Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Eyes Cold As Death ❯ Three ( Chapter 3 )

Will I ever be able to breathe again? Or will the oppressiveness of my sorrow suffocate me?

Will his eyes ever shine again?

Will he remember?

Eyes Cold As Death

Chapter Three-Recovery

"I'm sorry, Trowa. I really am."

Cathy's words echoed in Trowa's mind as he raced down the deserted street dragging Cathy behind him.

Nanashi.

A cold wind blew through the dusty streets selecting various bags and trash to play with. Streetlights barely illuminated a small circle on the cracked and stained concrete. It was as if they were walking through a different city-it looked nothing like it did during the day. With its friendly bustling people and blue cheery skies, this evening ghost town seemed like a set from the old pre-Colony movies. Trowa suppressed a chill and attributed his change in perception to learning that Quatre might in fact be in this city-somewhere, calling himself Nanashi.

Nanashi. Shit.

The chilling wind cleared a path for Trowa as he jogged over the rusted cement. Wait-rust, or blood? He could see hazy shapes squatting in the shadows and the cold glow of a trashcan fire. The smell of rotten humans and trash drifted out of the alleys and tried to choke him. He glanced around desperately-Quatre had to be here.

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Wufei clutched at his armrests, his knuckles turning white. Idly, he watched the small veins throb as he continue to tighten his hold. Abruptly he released his death grip on the chair, knowing that he would begin to tear the worn material. He glanced impatiently behind him and spotted the beverage cart making its depressingly slow way toward him. He threw himself back into his seat; not caring about the soft yelp that came from behind him.

He was on the red-eye flight to a city called Svetlaine. Apparently, Dorothy and Relena had found positive information that Quatre was residing in the city. He had been briefed to look in the poorer sections of the city-namely homeless shelters and junkyards, anywhere that someone without a home or a name would be. His eyes drifted to the terrible photograph of Quatre. Terrible in almost every way. Terrible in the sense that Quatre was filthy. His hair was stringy and his eyes, dull. There were bruises visible on his face and neck underneath the dirt that caked almost every inch of his skin. It was a terrible exposure, which only served to make Quatre's face grainy and flat. And it was terrible because it showed that Quatre had been through hell-and that he was wanted.

This was not the Quatre he had grown to respect. But one question drifted relentlessly through his mind-would Quatre ever again be the man he had come to respect? Or would the loving, gentle Quatre forever be taken away by greedy soldiers wanting to score one against the Gundams.

He swore that if it were the latter, he would hunt down every last motherfucker that served in the Eagle Squadron and personally slit their throats.

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Cathy disengaged her hand from the crushing force that was Trowa's hand. She continued to walk beside him. Several times, during the course of their midnight search, she had tried to start a conversation, but Trowa's mind was elsewhere, and if he answered at all, it was always something about Quatre. Of course, she completely understood. She began dragging slightly behind, taking an opportunity to observe the city around her. She noticed bums huddled together over burning trashcans, and bums that were stretched out over the rotting concrete.

She spotted something that didn't seem to fit the degradation of the scenery. She stopped so she could look at it more closely. She saw that it was a small teddy bear that was snuggled amongst ragged blankets. Kneeling down, she reached out to the lonely bear and stroked its smooth fur. A glistening object forced its way into her vision, and she froze as she realized that it was a sword being held unerringly at her neck.

"Don't touch him." Cathy pulled her hands away from the, apparently, not lonely bear. "Up. Now." She slowly stood up, muscles threatening to freeze in fear. She tried to look out of the corner of her eye for Trowa. Where was he?

"I'm sorry. I didn't know." She strained her eyes into the dusky gloom-the sword's master could be seen by a denser outline in the night-no further detail than that. "Who are you?" A self-depreciating bark of a laugh cut through the darkness.

"What does it matter? I'm not worth it."

"Are you going to hurt me?" She saw the outline shake his head, and a thick braid-she assumed-could be seen moving in time with his head.

