Through all those tense, watchful nights where nothing happened, all those frenetic races to accomplish the impossible before dawn Trowa refused to think about this bed. As if by shutting it out of his mind he could isolate the two and protect this bed from being tainted, a futile attempt. Restless, Trowa shifts to get less comfortable, twisting the slightly worn duvet to cover less of his body. Slipping into the bed had been a shock, sinking into the too soft mattress, the intrusive weight of the blanket and the subtle, overwhelming smell of home. In the kitchen the clock softly ticks, snipping the night into thousands of wasted seconds. On the other side of the caravan Catherine is breathing evenly and a strange kind of disappointment steals through him, is this all? The day's erratic instances of ecstasy have unsettled him and abruptly Trowa finds himself at his fly-specked window. Soundlessly he coaxes it open, escaping into the surreal, shadowy circus.
Catherine wakes up with the knowledge that Trowa is here and is afraid she's still dreaming. She's woken like this before, aching with loss when she remembers he's not here. 'No' she tells herself firmly, 'he is home, it's true' and with a bound she's out of bed and running to Trowa's room. She throws open the door without knocking. The sight of the neatly made bed is like an icy dagger and her throat lets out a foreign croak. Suddenly she's sobbing.
Trowa walks back to the caravan slowly with a bag of warm buns bought when the bakery opened. As he draws nearer the back of his neck begins to prickle and he's running even before his brain identifies the sound. He shoulders open the flimsily locked door, the caravan is filled with Catherine's wild misery. She's curled up in the doorway to his room and crying so hard she can't see him. Trowa lets the buns fall, dropping to his knees beside her. He hesitantly touches her shoulder, she turns to him, brittle with fury, blindingly beautiful. "Why did you leave me?" she rasps and the child-soldier wraps his arms around her as clumsily as a marionette. Instead of quieting the awkward hug makes her cry harder, she can't stop. All the choked off emotions from the time he left the circus till now have burst free, accusing him with her love.
Every afternoon Catherine is whisked off by the pinch-faced Suzetta for her contortion lesson. She's not ready to perform yet and is indifferent at best, resentful at worst towards it. As far as she's concerned, the lessons were forced on her to take her mind off Trowa and now that he's back she'd rather spend the time practicing with him. Today she's trying to delay her lesson by helping with the safety net maintenance but the ringmaster comes to see how they're going and notices the time. As she stifles a sigh the ringmaster casually thanks her, 'it's good of you to do this for her' and with a jolt she realises that these lessons were not for her benefit, that Suzetta was lonely.
The weather in this town has been remarkably clement and Trowa has escaped from the circus to have some time alone. Idleness plays a larger role in a soldier's life than many would suspect and Trowa needs these periods of introspection otherwise he'd feel overwhelmed. In some ways circus life is more stressful than soldiering, he is an expert on soldiering. He can identify on sight what sort of soldier a man will be, what he can do, how he will react, how to behave towards him. Here in the circus tempers and emotions flare unexpectedly, the menial chores are endless and if they can't think of anything for him to do then Cathy expects him to go have fun, to play. The chores he can handle but Having Fun is daunting and frustrating, he doesn't know how to and it can't be taught.
Suzetta is as critical and condescending as ever but for once Cathy does all she says willingly. Compassion has made her humble and forgiving but the lessons still push her to her body's limit. Somewhere nearby a radio has been turned on and after shooting it a couple of dirty looks Suzetta has set her a simple routine to do with the music.
Bored, Trowa wanders back to the circus to find Cathy. James mending the net knows who he's looking for tells him where Suzetta's trailer is. It's next to a large tree and too close to a couple of other trailers giving the space where they're working some privacy. Suzetta is leaning against her caravan with arms crossed, reprimands popping out of her like bubbles in lemonade. In the centre of their little clearing is Cathy, completely focussed on what she's doing. The dappled afternoon light glows in her hair, while still unsure she moves with an unconscious sensuality. His eyes are drawn against his will to the smooth planes of her body, the swell of her breasts. He stands transfixed. Guilt and desire thrash against each other but are muted by a sense of wonder. She's dressed in shabby cast-offs with grass in her hair yet she's the most gorgeous creature he's ever seen.
