The cab was musky and smelled like piss. I didn't gag though, which surprised the cabbie. I knew what he was thinking.

"This pristine, girly-girl? Life is strange."

I grinned at him through the rearview mirror. Little did he know that I spent my life around animal excrement. I sat back in the sticky backseat of the cab and looked out the window. The circus had toured here a few times, but I'd never had time to really look around the city. It was beautiful. The city was quiet, the streets were almost empty, save for the few cabs and solitary cars driving to whatever destination they had in mind. The night air was clean and fresh. I knew that in the daytime, I knew that the city was hectic, but right now, it was peaceful and I took it in happily.

"Here you go, sweetheart," the cab driver said, wheeling around to get a look at me. "It'll be $20.57."

I handed him 30 bucks and he smiled a thanks. I slipped out of the cab and peered up at the apartment building. I hadn't told Trowa when I was coming, but he stepped out of the lobby door, hands in pockets, hair stereotypically over the left half of his face, giving me that small, exhilarating smile of his. I grinned widely back at my brother and dropped my luggage to tackle him. He caught me with a little laugh, holding me up as I curled my legs up to hang off him. The cab drove off into the night behind us as he set me on my feet again and ran a hand through my curls. I leaned into his palm.

"I've missed you Cathy," he said simply.

"Me too."

He stooped to grab my bags and led me up to his apartment.

"So, what am I supposed to expect?" I asked.

Trowa had told me to dress in something I wouldn't mind getting dirty. He was taking me to the scrap yard where he worked. I had grabbed a bleach-stained t-shirt and some skuzzy-looking jeans. Trowa just smiled at the question.

"A show," he responded.

I raised my brows, but asked no more questions. I didn't expect to get any more answers out of Trowa. It was a short walk. We turned into an industrialized street, away from the market place and a compound loomed before us. A sign that simply said, "Scrap Yard" hung over the gate. The city was still drowsy with early morning sleep hanging over it and the junkyard was silent. There was a light on, up at the third floor, high above us. Trowa produced a swipe card that let us through the security gate and he got into an elevator at the end of the hall. Another swipe of the card and it rose automatically to the third floor. There was a shallow hallway and one nicely painted reddish-brown door, which Trowa opened without pretense. I hesitated for a moment, but Trowa paused, waiting for me to follow timidly inside.

The apartment was quite large and very comfortable. To the left was a hallway with some rooms and what I presumed to be a bathroom. To the right was a nice living room with a dark wooden entertainment piece, a nice TV on it. Perched before it was a large, comfy looking couch and beside the couch a large, matching loveseat. A coffee table, wooden legs matching the tint of the entertainment center, with a glass tabletop brandished a couple of remotes, a half-eaten bowl of candies, and picture of a group of boys. Trowa was among them, so I took a guess and assumed that the remaining for were the other Gundam pilots I'd heard so much about. The kitchen was a little ways behind the living room with a half wall that held a large window/bar with dark wooden stools that you could peer into. There were some pull shutters so that if you ever wanted peace in the kitchen, you could get it, but it was open and I had the feeling that it stayed that way most of the time. In the kitchen was a petite woman with dark, short hair and dazzling blue eyes. She was beautiful and was, at the moment, cooking some eggs over the stove. She looked up when she heard the door shut behind us.

"Hey," she said, smiling as she saw Trowa and then her eyes flicked over to me. Something like realization dawned in the clear blue and she smiled wider, setting aside the pan and wiping her hand on a towel. She stepped out from behind the wall and came to stand before us, beaming.

"Hilde, this is my sister Cathy. Cathy, this is Hilde," Trowa introduced.

"Hi, it's nice to finally meet you. Goddamn, you are gorgeous. How intimidating is that?" Hilde said with an easy smile. She had a comfortable air about her, easy to talk to and get along with. I liked her immediately.

"Oh please, look at you," I said, shaking her hand. "So you're the Hilde Trowa mentions all the time."

"Good things I hope."

"Absolutely horrid."

"I know it. It's the quiet ones that get you."

"You got a great place. Sorry for just barging in." She waved this away and I continued, "You live here alone?"