"You've done nothing except touch my only friend. I think I can forgive you." She thought that she detected a little bit of humor and began to relax only slightly. The sword moved away. "Anyway, I'm not afraid of women-they've never hurt me."

"And men have?"

"All the time, Lady. All the time."

"My name's Cathy."

"You still seem tense, Cathy." She nodded tightly. "You are still afraid." She swallowed nervously. Why wouldn't he move out into the light? "It's not me you should be afraid of, Cathy, it's this town. The streets aren't for the living." Her heart threatened to break her ribs in fear. "I've been running for three years from bloodthirsty soldiers. The streets themselves will betray you." He paused. Why was he trying to scare her? "I'll walk you home. As you've seen, I've got protection." Cathy backed a step away, something, which did not go, unnoticed by the stranger.

"I can protect myself."

"You've no weapon."

"I can fight."

"You're a woman-they lust after women more than men. They only take men when there's no women. And humiliate them even more." This last part was a whisper.

"But the town was bustling earlier."

"In the daylight. This is a martial town-they are happy in the day; under curfew at night." She didn't understand, and said so. "Have you not noticed, Cathy, the lack of bars? Cities are supposed to have bars. Svetlaine doesn't." She could see him cock his head to one side. "Why are you really afraid?"

"I can't see you." There was a tense silence.

"I hide in the dark shadows cast by dead buildings so they can't find me. I warm my hands by rusted trashcans smelling like six years worth of rotted fish. I slink from dark shadow to shadowed hole in desperate hopes they won't find me. I tend to forget that hiding makes innocents nervous."

"It's okay, but please, step into the light." She could almost hear the hesitation and the internal battle of wills going on inside the stranger, but in the end, he moved slowly to the rim of light. He paused on the edge of the light pool, hesitating once more. She could now make out features-she could see the whites of his eyes and teeth-still a grainy gray in the low light. She strained her eyes, trying to make out more, but the lack of contrast made the lines of his face too fuzzy. He moved once more-taking her breath away in a painful rush.

His hair was a dirty blonde-probably from never being washed. It hung stiffly from where it was matted down to his scalp. Pieces of greasy hair escaped from the thick braid to fly in his face and stick to his neck like a parasite. His cheeks and chin had several days' worth of stubble-a lighter blonde than his matted hair. Through the uneven stubble, she could see raw, irritated skin. He probably used a knife to scrape away offensive hair from his face. His eyes had large, black bags, and old yellowing bruises were fading from his temples, almost a perfect match in color to his hair. His lips were cracked, and there wasn't any life in his now dark, dull eyes-like there wasn't a soul.

"Qua…Qua…" She stuttered for a moment before falling silent.

"My name is Nanashi."

"Oh, God."

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"Cathy?" Trowa turned to search his surroundings. "Cathy!" Damnit! One minute she was right behind him, and the next, she was gone. "Cathy!" He shouted her name into the gloom, quickly becoming desperate. He began backtracking-unnoticing of the dark shadows following.

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Nanashi bent down to retrieve the rags and bear. He carefully placed them into a bag that seemed to materialize out of nowhere.

"This is Seb." Cathy smiled at the bear before it disappeared lovingly into the bag. "I rescued him over a year ago. He's my only friend." Cathy carefully knelt beside Nanashi and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Not anymore." Nanashi looked up at her sharply-studying her smiling face before relaxing into semi-tenseness. "I'll be your friend, too." Nanashi smiled-not pulling away.

"I've not been able to trust anyone easily. But I'm sure one day…perhaps…" Oh, God…this was Quatre. "There's something inside me that wants to trust you." An amnesic Quatre, but Quatre nonetheless. "Where do you live?"

"I'm part of a circus." Quatre's eyes lit up.

