Author's Note: Thank you Archsage Soren and Kibin Okami for responding to my request for more OCs. You have no idea how much you have made things simpler for me and all I can offer you as of right now is my gratitude until I actually introduce the OCs you have generously donated to me. For everyone else, enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing.

Warning: language

Ask the Right Questions

Over the past few hours, Trowa had found himself pondering over all the information that had been bestowed upon him, Solo, and Duo, most of which answered so many questions that had been bothering him for years on end. But not all of his questions had been answered.

Why had he been the one out of countless others who survived? What made him so special that he was allowed to live? Why had he been taken and forced into this in the first place? It had been those questions he hadn't thought to ask when Mr. James Maxwell had been revealing his role in all this, questions that now popped up into his head that he desired to ask the elder the first chance he received.

However, his self-appointed duty was to Catherine first and he would not leave her side for long amounts of time since he was partly to blame for her current condition. It was true that he had control over plants and could grow certain ones wherever he wanted, no matter the climate or terrain, even summon ones that contained cures for some of the most deadly diseases that haunted humanity to this day, but how was any of that useful when waiting for someone to recover from concussion-caused injuries where force was the culprit and not some tiny organism? He was becoming more and more worried that the one person that he had opened himself up to love, even if it was platonic, would fall into a coma with each passing day she remained unconscious. He felt as if the powers that had been forced on him were worthless since he could not find any solution that they had the ability to grant him.

Hearing a moan come from Catherine, though, was enough to stop all thought in his mind as he placed all of his attention on the prone, young woman who was shifting in the bed that she had yet to leave since he had first put her there. Seeing her eyelids flutter open and close as even the dim light in the room hurt her eyes was enough to make his heartbeat go offbeat.

"Tr…Trowa?" Catherine rasped as she groaned from the dull throbbing in her head.

"Cathy!" he exclaimed quietly, joy filling his being. "Thank God! You're okay!"

"Tr-Trowa? Catherine managed to stuttered, puzzled by his rare outburst. "Wh-what are you…talking about?"

Smiling gently yet sadly at the young woman, Trowa answered, "We were in an accident and the RV is…well, it's totaled. Do you remember that sandstorm?"

Her eyes widened in remembrance before shutting quickly as she groaned aloud, whether it was from pain or something else, the unibanged, young man knew not. "You're kidding me, aren't you?" she demanded.

"You've been out for almost an entire week, Catherine," he told her, confirming indirectly her fear. "I wish that it were otherwise, but—"

"Enough of that," Catherine interrupted, sighing. "So we're unemployed, we're…where are we?"

"A priest allowed us to board here until we're ready to leave," Trowa answered patiently.

"We're in a church? What do you know, I'm not that religious anyway," Catherine commented before continuing, "anyway, if I'm not wrong, we have three freeloaders with us as well."

"Correct," Trowa said, nodding his head.

"Well that's all fine and dandy," Catherine replied sarcastically. "Now what do we do?" Sighing, her head lifted up suddenly as a thought occurred to her. "Hey, didn't those two boys, Solo and Duo I mean, aren't they special?"

"How do you mean?" Trowa asked, curious as to what she was thinking.

"They have those superpowers, right?" Catherine questioned. "And you do too, don't you?"

"Yes," he confirmed, still not clued in to the female's thoughts.

"Did you ever plan on telling me?"

Trowa blinked as Catherine's words hit him. Oh. Yeah. He had forgotten that he had never told her about any of that so this all must have been a shock to her, a shock that had taken her world and turned it upside down, rearranging everything in the process.

From the way she was staring him down, he knew that there was no way he was going to be able to slip out of this.

---

Trowa wasn't the only one to have been mulling over all the information given to them by James Maxwell. If he had known that many of the same questions the unibanged other was asking himself were the same ones he was thinking about, Solo would have done something else with his time instead.

But, because he didn't, he was pondering those same questions. Why had he been chosen in the first place? How was it he was still alive even though he had gone through Hell and back? What was it that he had that allowed him to survive and others to die? There was just so much on his mind yet he doubted even that guy, James, had all the answers. That Xavien guy, though, he might know. He was the guy behind this all so it stood to reason that he knew the answers to the questions that James Maxwell didn't. Hmm, that was a thought. Maybe he should pay this Xavien guy a visit. There in lied the one problem with that: how the hell was he going to find the son of a bitch? He wasn't military, so he could be anywhere and since he was a businessman, there was little to no chance he was back at that hellhole he and Duo had escaped from. Even if he wanted to go back, he couldn't; he had forgotten how to get back there, especially since he had been running away from it and not to it.

He came out of his thoughts but for a minute as he glanced over at the sight of Duo sticking close to the side of that nun again but unlike previous times, Duo seemed to be in some perpetual state of being out of it. He was staring ahead of himself, just like he himself was, he was sure, lost either in thoughts or memories of what had happened only just last night. Solo sympathized with him; it wasn't everyday you attacked a person close to you with no provocation and without any control over yourself. The nun was making overtures to him only to be disappointed by the silent rebuttals.

Solo knew he wasn't good with other people's emotions; he didn't even know the basics in trying to comfort someone. Growing up on the streets, one learned that their environment was unforgiving and you couldn't sit around long enough to comfort somebody unless you were begging to become another of the countless victims who fell prey to the human predators that prowled about, just waiting for such an opportunity to strike.

It was a dog eat dog world out there, a concept that some people around here couldn't grasp.

"What's on you mind?" asked a certain blonde girl with peculiar eyebrows.

Yeah, people like little Miss Eyebrows, or whatever her name was, who thought that the world owed them shit and—oh, wait, she was sitting right next to him, looking at him for some reason, just staring…as if…

"You say somethin'?" he asked her bluntly.

