to be real."
Trowa nodded. "Well, truth is often stranger than fiction."
"And Duo's stranger than all of the above."
"HEERO! That was mean!"
Quatre curled up in Trowa's lap, his head resting against his chest, lulled almost to sleep by the beating of his fiancée's heart. Such a trivial thing, a heartbeat, he mused. And yet he could never really take something so seemingly insignificant for granted, especially not when this man, this kind and loving man had bled, had wept, just to give him one. These people that surrounded him now, though he'd just met them, had instantly become the loving family he never really knew. Iria and Brigitte, wherever they were at that moment, would be so terribly proud.
"Quatre? Something wrong?" Trowa murmured in his ear while Duo had taken the narrative, giving a colorful description of the castle and a lengthy complaint about the lack of continental breakfasts that were supposed to be provided. Oatmeal, he was screaming, oatmeal.
"Of course not, love. Just thinking about things."
Trowa kissed the top of his head lightly. "I never got to thank you, Quatre."
Eyes of a blue that stretched beyond infinity blinked up at him with question. One could easily get lost in those eyes, unable to tear away from their limitless depths.
"You are the best thing that's happened to me. Thank you for waiting all this time."
Quatre smiled with enough conviction to blot out the sun with his brightness. "I'd do it again if I had to."
Things were never quite the same for the Wing Paranormal Research Agency after that. Their careers seemed to take on a totally different meaning ever since Quatre came back with them. Granted, they were still able to laugh and joke about some of their cases, and putter across America in a dilapidated but exquisitely painted Volkswagen van; but there was this air of solemnity now, a realization that someday, they themselves might be one of these apparitions scientists would be called in to take photographs and recordings of. Yet, it was never a sad thought, because Quatre had become a bright spot of sunshine in all of their lives. It was almost inconceivable to think that the happy young man sitting barefoot on the porch playing violin at nights while fireflies chased about him had been dead for nearly three centuries beforehand. But they didn't mind it. It was one of those weird little circumstances you learned to live with when you were in the parapsychology business. And as long as there were strange new challenges to encounter, new oddities to explore, they'd never get bored with it.
The End.
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Wow. It's done. I'm kind of in shock that it's actually done. I'm really sorry that it took so long to finish; life has been hectic beyond comprehension. School has taken up most of my time these days, and I haven't been home long enough to write. And I just found out recently that my uncle has cancer, so I've been fretting about that a lot too. But I appreciate all of you sticking by me and supporting me (and nagging me to finish!). The readers are the ones that make this all possible. Thank you.
Next: The epilogue! And then…then I can get my act together and haul ass on Allegro.