"They have clowns at the circus, huh?" Cathy smiled; of course the first thing he associates with the circus is Trowa. "What about knife throwers?" Cathy almost choked at the all too accurate inquiry. Quatre remembered a lot of details, but not enough to form a comprehensible picture-he was just missing too many pieces from the puzzle. She remembered watching a special documentary about amnesia, that sometimes people who had lost their memory just had a mental block. It was that way with Trowa-he had remembered a few things, but wasn't able to formulate them into a picture or story. She didn't know the details; he and Quatre had always shied away from the subject-most likely because it caused Quatre too much pain. But she did know that Quatre had triggered something that let all of Trowa's memories come crashing back. So what was Quatre's trigger going to be?

"Yes, Quat-I mean Nanashi, there are lots of clowns, and I'm the knife thrower." He grinned before standing up.

"You're right then, you can protect yourself. But you still don't have a weapon." She fell into step beside him as he pointed the way to the fairgrounds, laughing.

They had walked a little way before Quatre's mood shifted from free and relaxed to silent and tense. He reached behind him to where the hilt of his sword was and pulled it free of its scabbard and then slammed it home.

"Why'd you do that?" She whispered, sensing something wrong.

"I wanted to make sure that my sword could easily be drawn." He whispered, leaning close to her. She could smell his homelessness-and even those trashcan fires he had mentioned. The proof of his living conditions overriding her sense of danger caused her to speak.

"I'm making you take a hot bath when we get to the circus. And no arguing." Quatre gave her a weird look before opening his mouth as if to speak. He never uttered any words as a hoarse shout echoed painfully from decrepit buildings.

"CATHY!"

"TROWA!" She shouted at the top of lungs. Oh Trowa, just wait `till you see who I found. "OVER HERE!" She felt a hand clamp over her mouth and she was dragged into the shadows.

"Don't make a sound. They're after us now."

"But that's my brother calling me." She spoke softly around his charcoal stained fingers.

"They'll be after him as well, with him shouting like that." There was a small oppressive silence in which she could hear the clinking of loaded weapons and the hoarse whispers of unwanted men. Quatre's breath hissed warmly in her ear as he pressed her to him. "Silence is too loud." She nodded, too afraid to speak, to let him know that she understood.

"CATHY!" Trowa's voice cracked and her heart longed to call out to him-to reassure him.

"Who are they?" She turned her face away from the street to whisper.

"Soldiers. Eagle Squadron. They control this town."

"Why? What do they want?"

"I don't know. It's locked away in the inaccessible part of my mind." She could feel him look around. "Come, we can follow the soldiers to your brother. I think they've all passed us by." She nodded numbly; they were after her brother.

"What will they do when they find him?" She had every confidence in Trowa, but she had seen too many misty shapes for her comfort, and if Quatre had been right, there were probably more around. If Trowa at least had a gun, it might be okay, but she had a bad feeling.

"They'll fight him, beat him, rape him, and leave him to bleed until dawn." She gasped. No. She felt Quatre's callused hand grip hers. "Its been done enough to me, I'll do whatever I can to prevent it from happening to him."

"But why?" She tried to stop herself from looking a gift horse in the mouth, but the question just slipped out, unbidden.

"One: you are my friend, now. I can't think of a better thing to do for my friend. Two: no one deserves that-not for any reason. And three: for some reason that I can't explain, I feel a strong pull to help you. Its as if I've known you in my restricted past. True, I can't remember anything, but I get little pieces of information that surface at random times, and I feel a strong tie to you." They picked up there pace as they could see many forms gathering. Quatre continued in a whisper so low, she almost couldn't hear it. "Anyway, I would give anything to have a home and people who care for me and I can care for in return." Cathy wanted to respond, but all of her rational thought was swept away as the muggy crowd before her shifted and she caught a glimpse of a surrounded and defenseless Trowa. With a shout, she charged into the mist-intent on helping Trowa.

"Cathy!" She ignored the hushed shout behind her as she raced to Trowa.

