By SilverLady
Quatre sat on his bed, pouting.
I am not pouting, I do not pout. I am expressing my mood creatively. I have the right to be upset. But I am not pouting.
Quatre sighed.
Oh, heck. I'm pouting. But it's so unfair. They treat me like I'm going to collapse if I do the slightest strenuous thing. And Trowa hasn't made love to me in weeks. I'm pregnant not dying. I am perfectly fine. Adrianna even said everything was fine and she should know. I don't know why I can't help. I'm sure there is something I can do that I won't mess up. I'm not completely useless.
"Quatre are you pouting again?"
Quatre looked up at Duo. "No."
Duo smiled. "Yes you are. Why don't you come help me in the garden? You can make sure I don't pull up the plants instead of the weeds."
"And you don't think I won't. I wouldn't know how to tell a good plant from a bad plant."
"Good it'll be interesting then." Duo smiled again. "Come on. You need to get out of the house and quit pouting."
"I am not pouting."
"Sulking then. Same thing. Come on."
"You don't think I'll strain something."
Duo gave him a funny look. "You're pregnant, not dying."
Quatre sighed and stood up. "It's just….." He looked down at his swelling abdomen.
"You're tired, getting uncomfortable, feel like a bloated whale, wish you could remember what your feet look like, wonder how much longer it's gonna be, feel like you've been pregnant forever, wish the kid would quit bouncing on your bladder and quit doing it's circus impressions at two in the morning, can't wait to see how beautiful your child is, want to make love to your love so much it hurts, wish you had taken that last slice of pie, wonder if you can talk someone into making you something to eat, want to do something, wish everyone would quit treating you like spun glass, want to get out, want to sit around and do nothing, and realize you still have three and a half months to go." Duo smiled. "Did I cover it all?"
Quatre looked at him in amazement and blinked. "I think so."
"Good, now lets go pull out the vegetable plants and leave the weeds cause you don't know which one is which and I can't see which one is which."
Quatre followed Duo from the room. "Duo?"
"Yes."
"What drugs have you been taking and can I have some?"
Duo's laugh rang out down the hall as the two made their way down the stairs.
***
"Quatre, what are you doing?" Trowa's panicked voice made both Duo and Quatre jump.
"Jeez, scare the shit out of the blind guy. Trowa you could warn a guy before you start yelling. Step on a stick or something. Let me know you there the next time." Duo grumbled as he reached for the next plant.
"Uh, Duo, I think we want to keep that one," Quatre said.
Duo stopped. "Why?"
"It's got lots of little yellow flowers and little green things."
"It's a tomato plant." Trowa informed him as he walked up. "And you didn't answer the question."
"I'm helping Duo weed."
"Quatre you should be resting not out here in the hot sun
pulling up plants. What if you got dizzy or overheated or…."
"Trowa!"
Trowa looked at Duo. "Yes."
"Chill. He's fine. He's been helping me. The exercise and the fresh air will do him good. You need to quite being so damn paranoid about every little thing."
"But…."
Duo turned to where he knew Trowa was standing. "Trowa, I walked from Shadar to here while I was pregnant with Ken. I don't think that pulling a few weeds with hurt him."
Quatre looked at Duo. "You walked? By yourself?"
"I wasn't completely alone. I had Ken."
"But…"
"Quatre, I had the clothes on my body and some money I had managed to save from working before I met Heero. I couldn't afford a ride or a horse or anything like that. I slept where I could and scrounged food when I had the chance. It wasn't that big a deal. I'd been doing it since I was eight."
"But…"
Trowa looked at the young man in front of him. There was a lot more to him than met the eye. "Heero said he met you in a park."
"The park."
Trowa sat down on the ground next to Quatre and began picking weeds. He figured someone should be doing this that had some clue as to what he was doing. Besides he wanted to hear Duo's story. "The park?"
"There was only one park in Shadar…."
"There was lots of parks in Shadar," Quatre protested.
"There was only one that the working people was allowed to go to."
Quatre blinked, but realized that Duo was right. "The one with the big tree near the river?"
Duo nodded.
"Heero like to go there and think. He did it when ever he got mad at Father."
"Yeah. He wasn't happy that someone else had found his spot."
Trowa plucked up another weed. "Why were you there?"
"It was a place where I could get away from work and life for a while."
"What about your parents?"
"They were dead. They died when I was eight. Mom got sick and after she died Dad just gave up. He died only a few weeks after Mom."
"Where did you live after that?"
"Any place I could."
"On the streets?" Quatre's voice was horrified.
"As I told Heero then, it was better than the alternative."
Trowa nodded. He had heard and seen some of the homes for the poor in Shadar, they hadn't been pretty.
"What did you do to earn money?"
He was surprised when Duo turned red and looked away.
Quatre blinked at Duo's obvious embarrassment. Duo mumbled something but he couldn't understand what he said. "What?"