As if he just burst some bubble that her little mind was in, Dorothy blinked her eyes as a frown began to mar her face. "I can't believe you just ignored me!"

"I can do a lot more than just ignore ya," he said boldly, almost proudly.

"And here I was worried about you!" Dorothy exclaimed, getting up in a huff and marching away.

Watching her stomp away, Solo asked aloud, "What bug crawled up her ass?"

---

The moment Dorothy came upon a branching hallway, she slipped into it, placing her back against the wall. What had she been thinking, trying to try and comfort that boy…that wasn't one of her better ideas, sheesh!

It was only last night that she had begun to learn, starting with the moment she heard a loud crash. Sneaking out of her, she had come upon the sight of Duo threatening Sister Helen's life and in fear she felt her body freeze. However, the situation had been resolved and everyone that had been involved had left to go the church chapel. Peeved that she hadn't been invited by that man who seemed to know what was going on, she spied on their little powwow and had heard some of the most fantastic things in her life. Human experimentation to give people superpowers? A conspiracy perpetrated by one of the largest business corporations in the world? Trowa having powers of his own?

And she had felt sorry for them, for Solo especially. She didn't know why she felt this way and when she had seen him just sitting there, she had experienced the most insane urge to speak with him. Pfft, she should have known just because he learned about something as big as this that he wasn't going to change, at least in a significant manner.

But on top of all that, she had had another dream last night, one in which she was some rich noble who had just bought a new sex slave who was tall, muscular, and had long blond hair…

---

No matter how long he lived, Solo was sure, he would never understand the inner workings of a girl's brain. It was just impossible. He'd rather deal with Vera again than deal with such things and he hated Vera with such a passion…

"Young love, eh?" a familiar voice asked and as he looked up, he noticed it was that James guy again.

"What would you know 'bout it?" he grumbled.

"I wouldn't," James admitted, sighing as he took a seat next to him. "I just noticed you were having some trouble with that young lady."

"She ain't no lady," Solo retorted. "She's just some stalker that won't leave me alone."

"Sorry to hear about that," James said, shaking his head to himself as if telling himself a private joke.

"What do ya have ta be sorry for?" Solo snorted.

"More things than you'll ever know," James muttered to himself.

Smirking, Solo replied, "Speakin' of knowin' things, maybe ya can clear some things up for me."

"As long as it doesn't involve relationships, I think I should be able to help," James jested.

"Maybe some other time," Solo shrugged. "But that wasn't what I want ta ask. What I want ta know is why was I picked by that Xavien guy in da first place?"

"What do you know about fishing?" James asked instead of answering the blond, ticking him off a bit.

"What da hell does fishin' have ta do with anything?" he demanded.

"It's an analogy," James explained patiently, not put off. "When a person goes fishing, they cast their line into the water with some sort of bait on the hook. They don't expect a certain to fish to come and bite it, not like some of the stuff you see on TV or in the movies. When a person fishes, they take any fish they can get. This fits your situation because in this case, you were the fish and Xavien was the fisherman. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time or you got caught on Xavien's hook and couldn't get yourself loose. Does this answer your question?"

"A bit," Solo replied, scratching the back of his head as he recalled a time long ago when he had still been out on the streets and had caught sight of a twenty dollar bill sticking out of some schmuck's coat pocket. Fishing for human guinea pigs? That made a lot of sense, somehow.

"Of course, Xavien made sure that he made his bait appeal to a certain kind of fish," James continued. "He couldn't just take anybody; that would raise too many questions. So he specifically targeted certain folk in certain lifestyles."

"What?" Solo said, confused. He had thought that he had just been unlucky but now this guy was saying the complete opposite. "Can't ya say that in plain English?"

"Xavien was aiming for people who wouldn't be missed," James said in answer. "Because of your lifestyle, because no one would miss you if you went missing, that's why you were captured. He was looking for people like you but not you in particular. Understand?"

"Not really," Solo shrugged, "but can ya tell me why I'm still alive and why others aren't?"

"I cannot," James answered sorrowfully. "I don't fully understand why those who died, died, and why those who lived, lived. I don't know everything there is to know about Solution 1051 and I don't know everything that has resulted because of Project Maxwell."

"Then what do you know?" Solo demanded.

"Probably the answers to questions you aren't asking," James replied.

"English!" Solo exclaimed, frustrated.

Before James could reply, there was a pounding at the church doors. Somebody was wanting to come in and neither of the two knew if the doors were locked or open.

Sighing, Solo got up. "I'll take care of it. Don't you go anywhere."

"Wouldn't think of it," James said, shifting to get more comfortable.

Solo trudged over to the large doors as if he was doing it against his will. In no time, he was in front of said doors and made sure to check if it was locked, which it was, before opening it up. On the other side of the door stood a small kid with short black hair and shit-brown eyes which were looking up at him like a puppy would to its master. His eyes raking over the kid's outfit, which was too big for him, he said, "We don't want any, go away."

"Now, now, Solo, we don't turn everyone away from the house of God," Father Maxwell gently reprimanded as he came up from behind the door. "Let our guest in—"

However, before the priest could finish, a strong gust of wind blew both doors wide open, a surge of sunlight entering the chapel and lighting it up more strongly that the electrical lights on the ceiling. Solo covered his eyes with an arm, protecting them from being irritated by the fast moving air but as soon as it stopped, he glared out through the open doorway.

Standing just beyond the short kid stood four other guys in familiar black outfits that the blond had definitely seen before. It was the one in the center, the Chinese-looking guy with dark eyes who spoke first, proclaiming, "Come out and face me like a man, Solo! Do it before I have this building torn apart, brick by brick."

Solo swore. "Son of a bitch."