Sometimes Trowa lets Catherine come with him he evades the circus, but it's never as relaxing as when he is on his own. Even when she's silent he can feel her wanting him to open up to her, to tell her his secrets. As much as he loves her he doubts he will ever tell anyone his secrets. They're best forgotten, dirty, evil memories that serve no further purpose. The things he wishes to hide aren't dashing and exciting, there's no romance about them. They're merely the disgusting, disappointing dregs of humanity that war unearths in people. He knows Catherine hates war, so why is she so curious? Surely she doesn't want to hear about what it's like to kill someone you've marched with, shared food with, and fought beside. To hear about how his entrails were ripped open and how he begged you with terrified animal eyes to end it for him. How his head exploded spattering the stinking mud with brain tissue. She's innocent, at least comparatively so and why in the world would she think he'd want to sully her? She'd argued so furiously to prevent him from going and now she wanted him to unload all his filth on her? No way, he'd fight at least as determinedly to protect her as she did him.
At first, so little by way of entertainment pleased Trowa that to protect herself from continually working on new routines, fixing the house, and exercising the animals Catherine would force him to vid-disks with her. Unlike all the other chores which Trowa carried out with abnormal contentment, being made to sit still watch such drivel made Trowa restless. He sighed, crossed his arms, tapped his feet and developed new ways to convey his irritation to Catherine who huffed and warned him she'd be quizzing him about it after. In retaliation for his lack of interest in the classics of action, drama and mystery Catherine started deliberately choosing the silliest, most childish and colourful vid-disks available and just to be contrary he would claim to like them. He'd sprawl out with every sign of attention, a suppressed, ironic glee dancing around his eyes. And he'd talk to her about it afterwards too, often for days plaguing her with intelligent yet nonsensical debates. After a while it was Trowa who made Catherine sit down with him, not in retaliation she noticed with surprise, because he wanted to.
Chichi the poodle was a brat, everyone knew that but she was a star performer with an owner severely stuck with stage-mama syndrome. Since the circus didn't always have the money for expensive jobs like repairing specialist equipment they sometimes had to borrow money from Chichi's owner, the self-styled Lady Charlotte. Whenever this happened Chichi would somehow be incorporated in all the acts and the small dog would be insufferable. Ten minutes into their practise with her Catherine was shocked to see Trowa smack Chichi. Sure it was hardly a more than touch and the ratbag definitely deserved it but since peace had been declared Trowa had always exercised an impractical amount of care to never show a hint of violence. Even when they were having mock arguments she could do anything she liked to the tall, well muscled young man, shake him, kick him, tackle him and he'd never do a thing to resist her. On the flip side he never initiated any gestures of affection either. If she didn't vigilantly keep encouraging him in their banter he would let her win all their pointless debates too.
"Trowa, did I just see you smack the dog?" she hissed delightedly. Guilt flickered over Trowa's face before he caught her conspiratorial smile.
"She needed it, look, she's being a good girl now." Indeed, Chichi was behaving like a perfectly adoring angel.
"See, you don't always have to pretend you're a wimp." She said unflinching at the black look in his eyes. "No-one's going to think you're a brute if you stand up for yourself a little."
"You don't get it Cathy; some of them still remember when we performed for the government. Do you think they'd tolerate me if I showed the least bit of aggression?"
"Hang on; you think they don't trust you? They let you walk around with knives Trowa, they know you would never hurt us. You're not the only one here who's survived the war. Do you seriously think you're the only here who's killed? Who's stolen?" She could sense he was thinking about what she was saying, but the tension was still there.
"I don't know my own strength. I don't want to risk getting thrown out over an accident." As he said this Cathy thought even he should know how flimsy that sounded. The real problem was that he was scared.
"Never Trowa, nothing you say or do will make us abandon you. I just get frustrated when you hold things back from me. I'd rather you tell me to my face I'm being an idiot than think it behind your mask. And it's no fun hitting you if you don't try to stop me. I'm not asking for much Trowa, just that you be yourself around me, you don't have to pretend to be anything your not." Unconsciously her hands had planted themselves on her hips. Trowa looked at her for a long awkward moment as if he were about to say or do something, but then he just turned and nodded as always did when she got confrontational. In his head he tweaked her nose, called her bossy and gave her a noogie; maybe next time she got all high and mighty he might actually do it.