Duo turned back towards the two men. "I said I gave men blow jobs in the taverns and if you ever breath a word of it in front of Ken I'll wring your necks."
Quatre looked at Duo in stunned shock. "Did Heero?"
Duo nodded. "He spotted me while he was out carousing on his twenty first birthday. He showed up at the park spitting mad. Called me a whore and a whole lot more." Duo gave and odd smile. "It was the first time we made love."
"You didn't?"
Duo shook his head violently. "I wasn't quite that stupid yet. I'd never had sex with anyone before Heero and never since, except for those bandits. And that wasn't by my choice."
"You love him?"
"He was the most arrogant, snot nosed, hard headed prick I'd ever had the misfortune to met and I feel head over heels in love with him almost as soon as I met him. Sad, ain't it?"
"You hated him too, didn't you." Trowa commented.
"Yeah. He represented everything I hated in the world at that time. The rich nobles that had taken away my family and made me do the things I did to survive." Duo smiled sadly. "Always figured Fate was laughin' her ass off at me."
"And now?"
"I don't really know. I was mad as hell at him when I left Shadar, but I still loved him so damn much. I woulda gone back in a heartbeat if he'd given me any indication that he actually was listenin' to what I was sayin', but… I stood outside that stupid church like a damn fool while he married his chosen bride. I knew he hadn't paid any attention at all. I wasn't gonna be the 'other woman'. Right after that I found out about Ken and I knew I had to make something for myself, by myself." He raised his head and looked blankly at the sky. "I swear I didn't know nothin' about that part of me. I had no idea that somethin' like that could happen. I was shocked as hell when that old guy told me I'd been feelin' sick cause I had a baby growin' inside me. Told him he was crazy. Then he took this tool and put it against my belly so I could listen to the heartbeat. Damn near fell off the table. And the first thing I thought, after I got myself convince that the old guy wasn't lying, was that I had to tell Heero, cause he should know about his child. And the second thing I thought was that it wasn't gonna make any difference. He was still married and would still expect me to go live at his little house in the country and be the good little mistress, specially with a baby on the way. So I started walkin'. And I kept walkin' till I got here. I'd stopped in Deran, cause I figure it would be a good place to hole up till the baby was born and I liked the old doctor I had met when I got to town, but somethin' kept makin' me want to keep goin'. So I left and wound up goin' into labor on the side of the mountain with this bad storm comin'. Luckily, Adrianna found me before Ken was born and got me to her place. I owe her mine and Ken's lives. She wasn't too happy when I said I was gonna be movin' on as soon as the storm was over and I think she thought I was just a bit irresponsible cause I told her I was gonna keep Ken, but I didn't have any idea what I was gonna do. She said it wasn't safe to travel with winter comin' so she offered to find me a place to stay 'til warm weather got here. Place she found was this one. I knew it was what I'd been lookin' for from the moment I walked in the front door and I've been here ever since."
Duo suddenly sat back, realizing just how much of his life he had just spilled. "Um, I guess you notice I have a tendancy to run off at the mouth sometimes."
Trowa smiled. "Actually, what I noticed is that your accent goes all to hell when you get really wound up." He reached over and patted Duo's knee. "And thank you for telling us.
Duo blinked. "Sure, no problem."
Trowa turned and looked at Quatre. "And as for you."
Quatre looked indignant. "Trowa."
"Don't overextend yourself. You don't have to weed the whole garden today. And I'd find out if anybody's got a book about plants so you'll be able to tell the vegetables from the weeds." Trowa leaned forward and gave Quatre a kiss before rising to his feet. "I have to go help Wufei in the barn. I'll see you later."
Quatre watched as Trowa walked away. "That was…."
"Interesting?"
"Definitely."
"Think he listened?"
"Yes."
"Good. Now am I about to pull up a weed or another tomato plant?"
Quatre looked at the plant in question. "Duo?"
"Yes?"
"Do you have a book on plants?"
Duo laughed. "Sure do. Let's go find it."
Quatre grinned as Duo helped him to his feet. "Sorry I'm not much help."
"Quatre, the first time I had this garden, I pulled up half the carrots, most of the beets, killed the tomatoes and had the best crop of ragweed you'd ever seen. And you don't even want to know what I tried to grow as beans. I sat in my kitchen and cried. Then Bill Grendal dropped this book in front of me and said 'Read this if you ever want to get anything edible out of that garden.' That book was a life saver. So you ain't no worse off than me."
Quatre smiled. "Thanks."
"Anytime. Let's go find that book. Before we kill a harmless tomato plant."
Quatre laughed as he followed Duo back to the house.
***
Duo smiled as he listened to the moans coming from Quatre and Trowa's room late that night. Guess he's figured out that he ain't gonna break. Now if I only could do some moaning of my own, things would be pretty damn good.
