Disclaimer: Gundam Wing does not belong to me, and I am making no monetary profit from this story.

Many thanks to KS for the brilliant beta job, and to Wolfje and Snow for their kind comments.

Warning: Angst with a gleam of sap and a glimmer of hope….

Trowa's POV:

From Trowa, to Quatre:

Pacing.

It's what animals do if you confine them in too small a space. People do it too. There wasn't a lot else to do, with the third-hand shuttle I'd bought from a friend of Steph's on auto-pilot, course fixed for L3.

He used to laugh at my habit of pacing while I was thinking, claiming I was wearing a groove in the floor, and giving him a crick in his neck, watching me.

That was when we used to laugh together. A long time ago, now.

I shouldn't have hung up on Cathy. She'd been trying to do her big sister act; something I usually indulged, because it was nice to feel I had an actual blood relation who cared that much about me.

The truth always hurts, Trowa.

That was what she'd said, just before I'd switched the 'phone off, not willing to listen to her criticising him anymore.

She'd never liked him, of course.

Right from the beginning, he'd been the one who'd taken her little brother away from her, who'd dragged me back to the war. When she found out he'd been the one responsible for my injuries in the first place, her opinion had plummeted even farther.

He'd already done two unforgivable things, before she even knew his full name.

After the war, Cathy had it all sorted out; that I would go back and live with her at the circus. Which I did. The problem was that I brought Quatre with me.

He'd tried so hard to win her over, to make friends with the only family I had, and nothing had worked. His carefully chosen gifts were considered a pathetic attempt to 'buy her off'; his attempts to spend time with her were seen as a roundabout way to impress me.

It hadn't helped that Quatre, back then, had still been torturing himself over having nearly killed me. I'd never blamed him for a second; he'd been under the influence of Zero, and even then he'd tried to warn me away. Of course, he blamed himself, and he'd been all too ready to pick up on anyone else's poor opinion of him.

My poor Quatre.

He'd wanted so very badly to be a part of my life at the circus. Even without Cathy's obvious dislike, he hadn't remotely fitted in. They all knew who he was; Quatre Raberba Winner, who could have bought the whole place out of his pocket change, slumming for a lark, but who'd go back to his own world eventually.

He couldn't win.

It hadn't been all bad. When I hadn't been working, we'd taken off in a borrowed truck, or on the motorbike he'd insisted on giving me, and there had been whole stretches of time when life was perfect. Seemed perfect.

Long nights in the smelly, stuffy little trailer that had been the only thing I could afford, crafting love and music and sighs and laughter. Laughter was one of the most precious things he'd ever given me. Alongside the love and trust and passion, there had also been friendship.

He'd been the first person to show me there was beauty in the world.

Quatre was the person who'd taught me to look at a landscape and see more than defensive positions, or suitable places to set an ambush; that trees had a purpose other than providing shelter, firewood, and shade; that a bird's call could be more than a warning of approaching danger,

Quatre, on the other hand, had fallen in love with the Earth the moment he'd landed.

He kept binoculars and a bird book in his cockpit, and scattered birdseed at Sandrock's feet to attract new species. He had pressed flowers between the pages of his old training manuals.

He'd taught me to appreciate the painted colours of a sunset, and the sparkle of sunlight on water.

More than anything, he'd taught me that life could offer more than simple survival; that existence was more than the opposite of death. There was beauty and joy and laughter in the world.

Sex, for both of us, had been a revelation. He was sunlight and dreams and terrifying innocence; that blond head was stuffed full of romantic nonsense, about how sex was the union of souls, the highest expression of love. At the same time, he was terrified of the reality.

Homosexuality had been the big taboo on L4. He'd grown up believing he was intrinsically damaged, tainted in the eyes of his father and his god. A boy he'd known as a child had been raped, and had killed himself for the disgrace it would bring to his family.

He'd told me that story not long after our first meeting; a halting attempt to explain why it was all so difficult for him, that some part of his mind associated gay sex with pain and death and shame, even though he truly loved me.

I'd just held him while he cried, and wanted to kill everyone who'd messed him up like this. I'd assured him that there was nothing - nothing - wrong with him, and that I'd never harm him, never let anything bad happen to him.

