Kassidy: Alright. Here we go. Now it's getting interesting.

Kandice: Did we have to kill Iria, though? I like her.

Kassidy: It's nessesary for this story. I'll make it up to you, alright?

Kandice: Okay. Anyway, here's chapter six!

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Chapter Six

Letting Him In

*bring, ring, ring*

"Hello?" Startled awake at four in the morning, Quatre snatched up the phone.

"Quatre Winner!" screached the voice on the other end. "Care to explain why a perfectly good vision of your future turned into a horrible nightmare?"

"Huh? Lu? What?"

"For about the past week or so, my vision of your future has been pretty bright. I've seen you happy and smiling and content. But last night, it changed. I saw you dead, Quatre. Murdered, lying in a alleyway, beaten, raped, and stabbed to death. Whatever you did yesterday effected your future in a really bad way. You need to fix it."

"But... Lu... slow down. What are you talking about? I didn't do anything."

"Did you have a disagreement with someone? An argument or something. Is there any reason someone would want you dead?"

"No. Well, sort of, but Lu, Trowa wouldn't kill me. It's not in him."

"Well maybe it still effected your future, Quat. Think about it. If Trowa was going to be with you, and for some reason he wasn't... you could die. There's a million possible ways for that to be bad. You've gotta fix this thing with him."

"My own psychic advisor?" Quatre asked dryly. Hearing someone say you were going to die was certainly a way to wake up really quickly.

"No. Someone who's worried about you dying," she retorted, her voice serious and concerned. "What the hell did you fight about anyway? That's just not like you. Hold up... Trowa? Isn't he the Clairsentient you mentioned?"

"Yes. We... we tried a little experiment to see if it was my sheilds that kept him from sensing me."

"Oh. Be careful with those experiments, Quatre. Our abilities are not to be taken lightly. That's a very dangerous think to do."

"I know, Lu," he replied. "But... he saw Iria. He saw my memories of her."

"Oh.." was the soft response. "I can see why you'd be upset, Quat. But this is life and death, here. Iria wouldn't want you to die because of her, because of her memory."

"You're right, but what am I supposed to do?"

"Fix it. You could always try letting him in, making him understand. Stop being so alone and let someone in for a change."

_~_

Trowa wasn't exactly sure what to make of things when his doorbell rang at six that morning only to reveal Quatre Winner standing at his door. He had felt certain that somehow he'd scared the blond empath away by prying at the memory that he'd seen. So it was a shock to see his new friend again so soon.

"Uh... Quatre. Please, come in. I... I wasn't expecting you..."

"I'm sorry about how I acted last night," Quatre said, stepping into the room. "But you must realize that it isn't easy... dealing with... Iria." It ended on a rough voice, a gasp.

"She was your sister. It is understandable. I'd be devastated if I lost Cathy."

"Trowa. It's not just that she died. It's how she died. Why."

"You blame yourself. It's quite understandable..."

"No, Trowa. You must listen to me. It's more than that."

Quatre reached back, gripped Trowa's wrist, above the glove, below the sleeve of his sleep shirt. "Look," he said, lowering his Shields in faster leaps than he had the day before.

"Quatre... no. It's too... too fast. No.. I can't..."

Images were rushing at him from every angle, just like they normally did. He tried to break away, but Quatre gripped tighter. Suddenly, there was a change. All the images and memories retracted in a flurry. But not for long, for some of them pressed forward with a vengeance.

Trowa staggered mentally, and he suddenly clasped at the hand holding his arm, as Quatre started shoving memories, emotions, thoughts at him. They all centered on a single focus... Iria. Trowa tried to understand what he was being shown. He'd never really tried before. Mostly, he just wanted to ignore and forget, but now he wanted to understand.

Iria had been Quatre's sister, older by some seven or so years. After their mother's death and their father's obsession with the family business, Iria had pretty much had to raise Quatre. She was a sister, a mother, a friend, a confidant. She'd been Quatre's everything.

Until she'd went to the supermarket one day when Quatre was twelve. She'd gone to get him some chicken soup because he was sick. She was there because of him. Trowa could feel the guilt surrounding the memories. Quatre blamed himself.

Iria's stopped at the bank to use the ATM first, and had been caught inside when the robbers struck and took everyone hostage. According to what doctors and police and news reporters and witnesses said, the three masked robbers took turns raping Iria and another young woman caught inside And when everything started to turn south, they'd used Iria as a sheild to reach their getaway car.

A car that crashed five minutes later in a high-speed chase- plowing through three lanes of traffic before colliding into a cement truck.

A car that still had his sister in it.

"Oh, Quatre," Trowa breathed, his voice catching on the sobs. Unbidden, his arm pulled the slightly smaller blond into a hug. It's not your fault, he thought. You didn't do anything- there was nothing you could have done to stop it.

"She was there because of me." Quatre whispered softly. "Because she wanted to take care of me."

"Her choice. She wouldn't have regreted that. It's not your..."

Trowa paused, blinked.

"What?" Quatre asked. "You going to say it's not my fault again? That's a lie. We both know that it is..."

"No," Trowa said, confused. "Quatre... I never said that it wasn't your fault."

"Yes you did," Quatre returned, annoyed, angry. He pulled away, as if just realizing that Trowa held him. "You said it wasn't my fault and I couldn't have stopped it. But we both know that if she hadn't wanted to be my mother then she wouldn't have ever been there in the first place...."

"No. Don't you see, Quatre? I never said that. I thought that. I never said anything at all."

It was Quatre's turn to blink in confusion.

"You mean... that I heard your thoughts?"

TBC...

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Kandice: Oh. Now that's what I call a cliffhanger.

Kassidy: Right. And now a quick plug for our other fic, Thicker Than Blood.

Kandice: Yeah. If you like a slow build up for a 3x4, vampires, were-things, and all that supernatural stuff... then that is the story for you. So, leave a reveiw for this and then go read that, kay?

Kassidy: Hey, sis? They can't see the puppy dog eyes. I'm pretty sure it dosen't work over a computer.

Kandice: Drats. It was worth a shot.