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Dream Keeper: Well folks, standard yada. I do not own Gundam Wing. *Sniffs* I wish I did but I don't. The G-boys and girls belong to their respectable owners. I am just using them for this twisted fic. I promise to return them, only slightly worse for the wear when we're through with them.
Christa: Okay, we couldn't just leave you with that big of a cliffhanger so we thought we'd give you a freebee chapter. Here it is! Don't expect the next one until next year! *laughs her head off*
Dream Keeper: *rolls her eyes* Hey, Christa.
Christa: Yeah?
Dream Keeper: Did you forget that that's only a few days away?
Christa: *sheepish look* Eh, ha, ha..
Dream Keeper: Anyway, here's the chapter!
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"It's me Trowa. I'm not a ghost, I promise."
"Why. How?!" he demanded as he dropped his gun on the table and sank down into a kitchen chair.
"Alex warned me."
"When? How?"
"On my way out."
*** FLASHBACK
Quatre took Alex's hand in his and kissed it. When she removed her hand from his, he noted that she's slipped a piece of paper into his palm. She looked pointedly at him and smiled so he acted as if nothing was entirely amiss and strode out the doors. Once in the safety of his car he read the note she'd given him.
Quatre, don't go back to the mansion.
It's a trap. They are going to try to
kill you. Have your bodyguard go in,
not you. I want you to go someplace
safe. I'll find you. Don't contact anyone.
It's a matter of life or death. Everyone
must believe that you are really dead.
Make sure that NO ONE knows the truth
but the person you're staying with. I'll
tell them you called in dead.
Love, Shinimegami.
*** END
"So you're saying she saved your life?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her." He fingered the note a moment. "Do you know what she called herself here?" he asked as he indicated her signature.
"I'm not entirely sure, but Duo calls himself the Shinigami, so I'm assuming it means goddess of death. How fitting."
"What?"
"She has everyone believing that she really did kill you."
"Including you?" Quatre asked in disbelief.
"Yes, especially me. I couldn't even think of anything vial enough to call her when. Oh no."
"Trowa, what happened?" Quatre asked urgently.
"We sent her away Quatre. We sent her away for good."
"You killed her?!" he yelled.
"No, we ran her off. We said.. some very nasty things to her. She was just so uncaring that you were dead. I think she really was hurt, even though she pretended to be so distant from any emotion." Quatre took a moment to let it sink in, then when the magnitude of the situation came crashing down on him, he too sank down into a chair and buried his head in his hands.
"Being dead should not be this much trouble," he muttered as much to himself as anyone. Trowa couldn't stop himself from laughing. A knock on the door made him stop. He motioned Quatre to move into one of the back rooms before he opened the door.
"Cathy, what do you need?" he asked, making his voice horse and choked with suppressed tears.
"Trowa, I heard about Quatre on the radio. I never liked him much but I am so sorry. I really didn't want to bother you but there's someone in the main tent. I didn't want to go in there alone, but everyone else was asleep."
"It's fine Cathy. I'll come with you." Silently the two moved across the distance between his trailer and the performance tent. When they got there Trowa quickly reached out and flipped on an overhead light. The tent was flooded with light that contrasted so sharply with the darkness they had been in that he had to blink away spots, but not before he saw someone in the tent. That someone was falling off the high wire.
"NO!" Cathy yelled, but the person had already leaned to one side beyond recovery. They fell off the wire and Cathy shut her eyes tightly against the gruesome sight of the person hitting the hard stone ground beneath them-
but the impact never came. She opened her eyes to see the person had reached out, snagged the wire in mid fall, used their momentum to swing over it like a gymnast, let go, and come to rest perfectly where they had been before.
"You might warn a person before you flip the lights on like that next time. It could be deadly."
"You stupid idiot! You could have gotten yourself killed! How dare you break into our circus tent like this! I'm calling the police!" she shouted at the person on the high wire.
"I'd rather you didn't but if that's what you choose, that's your business," the person replied as she did a cartwheel and came down on the wire. When the person was standing again, he sprinted across the other half of the tightrope and onto the safety of the board. Cathy was breathing a little easier as whoever it was climbed down.
"Trowa, are you going to go get him?" she demanded when her adopted brother didn't move.
"No, she'll come to us."
"How can you be so sure?"
"I know her," he told her. Cathy looked at the person and sure enough it was a girl, with aquamarine eyes that reminded her sharply of Quatre's and tousled straight brown hair.
"You know her?"
"Yes." He folded his arms across his chest and the girl took a hint to jog the rest of the way over.
"Sorry to scare you, Cathy, Trowa. I just needed something to do," she said to them.
"Something to do? You could have killed yourself! You were walking a tightrope in the dark! You couldn't even have been able to see it! It idiotic kid! I should kill you myself!"
"Cathy, please calm down. I don't want you to wake anyone else."
"You almost killed yourself and you're worried about me waking someone else?!" she yelled not two inches from her face.
"Cathy, please. I've had closer calls than that one. It hardly made my heart race. May I please go somewhere where I may see to my bandages in peace?"
"What?"
"Calm down Cathy. She has a good reason. Alex, you may use my trailer."
"And just what is that?" his sister demanded.
"She was hurt helping us a while ago." The look he gave her told her to ask no more questions and, in fact, she didn't want to.
Alex raised an eyebrow and asked sarcastically, "So you've already forgiven me?"
"There was nothing to forgive," he replied. "What happened to your dress?"
"I couldn't very well run through the woods with it on now could I? I changed in a thicket."
"You speak as if you were on earth." She just shrugged. Eventually after much arguing with Cathy they were able to make their way back to Trowa's trailer. Cathy only agreed to keep quiet under a threat of death (joking of course) and much explaining that Alex was the boy that had gotten her shot. She liked her even less after that.
After the door was safely shut Alex said, "God, Aunt Catherine can be a real pain in the-," she broke off when Trowa glared at her.
"She only has my best interest at heart," he said defensively. "She's not that bad if you don't get her shot."
"I know, I know. Hello Quatre, I figured you'd show up here," Alex said without turning around.
"How'd you know?" he asked as he came the rest of the way into the room.
"Trowa saw you and his eyes reflected your image. Nothing more, nothing less. It's a good way to see what's going on behind you without having to look. I'm glad you're safe."
"So am I. Thank you for saving me," he said as he sat down.
"Well, I could not very well let you die. It would have ruined everything," she replied as she walked over to the small stove in one corner of the trailer. She filled the teakettle with water and set it on a burner. Then she started digging through the cabinets. Trowa said nothing, just stood watching her. Quatre too was silent.
As soon as she had a cup waiting to be filled with a tea packet in it, she picked up her bag and headed into the bathroom. She appeared a moment later wearing only a baggy pair of sleeping pants and a bra.
"Uncle Trowa, will you please help? It damn well hurts to move right now," she said as she held out a roll of bandage to him. He ignored the fact that she was only half dressed long enough to patch her up. Quatre on the other hand, became as red as a tomato and looked away. When Trowa was finished she got out a tank top and pulled it over her head.
"Watch your language from now on," Trowa admonished as the kettle whistled.
"Sorry. I'm not use to living here anymore." She poured her tea and an uncomfortable silence descended on them. Trowa finally decided to break it.
"Alex, I'm sorry about--,"
"There is no need to apologize," she said, cutting him off. "I deserved what I got, even if it was for different reasons than they thought."
"What do you mean?"
"I got a man killed tonight," she said, refusing to look at them.
"I am no less at fault than you are," Quatre told her. "I sent a man in there knowing full well that he would be killed."
"Yes, but he was also assigned to give his life for you if it was deemed necessary. Well, that is neither here nor now. Done is done," she said as if to herself. Just then the clock chimed eleven and Alex's eyes widened and she paled. Quickly she pushed back from the table and said, "Where am I going to sleep?"
"Well, there's only one bed, and only one couch so. I guess the floor," Trowa admitted, wondering just what was wrong with her. Alex nodded and picked up her bag.
"Do you mind if I sleep in your room?" Taken aback by her question, Trowa could only nod dumbly. She walked swiftly to the closet, got and extra blanket, and made her bed on the floor with her back to the bedframe. She fell asleep, or at least appeared to, almost as soon as she closed her eyes. Trowa walked over and shut the door.
