That Tuesday, the river seemed to carry much more water than usual.
Trowa sat on the edge of the riverbank, his feet dangling dangerously in the strong current. He had a ceramic cup in one hand and his cell phone in the other one; and while he sipped the warm coffee, he wondered what to make of Catherine's laconic reply.
Of course he had texted her the morning after he'd left the circus (he'd been standing alone by the highway, cutting a melancholy figure in the grayish light of right-after-daybreak, hoping to hitch a ride somewhere, wherever). He'd told her not to worry about him- said he'd be alright, he only needed some time to gather his thoughts.
But afterwards he'd set the phone on mute until its battery ran out and he didn't even notice; and he had not plucked the courage to charge until it the night before (and, probably, only because he knew he'd need it soon).
Catherine's text showed it had been sent as an immediate response to his- it was dated the same day, five minutes later.
He didn't know Catherine to be very eloquent when texting, but the 'Ok. Stay safe.' she'd written plus the lack of missed calls sat not-well with his conscience. He hoped not to have wounded her with his unpremeditated departure: the sole thought of it left a bitter sting in his mouth.
With a resigned sigh, he flicked his fingers over the screen: 'I'm safe. Don't worry.' Send. He hesitated. If he was going to follow his gut on this... endeavor, like he had promised himself he would the night before; he had to be more true to what he felt. His slim fingers dashed over the screen again- 'Sorry for the silence, I had a lot on my mind. I'll keep in touch, Cathy. I miss you.' Send.
Now, that sounds a lot more like something she'll like to hear, Trowa told himself with slight pride, and it doesn't make it more or less honest than 'don't worry'.
While he thought this, the current pushed against his legs so strongly that he felt like it meant to uproot him from where he sat, and haul him all the way down to the Black Sea. But he was made of solid muscle and stoic strength, and wordlessly challenged the river to move him. To the result that, half an hour later, when he stood to return to the cottage, he felt he'd won two little battles that morning: one against himself, of course, and one against the river.
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Trowa was pleased to discover that, no matter whether he had that for lunch every day, he didn't grow tired of the taste of fresh-water fish. It went surprisingly well with the wild watercress he found by the heaps in the smaller channels of the river, and he had always been very fond of salad. It was probably what he'd missed the most working in the grim colonies, whenever he did spare a longing thought to the food back on Earth.
Catherine found it entertaining for whichever reason of her own, that he was such a tough, enduring man and so fond of 'leaves and twigs'. He'd eventually learned from other male members of the circus crew that, apparently, it was a non-macho thing to eat.
Well, he couldn't care less. There isn't macho or non-macho food in space, his reasoning had concluded, with slight amusement. If anything, non-macho would definitely include sipping liquefied proteins from a cheap plastic straw, and yet that was what you routinely got in space- and there was no complaining.
He dedicated a slow, knowing chuckle to the memory of his circus companions, and ate a forkful of watercress in their honor. Such refreshing folk... he was very fond of them.
He postponed thinking about his task, which he had inwardly started to call 'The Task' (and not 'The Mission', as a distant voice in his head that sounded oddly like Heero's had suggested) until the dishes were done and he had a scented cup of coffee warm in his hands.
He strolled across the small living room to watch the world outside the large window. The sunny, sleepy world. The depth of the evergreen plants that never wavered to the power of autumn gave him a degree of comfort that little else could. He thought of the singing of the water in the river, and listened to the birds that had remained rather than migrating south.
Such peace. He wished he could have that forever.
You know, he told himself, nothing's actually in your way. Other than, at present, The Task. Well, at least he knew what he needed to get started. A couple of precise memories, and a sound internet connection.
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What Trowa Barton should give back, if it is within his power.
#1. Find the Corps. Apologize.
He closed the little notepad. That was the first item in the list, and in every bit as challenging as the rest of them, which looked perhaps more intimidating, but where by all means easier to approach.
He sighed, feeling somewhat downcast at the very thought of what waited ahead. It would be bitter, but apologizing would be the easy part: there was no member of his old rebel army Corps left alive, (he'd been a reluctant, direct witness to that). Finding where to apologize, however... he was young at the time, and too concerned about his mask (and, therefore, his heart), to be able to remember exactly where their last fight had taken place.
To that respect, his mind was blank. Still, Trowa belonged to those who believe that nothing is truly forgotten- only inaccessible at the moment. He'd reasoned he'd be able to get a lead, but he needed to focus.
