An Orphan's Life
Disclaimer: If I owned Gundam Wing, everything about anything would be explained and there would be no need for all of us fans to write fan fiction about what MIGHT have happened. Since the GW section on FFN is still existing and going strong, then that means I don't own Gundam Wing.
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Lisette stopped her car in front of the wall that surrounded her aunt's house. She looked at Theo as he got out slowly.
"Theo?"
He looked back into the car to see her better. "Yeah?"
Lisette bit her lip as she tried to say what was going around in her head. "You… love my cousin, don't you?"
Theo frowned and looked at her quietly for a minute.
Lisette nodded, her assumption right. "Can you promise me something, then?"
Theo continued frowning, wondering what the heck was wrong with Elysia's family gene pool, and nodded a bit. "Yeah, sure."
Lisette stared straight ahead and said somewhat slowly," Tell her how you feel… And when you two start going out… " She turned her gaze upon him. "Don't do anything to her that would hurt her more than she's already been hurt in her life." She gave him one of her looks that always scared Jacob. "Okay?"
Theo stared at her blankly and backed away from the car slowly. "Uh, I promise."
Lisette nodded as she leaned over to close the door. "Good. I'll be going through the back of the house to see if maybe she went there first." She smiled evilly at him. "Good-bye, Theo."
Theo stared at her as she drove off. "What the hell am I getting myself into?"
He sighed and began to wander up the long walkway, unsure of where he was supposed to go exactly.
The whole yard was covered in snow and the plants were pretty much dead.
He walked a little faster, glancing here and there, getting anxious to find her.
He paused when he saw a large dead tree in the middle of the yard.
His eyes fell to the bottom of the tree where he saw Elysia lying still in the snow.
He gasped and ran over to her, calling her name.
~*~*~
Elysia was awake, although she had her eyes closed.
She was aware that the sun was up. And that her head hurt a lot. Her throat was burning and she felt numb all over.
She opened her eyes slowly, somewhat confused on where she was.
Then, she remembered the night before. And the early morning hours.
And where she was lying.
She shut her eyes quickly, not wanting to get up.
Someone yelled her name nearby. At least, she thought she heard someone nearby.
She lifted her head a little, and then laid it back down, when the pain increased. She groaned a bit as she felt someone pick her up.
She opened her eyes and saw Theo looking staring back at her worriedly.
She tried to sit up, but she couldn't feel her legs. She looked at Theo, feeling a bit stupid.
"Are you okay?" He felt her forehead and shook his head. "You're burning up." He gave her a look as she began to fully wake up. "What the hell were you thinking, jumping out of that car and then coming out here all by yourself?! You could've gotten hurt!"
Elysia frowned and finally sat up, starting to get a little feeling back into her numb body. She gave a cough and stared at the emptiness in front of her. "I'm okay.'
"You got yourself sick!" He took his jacket off and wrapped it around her. "Stupid girl," he muttered.
Elysia allowed herself to smile at that. It'd been a while since he called her that.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, not really knowing what to say.
She looked out to where her house once stood and took in the fact that it was truly gone, along with her mother.
Theo watched her and held her tighter when he noticed her expression grow sad at what wasn't there.
After a while, Elysia turned her gaze to the ground and said somewhat quietly," Theo… What happened to your mother?"
Theo took a deep breath and looked away slightly. "She was murdered by the same people who killed Jennifer's family."
Elysia frowned and looked at him. "How do you two know each other? I kind of never got to ask you about that."
Theo looked down and shrugged. "We grew up with each other at the circus. The night my mother was killed, her family had disappeared. She just showed up at the circus last night. That's when we found out what happened to her."
Elysia nodded as she took that in. "Oh." She coughed some more.
Theo looked at her. "We should get you some medicine. And somewhere warmer."
Elysia shook her head. "I'm fine." She leaned back into Theo a bit and wrapped his jacket tighter around her. "Let's just stay here for a few more minutes. I don't want to leave quite yet."
Theo seemed surprised by this, but shook it off and held her closer to him.
They sat in more silence.