Hilde laughed, a twinkling sound. "No, I wish sometimes, but no."

"What is that supposed to mean?" came a deep voice emerging from the hall.

A lean, blue-eyed boy emerged and walked towards us. He gave me a smile, something that looked charmingly odd on his face, but sent pleasurably waves over me, and extended a hand.

"You must be Catherine," he said.

"Yeah. Nice to meet you."

"Heero Yuy," he responded.

"Heero," I repeated, engraving it into my mind. "You two are… married?"

Another laugh from Hilde and a shake of the head from Heero, and Hilde said, "No way. Just roommates and really good friends."

She made her way back into the kitchen and we followed her. We sat the kitchen table, a pot of fresh coffee and fixings set out for us. She set mugs on the table and then turned back to the eggs she'd left. She served two plates and set them before the boys.

"How do you like your eggs?" she asked.

"Oh, let me help you," I responded, beginning to rise.

"Sit. How do you want them?"

I had a feeling that arguing wouldn't work. "Scrambled, if you don't mind."

"Good answer. I like them like that too. Cheese and ham?"

"Oh, yeah."

Hilde grinned and began beating the eggs. We ate with some morning, sleepy conversation between us. They asked me polite questions and I gave them polite answers and vise-versa. At around eight Heero looked at his watch and gave a sigh.

"Better go get Duo," he said, standing and setting down his coffee mug.

"Duo?" I asked, giving a questioning glance.

"Another roommate and very good… very lazy friend," Hilde said, rolling her eyes and sipping from her mug.

Heero walked to the hallway and entered the first room on the right hand side. Curiously, I listened.

"Duo. Wake up," he said. "Wake up."

THWACK!

"Oooow! What?"

"Wake up."

"It's Sunday. Go away."

"It's Thursday, get up," Heero replied to the sleepy, irritated voice emitting from the room. I wondered what he'd hit the other man with.

"I'm sick. Get out."

"You're fine. Get dressed."

Hilde sighed. "I'll handle this. You, my new friend, are a wonderful scapegoat. Curiosity makes for an easy wake up."

I looked at Trowa, inquiringly. He just raised his brows and finished his eggs. I heard Hilde come into the room next to Heero.

"You sleepy Duo?" she asked in an almost mockingly nice, motherly voice.

"Yes. Leave me alone," Duo whined irately.

"Oh, that's all right. Sleep. I'll tell Cathy you're feeling bad."

There was a long pause and then sleepy interest. "Cathy?"

"Yeah. Trowa's sister. She was stopping by on her way to the spaceport and she wanted to meet you. I'll tell her you'll take a rain check." There was a slight pause as if turning to Heero. "Did you see those eyes? She's smoking, right?"

Heero wasn't one to over play his part, at least not from what I saw of him, and he didn't. "She is a beautiful woman. It's a shame she won't be back for anther two years."

There was a groan and then a slight scuffle. A moment later a boy, built much like Heero, with a chestnut braid emerged from the room and sauntered into the bathroom across the hall. Hilde and Heero followed him out and came to join us, Hilde laughing and Heero smiling.

Ten minutes later, the boy, Duo I presumed, came into the kitchen, rubbing the sleep from his eyes in an infantile way. Hilde shoved a cup of coffee into his hand and he gulped at it.

"Duo," she said. "This is Cathy. Cathy, this is Duo Maxwell."

"Hi, it's nice to finally meet you," I said.

Duo shook my hand cordially, never letting go of the coffee cup, and looked me up and down. "You're not going to the spaceport, are you?"

I hid a smile. "No."

"Goddamn it."

It was like watching a chrysalis. Duo bloomed from a caterpillar into an overactive, talkative, wonderfully annoying butterfly. He asked all the usual questions and all the unusual ones. He seemed innocent enough, kind of like a little boy, curious and blatant. He'd ask questions, half-listen to the answers, and then they were forgotten. Or at least, that's how he made it seem. He was a great actor. The best I'd ever seen. But I had seen too many, worked with too many, and they all had a tell. His tell was his smile. It was too confidant, too adamant, too perfectly, charmingly simple. You'd never notice, not if you didn't know what to look for.

