Disclaimer: Not my characters

Warnings: yaoi and het relations, angst, stream of consciousness, Trowa POV

Notes: Starts in the current time period, the flashbacks are now earlier that sameday

Not the End of the World: Part II - 4/6

Transitional Period

The longer I sit here listening to the repetitive clack of the rails, the calmer I get. Unfortunately, my anger seems to be systematically replaced by guilt. Quatre's influence no doubt. I really can't decide if I have the right to be angry about what happened this morning or not. I don't think it matters if I am any more. And I've not even got my phone to call, check the others are okay. I could use the credit-phone in the net carriage but that's not the point really. The only person I've taken it out on is myself. Well, that's not entirely true. Hence why I feel rather guilty about this train ride I've undertaken in such a cowardly fit of pique. I didn't take off all those times I wanted to leave Quatre, for precisely the reason that I would make people worry. And now I have run away, finally, pathetically. Pushed not by the man I thought I loved, but by a girl I met, what, just twenty-four hours ago, less? I can try to convince myself that I waited until Duo was okay. It's not true though; I didn't really consider my friends who were potentially in danger, nor did I pause to comfort Maxwell as he worried. Hilde's arrival back Earth-side had coincided nicely with my 'flaking out' or whatever you want to call it, and running. I owed her after this. I owed them all for adding to the already tense situation.

For a while I had fled without direction, so appropriate at the time. Looking back, there's a sickening closeness to my weeks spent wandering colonies in the middle of the wars. Back when I didn't know who I was, where I could go, when I would be safe. Such thoughts make me shudder; it is a part of my life that I think about as little as possible. But I know that I'm tempted to retreat there if the only other option is too feel too much. Feelings that hurt worse than that nothingness are what I fear the most. I cross my arms against the sudden cold that isn't there.

One of the main reasons I didn't go back to stay with Catherine and the circus once we were released from government custody was the space travel between colonies. Even the short trips around L3 left me with nightmares and a crawling discomfort I couldn't escape for days afterwards. I've been told I'm lucky it didn't affect me at the end of the war.

I asked the government provided counsellor about it once. He said it might have been because I was so driven back then; the adrenaline rush, the sense of purpose, overrode the fear. But I couldn't continue like that, travelling in space with nothing to do, no enemy to face, no battle to survive. All I could think of was the encroaching loneliness and the pitifully thin walls of the spacecraft, which kept me alive, as we drifted through infinite nothing. And I couldn't quite let go of the fact that Quatre was the reason for it. I tell myself that it wasn't him, that the Zero system took charge, twisted his grief and morbidly, fatally, redirected it. I tell him so regularly, or at least I used to. But it still hurts. I shake my head and avoid looking into the inky night, speckled with stars. What the hell am I doing? Why am I here? A question that maybe I can answer at last.

I woke on Saturday, this morning, at around 7.30 am. I was still used to getting up when Quatre did, though we'd not shared a bed for the last month. At eight he used to go to work, and I set off for school halfway across the city at nine o'clock. I wonder if he'll continue to blow off work much longer without giving any real reason? Anyway, weekends don't tend to change my sleep patterns. Mostly because I have no social life, not unless something like last night happens. Hilde, Duo, and apparently Shorya do however, and make the most of their Friday nights, which become Saturday mornings. I supposed it was still early then, but having pulled on my boxers, I was padding towards the kitchen when I realised I had woken alone. I felt a sudden chill, but noticed that Shorya's shoes were still in the hall where she'd left them. She was in the house, she'd probably gone to the bathroom or something.

I set up the coffee maker. The smell helped to wake me up and I grabbed a bagel from Hilde's bread bin. She had become more or less part of our peculiar little group, I'd got to know her, as well as I knew Duo I think. We saw her frequently in the months after our 'non-dangerous to the public' ruling from the combined government. She helped in our subsequent venture into the normal, boring, complicated world as 'regular teenagers', already used to it from before the war.

I checked Duo's mobile, which lay with his wallet on the sideboard. He must have been really quite ill last night to not have kept it with him. Still no new messages. Damnit, where were they? Wufei knew better than to leave us hanging like this, even if Heero still wasn't the best at social niceties. I took a half-hearted bite of bagel and sat down to wait for the coffee, musing at my lack of hangover. Lucky me. I'd never had one before, but since I figured that they were proportional to how much you drank to a large extent, I deserved one now. The slight headache was nothing in comparison to what Duo had been known to complain of, he'd been using fake ID's for a while, claiming he'd follow L2 laws since he had dual citizenship. I scratched my chin and pondered whether I could be bothered to do something about my lightly stubbled visage. I decided it wasn't worth the bother; it wasn't long enough to look scruffy yet.