Another promise I'd failed to keep.

He'd tried to kill himself a few months after the War. I hadn't been there. I hadn't wanted to go, to leave him, but he'd insisted he was perfectly fine and could easily survive without me for a couple of hours if I went to check the security systems of a new Winner complex.

I was the one who'd found him, bleeding his life out in his study. It took two days for his doctors to pronounce him stable. He still has the scars.

Afterwards, he'd dutifully seen a therapist, at his doctors' insistence. He'd attended the specified number of sessions, fed the woman a mish-mash of PTSD and residual guilt from the war, and came home to me.

He'd told me the real reason in bed that night; how one of those bloody sisters of his had informed him that his mother had died giving birth to him. Already tormented by their recriminations, by guilt that he wasn't the son his father had wanted, by remorse over what he'd done during the war, my lover had snapped.

I wished he'd broken the bitch's neck. Instead, he'd smashed the nearest window and torn his wrists open with the longest shard of glass he could find.

My darling, damaged Quatre.

Ever since we met, I'd been the dazzled moth drawn inexorably to his shining star. He'd been the brightness in my world for years, and I'd left him one month before the eighth anniversary of our first meeting.

Dear Quatre,

I can't do this any more. I don't think either of us can.

This was never how we'd planned our lives to be, and it shouldn't be like this.

I have loved you since the first moment we met, when you opened Sandrock's hatch, and I will never stop. You have to know that.

But this is destroying us both.

Life, Quatre, is about choices, and this is mine.

There is nothing in this world I would not do for you, but I refuse to hurt you. Not like this.

Yours, always,

Trowa

It was the last tangible communication I'd had with him; the letter I'd written to him the day I left L4.

The day I'd left him.

A handful of inadequate words scattered across a page torn from a notebook.

A poor memorial for a love that I'd dared to hope would last forever, and in the end I'd taken it with me.

There was no point, really, in leaving it. There was nothing on the page that I hadn't tried to say a hundred times, and each time, Quatre had listened and cried and promised that things would change.

Our last months together had been a blur of sex and searing arguments, and accusations flung at each other, and later tearfully retracted. I'd accused him of having an affair; he'd complained of the time I was devoting to Duo.

I'd kept the note carefully folded in my wallet anyway. I'd actually believed that I could just cut him out of my life by sheer effort of will. That I could forget what it had been like to be his lover. I'd done it before; sliced away sections of my past.

I'd convinced myself that leaving him was the best thing for both of us. We'd tried and ultimately it hadn't worked. Time to move on; get on with my life. Time to be alone again. I hadn't bargained for Duo. I still had shimmering little moments of disbelief that anything had ever happened between us. It was still overwhelming, that Duo Maxwell had been attracted to me.

I supposed it had all worked out in the end. Duo had got back with Heero, finally, and I'd realised that Quatre Winner had himself too firmly ensconced in my soul to be flung out that easily. Duo and I were still friends, which was the main thing.

My 'phone buzzed again; not Cathy this time. Wufei.

My staunch, loyal friend had talked to me a couple of hours previously, on his way to call Une. I knew it would be a wasted effort, but I hadn't bothered to try to dissuade him. He needed to feel he was doing something to help, and I understood that.

He'd been a rock over the past couple of weeks, right from the day when I'd arrived back on Earth. He'd given me space, let me talk, somehow convinced Duo to listen to what I had to say without exploding over how I'd treated Quatre.

We'd been friends of a sort during the war. Well, we'd been on the same side. Afterwards, we'd had a row about my refusal to join Preventers; I could handle that. He was messed up and needed something to give his life a direction. I was luckier than him; I had Quatre.

We hadn't fallen out until he'd insulted my boyfriend. Quatre had refused to tell me exactly what he'd said, but it had upset the hell out of him. Bad enough that his family were constantly on his back about 'appropriate behaviour'; he didn't need lectures from someone he'd once considered a friend.

It had surprised me that he'd bothered come to L4 after Quatre's suicide attempt, but he'd proven to be a godsend, dealing with the medical staff, the Winner family and the media like he'd been doing it all his life.

