Episode Two-Where am I?
The girl woke up to find herself in a large room. It was sparsely furnished but comfortable and quite pretty. It looked like a picture taken right out of the Italian renaissance. She looked to her right, her icy blue eyes staring out to the sea. She then turned her head towards the left, only to see a pair of dark emerald eyes staring at her. Her eyes opened wide in surprise. "Where am I?" she squeaked, sitting herself up, covering her petite form. She slid her hand up to move her mid back length blonde hair behind her ear, her small and slender pale hand shaking visibly from nerves.
Trowa sat up and eyed the girl wearily for a moment before answering her question, "You are in Mondolfo, on the eastern Italian coast. And, judging by your American accent, I assume you aren't from around here."
The girl looked down, and began nervously chewing on her right thumb nail. "No," she muttered.
"What is your name?" Trowa asked, trying to sound as non threatening as possible.
She looked up at him, unshed tears shinning in her pale blue eyes, "Destiny. Destiny McLaughlin."
Trowa looked at her, pressure forming in his chest at seeing this girl so upset. "Well, Destiny, I found you on the beach, unconscious, last night. Not too far from here actually." Trowa lowered his head to try and catch her gaze as Destiny once again looked down, chewing on her nails again. "Do you have any idea how you got to be alone and unconscious on the beach?"
Destiny looked up, this time tears actually fell down her face, her cheeks a light pink from the effort, "I don't know. One minute, I was sleeping in my bed, the next, I felt an awful pain, passed out, and woke up here. I don't know what happened!"
Trowa laid a hand on the girl's shoulder as she threw her head into her hands, sobs shaking her small form.
"Where are you from?" Trowa asked.
"Denver, Colorado." She replied simply.
Trowa's eyes opened wide in disbelief, "That's impossible! Denver was raised to the ground in a war about a century ago!"
Destiny looked up at him in shock, her tearstained face clearly showing much confusion. "What year is this?"
Trowa sat back in his chair, "AC 197."
"AC? It's supposed to be 2007! AD!" the girl exclaimed.
Trowa closed his eyes and raised his right hand up to his temple. Just as he did so, his four roommates walked into the room.
"Hey Trowa! I see the chick's awake," chirped Duo as he bounced into the room in front of his three other friends.
"We have a bit of a problem here." Said Trowa as he looked to his companions.
Heero glared stoically at Trowa, "What kind of problem?"
"Destiny here isn't exactly from around here," Trowa replied.
"That's okay," said Duo, "We can take her back to her home."
Trowa looked to Duo with an agitated look on his face, "Problem is, Duo, not only is she not from this country, but apparently she's not from this time."
"Explain Barton," Wufei said simply, his face neutral.
"She says she's from Denver, Colorado. In the year 2007 AD."
All four of the young men had astonished looks on their faces, even Heero.
Quatre sat down on the bed, looking to the blonde girl who hadn't said a single word since they entered the room. "Is this true?"
Destiny looked up at the kind blonde man, "Yes," was her simply teary answer.
Quatre studied her for a moment, then turned to his friends, "I know she's not lying. I sense her distress, confusion and loss."
"You sense…?" Destiny questioned carefully.
Trowa replied, still looking to his Arabian friend, "Quatre here is an empath. "
Destiny nodded in understanding.
Heero hnned, and hnned some more before saying, "Well, this is a problem."
Destiny burst out into tears and flung her golden head into her hands once again, "What am I supposed to do? Not only am I in an unknown country, but by some way I ended up in a strange time! With strange men! No place to go! No money! Oh my god!"
Duo sat down next to the girl, laying a hand on her shoulder, "Don't worry babe! You can stay with us. I'm sure Quat won't mind! He's the nicest dude in like, the whole galaxy!"
Quatre blushed lightly at Duo's remark. Destiny moved her head up and looked into Duo's amethyst eyes, "Really? I mean, I don't know you. And you don't know me! You probably all think I'm some crazy chick who is delusional or has some serious mental issues!"
"It really is no problem miss Destiny. I would never let a girl like you just roam the streets of a strange town alone. I have plenty of room, and you can stay for as long as you need to. For as long as it takes for us to find out what's going on and for you to figure out what to do." Quatre gleamed one of his kind smiles that put Destiny into a brighter mood.
Destiny sniffed a little bit, her tears drying on her skin, "Thank you, uh…"
Quatre laughed lightly, "Names, "he laughed again, "I'm sorry, we forgot to introduce ourselves. My name is Quatre Raberba Winner. You've already met Trowa Barton. The one with the braid is Duo Maxwell. Heero Yuy is over there with the green tank top. And Wufei Chang is standing next to him."
Destiny smiled lightly, "I'm Destiny McLaughlin. Very nice to meet you all. And thank you so so so much for your hospitality."
"No problem hot stuff!" Duo chimed as he smiled brightly. This made Destiny laugh.
At hearing Destiny laugh, the tight pressure that held onto Trowa's chest eased up. 'Why do her moods affect me so? I just met her!'
Quatre laughed lightly, "Well, I'm sure you would like to clean up a bit. The door to your bathroom is right ahead. You will find everything you need in there. There's also a closet full of clothes in there if you would like to change. Feel free to take your pick of clothing. This room belonged to one of my older sisters. She doesn't live here anymore, and she doesn't wear them, so don't worry about that. Trowa's room is to the right of yours when you're finished. You can go ahead and knock on his door when you're ready and you can meet us down in the kitchen in time for breakfast.