~*~*~
A while later, Lisette showed up with Jacob and Caterina, all three walking up in front of Theo and Elysia.
Lisette smiled at the two sitting comfortably under the tree, glad that she could make anybody do what she wanted them to do.
Caterina noticed the look of triumph that was on Lisette's face, and frowned, wondering what the heck it was that had her smiling like that.
She shook her head and looked to Theo and Elysia. Why they were sitting in the snow and staring at nothing, she wouldn't understand. She was just glad that they were finally together.
Elysia smiled at them, as they got closer. "Hey."
Lisette gave a little wave. "Hey to you too." She motioned to Jacob who was carrying something in his arms. "Look what Jakey found!"
Jacob narrowed his eyes at her. "Could you stop calling me that?"
Lisette ignored him and knelt down by Theo and Elysia. "I remember my dad giving your mom a bunch of rose bushes one time. I guess that was the only one that managed to live after all these years." She pointed to the load in Jacob's arms. "Odd, though, since it's the middle of winter, and there's a lot of snow."
Elysia looked at the rose bush as Jacob made a face at his sister. "Lis, they were genetically enhanced so that Aunt Relena could have roses all year. That's why dad gave her a lot."
Lisette thought that over. "Oh," was all she said.
Jacob shook his head and looked to Elysia, ignoring the glare that Theo was giving him. "I saw it and I had to get it. I figured we could keep it at my house, until you got a place of your own. Then, we could plant it there, so you could have something from here…"
Elysia smiled at him and looked at the bush. There were a bunch of rosebuds that hadn't bloomed yet.
She remembered all the roses around the house. There were so many. Pink, red, orange… All the colors of the rainbow.
Her mother had loved the flower so much.
She looked back at Jacob. "Thanks."
She coughed a bit and made a face as her head began to hurt some more.
Caterina looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "Elysia, did you get yourself sick?"
Elysia shook her head, but Theo gave the answer loudly. "Yes. Moron fell asleep here with nothing warm to cover herself with."
Elysia and Caterina looked at him quickly, surprised that he had call Elysia a name.
Lisette walked over to Theo and hit him on the head. "Hey, don't be mean to my cousin!"
Theo stared at her, beginning to realize that she was almost like Caterina. "Why do you do that?"
Lisette frowned, hands on her hips. "Do what?"
Theo stood up and looked down at her. "Boss people around!"
Lisette's eyes widened. "What?! I don't boss people around!"
"Yeah, you do, sis," Jacob said a safe distance away from her.
Lisette glared at him. "Stay out of this!"
Jacob shrugged. "You just proved my point."
Caterina and Elysia looked at each other slowly as the three began to fight.
"Elysia?"
"Yeah?"
"We should ditch them."
Elysia glanced over at Theo, who had just gotten hit with a snowball thrown by Lisette and was saying a few swear words.
"Yeah, we should." She smiled a bit as the fight continued.
~*~*~
Trowa wandered the circus grounds, trying to clear his mind.
Due to the sudden change in weather, the shows for the next three days had been canceled. All the performers and trainers had been doing nothing all day and they were beginning to get restless. They were used to working every day, all day.
He sighed, wondering why he had let Rene and Gabriel go off to the mall with Catherine's daughter Misha.
That girl was wild and a tad irresponsible. She had once left her younger sister Vivian at a going away party thrown by her friends and had forgotten to get her when she left.
The circus was leaving the colony the next day, and no one had noticed that the eleven year old was missing until they were about to leave.
Catherine, along with everybody else, had assumed Vivian was busy packing her things. When Catherine had a feeling she should recheck everything, she then noticed that her youngest daughter was missing.
Needless to say, Misha was punished, but the teenager easily avoided it.
Trowa sighed again, hoping that maybe this time none of his children would return with a broken limb or something.
Theo had had too many injuries thanks to his cousin.
Trowa looked up at the sky at the thought of his oldest son.
Theo had been too serious for the last couple of years. The only time he lightened up was when he saw a girl.
Which was usually not a good thing, considering all the girls he'd dated.
