Somehow the Gundam Pilots found themselves settled in San Diego. Trowa lived near the central business district, in a somewhat historical neighborhood. He took apartments above a stained glass shop. The glassmaker had used those rooms for storage but had taken all of his wares downstairs in his old age that they might be more readily accessible.
Trowa began to learn the trade from Henstridge. The old man was delighted, he found the quiet boy's manner pleasing, mistaking his trademark silence for quiet reverence. He also liked the stillness believing Trowa displayed more patience than he thought possible for a young man. He was impressed by the cool intelligent observation he received from steady green eyes. Trowa was a quick study at creating and then tracing the patterns with glass cutters, at placing the metal bracings between plates, at configuring colors of glass, and making a whole that was a harmony to behold.
The first commission that he did all his own upset the shopowner. Henstridge looked at the birds in flight made of opaque white glass over a sea of somehow churning greenish water. It did not please him that this thing had been created in just hours yet held such detail. Yet that was not what perturbed him, it was the red sky beset with a rising sun. He knew that it was strikingly lovely, but it struck too hard, too piquantly, it was painful! Besides all that, no one wanted a frontispiece for a sailing supply store that hinted at bad weather and uncalm seas! He banished Trowa from the shop that evening.
"And take that damned horrid window with you too, that'll be your pay. Rent is still due on the 1st, just leave the money in the mailbox and don't come in here again." He started muttering under his breath, "Some kind of freak of nature..."
Trowa just took the glass and quietly hefted it to his apartments. If the man had looked he would not have seen emotion on the boy's face, just the quiet resolve that demonstrated that he was accustomed to such verbal expressions aimed at him. That night he sat in his apartment and contemplated the window.
It is only a sunrise... it is not so terrible, is it? It must be, I just can't recognize terror. I should hide this so that Quatre never has to see it, if he cried... The offending glass sat against the wall just under the window. He sat entirely still in a chair on the other side of the bed from the window contemplating it instead of wondering how he'd pay for the rent due in just under a week.