Duo, seemingly childish and innocent, was reaping in information, calculating and judging whether or not I was real, true enough for him and his acquaintance. He trusted Trowa's judgment blindly, I could see, but he was too smart to trust me without his own appraisal. Every question had a meaning, had a significance. He took what little I would give him and tear it apart expertly. So I gave him everything, I answered genuinely and truthfully and he saw that, understood what it meant… and liked it. After a certain point in the morning, his questions became small talk. He'd gathered everything he'd needed. I had passed the test. I smiled to myself in victory.

"So lions, huh? You ever ridden one? I mean, like you would a horse?" he asked curiously.

I laughed. "I never thought to."

"You're lying. I know you are. You just haven't gotten the chance."

"I admit it. I've always wanted to."

"Promise me you'll do it. When you get back, you'll ride a lion."

"I don't-"

"Promise."

I smiled at his mischievously earnest face. "I promise. Are you happy, you whiner?"

"Yeah." He paused and looked down at me from the pile of scrap he was separating and whined down, "What do you mean a whiner? I'm not a whiner. Please… tell me I'm not a whiner!"

I looked up as someone knocked on the apartment door. Trowa had just gotten in the shower. I set my book down on the reading table and rose. I swung the door open and took in a breath as clear blue eyes clashed with mine.

"Catherine?"

He was taller, a lot taller than when I last had seen him so many years ago. He was just as lean, but with definition under the pristine clothes. He'd lost the childish air of innocence and naivety and had replaced it with a gentle, but strong soul. One that knew understood that you can't make the world a fairy tale, but you can try. He had the same mouth, kind and quick to offer forgiveness and his eyes were the same crystal blue and just as deep, but his features had undergone a change. They were not as boyish as they had been, he was grown up now and ready for life. Ready to fight for it in his way. His hair was still golden, shining and tempting, calling to me to run my fingers through it. He was shocked, as surprised as I was.

"Quatre?" I replied in a small voice.

He recovered first. In his hands he had a DVD case and he lifted it as if in response to an unasked question. "I was… I just came to drop this off for Trowa. He had…" He shook his head suddenly and gave a nervous, apologetic laugh. "I'm sorry. That wasn't a very good greeting. How are you? I didn't know you were in town."

I smiled back. "Yeah. I just got in last night."

"How long are you here for?"

I shrugged, uncomfortable with the question. "Couple of weeks maybe?" I opened the door wider. "Do you want to come in? Trowa's in the shower, but I don't think he'll be long."

He gave a quick smile and stepped inside. He put the movie on the table and stood in the middle of the room, his hands in his pockets, the light from above reflecting off his hair and making a halo. He looked like an angel. His eyes found their way back to mine and I quit staring, flushing at the thought of him having caught me.

"So, I heard you've become a business man," I said.

He made a face. "The newspapers hype things out of proportion."

"Not a fan of the fame?" I knew he wouldn't be.

"No." He changed the subject. Off of him, onto me. "So, how was your flight? Good. Have you done any sightseeing yet?"

"Yes, I went today to visit scenic 'Scrap Yard.' It was enthralling. The heaps of metal are just gorgeous."

"I meant somewhere worthwhile, not the yard."

"No, not really."

"If you don't mind my suggesting, I think the first thing you should go see is Tri-Star Lake. They have a nice little ferry that tours around it. If you go during the early afternoon on a workday, you get the boat practically to yourself and it's a great place to just sit back and relax."

"Sounds amazing. Wow, I think I'd love it. Maybe I'll go see it sometime."

"You already have plans?" Quatre asked.

"No, but I have no one to take me. I kind of don't want to go traipsing about alone and Trowa works tomorrow."

"I'll take you," he said quickly, and then, as if realizing that he'd spoken almost too eagerly, said in an embarrassed tone, "I mean, if you'd like…"

I gave him a brilliant smile. "Sure. Thanks. I'd like that."