"Well, it looks like tonight's adventures took their toll on her. You know, I think she actually caught the eye of that young Jamal Swift while we were at that party tonight."
"Jamal?" Quatre asked, surprised. Jamal was known for being a loner and for staying away from his social group, opting to mingle with the adults. He was mature for his age so he and his peers had nothing in common. Every girl at the parties always tried to throw herself at him, but he always pretended not to notice the attention. "She caught his eye?"
"Yes. They sat at a table talking most of the time we were there. A very interesting development if you ask me." An odd twinkle came to his eye then and Quatre got an odd feeling in his stomach.
"Trowa, you know what she would say if she knew what you were going to do," Quatre said, lowering his voice even more.
"Yes," he said solemnly, "she would most likely beat me over the head with a frying pan until I gave up my foolish idea." He looked down at his watch then. "You do realize that if I am not at the bar in the next hour getting myself thoroughly drunk, Heero and the others will wonder what is wrong and come here, don't you?"
"Yes, go. We have to keep up the ruse that I am dead." He was not the least bit happy about letting Trowa go, but he could not risk being found out. "Just promise me that you will retain enough sense to sleep it off in your truck?"
"Of course. You know as well as I do that I don't drive when I'm drunk. Especially not when I can't tell whether I'm moving up or down. You know," he said thoughtfully as he left. "The Irish say that if you can fall down on the ground, hold onto a piece of grass, and not fall off the world, you're not properly drunk yet?"
"Let me guess. That proverb came about when one of the artificial gravity generators failed?" Quatre asked, half amused in spite of himself.
"Most likely. See you when I get home." With that he left. The roar of a car engine and the crunch of tires on gravel told Quatre that he was gone. Soon, he also followed Alex's example and found the couch to crash on for the night. Vaguely, as he drifted off to sleep, he thought that he needed to find a more secure sleeping spot so he would not be discovered if anyone came into the trailer with Trowa in the middle of the night.
~*~
Quatre awoke to a curious sound later that night. One look at his watch told him that it was not yet past one thirty in the morning. What in the world is making that weird sound, Quatre though as he fought to drive off the fog of sleep. As he became more awake he was able to place the sound as someone getting sick.
Quietly he got up off the couch and crept to the bathroom door. "Alex, are you okay in there?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'll be fine," she called back weakly. So weak in fact that Quatre started to open the door. "No, don't come in!" she cried desperately, pushing him back outside until another wave of nausea forced her to lean back over the toilet and dry heave. Quatre took that opportunity to enter.
When he saw her she looked normal, other than being pale and having shockingly dark purple lines under her eyes. On closer inspection he noticed that she was amazingly thin, unhealthily so. Thinking back, he could not remember a single time he'd seen her eat very much.
"Alex, what's going on?" he asked, concern written all over his face. He was forced to wait as her stomach tried to cleanse itself again, though it had nothing left in it.
When she was done she answered, "I'm fine Quatre. Don't worry."
"Are you bulimic?" he asked.
Alex looked at him as if he'd gone mad and gave a tiny, irony filled laugh. "If only it were that simple." A coughing fit overtook her then and she put her hand over her mouth quickly, but not before a little bit of blood flew onto the floor. Her eyes flew to his and she knew that he knew.
"Alex, what's going on?" he asked in a steely voice that demanded answers.
"Its nothing for you to concern yourself with," she answered stubbornly.
"I'm calling Sally." As he stood to go she grabbed his wrist. He turned to look at her and she shook her head sadly.
"There is nothing Sally can do for me Quatre. She knows it as well as I do." She let go of his wrist.
"And just what does that mean?" he hissed, afraid to yell.
She would not meet his eyes. Instead she fixed her gaze on the pattern on the wall. "I'm dying Quatre," she said as if it meant nothing to her. His heart plummeted into his feet and fear gripped his heart.
"What do you mean dying? How can you be dying?!" he demanded.
"Keep your voice down." Now she met his eyes with an unwavering gaze. "I knew when I accepted the mission that if I stayed here too long that this would be the consequence. It's worth it to me, if I can stop the future from happening."
"Yes, but why are you dying?"
"I can not stay here. My body is, well. I'm not sure. The closest I can come to an explanation is that I don't belong in this time period. I was borne in the future and that is where I belong. As soon as I stepped foot in the past my life was shortened. Its trying to force me out, Quatre, but it can't. It has nowhere to force me to. The future is in shambles right now so it can't decide where to throw me. Its pulling me in a hundred different directions, none of them the true future as it would be if I hadn't interfered. None of those are my time either. Alex isn't there in those times. I'm dead to time, so it's killing me, little by little. First my mind will go, then my body will start to fail, and I'll die."
"That's what those pills are for, aren't they?"
"Yes. Somehow they sustain my body; keep it from falling apart. I don't know how, nor do I want to know. I don't want to know what those scientists have put into my body. I don't want to know the way they've polluted it," she said bitterly.
"And you just accept this?" he asked quietly.
"There's nothing I can do about it. It would be best if you just forgot about it. Forget what you saw." She leaned over the toilet again. When her stomach settled she was panting as if she'd run a race. "God, I think that's the worst part."
"Throwing up?"
"That too, but the fact that I can't do anything about the pain. Its not someone else that's causing it, its my own body. I hate it. I hate this weak body."
"Alex, you are anything but weak," Quatre assured her.
She ignored his last remark, instead asking, "Will you please hand me a towel?" He did and handed it to her. Alex inclined her head in thanks as she accepted it. Slowly, as if any movement hurt her, she wiped her forehead of the sweat that had collected there and wiped her mouth. "Yuck, I wish there was some way to get rid of this taste."
"That is one thing they have not been able to come up with yet," he replied as he ran cold water over a rag and placed it on the back of her neck. Her shivering increased but she smiled at him.
"Thanks."
He nodded. "Well, now that you've woken me up, do you forgive me for what I did?"
"Yes. Actually, I'm half-glad that you did. If only for a little while, I got to know what my family was like. I didn't have to worry about getting kicked out for the first time in my life."
"What happened after your mother died? What changed all of us?" Quatre asked quietly.
She smiled wanly and laughed a tiny bit before another coughing fit overtook her. "You, you were fine for a while until your wife was killed in a car accident. There was a big scandal over it and it turned out that someone had been hired to kill her. I don't know why, but you were never the same. You buried yourself under mounds of paperwork and started leaving you children to be raised by the maganac's. They turned out pretty well, or at least last I heard they had," she stopped to reflect a moment.
"Wufei and Sally were pretty much unaffected until Maya was killed. I was never told how it happened. Wufei was away on a mission with Sally then. When they got the news they got careless and were killed. Needless to say that mission failed."
"So much wasted life," Quatre said quietly.
"Do you want me to go on?"
"Yes."
She nodded and continued, "On the outside Zechs was a strong person, but inside he was a nervous wreck. He started going off by himself for long periods of time. One of his favorite things to do became hiking on that hill behind his house. He moved after Relena died by the way. Well, the hill had a really steep drop off on one side. When he didn't come back for three days a search party was sent after him. It had been raining and he slipped. Noin threw herself off that same cliff a few weeks later."
"What happened to their kids?"
"I don't know. Maybe they were sent to you, maybe they were put up for adoption. I don't know. Duo and Hildie stayed alive for a long time. They were there for me when my father was killed, or, I should say Matty was. You already know what happened to her. Duo went crazy when that happened. He tried to kill me but, as you can see, he failed. They put him in a mental hospital then. He was still in the padded room when I left. Hildie lost her business after that. She ran into a bunch of financial problems. She and Danny had to move into a homeless shelter. She was too proud to ask for help, that was her undoing. She got really sick and there wasn't anyone who could do anything for her. She died a few months later. That's all."
"You forgot Trowa," Quatre said quietly.