He caught the internet connection he needed in the old part of the town, in a café that was busy enough to be cheerful, and quiet enough to let him think.
There, he put his sparse new knowledge of Romanian to the test, because the good-natured, womanly waitress didn't speak a word of the common tongue. He was mildly surprised to have made himself understood, and ordered a cup of raspberry tea still basking in the feeling of success that warmed him since that morning.
He unlocked his phone to see that Catherine had texted back, a sweet message of reassurance that she'd be fine and that she knew he needed his space (she had, however, subtly chided him for leaving so impulsively). He smiled.
Indeed, he'd left on an impulse. It'd been as good a start as any.
She also said that she was very glad to have news of him. 'Some time alone will do you good, Trowa. Thanks for trusting me with this', she wrote.
He'd not thought of it that way. He guessed he was kind of trusting her by texting her now and then, rather than braving his travelling alone. He distractedly noticed that she had, tactfully, avoided mentioning her brother- the real one.
He shook his head with a small, sad smile, such was Catherine. She worked with what he gave her; and her respect awed him, sometimes. He felt a pang in his breast when he thought he wished he did to her at least half the good she did to him, and found himself wishing that she was there so that he could tell her, but if he did a reality-check, he doubted his ability to voice out any of his thoughts. He was strong- but not that strong, yet.
For a respite from such troubling thoughts, he eyed the notepad, and his handwriting struck him as one belonging to a man very used to typing and not used to writing with a pen at all.
He allowed the memory of Catherine to fade to a safe place in his heart; and focused on the few words that represented such a crossroads.
It'd been so long, too long- his present memory was riddled with images of battlefields and corpses and wreckage. The last battle of his rebel corps hadn't been the bloodiest or the toughest- but it had been his first taste at the obliteration of what he took for granted, and its aftertaste had taken forever to fade- and the memory of that aftertaste would be with him until he died.
Even though the internet connection was awesome and his phone was wickedly fast, the random, idle inputs he tested in Google of 'forest', 'field', 'unfair ambush in a forested area of Europe 17 years ago' took him nowhere.
Starting a new page in the notepad, he prepared to go through with the method that he thought would be his best shot at retrieving the location from the unfathomable recesses of his mind. He'd learnt it many years ago, when he'd lost his memory in space and he was desperate to recall something, anything. It was rather primitive, but effective.
He let himself be carried to the past, back to when he was barely 10 or 11, and wore thick mittens and borrowed, frayed bomber jackets. He'd owned nothing but the will to keep on living, and the pay he got when the missions were over- if he did what was expected of him, of course.
He closed his eyes, tuning out the sounds of the people around him and the cars on the streets, and going into a very silent world of late nights and early mornings. Back then, he usually went to sleep before midday, and he didn't particularly like to wake up when the sun was gone, again. He was a kid that loved the sun, and disliked the cold and bleakness that came with sleepless nights. No one but him knew that, however.
Although he was remunerated just like any other mercenary in that army, and thus at the same level as the rest of them, because he was so young they would warm up to him and do him little kindnesses. They'd give him soup and ruffle his hair. He guessed that it was because he must've reminded many of them of family they'd left behind, tucked away in distant, safe places.
He didn't care about having no name, back then. He fancied he was happy that those who must've once loved him had taken his name with them, somewhere where the hurt he caused others could not taint it. Somewhere where they were keeping it safe, for when he returned.
But he tried not to think about it: he wasn't one to linger long on useless thoughts that could distract him and get him killed.
Around the time when they'd been killed off, the Corps had taken a straight and unwavering road to the field that had become their graveyard, marching over the countryside for days, passing little towns and villages where the people spoke in a strange, punctured language; where the road signs had looked completely alien to him and the letters seemed to be smiling.
Blinking briefly, Trowa thought he'd recognize the language again if he saw it. Language, he wrote on the notepad.
He closed his eyes again, but flickered them open almost immediately. Straight road, he added, flat countryside. Many little towns and villages. It wasn't much. Actually, it bordered on pathetic little. Advising himself to discard the frown, and maintain the thread of his thoughts, he tried going back again.
Usually, they marched by night. When they had to stop for supplies, they would send him to collect them- meager No-name who was unlikely to be suspected of being a rebel mercenary. Before the battle, he'd often returned to camp with baskets filled with dry sausages, apples, and, even cabbages or peppers.
Trowa's list kept growing- dry sausages, apples, peppers, cabbage. It didn't make him think of anything in particular, other than his mild annoyance at being the errand-boy, and that he'd not liked cabbage. God, he still hated it.
