"Soren! Wait!" the woman kept her back to him and kept walking. Damn! Trowa used the satellite's low gravity and kicked off the floor, somersaulted in the air to the ceiling where he kicked off again flipping through the air and landed directly in her path. She tried to dodge past him but he stopped her. "Dammit will you just listen to me?" seeing the hurt look on Soren's face did nothing to curb the temper that he'd been trying keep in check.
"Look I'm sorry." He said trying to remain calm. It wouldn't solve anything if he threw her over his shoulder, dragged her off to some secluded location and repeatedly seduced her until she had no desire to be angry with him anymore. Tempting as that idea was.
"All this time." She said angrily. "Did you really feel like you had no choice to be with me?" She gave him a sickly excuse for a smile. "I know it's silly of me to complain. Here I have the attention of one of the most desirable men in the solar system. Why should I complain? Well yes, it would have been nice if that man actually wanted to be with me."
"I do want to be with you…" he started but she interrupted him.
"Liar! You accepted me like you had no other choice it's not the same. But you don't have any choice do you?! We're destined for each other!" Her tone had been increasing in volume until she was yelling at him. Then like a balloon when the air has been let out she just seemed to deflate. "Go away Trowa. Go choose your own path. Call it a little girl's fancy, but I've always dreamed of a man that would look at me and say 'wow you're really special and I want to be with you'. Not 'well if that's the way it's got to be…' Go away Trowa. I'll find someone someday who wants to be with me." He tone was resigned and bitter.
She had no trouble getting past him after that. It felt like she'd slapped him using the hand of a mobile suit. He just stood there staring stupidly into space for a few minutes. For some ridiculous reason he didn't think she'd leave him or that it would hurt this much. He'd been dumped by dozens of women and this was the first time he really felt rejected.
It felt hard to breathe. Was there something wrong with the air recycling system? His legs felt a little wobbly and he had the urge to throw up. He raised a shaky hand to his face. What the hell just happened? Why was he standing in the hallway? He couldn't think, he couldn't breathe, and he hurt.
He hurt so badly. It felt like every little ache and pain he ever had waited until this moment to be acknowledged. All the pain he'd repressed, and closed off came at him like a floodgate. It made him want to curl up into a ball and give up. But he never gave up in all the times he was supposed to fail and he wouldn't give up now.
Trowa sifted through his mind for any ideas on how to get things back to the way they were then he realized that was the problem. He didn't want things back to the way they were. He'd been using his soldier's instincts on his relationship with Soren. Good strategy says you should always leave yourself a way out if things went bad. He'd been using the idea that his friends fixed him up as a way out if things went bad between Soren and him.
Well they were bad now and he definitely did not want to go back to the way things were. It was time for a new tactic and he moved determinedly in the direction his fleeing lover went. He caught up with her just as she was about to enter her cabin. The sounds of her sniffling caught him first. If he needed any other reassurance of his own feelings that small sound gave it. As much as he was hurting already, it hurt more to know she was hurting. And it burned like hell to know he caused it.
"Go away Trowa." She sniffled as she tried to look composed.
"You're really special and I want to be with you." Well that sounded lame but it was her line to begin with.
"Trowa don't make fun of me I'm not in the mood." He caught her chin as she was going to look away and forced her to look him in the eye.
"I'm not making fun; I'm taking the path I choose." He said quite plainly. The look she gave him was clearly one of skepticism. He could practically hear her say 'I don't believe you'. That little loss of faith in him stung but he'd live with it.
"Alright then it's time for plan 'B'." He stated then grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder.
"WHAT? Trowa! What are you doing?" she shrieked while he carried her into the room.
"Going with my other plan to keep you in bed until you accept that I'm the man of your life and you will have no others while I live." He stated laying her out on her bunk. He could tell he had her attention now and barreled forward to keep it.
"We are going to commit to each other, have children, and grow old together. "His brain froze for a few seconds. He didn't expect to say that last part, but when he rolled it over in his mind he knew it was what he wanted.