Alex's face became an impassive mask as she steeled herself to tell him what she'd never been able to talk about. "He and his wife were the high wire act. They were the best at it. They could do almost anything but fly. God, I wish they could have been able to do that too. I don't know why, or how, it happened but someone forgot to check the high wire, or they purposefully overlooked it, either way. They were trying a new act that night. Their kids were with them. I think they were two and three, but I'm not sure. The high wire just snapped, it just snapped. They were in the middle of it so there was no way they could have been able to get to safety. They died, all four of them. They closed the circus down after that."
"All four of them? Weren't the kids on safety wires?" he asked, horrified that Trowa could have been so careless.
"Yeah, they were in the beginning, but somehow they got unhooked. No one looked into it too far, just a couple of circus clowns dying, nothing major they though. It was foul play Quatre. It wasn't an accident. You died in a plane crash by the way. Just a few hours before I left."
"I knew there was a reason I disliked planes," Quatre muttered as he sat absorbing what she'd told him. "Is it just me or are our deaths a little less than coincidence?"
"They were all foul play Quatre. I was sent to make it right. As you all disappeared, the E-sun fell into chaos."
"E-sun?" He asked, perplexed at what she meant. Was it a new government?
"E-sun. ESUN? It's just a play on the letters."
"Oh." It had never occurred to him to make a shorter word for the Earth's Sphere Unified Nation.
"Why are you so interested?"
"In case something happens to you," he admitted. "We can avoid some things, I think."
"If I die, you are all as good as dead because whoever is in the time stream will know who I am, go back, and make it to where I never came to help you. If what I've told you doesn't happen, they will find some other way." The clock in the kitchen started chiming two in the morning. "We'd better get back to bed. Please, don't tell anyone," she said, moving to stand up but Quatre's hand on her shoulder stopped her.
"In a few minutes. First tell me what happened to you."
"I'd rather not." she said, avoiding the subject. "I've already told you too much."
"It's not going to happen anyway. You know that as well as I do. The moment you stepped foot in my house our lives were changed forever." He felt an odd feeling radiating from her then. It was just on the edges of his senses, but he distinctly felt her discomfort and want to get away from the conversation. "Tell me what happened after Relena died."
"I went to live with Trowa," she said quietly. "Zechs couldn't live with me because of what I'd done."
"What was that?"
"I told him the day before it happened that Relena was going to die. I knew it was going to happen before it happened. I don't know how. That's the only thing I've ever done like that in my life. I know he didn't hate me, but he didn't want me seeing anything like that about his family. Actually, if you want to get technical, I lived with Heero for a few months, but he couldn't take care of me. Trowa took me away from him. He couldn't get legal custody of my sister though, so we grew up apart."
"Go on," Quatre urged when she stopped.
"I was happy with them, I loved living there at the circus. They even let me perform with them." She stopped and closed her eyes, fighting for control. "Please, let me go to bed Quatre."
"Was it really so horrible?" he asked.
"I did the high wire act with them. I was on the high wire, Quatre. I was on the high wire with them. I should have died too but by some miracle I lived. God, I can still feel myself falling, still hear their screams. Trowa didn't die right away. He lived for a few minutes, but he died inside. His little girl was lying right in front of him with her head smashed open, Quatre.
"His spirit died before his body. I remember the people saying that I was probably going to live, but not the others. They didn't do anything for them. They just tried to save me. I can still see his eyes. That's mostly what I remember. His eyes as they glazed over in death, how they accused me. I can still see them." She broke down sobbing then. Quatre held her against him as she cried herself out on his shoulder. Vaguely she noted that someone else was in the room holding her too, though she had no idea who it could be.
"I'm sorry you felt that way," Trowa whispered to her, causing her to stiffen involuntarily.
"Trowa!" she gasped, struggling for composure.
"Alex, it doesn't matter if you cry or not," he told her. "You're not human if you don't. I wasn't human until I did. I know how it feels to keep your feelings hidden. Let them out. All you've been doing since you arrived here is protecting us. Let us protect you now." That was all the encouragement she needed.
When finally her sobs subsided she looked at him and asked, "How did you get home? If you said you drove I am personally going to see you hung upside down from the ceiling of the performance tent and beat over the head with a cast iron frying pan!"
"Ooo, such threats. I guess it's a good thing someone who hadn't been drinking at all drove me home huh?"
"Who?" she asked, unable to think of anyone.
"Heero."
"What?!"
Quatre nodded confirmation. "He doesn't touch alcohol. Especially after what you accused him of." He noted that she winced as his words struck her like needles.
"I guess I deserved that," she said sheepishly. Turning to Trowa she asked, "How long have you been here?"
"Long enough to hear a little of how I got custody of you. I would like to hear the rest before I pass out on my bed. Oh, if either of you could get me some aspirin, it would be much appreciated." Quatre hastened to get it. "And how about we move out of the bathroom? This isn't the best place to hold a conference." No one disagreed with him.
When they were all settled comfortably in the kitchen (again) Alex continued, "I'm still not sure whether it was a blessing or a curse. Well, something was watching over me that day, be it god or demon. As you can see, I did live. I was about nine then. Lets see, I'm sixteen now. I got passed around between houses after that for about three years. No one really wanted me. Only Duo and Hildie ever kept me for any length of time. They were the only ones that didn't travel.
"Finally, after I got brought home by the police for a third time on L-4, Quatre bared me from ever coming to his home again. The Chang's died soon after. Zechs and Noin were too busy with the Preventers to take care of me and Duo and Hildie didn't have the money, so Dr. J got custody of me," she said bitterly. "Now here we are four years later and I am who you see now." Trowa and Quatre remained silent, both for different reasons. Alex got up then and made her way back to her makeshift bed to sleep.
~*~
Over the next two weeks everyone noticed that the assassination attempts increased greatly for all of them. They also noted that no matter where they were, someone was always lurking in the shadows, always just out of sight. Always whenever they were in danger the person came to their rescue before disappearing. Also, no one had any doubt of who the person was, and they all were thankful though they resented their rescuer greatly.
~*~
Alex upended the bucket of water over hear head in the blistering heat of the day. All of the air coolers on the colony were malfunctioning and everyone was suffering. She'd just finished practicing on the tightrope and felt as if she'd run a mile.
"You were really good up there today. It looks like your getting better,' Trowa congratulated her.
"No, it looks like my body is starting to remember some of what it forgot." She shrugged. "Either way, I am better. Do you think Cathy is going to want to use me for target practice again tonight?" she asked, wrinkling her nose in distaste.
"Probably not tonight. I told her about your absolute love of having sharp pointy objects thrown at you." (Hint to the fans who were doing that! STOP IT!)
She groaned in response. "Now you're going to have her believing I'm a sissy!"
"Well, until you're fully healed there isn't much more you can do. Tumbling is out of the question-,"
"Oh, it that all you've been worried about! I'm perfectly fine," she assured him and splashed water at him from the pump next to her when he gave her a disbelieving look. "I am! The only reason I needed to re-bandage myself is because I ripped a stitch out! I'm all healed up now. Al the stitches have disintegrated and my wound is now just a somewhat bothersome scar."
"If you say so. Shall we test that now?"
She groaned a little louder this time. "I'm beginning to think that I would have been better off if I had never revealed my special talents to you," she complained as she slung her towel over her shoulder. "You're a real slave driver. Can't we at least take a break long enough to check on our hamster? I want to make sure Happy hasn't dehydrated and keeled over."
"Okay, we can go check on the hamster," he agreed as he headed for his trailer. He smirked now to think of all the ruckus she had caused on her first day at the circus. Most of the people there had had them sleeping together at the end of the first hour. It had taken three days to get it through their heads that she was too young for him and that she the daughter of one of his friends on earth. It had taken another five to convince the young men to keep their hands to themselves! Alex had finally needed to knock Bob's front teeth in to drive that fact home when he grabbed her butt for the tenth time in an hour. Needless to say, the boys pretty much avoided her now.
As they entered, Quatre looked up from the book he was reading on the couch. "Hello," he said. "I don't suppose you brought anything cold with you?"
"Nope, sorry Happy. I'll get you some chilled carrots later tonight." Alex said as she flopped down in a chair.