A few weeks after Duo's accident, he'd apologised to us both separately for how he'd behaved to us after the war. My dear, generous Quatre had flung his arms around him after the first few stumbling words, claiming he'd forgotten all about it.

I'd waited for him to stammer out every syllable of his carefully prepared speech. He'd hurt Quatre; unacceptable. After, I'd taken him to a bar, bought him what was probably his first beer, and let him talk. It had all come pouring out; the emptiness he'd felt after the war ended.

He'd had to come to terms with the deaths of his family and the destruction of his colony, with knowing that all his passion for vengeance and justice would never bring them back. He'd killed Treize, he'd lost everything that had been sustaining him over the during the war.

The 'phone rang out; then began again and this time I flicked it open.

'Hey, 'Fei. How'd it go?'

'I'm sorry, Trowa. I tried, but the woman refused to listen to anything I had to say.' A colony away, I could hear the frustration crackling in my friend's voice. I'd known all along that his trying to talk to Une would be a waste of time and effort, but understood too that he'd needed to do something. Chang Wufei has never been good at letting events take place without his input.

'It's OK, 'Fei. I guess I am the obvious suspect, right? The jilted, gold-digging ex with the dodgy past? So...what's the deal? Did she give her agents orders to shoot on sight?'

'Of course not! Nothing of the sort. You are to be apprehended for questioning, unharmed if possible.'

'Yeah. Good luck with that.' I muttered.

'Where are you now?' Wufei chose to ignore my last comment. 'Not still on that Winner satellite?'

'No. That was a waste of time.' It had been a damn forlorn hope to begin with; Duo had given me the co-ordinates, which had been mentioned by one of the men who'd attacked Wufei and Zechs.

'According to Noin, the Preventers are sending a shuttle out to check on it later today.'

'Wonderful timing. If he'd been there, they'd never find a trace of him at this stage. Assuming they can even navigate correctly enough to find the place.'

'They had to follow procedures, Trowa. You know that.' He'd been a Preventer for almost two years; he probably felt he had to defend them.

'Well, I don't. I should have done this from the start, 'Fei. Instead of sitting back and letting them fuck up 'til the trail's cold.'

'What's the plan now?'

'L3. Those four guys who attacked you in the desert….I've been running background checks on them. Three of them are legit - locals who've been working there for years - the fourth is from L3. Arrived on L4 a couple of weeks ago using false ID and got the security job. I've managed to trace his real name, and an address.'

'You think that may be connected to Quatre vanishing?'

'I don't exactly have a lot else to go on,' I said bitterly. 'There has to be a connection. One former Pilot missing, and another attacked. Too much of a coincidence, don't you think?'

'Trowa, should I give this information to Noin?'

'Nope. If they can't work it out for themselves, they don't deserve help. They've fucked everything up so far. He's been missing for over a week, and they don't have a freaking clue what's happened. Shit, maybe they're behind the whole thing? He'd been criticising them for months now, agitating for more colonial independence. No way is Earth going to grant L4 autonomy; they need it too much. Maybe it is an ESUN operation to get rid of him, like all those L4 conspiracy theorists are claiming? '

'You don't really believe that, do you?'

'I don't know what to believe,' I snapped, then took a deep breath. 'No, not really. If they'd wanted rid of him, they'd have arranged a nice, neat little accident. There are too many loose ends to all of this. I was listening to the news before you called. More demonstrations on the colonies and they're starting to spread to Earth. The colonies are getting sick of the ESUN having so much control over them.'

'I know,' Wufei sighed. 'The whole situation is appalling. I saw that Winner Enterprises share prices have plummeted again. It's the lowest they've been since the war ended. Given how much WEI has invested in the other colonies, and in Earth, this could precipitate a global crisis.'

'I'm going to find him, 'Fei, if I have to tear the universe apart with my bare hands. Then we'll sort everything else out.'

'What's wrong with him, Trowa?'

'I don't know.' The admission hurt. He was my lover, my best friend, my everything, and I had no idea what was wrong. 'You know Quatre. He thinks he can carry the weight of the universe by himself. I'll drag him away from L4 if that's what it takes; get him away from that bloody family of his. It's not like anyone of them gives a damn about him.'

'I think that would be an excellent idea,' my friend approved.

