Thankee for all the lovely reviews, especially to Princess Saturn who went to the trouble of e-mailing me because Princess Venus had already left a review from their computer. I feel so loved!

Warning! Warning! I don't not Mary-Sue the characters, there will be scars, the will be insults and tears and bad pick up lines. Yes, BAD pick up lines!

Oh yeah, I left little soundtrack notes as to what I was listening to as I wrote each part, for mood music *grin*)





Alright, everyone obviously thinks that the girls were injured by the war, not anything else.



The Necessary Evils, part 2.

The Misplaced Princess





(Soundtrack: 3 Libras, by A Perfect Circle)

"Good. 'Cuz I think this one's dead." Maverick replied.

"We'd better make sure..." Catherine replied uneasily, for some reason she was having trouble breathing at the sight of the girls. Maverick nodded and turned the blond over gently, he leaned over her slashed face, and held his ear over her open mouth. He frowned, titled and titled her head back to clear her airway, then leaned down to check again. He paled and shook his head, "Guys, she's not breathing..."

Artemis dragged the girl with dark hair out of the ditch, elicting soft whimpers as her wounds were jarred roughly. Maverick began CPR, though how he was to do it on a girl with her entire chest ripped open was beyond him.

Catherine stood there, feeling helpless, she had already called the ambulance, there was nothing she could do that wouldn't get in the way of her two companions...well, maybe there was one thing. She sprinted to the car and called Trowa on the car phone. "C'mon Tro...pick up...pick uuuup..."



Trowa was having a very good day. He probably would have been humming to himself, but Trowa just didn't do things like that. Nevertheless, he was in an inexplicably good mood that day and tapped the steering wheel contentedly in time with the music.

He was going home today. Okay, well maybe not strictly home, because the circus never stayed in one place too long, and technically, his fellow pilots and himself were residing in a small safehouse just outside of Sydney in Australia, but for some reason wherever his sister Catherine was always seemed like home.

Annoyingly, his phone chose that moment to ring. He growled as he realized he'd left his phone in the back seat, but quickly pulled over to reach back to get it. He smiled slightly, it was probably Quatre wondering if he's arrived at the camp safely. Trowa could take care of himself, but he was pleased to know that someone cared enough to worry about him. "Hello?" he said quietly into the phone.

Nobody answered. He heard faint voices in the background, a male and a female.

"Fuck, Tem, it's not working! She's not breathing, fuck! Her heart's stopped!"

"Try harder!..oh my god, it's not working..."

He recognized them from the circus, they were the trapeze act. "Catherine?" he thought desperately, suddenly very glad he'd pulled over to receive this call. His acute hearing picked up harsh breathing on the other end of the line, the person holding the phone had apparently forgotten their incomplete phone call. "Hello? Hello?" Trowa said, an edge of panic in his stoic voice.

A harsh sob was cut off abruptly. "T-trowa?" it said faintly.

Relief washed over Trowa like a tidal wave, "Catherine, are you alright? What's happening?" he said, going into mission-mode now that he was assured his sister wasn't on the brink of death.

"B-bodies on the r-road, d-dying, Tro..help!" She sobbed, she had been in war areas before , and she had seen the horrors, but she had never been this close before. She had never seen the beaten and bloody dying, or perhaps already dead being desparately pounded into CPR in a last-ditch effort to revive them. She had never realized that the teenaged girl laying motionless in Maverick's bloodied arms could have so easily been her.

"Where are you?" Trowa said calmly, and Catherine managed to stammer out her co-ordinates, "I'll be there in five minutes." Trowa replied, his face resettling into his hardened mask as he hung up and pulled onto the road, flooring the gas.

Catherine hung up slowly, she could always count on Trowa, he was so strong. She stopped to wonder how he could manage to deal with situations like this every day, and worse. Every time he visited she wanted to force him to stay, but then situations like this arose, proving the overwhelming need to end this war. "Never again, never again a war like this," she thought as Maverick was losing faith in reviving the injured blond, "Never again." she whispered.

Catherine looked over at the blond, three minutes had passed. Assuming she had stopped breathing the second before they had been found, she didn't have much time left. The three circus performers were so focused on the blond, that they didn't realize the dark-haired girl had slightly cracked her eyes open.







*************







(Soundtrack: Glycerine, by Bush)

What? Where? I reeled in pain. I opened my swelled eyes as far as I could and saw a figure prostrate on the ground with long blond hair. Minako. Three figures were crouching around her, trying CPR without away success. I unfocused my eyes slightly and looked at her with my Othersight. The crouching figures glowed a healthy green, but Minako's weakly pulsating orange light was nearly completely faded. I tried to call out to her, to tell her not to die, I couldn't stand to be all alone in this strange world, but all I produced were some soft gasping sounds. I think I had a punctured lung somewhere. If only I'd been stronger, the other scouts would have been alive. All my fault. Always my fault. I gathered up my remaining energy and as much of my lifeforce as I could, and weakly stretched my hand out towards Mina, she had nearly faded completely now, I could hear the frustrated sobs of our would-be rescuers. At least I could do this right. With all my remaining strength I released the energy into the ground. Instantaneously Mina gasped slightly and began to breathe. I could hear sirens as I faded, she would be all right, I could at least save one. "Be happy Minako. Be happy..." I mouthed before succumbing to the darkness.

Trowa and the ambulance arrived at nearly the same time. Unsurprisingly, since the closest city had just suffered and OZ siege, Trowa was a more skilled paramedic than these volunteers. Anyone with any real medical skill was too desperately needed in the over-crowded hospital. The last siege had been a bad one, destroying many buildings, often with the residents still in them. They gratefully let Trowa take over, and instead gaped at the blond, who looked as if she should be, by all rights, dead, but was breathing easily, yet her friend with more minor injuries was having difficultly.