"Ha, ha, very funny," Quatre said before putting his book up in front of his face and pretending to ignore her jibe. It had come about when he'd woken her up one morning too early and with too perky a mood. They'd needed something to call him in code so when Alex remembered that Trowa had had a hamster once, they started referring to him as the Happy hamster.
"I still have work to do. Enjoy yourselves for a while, but do open up some windows. You could have a heat stroke in here."
Alex shook her head. "No, I'll come with you and let you try and take another few layers of skin off me. I won't get any better sitting around here." She set about opening the windows. "Is there anything you need Happy?"
"If you happen to run across an ice-cream vender I'll take rocky road," he replied as they left.
"I never knew he was that much of a chocola-holic," Alex muttered as she headed to the tumbling mats. Trowa spent the next hour and a half driving her like a mad woman in her different exercises. When she finally couldn't sit up without assistance he gave up and called it a day. Then he too flopped down on the mats.
"You two are really good," someone said to them. Trowa raised his head long enough to see that Jamal was leaning on one of the many piles of boxes.
"Hello Jamal," He said before dropping his head back onto the mat. "How are you?"
"Just fine. Looks like you two are beat though."
"Yeah, being in the circus isn't easy, but its fun. I think you want to talk to Alex and I've got stuff to do, so I'll see you two later," he said as he heaved himself to his feet and walked off. He noted that Alex followed him with her eyes, pleading with him to stay but he pretended not to see.
"So, what are you doing here?" she asked casually as she sat up, not sure of how to talk to him. She was sweaty, smelly, and very disheveled. There was no way she could look pretty to him. Why do I care, she wondered? Fair lady he'd called her at the party. What did he think of her now?
"I told you I wanted to see you again. It took me a while to track you down. Its almost like you dropped off the face of the colony. I finally thought to come to the circus to look for you. I remembered my father saying something about Quatre's friend being a circus clown." He grew solemn then. "I'm sorry about Quatre."
"Its okay, it didn't affect me too much. He was just Trowa's friend. I didn't know him that well."
"Oh," he said, running out of things to discuss. As he shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably he looked everywhere but her.
"Hey, do you want to go for a walk?" Alex asked suddenly.
"You sure your boyfriend won't mind too much?" he asked doubtfully. He seemed utterly perplexed when she broke out into a fit of laughter where she was sitting. "What? What's so funny?"
"Sorry," she gasped when she noticed his wounded look. "It's just the way you said that. You made him sound like a cradle robber."
"I don't find it funny at all. If he's your-," he stopped when she held up her hand.
"No, you've got it all wrong. He's not my boyfriend. I just live with him, that's why I thought it was so funny. Sorry but that thought just doesn't appeal to me. He's like an older brother, no, more of a father to me. I could never be together with him. The thought sickens me."
"Oh," he said again, though this time he didn't quite conceal the hint of relief in his voice. "In that case I'd love to go on a walk with you.
"Okay, give me five minutes and I'll meet you in front of that trailer there." She pointed to Trowa's trailer. "If you wander around, just make sure not to get in Cathy's way. She's been known to be a little narrow sighted when she's throwing her knives and it would be a pain to explain to your father just what happened to you."
"I'll make sure to stay out of her way," he promised. She nodded and took off jogging towards the trailer, praying she didn't look too nervous.
"Happy, you need to hide for a few minutes," she said, just loud enough for him to hear.
"Why?" he asked.
She became flustered then. "Because Jamal just showed up and he's going to be waiting for me. Oh god, why did I ask him to go for a walk? I don't have the time! Why did he have to show up here!" she ranted as she searched franticly for her bag.
"It's in Trowa's room," Quatre told her as he moved behind a wall where he wouldn't be seen. "Do you dislike him that much?"
"No!" she blushed. "No, I. I, uh."
"You like him more than a little huh?" Trowa said as he came out of his room holding her back. She glared at him and snatched it from his hand.
"You! If I find out you had anything to do with this you are going to regret the day you became a conniving sneak."
"Sheesh, you've only met the guy once and you're already in love with him this badly?" he joked. She punched him hard in the arm, causing him to wince when he didn't move out of the way quick enough.
"Excuse me! Little girls are allowed to have crushes!" she retorted before clamping her hands over her mouth. Trowa smirked but said nothing as she quickly retreated to the shower.
Seven minutes later, after much coaxing from both men, she finally stepped out the door.
"Oh, I really didn't think you'd be done that fast," he said, looking up in surprise.
"Why?" she asked curiously.
"When my sisters say they are going to be back in five minutes they usually take forty-five."
"And you were planning on waiting for me that long?"
"I don't know," he admitted honestly as they walked down the sidewalk.
~*~
They came walking back to the circus grounds an hour after sunset, having left at three. Trowa was waiting patiently on the steps when they came walking up hand in hand. Upon seeing him they promptly separated and stood a suitable distance apart, carefully not touching. Trowa pretended not to notice.
"Have a nice time?" he asked as he peeled another piece of wood away from his carving with his knife. He noticed Jamal's eyes flick towards it uneasily.
"Yes," Alex replied, refusing to give anything away.
"Why don't you go inside and get some dinner? Its sitting on the stove," he said to Alex, giving her a pointed look. Even though she'd already eaten, she went inside anyway, praying that Trowa would be nice.
Jamal stood there a moment, watching her through the window before saying uneasily, "I'd better be going."
"Wait a moment son," Trowa said, stopping the boy in his tracks.
"Yes sir?" he asked.
"You know that Alex is like a daughter to me, do you not?"
"Yes sir."
"You know that she is a lady, not some circus girl that you can just pick up and throw down when you choose, or use as a whore, right?"
"Of course sir," he snapped, offended greatly that he would suggest such a thing.
"Good. Oh, by the way, if you hurt her, you'd better hope you can run faster than I do."
"Yes sir," Jamal said. As he turned to go the knife that Trowa had been using thunked into the tree in front of him, warning him what would happen to him if he did hurt her. "Yes sir," he replied to Trowa's unspoken threat. "I'll make sure."
***
"Why did you do that?!" Alex yelled when Trowa finally came back inside.
"All I did was threaten him. He's a good kid."
"Exactly! You threatened him!" she said before she slumped down on the couch next to Quatre. "I've never been more humiliated in my life."
"I could make sure this becomes one of your less humiliating moments," Trowa offered.
She looked up at him then and gave him Heero's patented death glare. "If you do anything of the sort, _I_will_kill_you_."
"Okay."
"So, what did you two love birds do?" Quatre asked as he put his book aside.
"We went to a movie if its any of your business," she snapped. "Now, tell me, how did you get him to come out here?" Both men became interested in looking anywhere but her right then. "Okay, fine. Be that way," she huffed half in jest as she marched into Trowa's room and lay down on the bed. All of her muscle aches chose that time to make themselves known to her. She decided to take a hot bath then to loosen then up.
As she sank down into the warm embrace of the water all she could think about was Jamal. How his hand had felt in her, how his cologne had smelled, how his lips had tasted from their brief kiss. She was in seventh heaven. She even started remembering the first time she'd seen him. She'd been seven then and had vowed then and there that she would never love another man. How silly she'd been. He had married by the time that she was ten but she'd still kept right on hoping.
Alex smiled as she remember him one Christmas at Quatre's and how he'd given her a beautiful pendant of a dove in flight. She'd treasured it from the moment he'd given it to her. When it was stolen she'd been heartbroken. She had a feeling that the doctors had pawned it for money. Then she remembered the final warning they'd given her: Never fall in love.
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Dream Keeper: Well, here's the next chapter! Yeah! It's up! *does a dance around the room*
Christa: To all who are reading this, would you mind reading our latest fic, Voice of Evil? Its suppose to be really good. Supposedly the characters aren't too OOC either! Yeah! We're getting better!
Dream Keeper: So how'd you like the ending? *gives readers a look* Did you REALLY expect us to give up a chance to put in a DECENT cliffhanger? Perish the thought!
Christa: *snickers* Okay, well, to all those who have read, don't forget to R&R which mean read AND REVIEW!! Especially you Lady Stardancer! You haven't reviewed in forever! I won't update until EVERYONE who reads this has reviewed! So make it snappy! Only about two maybe three chapters to go! Yeah!