'You do?' I didn't even try to keep the surprise out of my voice. 'You think he should just walk straight away from all his precious duties and responsibilities?'

'Actually, yes. I do. He's given that colony and his family seven years. He's made it the most prosperous place in the universe; his sisters have more wealth than they can ever spend in a dozen lifetimes. I think he has repaid his father's dreams many times over, and it's taken a huge toll on him. Perhaps he is suffering…some form of breakdown?'

'He's not crazy.' I said it far too fast. Not because I believed it for a second, but because Quatre had, in his darkest moments. Burdened with the empathy that he couldn't always control, he'd spent his childhood in and out of psychiatrists' offices, or cloistered behind the high walls of the Winner estate, hidden away by his father. 'He's alive and I'm going to find him. I'd know if he were dead, 'Fei.'

I'd been clinging to that frail wisp of hope ever since he'd vanished, but I'd never shared his gift. His curse, he'd called it. I'd felt him, just a couple of times in my whole life.

Looking at the facts, the chances were that he'd died. Whoever had taken him had got close enough to take out two highly trained warriors. They'd killed an innocent girl who hadn't posed any threat to them.

It looked like they'd taken Quatre alive, so they'd presumably needed him for something. So many things could have gone wrong, though. He'd made at least one escape attempt that we knew of; he'd managed to draw that little diagram of Sandrock. Maybe his abductors had panicked. No one had said it, but if no ransom demand had been issued by this stage, there was probably a reason.

'Fuck, 'Fei. Where the hell is he? There's been no ransom demand, no one accepting responsibility. Nothing. Anyone could have taken him for any damned reason. He's an ex Gundam Pilot. He's the head of a major corporation. He's gay, on L4, and he's not as discreet about it as he thinks. He's been speaking out against ESUN policies. It could be someone who wants revenge for something during the war, some fucking homophobe, some psycho who doesn't like his hair colour.'

'No.' Wufei said surprisingly, firmly. 'I spent hours with Noin this afternoon, looking at the few facts we know. They are professional; well organised, skilled at covering their tracks. But they've made mistakes. He apparently escaped once, to that apartment building. You have a possible name to track down on L3.' He paused for a minute. 'L3...who was talking about that? Ah! Do you know anything about a company called Triton Holdings?'

'Triton? Never heard of them? Why?'

'They're a WEI subsidiary, on L3. Property management. Duo and that young Preventer, the girl who's guarding the children, looked at a list of WEI holdings and Duo noticed the name. Heero apparently had someone check it out and they seem legit, but…'

I shrugged. 'I don't know all our companies, but Quatre does. It's odd that he never changed that name; you know he's never liked my real name. I'll see what I can dig up. Plus the guys who attacked you were using ammo manufactured on L3 so….who knows? Maybe it's all just a wild goose chase and I'm seeing connections because I want to?'

'I don't believe in coincidences,' he said succinctly. 'But speaking of wild geese, that was a clever way to keep Duo from following you.'

'Was it that obvious?'

He laughed softly. 'If you'd thought there might really be anything useful there, you'd have gone yourself. Well, he'll figure it out eventually; I think he liked the idea of taking Heero off to the cottage. He probably wasn't thinking too hard about anything else.'

'Hopefully, Heero will keep him distracted for a while. I have every faith in him, actually. And who knows? Perhaps he will find something. There really was a disturbance in the security system a few days before Quatre disappeared. Probably just a glitch, or a wild animal, but possibly not. Anyway, I needed to think of some way to stop him from coming with me; bad enough for one of us to be running around evading the law…Duo doesn't need that.'

'No.' He agreed. 'You know, he's not going to be happy when he works out what you did. Still, he should be occupied with Heero for the next while. He texted me just before I called you; they'd just arrived at the cottage.'

'You're really OK with that?' I had to ask.

'Yes, I think you did the right thing. He's already facing this ridiculous court trial or whatever it is. He doesn't need any more trouble.'

'That's not what I meant. I was talking about the whole Heero/Duo thing. You approve?'

'Oh!' He was silent for a moment; I could imagine him pinching the bridge of his nose, the way he does when he's considering something. 'Yes. I think I do. I think. I just...don't want Duo to be hurt again. Not like the last time.'