"We can take them to the hospital for emergency surgery," the driver said, "But we have no room for them after that." He said sadly, "You seem to have adequate medical skills," he said, talking to Trowa, " Do you have a place they could stay for their recovery."

Trowa was slightly uncomfortable under the weight of the gazes of all assembled. Catherine looked up at him with teary, bloodshot eyes. "Please, Trowa?" she asked quietly," After all we've done to keep them alive..." she trailed off, a pleading look in her eyes.

He sighed softly and gave the paramedics the Sydney address as he got into the ambulance. "I'll meet you back at camp." He mouthed to Catherine through the window of the ambulance. She nodded, and smiled sadly.

Well...this had certainly been his most...interesting visit to date. Heero was going to kill him.







************







(Soundtrack: Sleeping Beauty, by A Perfect Circle)

I woke slowly into an unfamiliar world, "what-the..where..how...." I mumbled as I rubbed at my eyes. They were slightly blurry and they hurt to focus, as if they hadn't been opened for a very long time. The room I lay in was very...white. White walls, white floors, white curtains and a white bed that I happened to be currently occupying. A flash of movement from the corner of my eye caught my attention and I sat up defensively, but gasped at the sudden pain. "What is going on?" I whimpered, then looked over at the large mirror that had caused me to bolt upright. "Omigod, I'm a monster." My long blond hair had been unskillfully cut in uneven layers, averaging at about shoulder-blade length, but my hair wasn't the upsetting thing, I could always grow it back. A long scar, still an angry magenta color, but glossy and semi-healed trailed down into the low, loose neckline of my gown. Further inspection showed it to end at around my navel, joining with other, ugly scars that radiated out from that point. Suddenly, as if a dam had broken, I remembered the fight, remembered the youma with huge claws bearing down on me, the horrible ripping feeling, and the absolute terror as I realized that I was going to die. "Maybe Hotaru could...no...wait, she must have died along with the others. I deserve this. I failed in my duty." The Queen was dead and these scars were all that were left of my past, everyone else was dead. This left me with one burning question, why am I still alive?

I somehow got the feeling as if these scars were all I had left to cling to, this world was somehow completely unfamiliar. I drew back the curtain beside my bed and gasped. Gasping turned out to be a very bad idea, and sent a spasm of pain through my torso, but the sight merited my astonishment, Hotaru lay in the bed next to me, unconscious. "Toto? I don't think we're in Kansas anymore." I tried to make light of the situation to myself, like I would have before the massacre, but it didn't work too well. An unnoticed tear slipped down my cheek as I finally wept. Whether it was for my marred beauty, from my pain, my broken vows, or my fallen comrades, I honestly couldn't say.







************







(Soundtrack: Clint Eastwood, by Gorrilaz)

"It's quite fascinating actually." Iria said excitedly, acting more like Duo than her usual mellow self. "Their recuperative abilities are nothing short of amazing!" Quatre only half-listened to his sister excitedly jabbering on. "I mean, it's been nearly less than a week, LESS THAN A WEEK, and Star's scars are already nearly half-healed! Also, Trinity's leg and arm are nearly completely healed, as well as her rib and we were able to take her off the respirator because her lung has completely restructured itself! It's incredible, I'd LOVE to get my hands on whatever is making this possible." Iria grinned.

Quatre sighed, taking a deep breath before answering his overly-excited sister. "Iria, calm down, and stop talking about Star and Trinity that way. They're human beings, not guinea pigs."

Iria continued to smile, despite her younger brother's admonishments. "I can't help it...but.." her grin slipped slightly, "It is rather worrying that though Trinity is nearly completely healed, she still hasn't woken from the comatose state in which she was found. Another odd piece of the puzzle." With that, she went to go check on her patients.

Quatre just shook his head and followed at a more sedate pace to the lab and medical facility. He had finally demanded that he be allowed to see his guests, and Iria had been forced to comply. Not that there was a burning urge to greet them before they had emerged from their comas, but his ulterior motive was to keep an eye on Iria. He was beginning to thing she would begin to actually commence the experiments she spoke of with longing looks in her eyes. "That's it." He determined resolutely, "I am never letting the doctors stay anywhere near my sisters again." Then again, maybe Iria had just hid her slightly macabre sense of humor well, after all, she named her patients after their scars and injuries if no one knew their names. Star, because the scars from being gutted left a slight star formation, and Trinity, because she had three major injuries, broken arm, broken leg, and a punctured lung, and they made a triangle. He seriously worried about his sister sometimes.

Lost in his thoughts, Quatre abruptly slammed into his sister, standing in open-mouthed shock at the young woman sitting up in bed, blinking kittenishly at the girl who lay beside her. Iria retreated, wide-eyed, pulled Quatre along with her, before Star noticed them. "That just isn't possible." She said shaking her head, and going back to the lab for different equipment, leaving Quatre standing there, rather confused.

He walked back to the room, Star was now lying back on her bed, her big blue eyes unfocused and staring at the ceiling, crying silently. "Hello?" He ventured timidly. Her head immediately snapped up to look at her. The tears still slipped down her face silently, she didn't appear to notice that she had been crying.

"Hel..lo.." she croaked, then cleared her throat and tried again, "Hello. Where am I?" she asked, looking confused and strangely sad. Quatre felt his mouth go dry. She was beautiful.

There ya go! Everyone who wanted a Minako/Quatre romance, there ya go it won't be easy though. As for Hotaru, I'm still undecided.