The initial meeting up was awkward again, as if we'd stepped back. He smiled politely, timidly, anxiously and I'd returned it with a cautious smile of my own. He made me feel guilty. I had promised so long ago not to ever forgive him, and now… now I didn't know how to take it back. He looked so pained, so sorry. Sorry for something that was and wasn't his fault. Wars were ugly things and they did ugly things to people. I'd seen first hand what war did to someone. The way he looked at me… it hurt. Hurt me to know that I was hurting him.

Conversation was our break away from the unsettled. It worked like magic. He had me laughing in less than a minute and I could see that he was having fun playing tour guide, watching as I pointed out shops and items he already knew about. The streets were empty and the day was nice. There was salt in the air and a nice breeze that came up off the water. It was treacherous and at one point made a goal of humiliating me by almost throwing my skirt over my head. I grabbed at it, squeezing my legs closed just in case it did manage to succeed in its devilish deed. Quatre's eyes widened and then he jerked into action to help me keep my treasonous skirt around my knees. He held down the side and I the front, all the while he was laughing, unable to control himself and I shot him false looks of hatred and laughed with him.

His eyes were very blue and they held every ounce of emotion he felt. Nothing was hidden because he didn't let there be. He could hide if he wanted to, but he didn't want to. Didn't have to, wouldn't punish himself with self-pity. I looked away, still laughing and got my clothes under control. He walked beside me, no lasciviousness about him, hands in his pockets. He had nice hands. Really nice hands. I forced my eyes forward.

The beautiful hands came out of his pockets as he purchased two ice-cream cones and handed me a chocolate one. I took it with a smile, my fingers brushing lightly against his. I felt them twitch below mine and I took a lick of the dessert happily, thanking him. His free hand went back into his pocket.

He was right, the boat was completely empty save for ourselves. It chugged slowly around the lake. There was no tour guide, we didn't need one. The lake spoke for itself. Quatre was silent beside me. He'd sunk into the uncomfortable chair, one foot resting on the opposite knee, his arms spread across the backs of the chairs next to his. I was leaning forward, resting my elbows on my knees.

"I couldn't see straight," Quatre said, speaking softly. "In every sense of the phrase. I couldn't focus on anything… They told me that my accuracy was 100, but I was almost blind. I could… I could hear, though. I could hear so well. I could hear the hearts beating on the colonies and I remember thinking to myself, I shouldn't be able to hear all this. I was confused… and angry. Still, I… there was no excuse."

I had sat back, listening rigidly as he stumbled through his story in an uncertain, sorrow filled voice. We had switched places. He was leaning forward now, staring out into the lake, his eyes moving as if focusing on something other than the tranquil scenery. He hung his head now, holding it in his hands for a moment before running his hands back over his hair so that it flopped over his fingers and back into his saddened, painfully saddened eyes and his hands rested on the nape of his neck. He looked at me then and my heart lurched for him. He was so sad, so very, very, sad.

"I never, never meant to hurt him." Then he added in a softer tone, "…or you. I'm so sorry, Catherine. I'm sorry."

He had buried his angelic face in his hands. I tilted my head as if to peer through his fingers and then gently reached out to remove the imposing, beautiful hands from his face. He met my gaze, eyes yearning.

"You can call me Cathy," I said softly. "I'd like it if you called me Cathy."

It was my way of both accepting his apology and apologizing myself. He understood immediately and his jaw slackened a bit as if in relief. Then suddenly he moved forward and, gently, but not hesitantly, pressed his lips to mine.

I was surprised, my eyes widened and at first I didn't react, but then I returned his pressure just slightly to let him know. To let him know it was okay to kiss me.

I didn't get a tour when we reached Quatre's apartment. I didn't even know what it looked like. All I knew is that it had one extraordinarily convenient wall that I was pushed up roughly against. My breath exploded from my lungs with a gasp that was cut short as Quatre bent to jerk his mouth to mine again and kiss me deeply.

It was odd. I'd never seen this side of Quatre before. I didn't know that a man so sweet and gentle and polite could push you up against a wall, pinning you in with one arm on either side of your head, and kiss you so passionately you felt like you were on fire. But he did and I let him, our tongues dancing an erratic, frenzied beat against one another. I broke from his mouth to kiss his chin, his jaw, to linger on his neck, licking and nipping and kissing so that his head rolled back, giving me more space to work with. All the while, my hands were unbuttoning the flattering, pristine shirt that adorned his frame.