The last time. It was 'Fei, more than any of us, who'd borne the brunt of that. He'd been the one who'd lived with Duo 24/7 for months. Quatre's idea, of course. At the time, I'd thought it was insane, but somehow it had worked out for them both, even if they'd never got together the way my sneaky lover had originally planned. Millardo Peacecraft had ended any possibility of that ever happening.

'Heero really does care about him, you know. There's never really been anyone for him but Duo. They're not kids any more, 'Fei. I think they can maybe make it work this time.'

'Hn,' He made a Heero-noise, probably unconsciously. 'I hope so.'

'You and Heero seemed to getting on OK back at the hospital.' I couldn't help probing a little bit further. I had my suspicions about what had happened between the two of them after the war, but maybe I was mistaken. Still, they'd apparently sorted out six or so years of enmity in as many minutes, and that was the important thing.

'Yes. I - I believe so,' He sounded unusually hesitant. 'As you have told me frequently, we all made mistakes after the war. But perhaps it is possible to move on.' He paused again. 'Trowa, I'm sorry I'm not there with you. I don't want to leave Zechs right now, not when he's hurt.'

'Relax. I wouldn't have brought you either. Quatre's my responsibility. I'm the one who needs to find him. And Zechs needs you right now. He's a good guy, you know. You two fit together. You want to hang on to him.'

Duo would have made a joke about the double entendres. Wufei simply said, his tone as crisp as frost, 'I have every intention of doing so.'

'Good. You are allowed to put him first sometimes, you know.'

'W-what does that mean?'

Despite everything, I couldn't help grinning at the confusion in his voice. To catch Chang Wufei off-balance is a rare and wonderful thing.

'The man is so crazy about you it's a wonder he can see straight,' I told him bluntly. 'It wouldn't hurt sometimes to show him that you feel the same, instead of slotting him in around the rest of your life. If you really want to marry him, you need to be damn sure that he's the centre of your universe.'

He was silent for long enough for me to wonder if I'd offended the hell out of him. It wasn't like I was exactly qualified to give anyone advice on relationships. He was happily engaged; I was the one who'd abandoned the love of my life.

'You are correct,' he said finally, a little bit stiffly, but it was something he needed to think about. Well, admitting it was a start. I'd stayed in their house for three weeks; I'd spent a lot of time with Zechs while Wufei was shut up in his study and Duo was in Florida, long enough to see how their relationship worked. Wufei has an IQ that's probably way off the recorded scale, but he sometimes can't see things that are right under his nose.

'He knows you love him, really. All I'm saying is that he might appreciate it if you were the one to seek him out occasionally, be the one to jump his bones now and then instead of making him do all the running.'

'Oh!' I could hear the shock in his voice, almost feel his flush of embarrassment. You'd think after three years with Zechs he'd be immune to that but apparently not.

'Perhaps I …need to work on my …ah, seduction skills,' he faltered. 'Is that what you mean?'

I had to laugh at that. Had to. ''Fei, seriously, all you have to do is to walk into a room to get him interested. What you need to do is make the first move sometimes, just to let him know that you want him as much as he wants you.'

'I do!' He probably blurted that out without thinking, because there was another awkward little silence. Or maybe he was just imagining his gorgeous blond prince wanting him. Or maybe we just weren't used to talking about so much personal stuff. Quatre was usually the one everybody confided in; he was so much better at it than I could ever be.

He's always had this amazing knack of getting people to open up to him. Even me.

'Zechs is your responsibility. Duo and Heero can take of each other, and I'm going to find Quatre and fix this.'

'You're sounding more….positive than you have for a long time.'

'Yeah. I'm doing something. That helps. The last few weeks have been hell, you know. I still had that drug in my system, I was depressed, I was trying to convince myself I could just drop him and move on. Well, that's never going to work. I'm going to find him and when he's safe, I'm going to sort all this shit out.'

'It's nice to have you back, Trowa. I've been worried about you.'

'Me too.' For eight years, I'd had Quatre to charm me out of my bouts of depression; my beautiful blond love who'd taken my monochrome life and made it shine with all the colours of the universe. This time, I'd clawed my way out alone, to save him.