She gaped at him for a few seconds. When she found her voice she eyed him mischievously and said, "You forgot to say 'wow'. You were supposed to say 'wow you're really special and I want to be with you'." Her mouth was twitching trying not to smile. He couldn't blame her. His own face seemed determined to break open and flash all the teeth he had.
He waited until he had her shipsuit off and was about to plunge deep into her then he said "Wow" as he took the woman he'd claimed as his lifemate for the first time.
Trowa was a little surprised to find Duo sitting by himself in the open eating area the following evening. I looked like he was scowling at the table top deep in thought. There were a handful of preventers, sweepers, maganacs and even a few of Quatre's sisters but they were all sitting well clear of him. Trowa grabbed himself a coffee and went to join him.
"Are you alright?" he asked approaching. When he got to the table he saw what Duo was frowning at. It was one of Anna's coins. Now the man's isolation made sense.
As much as most of the people on the satellite were getting used to mental powers they were a long way from feeling comfortable about them. Obviously Duo was attempting to find his secondary ability and no one was comfortable to watch him while he tried.
"I've been trying to move this coin and it won't budge." He said irritably as if the coin was somehow at fault for its lack of mobility. He looked up at Trowa. "So you set things right with Soren?"
"Yes, but I get the feeling you already know that. I'm guessing if I hadn't that woman of yours would be trying to take another strip out of my hide." Trowa said pointedly.
Duo smiled at him sheepishly. "Sorry about that man. Soren's been really great and Shel's been under a lot of stress. When she felt how hurt Soren was she kinda lashed out. But don't worry; she's still tired from yesterday so she went to bed early."
"Do you think she's going to be able to go through with this?" asked the green-eyed man. It was way too late to back out now. Duo said just as much.
"She hasn't got much of a choice. I think part of it is just being cooped up and tested on. It wears on both of them. It's too much like the initial experiment for them to relax completely. And of course there is the fact that everyone gets the willies when they walk past." Duo said morosely. Trowa could tell that Shelby's pain was wearing on him as well. The normally vivacious man looked worn out like he hadn't slept in months.
"Too bad you can't leave the satellite until the testing and public statement is made." Trowa thought out loud to himself. "I'm sure you could all use the break."
Indeed in the two days that he'd been there the only time the atmosphere was relaxed was during the field tests. Then inspiration hit him.
"Maybe we should have a party." He said.
"A party?"
"Yes a party or something out of the ordinary to get everyone's minds off psionics for a while."
"What do we celeb… you know what? I don't care but it sounds a hell of a lot better than anything I can come up with. Come on." And he got up to leave the table.
"Wait don't forget your coin." Trowa said and grabbed it for him.
He felt a small painful jolt all the way up to his elbow. It was followed be a numb tingling sensation.
"Ow!" He shook his hand a few times to get feeling back into it. "I think I just found out what your secondary ability is. That coin just gave me an electric shock." He said still shaking his hand out.
"It shocked you?"
"Yes. You must have charged it somehow and since the table is a non-conductive material it couldn't ground itself until I touched it." He looked at Duo who had the weirdest grin on his face. "What?"
"I know this sounds weird, but I'm kinda glad that's what it is. I mean it's like when you're a kid and you imagine yourself being super strong, or flying. You always pick the cool superpowers. No one wants dorky powers like the power of really strong body odor. I guess it just felt good to know I got a cool power!" he finished quite impressed with himself. "Come on! Let's go plan a party and on the way we can tell that woman of yours what I can do!"
Trowa felt like rolling his eyes. Duo was going to be insufferable now that he had a power that he thought was cool.
Soren was a little surprised when she saw Duo come bounding in looking immensely pleased with himself. She paid him only a moment notice then she saw Trowa follow him in with an amused expression. Her lover immediately came up to stand behind her.
"What's happened?" she asked her mate.
"Duo's found his secondary ability. He can manipulate electricity."
To demonstrate, the braided man popped the power supply out of one of her data recorders and powered it himself. Although it was obvious that he wasn't nearly as strong as the original power supply.