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Dream Keeper: Well folks, standard yada. I do not own Gundam Wing. *Sniffs* I wish I did but I don't. The G-boys and girls belong to their respectable owners. I am just using them for this twisted fic. I promise to return them, only slightly worse for the wear when we're through with them.
Christa: Okay, we couldn't just leave you with that big of a cliffhanger so we thought we'd give you a freebee chapter. Here it is! Don't expect the next one until next year! *laughs her head off*
Dream Keeper: *rolls her eyes* Hey, Christa.
Christa: Yeah?
Dream Keeper: Did you forget that that's only a few days away?
Christa: *sheepish look* Eh, ha, ha..
Dream Keeper: Anyway, here's the chapter!
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"It's me Trowa. I'm not a ghost, I promise."
"Why. How?!" he demanded as he dropped his gun on the table and sank down into a kitchen chair.
"Alex warned me."
"When? How?"
"On my way out."
*** FLASHBACK
Quatre took Alex's hand in his and kissed it. When she removed her hand from his, he noted that she's slipped a piece of paper into his palm. She looked pointedly at him and smiled so he acted as if nothing was entirely amiss and strode out the doors. Once in the safety of his car he read the note she'd given him.
Quatre, don't go back to the mansion.
It's a trap. They are going to try to
kill you. Have your bodyguard go in,
not you. I want you to go someplace
safe. I'll find you. Don't contact anyone.
It's a matter of life or death. Everyone
must believe that you are really dead.
Make sure that NO ONE knows the truth
but the person you're staying with. I'll
tell them you called in dead.
Love, Shinimegami.
*** END
"So you're saying she saved your life?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her." He fingered the note a moment. "Do you know what she called herself here?" he asked as he indicated her signature.
"I'm not entirely sure, but Duo calls himself the Shinigami, so I'm assuming it means goddess of death. How fitting."
"What?"
"She has everyone believing that she really did kill you."
"Including you?" Quatre asked in disbelief.
"Yes, especially me. I couldn't even think of anything vial enough to call her when. Oh no."
"Trowa, what happened?" Quatre asked urgently.
"We sent her away Quatre. We sent her away for good."
"You killed her?!" he yelled.
"No, we ran her off. We said.. some very nasty things to her. She was just so uncaring that you were dead. I think she really was hurt, even though she pretended to be so distant from any emotion." Quatre took a moment to let it sink in, then when the magnitude of the situation came crashing down on him, he too sank down into a chair and buried his head in his hands.
"Being dead should not be this much trouble," he muttered as much to himself as anyone. Trowa couldn't stop himself from laughing. A knock on the door made him stop. He motioned Quatre to move into one of the back rooms before he opened the door.
"Cathy, what do you need?" he asked, making his voice horse and choked with suppressed tears.
"Trowa, I heard about Quatre on the radio. I never liked him much but I am so sorry. I really didn't want to bother you but there's someone in the main tent. I didn't want to go in there alone, but everyone else was asleep."
"It's fine Cathy. I'll come with you." Silently the two moved across the distance between his trailer and the performance tent. When they got there Trowa quickly reached out and flipped on an overhead light. The tent was flooded with light that contrasted so sharply with the darkness they had been in that he had to blink away spots, but not before he saw someone in the tent. That someone was falling off the high wire.
"NO!" Cathy yelled, but the person had already leaned to one side beyond recovery. They fell off the wire and Cathy shut her eyes tightly against the gruesome sight of the person hitting the hard stone ground beneath them-
but the impact never came. She opened her eyes to see the person had reached out, snagged the wire in mid fall, used their momentum to swing over it like a gymnast, let go, and come to rest perfectly where they had been before.
"You might warn a person before you flip the lights on like that next time. It could be deadly."
"You stupid idiot! You could have gotten yourself killed! How dare you break into our circus tent like this! I'm calling the police!" she shouted at the person on the high wire.
"I'd rather you didn't but if that's what you choose, that's your business," the person replied as she did a cartwheel and came down on the wire. When the person was standing again, he sprinted across the other half of the tightrope and onto the safety of the board. Cathy was breathing a little easier as whoever it was climbed down.
"Trowa, are you going to go get him?" she demanded when her adopted brother didn't move.
"No, she'll come to us."
"How can you be so sure?"
"I know her," he told her. Cathy looked at the person and sure enough it was a girl, with aquamarine eyes that reminded her sharply of Quatre's and tousled straight brown hair.
"You know her?"
"Yes." He folded his arms across his chest and the girl took a hint to jog the rest of the way over.
"Sorry to scare you, Cathy, Trowa. I just needed something to do," she said to them.
"Something to do? You could have killed yourself! You were walking a tightrope in the dark! You couldn't even have been able to see it! It idiotic kid! I should kill you myself!"
"Cathy, please calm down. I don't want you to wake anyone else."
"You almost killed yourself and you're worried about me waking someone else?!" she yelled not two inches from her face.
"Cathy, please. I've had closer calls than that one. It hardly made my heart race. May I please go somewhere where I may see to my bandages in peace?"
"What?"
"Calm down Cathy. She has a good reason. Alex, you may use my trailer."
"And just what is that?" his sister demanded.
"She was hurt helping us a while ago." The look he gave her told her to ask no more questions and, in fact, she didn't want to.
Alex raised an eyebrow and asked sarcastically, "So you've already forgiven me?"
"There was nothing to forgive," he replied. "What happened to your dress?"
"I couldn't very well run through the woods with it on now could I? I changed in a thicket."
"You speak as if you were on earth." She just shrugged. Eventually after much arguing with Cathy they were able to make their way back to Trowa's trailer. Cathy only agreed to keep quiet under a threat of death (joking of course) and much explaining that Alex was the boy that had gotten her shot. She liked her even less after that.
After the door was safely shut Alex said, "God, Aunt Catherine can be a real pain in the-," she broke off when Trowa glared at her.
"She only has my best interest at heart," he said defensively. "She's not that bad if you don't get her shot."
"I know, I know. Hello Quatre, I figured you'd show up here," Alex said without turning around.
"How'd you know?" he asked as he came the rest of the way into the room.
"Trowa saw you and his eyes reflected your image. Nothing more, nothing less. It's a good way to see what's going on behind you without having to look. I'm glad you're safe."
"So am I. Thank you for saving me," he said as he sat down.
"Well, I could not very well let you die. It would have ruined everything," she replied as she walked over to the small stove in one corner of the trailer. She filled the teakettle with water and set it on a burner. Then she started digging through the cabinets. Trowa said nothing, just stood watching her. Quatre too was silent.
As soon as she had a cup waiting to be filled with a tea packet in it, she picked up her bag and headed into the bathroom. She appeared a moment later wearing only a baggy pair of sleeping pants and a bra.
"Uncle Trowa, will you please help? It damn well hurts to move right now," she said as she held out a roll of bandage to him. He ignored the fact that she was only half dressed long enough to patch her up. Quatre on the other hand, became as red as a tomato and looked away. When Trowa was finished she got out a tank top and pulled it over her head.
"Watch your language from now on," Trowa admonished as the kettle whistled.
"Sorry. I'm not use to living here anymore." She poured her tea and an uncomfortable silence descended on them. Trowa finally decided to break it.
"Alex, I'm sorry about--,"
"There is no need to apologize," she said, cutting him off. "I deserved what I got, even if it was for different reasons than they thought."
"What do you mean?"
"I got a man killed tonight," she said, refusing to look at them.
"I am no less at fault than you are," Quatre told her. "I sent a man in there knowing full well that he would be killed."
"Yes, but he was also assigned to give his life for you if it was deemed necessary. Well, that is neither here nor now. Done is done," she said as if to herself. Just then the clock chimed eleven and Alex's eyes widened and she paled. Quickly she pushed back from the table and said, "Where am I going to sleep?"
"Well, there's only one bed, and only one couch so. I guess the floor," Trowa admitted, wondering just what was wrong with her. Alex nodded and picked up her bag.
"Do you mind if I sleep in your room?" Taken aback by her question, Trowa could only nod dumbly. She walked swiftly to the closet, got and extra blanket, and made her bed on the floor with her back to the bedframe. She fell asleep, or at least appeared to, almost as soon as she closed her eyes. Trowa walked over and shut the door.
