Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and all its characters © Sotsu Agency, Sunrise, and TV Asahi. All fics are not for profit.

"Scissored Kismets"

by Scizoid Sprite

CHAPTER 7: Re-conjunction of Two Stars

"If a man who cannot count finds a four-leaf clover, is he lucky?" - Stanislaw J. Lec

Mariemaia Khushrenada held out one hand to catch a petal, the other cupped above her eyes in protection against the bits of 'sky' that showed between the gaps in the foliage. She focused on the blossom—a little hammock rocking side to side as it surrendered to the artificial gravity—and her pupils dilated ever so slightly until the almost weightless thing settled on her palm.

In the slowness of it all—of the petals' descent, of her growing up, of time as a whole—she wondered when everyone's wound would totally heal. The war was over, yes, but the bleeding wasn't. She still believes that time was a great deadener though, and she was taught that learning to wait, no matter how agonizing it seemed to be, was one of the best ways to grow up.

Has she learned it already? Her eyes fluttered close and the petal slipped away with the wind. Two nights and three hours have passed since her first encounter with her second cousin.

__

She was utterly bored that night, and aside from being a wallflower, her fiddling with the sequins and glitters of her mask attracted a lot of unwanted sideway glances and murmurs from other people. What, she thought snidely as she peeled off the mask's peacock feather, can't you all believe that the despot-wannabee who waged a war not so long ago was just a child?

Alright, she was moping. So what?

"Oh, what an adorable sight."

She turned her head up towards the direction of the voice. A whipping of blonde hair that was almost white under the lights, a stabbingly unnerving gaze, a smile where coldness and warmth were painted in perfect balance. She recognized her. She saw her on TV, newspapers, and old family pictures.

"Dorothy Catalonia," Mariemaia breathed, half a question and half a statement. In a second, she realized she was wrong—she has never seen her before. All the other one-dimensional images did not give Dorothy any justice.

"I guess it's really true that a blasé attitude towards these regular balls runs in our blood," said Dorothy, wide smile directed at the tortured mask.

"You don't look that bored," Mariemaia frowned. Dorothy wasn't bored, she was sure about that, but it didn't look like she was enjoying the night either. There was the slightest trace of tears that somewhat spread a little of her eyeliner and a natural faint pink stain was lingering beneath the blush-on she was wearing. She looked almost troubled. Mariemaia raised a brow in curiosity but she kept the questions at bay. With her hands still awash with glitters, she went back to destroying her mask.

"Not really," said the blonde when Mariemaia couldn't remember what she last said anymore. "Not now that I've finally met you."

Dorothy twirled the handle of her mask and sat down next to the redhead, sipping her champagne meticulously.

"What's so special about meeting me?"

"I think you amuse me."

Mariemaia narrowed her eyes. "Do I look like a clown?"

"Clowns don't amuse me."

"Despots do?"

A hum. "Not exactly, but being one does add a more comical ingredient to the whole thing."

She bristled. "Comical?"

She knotted her eyebrows together and readied a scathing comeback at that, but it vanished altogether when its supposed receiver aired a good-natured laugh. She froze at the sound, thinking that she had heard it before, just where or when she couldn't quite place. And then a pair of warm arms that swathed her made her gasp with surprise. It was exactly like the laugh…

"It feels like a memory," Mariemaia murmured her thoughts against the perfumed hug, her eyes fluttering close.

"You remember?"

"Remember what?" She smiled despite herself, inhaling the floral scent. Never did it occur to her that Dorothy could be this soft; the duchess that the books and papers talked about wasn't human at all. Cold, indifferent, a bullet with butterfly wings, a deceiver, flawed in some ways but expert in hiding a weak point…the list could go on and on, but it would be like they were just defining a fictional character and not her cousin at all.

"This." Dorothy tightened her hold. "You remember? Oh, of course not. You're just two when I last saw you in person."

"You saw me when I was two?"

"Just once, before Miss Barton took you back to L3."

"And you met my mother?" Mariemaia detached herself a tad grudgingly from the embrace. "You met her?"

"I did. But we never talked about anything, not even once."

Mariemaia looked at the spinning aristocrats at the dance floor, seeing nothing. "We never talked either. Not even once."

"You just don't remember."

"She died before I learned to understand what I'm saying. You're right, I just don't remember. I can't remember anything about her."

