I felt somewhat bad about slapping Trowa, but it needed to be done. Pain is really not a good reinforcement with slaves who are beaten regularly, but there was no other way for me to translate how strongly I felt about this to him.

And I did feel strongly about it. More than once I contemplated finding the Duke when he was alone and putting the bars in him, to see how he liked it, and only my mission kept me from actually attempting it. And even then, I was barely restrained.

I had been blind to Trowa in the time I knew him before I slapped him. Granting that much of the blindness came from the fact that I had only known him for a few days, it still is not excusable. I needed to know my slaves as well as any lover did. I needed to know how they thought if I was going to have any hopes of keeping them safe.

I hadn't been sure of Trowa because I hadn't know the kind of pain an fear he had lived in. Once I knew, it was easy to see how he had taken the pain and the fear and put it in a box, then closed that box, successfully securing all his emotions from ever surfacing. In the darkness, the box had festered, overcome by the bad emotions and unable to release the good. Where Heero had destroyed his emotions and Quatre had nearly been destroyed by them, Trowa had merely removed them, creating a hollow shell where once stood a person. By removing the bars, effectively taking the symbol of pain and fear from his life, I had lanced the wound, and the poisonous emotions had spilled out, welling up until he let his eyes purge his body of the noxious feelings he had trapped inside. His tears had cleansed my vision, and I was suddenly able to see that he was no better off than my other two.

Heero, for all his progress, still repressed many of his emotions, and still focused on pleasing me as his only purpose. He did not see himself as a person, but merely a tool to be used by the master. I think he was still under the impression that I would abandon that tool were it to break or become obsolete, so he pushed himself farther than I would have ever asked.

Quatre was still battered from his treatment, inside and out, and would probably be timid and distrustful for some time to come. I hoped to one day meet the happy boy I imagined he had been, but I knew that it would take time we did not have.

Trowa had only begun to recover, and the variable of how the other two would take to him still hung in the air. Heero had been skittish, and Quatre had not met him, but we would soon learn if they could get along or not. I could only hope that they would, for even with my best efforts the fighting of my slaves would only cause more pain in the house. As a united force, they could heal each other in ways that I could not hope to, because I was the master, and thus unable to come down to their plane and see what they saw. Even with the horrors I had seen in war, I had never faced such cruel conditions, and I doubted I would be the same if I had. So the only option I could see was to help them heal each other, but I could not force them. Forcing them to help one another would be defeating my own purpose.

Trowa's tears subsided slowly, but eventually they trickled to a stop. I released him long enough to push the remnants of his torment off the table, letting the pieces clatter into the garbage can. The control shattered on the way down, and Trowa watched with an unreadable intent. Once it was over I closed the lid on the now pathetic-looking site, hoping to put it from Trowa's mind.

Then the ordeal was over and I felt all the rage that had empowered me suddenly seep away. I felt as though I could fall asleep on my feet, and from the way Trowa swayed in his seat, he was closer than I was. A few hours of sleep could not make up for months of sleep depravation, nor could one meal reverse the affects of a slow starvation. With that thought in mind, I quickly forced another sandwich into Trowa, who I was pleased to note ate more than he did at the previous meal, grabbed a blanket from the closet, and took him to curl up in front of the TV.

I couldn't help but reminisce as I lay there with Trowa, who was as anxious about laying still in the presence of his master as Heero had been in his first few days. Laying with Trowa was similar to what I had gone through with Heero in that they both needed a physical comfort that masters did not often give at Collar. They had needed to be held, to know that they were cherished, and I found it easy to give that to them. With Trowa, there was an added agenda behind our bonding sessions, as I also knew that I would need to quickly break him from the fear of physical contact that his repeated shocks had brought on. Having him shy away from me in front of the other masters was something I hoped to avoid, for it would show that I had not gained his trust and loyalty, which to them would mean that I was a weak master.

Trowa was also physically different from Heero, as Trowa was tall and slender where Heero was small and compact. I attributed some of this to their heritage, as Heero was Asian, which was a shorter race, and Trowa seemed European, which was one of the tallest races. Despite this obstacle already being against him, I also could tell from his slender bone structure that some of Heero's slight stature was from improper nutrition at critical growing stages. There was a possibility that Sally and I could stimulate his growth hormones with better nutrition and vitamin supplements, but I doubted he would ever regain his biological stature. Trowa, on the other hand, looked as though he were finished growing. At least, I hoped he was old enough to be through most of his growing stages. As it was, he was only a few inches shorter than I was. It would feel strange to look up at one's slave, I thought.

I hadn't really been able to assess Quatre's physical condition well enough to tell if he was still growing or had been stunted. He was a little taller than Heero, but from what I could tell of his health it was most likely simply that he was short, and there was always the possibility that he hadn't hit his growth spurts yet.

When working with boys between the ages of sixteen and twenty, there was always the possibility that they would grow three or four inches in a short period of time. I was well aware of how young the boys really were, and how much of their youth they had missed out on. I could only hope, for their sakes, that I could return some of that youthful happiness to them.