"Well, it looks like tonight's adventures took their toll on her. You know, I think she actually caught the eye of that young Jamal Swift while we were at that party tonight."
"Jamal?" Quatre asked, surprised. Jamal was known for being a loner and for staying away from his social group, opting to mingle with the adults. He was mature for his age so he and his peers had nothing in common. Every girl at the parties always tried to throw herself at him, but he always pretended not to notice the attention. "She caught his eye?"
"Yes. They sat at a table talking most of the time we were there. A very interesting development if you ask me." An odd twinkle came to his eye then and Quatre got an odd feeling in his stomach.
"Trowa, you know what she would say if she knew what you were going to do," Quatre said, lowering his voice even more.
"Yes," he said solemnly, "she would most likely beat me over the head with a frying pan until I gave up my foolish idea." He looked down at his watch then. "You do realize that if I am not at the bar in the next hour getting myself thoroughly drunk, Heero and the others will wonder what is wrong and come here, don't you?"
"Yes, go. We have to keep up the ruse that I am dead." He was not the least bit happy about letting Trowa go, but he could not risk being found out. "Just promise me that you will retain enough sense to sleep it off in your truck?"
"Of course. You know as well as I do that I don't drive when I'm drunk. Especially not when I can't tell whether I'm moving up or down. You know," he said thoughtfully as he left. "The Irish say that if you can fall down on the ground, hold onto a piece of grass, and not fall off the world, you're not properly drunk yet?"
"Let me guess. That proverb came about when one of the artificial gravity generators failed?" Quatre asked, half amused in spite of himself.
"Most likely. See you when I get home." With that he left. The roar of a car engine and the crunch of tires on gravel told Quatre that he was gone. Soon, he also followed Alex's example and found the couch to crash on for the night. Vaguely, as he drifted off to sleep, he thought that he needed to find a more secure sleeping spot so he would not be discovered if anyone came into the trailer with Trowa in the middle of the night.
~*~
Quatre awoke to a curious sound later that night. One look at his watch told him that it was not yet past one thirty in the morning. What in the world is making that weird sound, Quatre though as he fought to drive off the fog of sleep. As he became more awake he was able to place the sound as someone getting sick.
Quietly he got up off the couch and crept to the bathroom door. "Alex, are you okay in there?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'll be fine," she called back weakly. So weak in fact that Quatre started to open the door. "No, don't come in!" she cried desperately, pushing him back outside until another wave of nausea forced her to lean back over the toilet and dry heave. Quatre took that opportunity to enter.
When he saw her she looked normal, other than being pale and having shockingly dark purple lines under her eyes. On closer inspection he noticed that she was amazingly thin, unhealthily so. Thinking back, he could not remember a single time he'd seen her eat very much.
"Alex, what's going on?" he asked, concern written all over his face. He was forced to wait as her stomach tried to cleanse itself again, though it had nothing left in it.
When she was done she answered, "I'm fine Quatre. Don't worry."
"Are you bulimic?" he asked.
Alex looked at him as if he'd gone mad and gave a tiny, irony filled laugh. "If only it were that simple." A coughing fit overtook her then and she put her hand over her mouth quickly, but not before a little bit of blood flew onto the floor. Her eyes flew to his and she knew that he knew.
"Alex, what's going on?" he asked in a steely voice that demanded answers.
"Its nothing for you to concern yourself with," she answered stubbornly.
"I'm calling Sally." As he stood to go she grabbed his wrist. He turned to look at her and she shook her head sadly.
"There is nothing Sally can do for me Quatre. She knows it as well as I do." She let go of his wrist.
"And just what does that mean?" he hissed, afraid to yell.
She would not meet his eyes. Instead she fixed her gaze on the pattern on the wall. "I'm dying Quatre," she said as if it meant nothing to her. His heart plummeted into his feet and fear gripped his heart.
"What do you mean dying? How can you be dying?!" he demanded.
"Keep your voice down." Now she met his eyes with an unwavering gaze. "I knew when I accepted the mission that if I stayed here too long that this would be the consequence. It's worth it to me, if I can stop the future from happening."
"Yes, but why are you dying?"
"I can not stay here. My body is, well. I'm not sure. The closest I can come to an explanation is that I don't belong in this time period. I was borne in the future and that is where I belong. As soon as I stepped foot in the past my life was shortened. Its trying to force me out, Quatre, but it can't. It has nowhere to force me to. The future is in shambles right now so it can't decide where to throw me. Its pulling me in a hundred different directions, none of them the true future as it would be if I hadn't interfered. None of those are my time either. Alex isn't there in those times. I'm dead to time, so it's killing me, little by little. First my mind will go, then my body will start to fail, and I'll die."
"That's what those pills are for, aren't they?"
"Yes. Somehow they sustain my body; keep it from falling apart. I don't know how, nor do I want to know. I don't want to know what those scientists have put into my body. I don't want to know the way they've polluted it," she said bitterly.
"And you just accept this?" he asked quietly.
"There's nothing I can do about it. It would be best if you just forgot about it. Forget what you saw." She leaned over the toilet again. When her stomach settled she was panting as if she'd run a race. "God, I think that's the worst part."
"Throwing up?"
"That too, but the fact that I can't do anything about the pain. Its not someone else that's causing it, its my own body. I hate it. I hate this weak body."
"Alex, you are anything but weak," Quatre assured her.
She ignored his last remark, instead asking, "Will you please hand me a towel?" He did and handed it to her. Alex inclined her head in thanks as she accepted it. Slowly, as if any movement hurt her, she wiped her forehead of the sweat that had collected there and wiped her mouth. "Yuck, I wish there was some way to get rid of this taste."
"That is one thing they have not been able to come up with yet," he replied as he ran cold water over a rag and placed it on the back of her neck. Her shivering increased but she smiled at him.
"Thanks."
He nodded. "Well, now that you've woken me up, do you forgive me for what I did?"
"Yes. Actually, I'm half-glad that you did. If only for a little while, I got to know what my family was like. I didn't have to worry about getting kicked out for the first time in my life."
"What happened after your mother died? What changed all of us?" Quatre asked quietly.
She smiled wanly and laughed a tiny bit before another coughing fit overtook her. "You, you were fine for a while until your wife was killed in a car accident. There was a big scandal over it and it turned out that someone had been hired to kill her. I don't know why, but you were never the same. You buried yourself under mounds of paperwork and started leaving you children to be raised by the maganac's. They turned out pretty well, or at least last I heard they had," she stopped to reflect a moment.
"Wufei and Sally were pretty much unaffected until Maya was killed. I was never told how it happened. Wufei was away on a mission with Sally then. When they got the news they got careless and were killed. Needless to say that mission failed."
"So much wasted life," Quatre said quietly.
"Do you want me to go on?"
"Yes."
She nodded and continued, "On the outside Zechs was a strong person, but inside he was a nervous wreck. He started going off by himself for long periods of time. One of his favorite things to do became hiking on that hill behind his house. He moved after Relena died by the way. Well, the hill had a really steep drop off on one side. When he didn't come back for three days a search party was sent after him. It had been raining and he slipped. Noin threw herself off that same cliff a few weeks later."
"What happened to their kids?"
"I don't know. Maybe they were sent to you, maybe they were put up for adoption. I don't know. Duo and Hildie stayed alive for a long time. They were there for me when my father was killed, or, I should say Matty was. You already know what happened to her. Duo went crazy when that happened. He tried to kill me but, as you can see, he failed. They put him in a mental hospital then. He was still in the padded room when I left. Hildie lost her business after that. She ran into a bunch of financial problems. She and Danny had to move into a homeless shelter. She was too proud to ask for help, that was her undoing. She got really sick and there wasn't anyone who could do anything for her. She died a few months later. That's all."
"You forgot Trowa," Quatre said quietly.