Duo's groan sounded from the direction of the living room, he must have spent the night there since Shorya and I had occupied Hilde's only spare room. I heard his uneven footsteps approaching and a grumble. It could have been something along the lines of 'please let there be paracetamol and strong coffee in there' with a plentiful supply of expletives thrown in.

He half-staggered in, hair sprutting out of his braid and looking decidedly odd with a hairy face worse than my own. It struck me oddly. Heero and Wufei would look different but not too weird with facial hair, and I'd woken up with Quatre enough times to become accustomed to his pale blond shadow. But Duo growing a beard seemed wrong somehow. I wasn't really surprised that he could, but he was usually so clean-shaven. His face hadn't changed that much in the last three years I've known him, he'd retained that androgyny that made him so alluring. So the fuzz was, well, odd was the best word I could come up with for it just then.

I placed painkillers in front of where Duo had slumped down over the table and he swallowed them dry as I poured him coffee.

"What time is it?" Duo sounded like his throat was raw, the way he croaked out the words. Maybe he'd carried on talking with Hilde after Shorya and I took to the bedroom. No, that didn't seem right…oh yeah, he'd been throwing up. I really should find Shorya, I decided. Glancing at the clock on the microwave I saw it was nearly 8 o'clock. Duo groaned again as I told him the time and informed him of the lack of news. I put a hand on his shoulder and he nodded vaguely, so I left him to nurse his coffee while I looked for Shorya.

Heading past the dining room I heard her talking to someone, giggling at whatever they'd said. I put my head around the door and saw that that someone was on the other end of her phone. She was perching on the edge of a chair, one leg tucked up under her. Her hair was ruffled from the night and she had on an extra large tee-shirt, one of Hilde's from the look of the slogan. It was unrevealing with a hint of suggestion all the same. I grinned at the unbidden, but not unpleasant thoughts that sprung to my mind and stepped into the room. Spotting me though, she frowned in my direction and made a shooing motion. A little disappointed, I took the hint and realised I felt rather grungy.

I stopped in the bedroom to pick up my clothes, which smelled of smoke from the club. I really didn't have a choice in the matter of what to wear, so I took them with me to meet Hilde emerging from the bathroom. She was looking her normal perky self, but paused when she saw me. I gestured to the bathroom.

"May I?"

"Help yourself." For a moment I thought that she would say more, but she shook her head slightly as she obviously thought better of it and moved past me into her bedroom.

As I showered, I went over last night in my head. I'd definitely enjoyed it. Enough that I wanted to do it again at least. Did that mean I wasn't gay? Did it make me easy? I decided it didn't matter. In this day and age, people didn't really mind what you did in your lov…your sex life, as long as it was legal. Had I been any good? A strange question, I'd never asked myself before. I'd never been the less experienced one in a sexual situation before though, not since I'd had partners I cared enough about to worry myself over such things. Shorya had seemed pretty satisfied with it; I couldn't have been that bad, I concluded. I wondered whom she was phoning. Maybe she was expected to be somewhere this morning. Hilde hadn't said anything about it, though I'd half expected her to. I hoped she wasn't annoyed that we'd had sex in her spare bed. I didn't feel guilty exactly, but I'd never done it in someone else's house before, except Quatre's that is.

As I rinsed my hair, I recalled the times Quatre and I had made love on his couch. That was part of what was so good about last night. It had been different, and fun and I'd not thought about him, not in the moment. And I'd felt good about me. And I really wanted to do it again. So why did something tell me this situation wouldn't all be so great if I really thought about it? Why did my chest suddenly hurt?

I hit the button to stop the water and pushed the shower door open. I'd slept with a girl I'd only just met and I'd fallen for her, hard. I wanted more. I didn't know her last name. And I'd woken alone. I wrapped a blue towel from the rail around me and sat down on the cold tiled floor, my hair falling wet into my eyes. The rapidly cooling water dripped down my face.

Who was she phoning?

To be continued...

I was going to wait until someone reviewed the last chapter before I posted this, but that may never happen, so here this is. As always, please review if you enjoy!