But Heero and Relena's daughter seemed to change him. He didn't seem to be holding back on his emotions when she was with him. He was himself around her.
Trowa hoped that this girl would be the one to fill the hole in his son that Kate's death had left in him.
He had noticed that ever since Kate died, Theo had been more mature.
He thought his actions through all the time and as much as he tried to hide it, really cared for his younger brother and sister. He was really overprotective of them. And his cousins as well.
Even Misha.
Theo had gotten into many fights with his cousins' boyfriends. All of them had supposedly said something mean or did something bad. Trowa would've punished Theo for causing so much trouble, if it weren't for the fact that each guy had indeed done something sinister to his nieces.
So, he let Theo do whatever he wanted.
He trusted his son.
He was getting a little worried though, when Theo hadn't called to say where he was. He might be busy doing something with Elysia and Jennifer, but he still felt uneasy.
A common side effect from being a parent, he supposed.
When his son left with Jennifer the night before, he was left to talk with Wufei.
And he did. For the first time in so many years.
Wufei had gotten Trowa's number from Duo and had called to talk with him.
And they did.
The visit from Elysia had shaken things up a bit among the former pilots. There was something wrong about the current situation, and now they had to figure out just what that was.
Trowa and Wufei had decided to get a hold of Duo and Quatre and inform the two that they would have to meet and discuss things.
The lost contact had taken its toll, though. They would have to go back on everything that had happened in the last fifteen years to pinpoint where exactly things had went awry.
That included the night Kate was murdered.
Trowa didn't want to talk or think about it. He still hadn't gotten over her death. She had come in and out of his life too fast.
As much as Trowa was glad that he would get to see his old friends again, he couldn't help but feel uneasy.
There was a reason Relena hadn't told anybody about Elysia. But what was it?
He shook his head of his thoughts, knowing that he shouldn't be thinking about that. He would know in a few days.
All he had to do was wait.
~*~*~
Elysia woke up in a bed and darkened room. She sat up slowly and frowned, trying to remember how she got there.
She looked over to the right where a window showed her that it was now nighttime and that the light falling snow had become a blizzard.
She rubbed her eyes, wondering why she had been taking long naps lately.
She coughed and held back a groan as each cough caused her headache to increase.
She sat and stared down at the bed as she waited for the pain to subside.
When they had returned back to the mansion, Theo and Lisette had insisted that she go to bed and rest. Since she couldn't very well fight back, she did as she was told and had fallen asleep right away, as she had gotten into the bed.
She looked up and wondered where they were. It seemed quiet outside of the room.
She got up and walked over to the door, slowly opening it.
She stepped out into the hallway and wandered down to the staircase.
"Elysia!" Lisette appeared out of one of the hallways and seemed nervous.
Elysia frowned and stared at Lisette. "What?"
"Uh…" Lisette glanced around, trying to think of a good way to put what she was thinking. "You see, there's a bit of a problem."
Elysia raised her eyebrows at Lisette. "What kind of problem?"
Lisette scratched her head and smiled weakly at her. "Well, you know how I said my parents weren't going to be here for a couple more days?"
Elysia stared at Lisette blankly as her mind began to figure out what it was that had Lisette so worried.
Lisette continued talking. "Due to the sudden snowstorm, they decided to come home… tonight." She motioned around lamely. "And they're here. Now."
Elysia stood in slight shock. Then, realization kicked in and her eyes narrowed. She could hear voices coming from the dining room nearby. She began walking over towards it, her headache going away quickly.
Lisette tried to stop her, not quite wanting another war to start. Her father had a bad heart and it wouldn't help him much to have what was probably the biggest shock of his life. "Elysia, maybe you should wait a bit, you know? Let me explain things a bit to them and… get them used to the idea of…" Lisette trailed off as Elysia pushed past her and stormed off towards the room her parents, Jacob, Theo, and Caterina were at. "Oh, god, we're all going to die."
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A/N: … Heh. That was really short. Oh, well… I'm so sad. This story is almost over. Just about five more chapters to go. *Sniff* I don't want it to end. Well, R&R and I'll see you next chapter. ~_^