Except that embrace, Mariemaia realized, and she enclosed her arms around herself. Yes, that was it. If there was going to be a mother's hug, or the closest thing to a mother's hug, she knew it would certainly feel like the one that Dorothy gave her. It was a bit confusing; Une never embraced her before, but if the lady would, she doubted that it would have the same effect as Dorothy's. It felt like an old memory. She wanted to feel it again.

Mariemaia lifted her arms slowly, twisted to face her cousin—and froze.

Dorothy wasn't paying any attention to her. There was a small convolution on the blonde's brow, her eyes seemed to be focusing on something from the dance floor; the flush of magenta that spilled across her face glowed like embers beneath her skin, and the overall look of her face unveiled another version of Dorothy that Mariemaia didn't know existed.

"What's the matter?" she asked, concerned.

"Can I have this dance—"

Mariemaia snapped her head towards the speaker, and gaped. Standing before her, facing her cousin in almost exaggerated princely stance, was the very counterpart of the icon she thought Dorothy really was: Quatre Raberba Winner.

"—Miss Khushrenada?" Quatre swiftly swirled, turning his laughing eyes, crooked smile, and an open hand towards Mariemaia.

The redhead, surprised, pushed a finger to her chest. "Me?"

Quatre nodded, and he took her hand and gently tugged at it, leading her to the dance floor. She looked back at Dorothy, who sported a semi-surprised expression that she concealed behind her mask.

While she danced with Quatre, she couldn't help but notice how his eyes repeatedly bounced back to where they left her cousin. She turned around once, and found Dorothy chatting with a man with green eyes and weird haircut—was that her 'uncle'?

There's something very funny going on here…

__

"I don't know what kind of world you're in now, cousin," Mariemaia whispered to the wind as she refloated to the present. "But I just can't wait to see you again and be a part of it, one way or another."

She raised her cupped palm to catch another petal. She shifted her weight to her other leg.

"Too slow."

"Five centimeters per second," declared a voice from behind her. "They said that's the speed of cherry blossoms as they fall to the ground."

She craned her neck around. A gasp escaped her mouth when she saw who the speaker was, and she missed the petal she was waiting for, slipping between her fingers and onto the soft grass.

"Heero Yuy," she muttered.

"I used to take care of a dinosaur's egg when I was a kid," Dorothy shared playfully, flicking a blond lock away from her cheek, "and it hatched on the third day of its 'incubation'. Ditzzy—the baby dinosaur—is easily the cutest thing I've ever seen, and it's too bad she's all just pixels. If I have extra time I'll still secure virtual pets to take care of." She crossed and re-crossed her legs imperturbably when she didn't notice any kind of reaction from the young man. "I'm willing to have a v-pet software installed in your notebook if you like, Mr. Winner. Waiting for a chick to spring out of that darling little egg seems absurdly passé for my tastes, in terms of looking for a pet."

Quatre just offered a coy smile at that. "I thought you don't like imitations of imitations? Why virtual pets?"

"I can guarantee you that I'll never secure one anymore if someone can get a real dinosaur for me." Dorothy mirrored his expression mockingly before leaning over the table. She tilted her head to the side, looking at the lone egg as if it were a badly drawn figure in an off-kilter painting. "I'm not sure I see the point of informing me that this egg's days on earth are fewer than a half a score. I mean, I don't care if it's seventeen days old, and… did I just tell you that this is a date?"

A chaperoned date, Dorothy corrected herself mentally as Quatre gave a small nod. She saw in her peripheral vision how Ahmed—she was positive it was Ahmed, she remembered meeting him at the construction site at L3—pushed himself off the doorjamb to whisper something to his partner, a man with sunglasses whose name she couldn't recall at all.

"Yes," Quatre spoke as he listlessly prodded the egg. "And it's a surprise. You're actually the last woman I expected to ask me out on a date."

A pink stain spilled across his face after he said that and she smiled despite herself. She did ask him out. Crossing out the lower half of her meetings list that day was only one of the painfully difficult steps to do it; just rehearsing everything in her mind stole a large chunk of her sleeping time and required more spittle to push her pride down her throat. It was hard, considering that they set off on the wrong foot from the very moment they cross paths again after the wars. They made no progress whatsoever after that, not even reaching a place where a 'friendship' signpost was erected.

But thanks to that little sexual jape she carelessly 'broadcasted' at Barton's expense yesterday, Dorothy has to take a shortcut to reach the dating stage.

She wasn't aware that Quatre was also there at the circus, but even if she was, she couldn't find a rational enough explanation to be bothered by it. It indeed bothered her however, rattled her brain in a panic-stricken search for some kind of foolproof explanation. Barton didn't make anything that could help her; he was the one who actually convinced her to explain herself to Quatre. Explain herself. She didn't know what for—she told herself she didn't know what exactly for—but after hearing Barton's brutal version of blarney, she knew she was left with no other option.