He brought my mouth to his once more as he and I both wiggled him out of his shirt and it fell to the floor beneath us. I caught my breath as I looked down at him. He was so much stronger than you'd ever expect. He was thin, but muscular. My gaze wandered over his chest, abs, shoulders, over one of the arms that was at eye level. He was watching me, his golden hair meshing with mine, our foreheads touching. His breathing was slightly labored, but when I met his gaze, he smiled at me. I reached up, took the angelic face in my hands and kissed him, parting his lips with my tongue and working us up again.

He pulled the tank over my head. His fingers traced a path down my throat, over my breasts, down the middle of my abdomen, catching and resting on the lip of my skirt. I undid his belt buckle and whipped the leather strap off and into the air. He whirled us around suddenly, still lip-locked and blindly led me towards what I assumed was the bedroom and the bed.

I was wrong. We never quite made it to the bed. We got to the doorway of the massive master bedroom. He wrestled with the zipper on my skirt and we broke apart to get the damned thing off. He looked me up and down a moment before lunging at me again. Shoes had been the first things to go, followed by his socks. There were sitting in the front room, accompanied by my shirt and his. My bra was lucky enough to have been tossed into the room. His pants, however, made it out to the front room as he flung them backwards. I felt him pressed against me and I gave a breathy laugh into his mouth. I felt his smile against my lips.

"Jesus Quatre," I muttered between kisses, my hand running wild. "I thought you were a good little boy."

He gave a whisper of a laugh and looked me straight in the eyes as I was once again pinned on the doorframe. "Everyone does." And then his hand slid down fluidly between my legs and hit the exact spot it should have with the exact pressure it should have.

I squirmed as he worked, my head falling onto his shoulder, nails digging into his back for support. After thirty seconds he'd disposed of my panties and continued, unhampered by fabric. My nails must have gouged him, but he didn't flinch, didn't stop until I was right on the peak… and then he let go and kissed me again. Leaving me sweating and frustrated and hungry for more. Exactly as he'd meant to.

Normally I would have figured, two can play at that gave, and given him a tantalizing taste of his own medicine, but a much better, much more sinister idea came to mind. I sunk down away from him, taking his boxers with me. He was surprised, that much was certain, but he didn't say anything, couldn't say anything. He leaned heavily against the frame where I was a moment ago.

He was playing with me. His control was remarkable and at this moment, when revenge would have been so sweet, I hated him for it. Little by little, I broke him, taking my time, pulling all my best tricks and he broke. I smiled and rose to see him eye to eye again.

He was breathing hard. Usually there needed to be a rest period of about five or ten minutes. It was normal for men. But Quatre wasn't normal, he was a Gundam. I had seen what war did to people. I'd seen the effects. For once in my life, I was thrilled with the effects of a soldier's training. I didn't know how much it would benefit me.

Quatre almost threw me into the room, mouths working, sweat trickling, hormones raging. The first thing we came into contact with was the dresser. Whatever was on it scattered as I was shoved half against it, half on it.

He took me there, not slow and gentle, but wildly. Perfectly. Exactly as he should have. I didn't know Quatre had it in him. It was incredible. I peaked before he did and he relaxed, letting himself go, but not stopping. He built me up again, sent me calling out, until I hit fire once more and he, guiding himself by me, unloaded once more and then sagged against me.

After a long moment, we separated and fell, tangled, back into the soft mattress only inches away. He held me close. Warm. I was warm. I pressed closer to him. He lifted the covers from under me and draped them across the both of us. Sweet, kind, considerate Quatre was back. Though, he'd never really been gone. He'd been wilder, rougher than I'd ever seen him, but he had never hurt me, never asked me to do anything that I hadn't wanted to do. I turned to look at him.

I kissed him gently, slowly. He ran his fingers through my curls, looking over my face as if taking it in. I brushed his hair aside.

"I'm sorry too," I whispered to him.