Alex's face became an impassive mask as she steeled herself to tell him what she'd never been able to talk about. "He and his wife were the high wire act. They were the best at it. They could do almost anything but fly. God, I wish they could have been able to do that too. I don't know why, or how, it happened but someone forgot to check the high wire, or they purposefully overlooked it, either way. They were trying a new act that night. Their kids were with them. I think they were two and three, but I'm not sure. The high wire just snapped, it just snapped. They were in the middle of it so there was no way they could have been able to get to safety. They died, all four of them. They closed the circus down after that."
"All four of them? Weren't the kids on safety wires?" he asked, horrified that Trowa could have been so careless.
"Yeah, they were in the beginning, but somehow they got unhooked. No one looked into it too far, just a couple of circus clowns dying, nothing major they though. It was foul play Quatre. It wasn't an accident. You died in a plane crash by the way. Just a few hours before I left."
"I knew there was a reason I disliked planes," Quatre muttered as he sat absorbing what she'd told him. "Is it just me or are our deaths a little less than coincidence?"
"They were all foul play Quatre. I was sent to make it right. As you all disappeared, the E-sun fell into chaos."
"E-sun?" He asked, perplexed at what she meant. Was it a new government?
"E-sun. ESUN? It's just a play on the letters."
"Oh." It had never occurred to him to make a shorter word for the Earth's Sphere Unified Nation.
"Why are you so interested?"
"In case something happens to you," he admitted. "We can avoid some things, I think."
"If I die, you are all as good as dead because whoever is in the time stream will know who I am, go back, and make it to where I never came to help you. If what I've told you doesn't happen, they will find some other way." The clock in the kitchen started chiming two in the morning. "We'd better get back to bed. Please, don't tell anyone," she said, moving to stand up but Quatre's hand on her shoulder stopped her.
"In a few minutes. First tell me what happened to you."
"I'd rather not." she said, avoiding the subject. "I've already told you too much."
"It's not going to happen anyway. You know that as well as I do. The moment you stepped foot in my house our lives were changed forever." He felt an odd feeling radiating from her then. It was just on the edges of his senses, but he distinctly felt her discomfort and want to get away from the conversation. "Tell me what happened after Relena died."
"I went to live with Trowa," she said quietly. "Zechs couldn't live with me because of what I'd done."
"What was that?"
"I told him the day before it happened that Relena was going to die. I knew it was going to happen before it happened. I don't know how. That's the only thing I've ever done like that in my life. I know he didn't hate me, but he didn't want me seeing anything like that about his family. Actually, if you want to get technical, I lived with Heero for a few months, but he couldn't take care of me. Trowa took me away from him. He couldn't get legal custody of my sister though, so we grew up apart."
"Go on," Quatre urged when she stopped.
"I was happy with them, I loved living there at the circus. They even let me perform with them." She stopped and closed her eyes, fighting for control. "Please, let me go to bed Quatre."
"Was it really so horrible?" he asked.
"I did the high wire act with them. I was on the high wire, Quatre. I was on the high wire with them. I should have died too but by some miracle I lived. God, I can still feel myself falling, still hear their screams. Trowa didn't die right away. He lived for a few minutes, but he died inside. His little girl was lying right in front of him with her head smashed open, Quatre.
"His spirit died before his body. I remember the people saying that I was probably going to live, but not the others. They didn't do anything for them. They just tried to save me. I can still see his eyes. That's mostly what I remember. His eyes as they glazed over in death, how they accused me. I can still see them." She broke down sobbing then. Quatre held her against him as she cried herself out on his shoulder. Vaguely she noted that someone else was in the room holding her too, though she had no idea who it could be.
"I'm sorry you felt that way," Trowa whispered to her, causing her to stiffen involuntarily.
"Trowa!" she gasped, struggling for composure.
"Alex, it doesn't matter if you cry or not," he told her. "You're not human if you don't. I wasn't human until I did. I know how it feels to keep your feelings hidden. Let them out. All you've been doing since you arrived here is protecting us. Let us protect you now." That was all the encouragement she needed.
When finally her sobs subsided she looked at him and asked, "How did you get home? If you said you drove I am personally going to see you hung upside down from the ceiling of the performance tent and beat over the head with a cast iron frying pan!"
"Ooo, such threats. I guess it's a good thing someone who hadn't been drinking at all drove me home huh?"
"Who?" she asked, unable to think of anyone.
"Heero."
"What?!"
Quatre nodded confirmation. "He doesn't touch alcohol. Especially after what you accused him of." He noted that she winced as his words struck her like needles.
"I guess I deserved that," she said sheepishly. Turning to Trowa she asked, "How long have you been here?"
"Long enough to hear a little of how I got custody of you. I would like to hear the rest before I pass out on my bed. Oh, if either of you could get me some aspirin, it would be much appreciated." Quatre hastened to get it. "And how about we move out of the bathroom? This isn't the best place to hold a conference." No one disagreed with him.
When they were all settled comfortably in the kitchen (again) Alex continued, "I'm still not sure whether it was a blessing or a curse. Well, something was watching over me that day, be it god or demon. As you can see, I did live. I was about nine then. Lets see, I'm sixteen now. I got passed around between houses after that for about three years. No one really wanted me. Only Duo and Hildie ever kept me for any length of time. They were the only ones that didn't travel.
"Finally, after I got brought home by the police for a third time on L-4, Quatre bared me from ever coming to his home again. The Chang's died soon after. Zechs and Noin were too busy with the Preventers to take care of me and Duo and Hildie didn't have the money, so Dr. J got custody of me," she said bitterly. "Now here we are four years later and I am who you see now." Trowa and Quatre remained silent, both for different reasons. Alex got up then and made her way back to her makeshift bed to sleep.
~*~
Over the next two weeks everyone noticed that the assassination attempts increased greatly for all of them. They also noted that no matter where they were, someone was always lurking in the shadows, always just out of sight. Always whenever they were in danger the person came to their rescue before disappearing. Also, no one had any doubt of who the person was, and they all were thankful though they resented their rescuer greatly.
~*~
Alex upended the bucket of water over hear head in the blistering heat of the day. All of the air coolers on the colony were malfunctioning and everyone was suffering. She'd just finished practicing on the tightrope and felt as if she'd run a mile.
"You were really good up there today. It looks like your getting better,' Trowa congratulated her.
"No, it looks like my body is starting to remember some of what it forgot." She shrugged. "Either way, I am better. Do you think Cathy is going to want to use me for target practice again tonight?" she asked, wrinkling her nose in distaste.
"Probably not tonight. I told her about your absolute love of having sharp pointy objects thrown at you." (Hint to the fans who were doing that! STOP IT!)
She groaned in response. "Now you're going to have her believing I'm a sissy!"
"Well, until you're fully healed there isn't much more you can do. Tumbling is out of the question-,"
"Oh, it that all you've been worried about! I'm perfectly fine," she assured him and splashed water at him from the pump next to her when he gave her a disbelieving look. "I am! The only reason I needed to re-bandage myself is because I ripped a stitch out! I'm all healed up now. Al the stitches have disintegrated and my wound is now just a somewhat bothersome scar."
"If you say so. Shall we test that now?"
She groaned a little louder this time. "I'm beginning to think that I would have been better off if I had never revealed my special talents to you," she complained as she slung her towel over her shoulder. "You're a real slave driver. Can't we at least take a break long enough to check on our hamster? I want to make sure Happy hasn't dehydrated and keeled over."
"Okay, we can go check on the hamster," he agreed as he headed for his trailer. He smirked now to think of all the ruckus she had caused on her first day at the circus. Most of the people there had had them sleeping together at the end of the first hour. It had taken three days to get it through their heads that she was too young for him and that she the daughter of one of his friends on earth. It had taken another five to convince the young men to keep their hands to themselves! Alex had finally needed to knock Bob's front teeth in to drive that fact home when he grabbed her butt for the tenth time in an hour. Needless to say, the boys pretty much avoided her now.
As they entered, Quatre looked up from the book he was reading on the couch. "Hello," he said. "I don't suppose you brought anything cold with you?"
"Nope, sorry Happy. I'll get you some chilled carrots later tonight." Alex said as she flopped down in a chair.
"Ha, ha, very funny," Quatre said before putting his book up in front of his face and pretending to ignore her jibe. It had come about when he'd woken her up one morning too early and with too perky a mood. They'd needed something to call him in code so when Alex remembered that Trowa had had a hamster once, they started referring to him as the Happy hamster.