After all, it was because of her that Barton would be washing his own bed sheets, costumes, and anything that should be cleaned after use, from now on. The man must have realized by now that an angered sibling equates to additional responsibilities.

"I'm always the unpredictable one," Dorothy said, tucking her hair behind her ear. "But I'm afraid I don't want to discuss anything about that any further. What about dinner?"

"We're actually discussing dinner the instant we sat here."

Quatre pointed at the egg.

"Hardboiled chicken egg for dinner?"

"It's a seventeen-day-old duck's egg and it's not hardboiled."

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "So? Mr. Winner, I've eaten thousand-day-old duck's eggs before that are not hardboiled. You're not actually planning to starve me tonight, are you?"

"Of course not, Miss Dorothy. This is different."

There was something in Quatre's voice when he said the word 'different' that made a possible tastebud disaster ghost across her mind. She watched as he reached for the egg and tapped its pointy tip against the edge of the table.

"Here," Quatre offered. "Imagine it as your regular cup of Earl Grey—tip it up and drink its broth."

She cupped the egg with both hands and peeked cynically into the small crack. Broth?

"It's an Asian delicacy," Quatre explained. "The Maguanacs told me it's a common streetfood in some parts of L4, available especially during the scheduled colony winter. I don't think you'll find it common, though, and some first-time eaters find it rather unpleasant. I'm one of them but I eventually warmed up to the food."

Dorothy flipped through the mental images of her gourmet adventures on Earth, zeroing in on the ones she encountered in Asia. No plain egg recipes in it.

"I just thought about making this night remarkable," Quatre flashed a one-sided smile, ducking his head sheepishly. "And it all starts with what we eat. I'm giving you the privilege to do whatever you want to me if you don't like it."

She raised a brow. "You sound like you're certain I won't like it."

He shrugged. "Duo swore he won't attend any benefit parties I organize again after I made him eat that in one such event. It triggered almost the same reactions from the others."

"Well," Dorothy smiled nefariously, "I'm not Mr. Maxwell and the others."

She tilted her head back slightly and took a small swig from the egg, the shell hard on her lips. The 'soup' was warm, somewhat saline with light sweetness.

"It's good," she said at his expectant face, taking another drink. Quatre cocked a nod and took the egg from her, then flipped out a sizable patch of the brittle shell. She accepted it when he hesitantly gave it back to her, peeped at the now larger crack, and what she saw pushed her back against her chair.

Quatre caught the egg when it rolled away from her hands. He was carefully not looking at her reaction as he went on peeling it. In less than a minute, the whole thing was exposed.

"Seventeen days old," he said in a low voice.

As if she even needed that information.

Her gag reflex moved in spasms. It sure was a duck's egg, and the duckling—half-formed with a head, bill, and wings—was curled up against some yellowy mass inside the cradle-like shell. To Dorothy it looked like a tiny beast in repose, and some of the macabre scenes from the last zombie movie she saw flooded and clogged every corner of her skull. Picturing herself eating it, she suddenly felt like she belonged to those anthropophagites.

Oh, sure, this wasn't human flesh, but the level of repugnance it inspired was the same—it was the worst exotic…no, exotic's not the right term, but taboo—taboo food that she ever laid her eyes on.

The nectarous taste of the broth was still on her tongue. Her stomach pitchpoled.

…did she just drink its amniotic fluid?

"That," she managed, suddenly not having any strength to add some vitriol to it, "is simply the most remarkable way to scare my appetite away. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I can still make it to the washroom before I…"

She was gone from the table before she even finished her statement.

Quatre cast a troubled look at the Maguanacs.

"Don't worry, Master Quatre," Abdul said with a smirk, "If we won't be able to protect you this time, I think you're strong enough to live through another stab wound."

Very encouraging, Quatre thought with a heavy sigh.

Circus.

Brooke found it funny to imagine no bursting colors or roaring laughter whenever someone mentions that word. She went to a circus once when she was still a kid, but she couldn't remember anything about it that could make her smile. Instead, the images that would appear were the slush of mud under her boots, the dead shades of camouflage, bloodstains on her apron…

She angled her SLR vertically, aimed at the structural swirl of rainbow-colored flags festooning the whole tent. If she learned how to operate a camera before, she would have captured something that could be considered a remembrance of an ordinary childhood. She didn't have such a childhood though, and stealing a piece of something that squirmed away from her seemed fair enough—even if she would always emerge the loser no matter how she looked at it.