Destiny smiled brightly at the five boys. She looked to Quatre and thanked him again.
When the boys exited the room, Destiny hurried into the bathroom to shower.
The boys all walked into Trowa's room next door. They all sat around silently.
"I think she's cute!" exclaimed Duo.
"Of course you do," grunted Wufei.
"I'm going to do some research on this girl downstairs in the kitchen. When you all come down, I'll let you know what I found," said Heero walking out of the room.
"I still can't get the idea of her being familiar out of my head. I wonder why?" said Quatre to no one in particular.
"Well. I'm going downstairs to get some food! I'll see you guys when you get down there," said Duo as he bounced out of the room with a remarkable and irregular sort of cheerfulness.
Wufei groaned and replied as he walked out of the room after Duo, "I'll go make sure that he doesn't fuck anything up in the process. Or actually do something that causes Yuy to actually kill the baka this time."
Quatre and Trowa were then left to their thoughts in a silence that can only be shared by the best of friends where neither parties feel any need to speak.
When Destiny exited the shower, she felt a lot less tense. Her golden blonde hair hung in slight wet ringlets across her shoulders and back. She sighed lightly and walked into the closet. Upon seeing the size of the walk in closet, and the vast amount of clothing, her eyes widened in that emotion that only girls can get when they land in a mall on a big shopping spree. The only exception was that this was all free, and all for her.
She selected an outfit that consisted of a pair of light jeans and a simple white tank top. She put on some socks and put on a pair of simple tennis shoes and proceeded to dry her hair.
When she finished, she walked out of the bathroom and out the bedroom door and to the right. She knew this door lead to the bedroom belonging to the boy that found her, Trowa. She took a deep breath, let it out, and knocked on the door.
In seconds, the door was opened to reveal the handsome young man. "You look better," he said simply.
Destiny sighed, "I feel better."
"Come on. The rest of them are waiting downstairs for us," said Trowa, leading the girl down to the kitchen.
When the pair entered the kitchen, she noticed that all four of the other boys were seated at a tall table, all sipping on warm beverages of their choice. Wufei was reading a news paper article. Duo was trying to open a cereal box, and failing a in humorous, but miserable way. Heero sat staring at the screen of a lap top, and Quatre jumped from his seat, beaming a smile and offering a greeting to the newcomer.
Duo offered Destiny a seat next to him, then proceeded to try and open the box once more. Trowa sat in the seat to her left, eying Heero, obviously anxious to see what he had come up with.
Quatre turned to the girl and said, "Now, we don't mean to pry, or sound rude, but we happen to be very careful and cautious people. So, Heero decided to do some research on your background. Now, before you jump to any conclusions, miss Destiny, remember that we don't think that you are a bad person, we just wanted to know who you were and how you might have come to be here, with us."
Destiny nodded, "I understand."
Heero looked up from his lap top to look at Destiny. He then looked back down, then back up at the girl. He then closed his lap top and looked at her. It made Destiny feel slightly awkward, but she didn't show any signs of it besides shifting in her seat.
"Well, she was telling the truth," Heero began, "It says here in an article from October 14th, 2007 in the Denver Post, 'Destiny Rayne McLaughlin disappeared from her bed a week ago. No one is sure where she may have gone…' It goes on about who to contact if anyone found her. I then pulled up her records, 'Born on March 7th, 1989 AD to Carla and Chris McLaughlin. 18 years and seven months of age when she mysteriously disappeared.' It has your senior picture from high school, which was apparently the last photo taken of you. And it matches perfectly."
Destiny looked down at her lap. "So, it's true. We've got a hottie living with us that's over two hundred years old, technically," Duo exclaimed turning to look at the girl next to him.
"It would appear to be so, Duo," said Heero, putting a hand to the bridge of his nose in agitation.
Destiny looked up at the gentlemen around her, a tear sliding down her cheek, "I told you."
Trowa put his hand on her shoulder and turned her to face him, "Don't worry about it too much. You're here, and we can help you make the best of it."
Destiny smiled at him, her eyes filled with unshed tears.
"Wow Trowa. I've never heard you say something so sentimental!" exclaimed Duo In surprise.
"Shut up Maxwell," grunted Wufei.
"Seriously Wu-man! Have you ever head Trowa say something like that?" questioned Duo.
"Shut up Duo. Or omae o korosu." Said Heero lowly, giving Duo an annoyed version of his famous death glare.
"Sheesh. Tough crowd." Remarked Duo, raising his hands in the air.
Destiny laughed very lightly, then said, "Excuse me, I'm sorry. I need to go think. I, I need to be alone for a little bit. I'm sorry." She turned away, tears sliding down her face.
Duo went to follow her, probably to cheer her up. But Trowa grabbed his arm and shook his head as he looked down to the floor, "Leave her be, Duo. She's upset and she needs to cope with herself. Let her go."
What the rest of the guys didn't know was that, before Duo tried to go after her, Trowa wanted to. For some reason he felt a need to console her. He felt an odd thing for her, which is odd in general because of the fact that he's not used to feeling anything.
Quatre looked at his best friend and he automatically knew what Trowa was feeling.
'Why do her tears cut me like a knife wound? What's wrong with me?' Trowa asked himself.