When they made stew out of it, he discreetly used to feed it to whichever dog had been following their army at the time. A pack of wild dogs had tailed behind them for a while until the Corps had met their horrible end; and between Budapest and the battlefield he'd lost, at least, two kilos.
He was not thoroughly surprised to realize that that was it. He remembered now how they'd passed through the suburbs of Budapest in commendable stealth, going unnoticed because there'd been, at the time, some festivity full of wine and decorated mobile suits. Yes, it was all there... even waiting to be remembered, maybe- No-name stealing half a bottle of wine, when no one was looking. Telling the Captain he didn't think it was a great idea to split, yet splitting anyway when the order came.
No-name covering the rearguard, yet not on time. Firing bullet after bullet, and then, waiting hour after hour. Him- a dusty kid, jumping down from the cockpit of his rusty mobile suit to inspect the desolate, moonlit landscape. The scent of torn grass and burning motor oil. The dreaded silence, the dreadful feeling of empty loneliness- before him, a field of wrung metal and burning guns, and corpses.
It was a sad thing. Trowa had known all those men by name, and yet, he'd stood there, impassive, looking at the scene of destruction with detachment. He'd bit back the anger, the hurting in his chest, wrapped it all in a tight bundle of feeling and swallowed it, and walked away from that haunting place, his face never betraying a single thought of his.
He'd stowed away in a shuttle to space, and landed in the L3 Colony cluster by chance. Then he'd continued to survive. Ditched a name after the other. Learnt to fix things.
He sat in the café long after all the other customers had gone, believing he could feel the cold seeping from him outwards, reaching the nice, matronly waitress who reacted to it by bringing him a piece of amandine and a gleaming shot of pálinka.
'Thank you,' he said, gently.
'It's for your heart,' she answered.
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Unlike some of the other former Gundam pilots, he wasn't that great of a hacker. But he could get by, if he needed to- and once he had a starting point, it was easy for him to find the place he sought.
It was now a parsley field, in a distant, rural area in the mighty unpronounceable Hungarian county of Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok, near the equally unutterable town of Törökszentmiklós. His estimate was that it was roughly 800 km away from his current location. However, for someone used to travelling the long, tedious way between the Earth and the Colonies, the ride ahead of him appeared to be relatively short.
He'd not be doing it by train, though, he mused. He longed to feel the familiar strength of an engine under his hands again.
His phone's battery was practically dead.
With a head full of thoughts, he paid and tipped the waitress, and started heading for the soothing path that lead to the cottage.
The waitress ran after him, making him stop. She began telling him something long and heartfelt in Romanian, but spoken so quickly and in such a thick accent that Trowa could not understand a thing.
Rare puzzlement shone in his eyes, and the waitress laughed and gently patted his back.
'Nu fi trist,' she said, this time slowly, and he understood her, 'tu esti prea bine pentru a fi trist,' she added, a merry wink in her eyes. And when his mild surprise (at actually having understood her...) was betrayed by a thin, too-faint blush (when the words sank in), the waitress heartily ruffled his hair and returned to the café.
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'Don't be sad,' she said, this time slowly, and he understood her, 'You're too handsome to be sad.'
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A/N
About the background for this story: I assume that most of you either read of are familiar with 'Episode Zero'. I deliberately decided to omit any mention to Middie Une in this story, because she has no part in it to play; and I think that if Trowa didn't have a crush on her (which, in this story, he didn't), then he had little reason to remember her.
If you feel like you'd have liked to read her here, maybe I can ease your disappointment by suggesting you read my other story, 'Of fire and ice, and fire', which you'll easily find in my profile :)
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Please doubt my Romanian. I try my best, but it's still a language I don't really master :) The glossary for this chapter would include just one word:
pálinka- another kind of traditional Eastern European schnapps. Kind of icky, at least in my experience, haha.
Oh, yes. I wanted to tell you guys that it makes me happy that so many of you agree that Frozen Teardrop shouldn't have been. So much unnecessary sadness :(
I'd like to specially thank Cyn Finnegan, Pokeyonekenobie, Guest, Hana-Liatris (sexy latin greeneyed pilots with characters of their own, yay ;D) and Bryony (some Trowa/Cathy kind-of-moments here!) for their support!
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And say hello to the readers from Iraq and the United Arab Emirates! :O (I saw there were some in the traffic stats for the story ;) )
Up next: jigs and cards. Kind of.