The happy din decrescendoed as her camera went on flashing, her feet shuffling away from the show. She warily looked around, then proceeded to the other parts of the tent where no other person seemed to have set a foot on.

It has gone a lot darker so she maneuvered the device to manual mode, twisting the small dial to adjust the aperture and shutter speed. She lifted the camera, and was a tad astonished to find a familiar man's face in the viewfinder.

"You," said the man, who lowered the laundry basket he was carrying at the same time she lowered her camera.

"You're…Trowa Barton?"

"You mean rice wine."

Quatre shook his head, his full attention on the slightly shaking crane. "No, they call it baby mice wine. The Chinese and Korean consider it a health tonic and even if Wufei doesn't believe it, he likes to imbibe a whole bottle just to get rid of ennui. He dared me to drink once when I paid Miss Noin a visit at the Preventer Headquarters. The sight of the little rodents fluttering at the bottom is enough to make your blood run cold. I tried it, though. It's as good as a hot cup of tea."

Dorothy felt her sweat-beaded forehead. "Weird little blokes."

"I'm very sorry about the egg," he said, looking at her over his shoulder with apologetic eyes. "I thought you'll like it. Miss Relena told me stories about some of your cuisine escapades on Earth."

Oh, still taking advices and tips from Miss Relena?

"Well," Dorothy chuckled, "I'm not adventurous enough to gobble down a single recipe from a cannibal's cookbook."

"It's not—"

"A little to the left," she instructed, placing her hand over his to stir the joystick to the right direction. "I'd like to have that dino plushie. She looks a lot like Ditzzy."

Quatre seemed to stiffen at her touch, and he pressed his other hand against the toy machine, leaning as if for support.

"You should've told me you want that one," Quatre said with light reproach. He sounded calm, but the slight hitch in his breathing could be easily noted.

"I really don't, but you've been targeting that white teddy bear for almost an hour now. Lady Luck might consider smiling at us if you aim for something else."

She propped an elbow on the plastic panel, shifting and pressing her side against Quatre while eyeing the trembling claw. She felt him shift too, and it was like he hesitated between inching away and pushing closer. A furtive smile tugged at her lips when he decided to go with the latter.

"Nothing happened yesterday," Dorothy muttered.

He caught what it was about in a jiffy. "I know."

"Why did you tear out then? I said whatever you heard in jest, and I'm never going to hook up with someone like Barton."

She felt the rumble of his smothered laughter. "What's so bad about Trowa?"

"Nothing that should interest you."

"I'm interested in anything about my friends."

"I'm not your friend."

Silence.

"It's about you?" It wasn't hard to tell that he was trying not to ponder further on her last statement.

"Yes."

He slowly slipped his hand off the joystick. Dorothy started when the claw halted, and she turned a questioning face towards her date.

"Mr. Winner?"

"Maybe I can just buy you a bigger Ditzzy somewhere else," he said in rather chapfallen tone he didn't bother concealing. "Lady Luck hates me."

"You think so?"

"I'm pretty sure about it."

"I can assure you that not all your hunches are always correct."

Quatre opened his mouth to retort, but Dorothy's warm hands that slid on either side of his face silenced him. She read the sudden confusion in his eyes, something that sent a triumphant feeling to sail across her stomach. Without any preamble, she stood on her toes and gently guided his head down.

Lady Luck loves her, there was no doubt about that, and Quatre's not-so-Quatre retaliation was his way of telling her he wouldn't be trusting his hunches again, despite the fact that he was a very powerful empath.

A/N:

Sorry about the delay! Not so much of a progress here, but I need to put a little get-together between Quatre and Dorothy to be able to move on.

Here are some trivia:

1. Five Centimeters Per Second is an animated movie.

2. How does the duck fetus egg get into this fic? In the Philippines, it's called a 'balut', a common streetfood. Tagalog is a language spoken in the Philippines; the word Maguanac is derived from the tagalog word 'Mag-anak', which means family, and the group itself is inspired by OFWs in Saudi Arabia. Bringing a Philippine delicacy to L4 is an idea I just can't resist, especially if I can picture Rashid enjoying it. (These details about the Maguanacs will play some important roles in the future)

I have requested another writer to make a 4xD ficcie with the prompt 'duck fetus egg', and while waiting to read her awesome take on it, I decided to try it myself. :)

Comments are appreciated and I'm in love with concrits. :)