"I still have work to do. Enjoy yourselves for a while, but do open up some windows. You could have a heat stroke in here."
Alex shook her head. "No, I'll come with you and let you try and take another few layers of skin off me. I won't get any better sitting around here." She set about opening the windows. "Is there anything you need Happy?"
"If you happen to run across an ice-cream vender I'll take rocky road," he replied as they left.
"I never knew he was that much of a chocola-holic," Alex muttered as she headed to the tumbling mats. Trowa spent the next hour and a half driving her like a mad woman in her different exercises. When she finally couldn't sit up without assistance he gave up and called it a day. Then he too flopped down on the mats.
"You two are really good," someone said to them. Trowa raised his head long enough to see that Jamal was leaning on one of the many piles of boxes.
"Hello Jamal," He said before dropping his head back onto the mat. "How are you?"
"Just fine. Looks like you two are beat though."
"Yeah, being in the circus isn't easy, but its fun. I think you want to talk to Alex and I've got stuff to do, so I'll see you two later," he said as he heaved himself to his feet and walked off. He noted that Alex followed him with her eyes, pleading with him to stay but he pretended not to see.
"So, what are you doing here?" she asked casually as she sat up, not sure of how to talk to him. She was sweaty, smelly, and very disheveled. There was no way she could look pretty to him. Why do I care, she wondered? Fair lady he'd called her at the party. What did he think of her now?
"I told you I wanted to see you again. It took me a while to track you down. Its almost like you dropped off the face of the colony. I finally thought to come to the circus to look for you. I remembered my father saying something about Quatre's friend being a circus clown." He grew solemn then. "I'm sorry about Quatre."
"Its okay, it didn't affect me too much. He was just Trowa's friend. I didn't know him that well."
"Oh," he said, running out of things to discuss. As he shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably he looked everywhere but her.
"Hey, do you want to go for a walk?" Alex asked suddenly.
"You sure your boyfriend won't mind too much?" he asked doubtfully. He seemed utterly perplexed when she broke out into a fit of laughter where she was sitting. "What? What's so funny?"
"Sorry," she gasped when she noticed his wounded look. "It's just the way you said that. You made him sound like a cradle robber."
"I don't find it funny at all. If he's your-," he stopped when she held up her hand.
"No, you've got it all wrong. He's not my boyfriend. I just live with him, that's why I thought it was so funny. Sorry but that thought just doesn't appeal to me. He's like an older brother, no, more of a father to me. I could never be together with him. The thought sickens me."
"Oh," he said again, though this time he didn't quite conceal the hint of relief in his voice. "In that case I'd love to go on a walk with you.
"Okay, give me five minutes and I'll meet you in front of that trailer there." She pointed to Trowa's trailer. "If you wander around, just make sure not to get in Cathy's way. She's been known to be a little narrow sighted when she's throwing her knives and it would be a pain to explain to your father just what happened to you."
"I'll make sure to stay out of her way," he promised. She nodded and took off jogging towards the trailer, praying she didn't look too nervous.
"Happy, you need to hide for a few minutes," she said, just loud enough for him to hear.
"Why?" he asked.
She became flustered then. "Because Jamal just showed up and he's going to be waiting for me. Oh god, why did I ask him to go for a walk? I don't have the time! Why did he have to show up here!" she ranted as she searched franticly for her bag.
"It's in Trowa's room," Quatre told her as he moved behind a wall where he wouldn't be seen. "Do you dislike him that much?"
"No!" she blushed. "No, I. I, uh."
"You like him more than a little huh?" Trowa said as he came out of his room holding her back. She glared at him and snatched it from his hand.
"You! If I find out you had anything to do with this you are going to regret the day you became a conniving sneak."
"Sheesh, you've only met the guy once and you're already in love with him this badly?" he joked. She punched him hard in the arm, causing him to wince when he didn't move out of the way quick enough.
"Excuse me! Little girls are allowed to have crushes!" she retorted before clamping her hands over her mouth. Trowa smirked but said nothing as she quickly retreated to the shower.
Seven minutes later, after much coaxing from both men, she finally stepped out the door.
"Oh, I really didn't think you'd be done that fast," he said, looking up in surprise.
"Why?" she asked curiously.
"When my sisters say they are going to be back in five minutes they usually take forty-five."
"And you were planning on waiting for me that long?"
"I don't know," he admitted honestly as they walked down the sidewalk.
~*~
They came walking back to the circus grounds an hour after sunset, having left at three. Trowa was waiting patiently on the steps when they came walking up hand in hand. Upon seeing him they promptly separated and stood a suitable distance apart, carefully not touching. Trowa pretended not to notice.
"Have a nice time?" he asked as he peeled another piece of wood away from his carving with his knife. He noticed Jamal's eyes flick towards it uneasily.
"Yes," Alex replied, refusing to give anything away.
"Why don't you go inside and get some dinner? Its sitting on the stove," he said to Alex, giving her a pointed look. Even though she'd already eaten, she went inside anyway, praying that Trowa would be nice.
Jamal stood there a moment, watching her through the window before saying uneasily, "I'd better be going."
"Wait a moment son," Trowa said, stopping the boy in his tracks.
"Yes sir?" he asked.
"You know that Alex is like a daughter to me, do you not?"
"Yes sir."
"You know that she is a lady, not some circus girl that you can just pick up and throw down when you choose, or use as a whore, right?"
"Of course sir," he snapped, offended greatly that he would suggest such a thing.
"Good. Oh, by the way, if you hurt her, you'd better hope you can run faster than I do."
"Yes sir," Jamal said. As he turned to go the knife that Trowa had been using thunked into the tree in front of him, warning him what would happen to him if he did hurt her. "Yes sir," he replied to Trowa's unspoken threat. "I'll make sure."
***
"Why did you do that?!" Alex yelled when Trowa finally came back inside.
"All I did was threaten him. He's a good kid."
"Exactly! You threatened him!" she said before she slumped down on the couch next to Quatre. "I've never been more humiliated in my life."
"I could make sure this becomes one of your less humiliating moments," Trowa offered.
She looked up at him then and gave him Heero's patented death glare. "If you do anything of the sort, _I_will_kill_you_."
"Okay."
"So, what did you two love birds do?" Quatre asked as he put his book aside.
"We went to a movie if its any of your business," she snapped. "Now, tell me, how did you get him to come out here?" Both men became interested in looking anywhere but her right then. "Okay, fine. Be that way," she huffed half in jest as she marched into Trowa's room and lay down on the bed. All of her muscle aches chose that time to make themselves known to her. She decided to take a hot bath then to loosen then up.
As she sank down into the warm embrace of the water all she could think about was Jamal. How his hand had felt in her, how his cologne had smelled, how his lips had tasted from their brief kiss. She was in seventh heaven. She even started remembering the first time she'd seen him. She'd been seven then and had vowed then and there that she would never love another man. How silly she'd been. He had married by the time that she was ten but she'd still kept right on hoping.
Alex smiled as she remember him one Christmas at Quatre's and how he'd given her a beautiful pendant of a dove in flight. She'd treasured it from the moment he'd given it to her. When it was stolen she'd been heartbroken. She had a feeling that the doctors had pawned it for money. Then she remembered the final warning they'd given her: Never fall in love.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* ~*~*~*~*~
Dream Keeper: Well, here's the next chapter! Yeah! It's up! *does a dance around the room*
Christa: To all who are reading this, would you mind reading our latest fic, Voice of Evil? Its suppose to be really good. Supposedly the characters aren't too OOC either! Yeah! We're getting better!
Dream Keeper: So how'd you like the ending? *gives readers a look* Did you REALLY expect us to give up a chance to put in a DECENT cliffhanger? Perish the thought!
Christa: *snickers* Okay, well, to all those who have read, don't forget to R&R which mean read AND REVIEW!! Especially you Lady Stardancer! You haven't reviewed in forever! I won't update until EVERYONE who reads this has reviewed! So make it snappy! Only about two maybe three chapters to go! Yeah!
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