"That's great Duo." She said trying to sound excited for him.
Both men caught her lack of enthusiasm and became concerned.
"What's wrong?" Trowa asked.
Soren looked at the two of them and then walked over to the door and locking it closed. The two men seemed surprised but they remained silent which was good because she needed to talk to them alone. Thankfully Sally had gone to dinner and she wasn't expected back until morning.
"We may have a problem." She stated plainly. "Last week I had an idea to see if csorilledon could be harvested. I ran some tests on the samples I had to see if it would work." She held up the test vial she was sampling. It was a very small sample that only held about twelve cc but it was a highly concentrated sample. "I was right. It can be harvested from the spinal fluid. Although I don't know what it would do to a person if they were injected with it in this form, but if they didn't suffer any major side effects it'd give a person a solid jump start on becoming a psionic."
She could see them calculating the implications. Catching Shelby and Anna and forcing them to cooperate would be one thing, but what if they were caught and it was discovered that a person need only tap them to become psionic themselves? She felt nauseous at the thought.
The nausea didn't tip her off but the slight pressure at the back of her head did. She had just enough time to see that the two men realized that something was odd before everything went black.
Duo came to with a start rapping his head against a table leg. Thanks to his training the disorientation from the gas should have taken several minutes to wear off but he shed it fairly quickly. He heard Trowa groan nearby shaking off the after affects as well. For one brief moment he thought he was back in the war and then realization hit him all at once.
Shelby! Duo screamed out into the now horribly quiet part of his mind. Fighting back the suffocating sense of aloneness, he bolted out the door and sprinted to their cabin before he even registered that he was moving. Babe! Answer me! Shelby! No no no no no! A part of him knew what he was going to find but he still had to go check anyway.
His heart was in his throat as he reached the hallway and saw what was left of their door. He practically flew to the room and took the empty cabin in one glance before he took off to the next logical place to look.
He reached the doors of the satellite's docking bay only to find Quatre beating his fists on the door. The blond was screaming at the top of his mind and lungs. The door was sealed and the warning light showed that the bay was vented to open space. There was no way the door would open without a command override from the main system center.
He wanted to scream and howl as well but by some miracle he managed to retain enough sanity to try and take charge of the situation. Try being the operative word.
Duo must have stolen his scrap of sanity from Quatre because the man wasn't showing any traces of it. He yelled is name at him several times and even tried to smack him a few times but the blond still raged like a lunatic. His knuckles were starting to bleed freely from his continuous assault on the door.
Thankfully the other pilots had showed up and helped to hold him down. Only when he had his focus pulled away from the door did Quatre become aware of his surroundings. He pinned Duo's eyes with his own.
"She's gone Duo! I can't feel her! She's gone! I feel so empty." He choked the last off as a sob.
Duo understood perfectly. He felt like his own mind was trapped in a great void as deep as outer space. Trapped and alone. It took a few moments for him to realize that Heero was trying to talk to him.
"Huh?" he asked stupidly.
"I said can you feel anything? You don't seem as badly affected."
Not badly affected? Right now he felt so hollow he was surprised his thoughts didn't echo. Then he looked a Quatre. He strained to see what he could feel. Nothing, he felt great amounts of nothing.
However his mind seemed inclined to reach out in a particular direction from the satellite. Perhaps that was the way they went but they were too far for him to reach?
"Quatre, I need you." He said while tentatively touching the man's mind trying to reach him that way.
It took a little more time for the other man to let him in so they could merge. Duo tried to control his revulsion at Quatre's mental wails of anguish. He had his own demons to slay.
The combined strength of their minds and the help of their bond allowed them to feel a very small flicker of something. They were unaware of it but everyone else in the corridor was relieved when they heard their twin groans of relief.
It wasn't awareness they picked up from the women though. More like their presence. Like how the women felt when deep asleep. So they had to be drugged or unconscious.
Now that he could find her, the god of death was back and he was going to go get his woman.