"Cathy!" She ran into her brother's arms, ignoring the menacing faces around them. "You should go." She shook her head fiercely. He immediately pushed her behind him as the soldiers began pressing toward them. She glanced quickly around-there were perhaps thirty of them. Gundam pilot or no; without a weapon, there was no way Trowa could defeat them. A shot rang out over her head and she ducked reflexively. The soldiers took advantage of the distracting shot and enmasse, pushed inward, blocking off any means of escape-and, as she struggled to take in a too warm and muggy breath, all air. Trowa moved gracefully into a fighting stance and Cathy began to regret ever rushing into the marauding crowd. The soldier closest to her swiped at her arm with a knife. She backed into another soldier as Trowa kicked the knife away and broke her attacker's neck. She screamed as thick hairy arms closed upon her, fingers scrabbling around her shirt. Her scream was cut off as the soldier clamped his hand over her mouth. Her head snapped back from the force, exposing her neck, and before she realized anything had happened, there was an all too sharp knife blade digging roughly into her neck. Rotten breath encircled her as effectively as prison bars.

"Cathy!" Trowa had glanced around at her strangled off scream. "Let her go!" The soldier holding her just laughed.

"Kill him. We'll have fun with this girl." If it weren't for the very real knife pressed against her throat, she would have kicked the soldier's balls into his throat by now, but it was all she could do to put a little curtain of air between her skin and the blade. A battle cry filled the oppressive air and she silently prayed to a god she hadn't acknowledged in twenty years. She saw Quatre, seemingly flying over the other soldiers' heads. In the streetlights, he looked like an avenging angel. He landed less than six inches from her-eyes blazing with some unnamable fury. He raised his sword and plunged it at her head.

She felt air rush past her ear and the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood out straight. Fighting the urge to burst into hysterical tears, she forced her eyes open, only to see the sky lurch in impossible ways.

She hit the ground with a thud. Impossible pain shooting up her left arm. She was sprawled on top of the soldier, but now the knife was nowhere to be seen.

"I'd rather see her dead than being touched by the likes of you." Quatre. She saw him step over her, swinging his sword in maddening arcs. She watched his braid flying behind him as if it were his banner from the ancient battles of old. "Fuck you, Motherfuckers!" The swearing brought her out of her stupor and she quickly disengaged herself from the clutches of the corpse. Thank you, Quatre. She spotted the knife at the corpse's feet. She threw herself upon it and jumped up ready to fight. What she saw took her breath away.

The circle of soldiers had drifted from around her and Trowa to circling Quatre-what was left of them, anyway. Trowa stood gaping at their savior, apparently in shock. She moved away from the littered bodies. They were everywhere. She retreated to Trowa, kicking a gun in the process. She bent down to retrieve it and pressed it hurriedly into Trowa's limp hand. It was as if the gripping of the gun returned Trowa from his shock. His eyes hardened and narrowed as his jaw set itself into a hard line. He raised the gun and silently took aim. Cathy turned to watch Quatre in his deadly dance.

It was oddly beautiful-in a detached way-watching Quatre make his kills. He would pounce from victim to victim as if the fight were personal. He did look like an angel of vengeance. It occurred to her then that this was revenge-revenge for all of the times the soldiers had gotten their hands on him. A swell of pride rose in her chest-this was the man who had survived god knows what. This was the man who had saved her life-had saved her brother's life innumerable times and in innumerable ways. This was the man, though having harmed him, came searching for Trowa and protected the two of them-one hating, one unknowing-from a battle that came too close. This was the man that united the Gundam pilots and had kept a kind heart through the war. And, more importantly, this was the man that loved, and was loved by her brother.

"Kick their asses, Quatre! Kill `em." Suddenly, desperately she wanted these men to suffer at the hands of the kind, sweet and deadly Quatre. She felt, with a passion almost not ever her own, that these men deserved to rot in the hell they put Quatre through.

Two shots rang out from Trowa's gun, felling two soldiers about to sneak upon Quatre. Quatre just kept dancing. Five soldiers disengaged from the battle to presumably take care of Cathy and Trowa. She watched them approaching, clutching the knife grip more sturdily and desperately. Trowa took aim upon the advancing men. They were too close, though and he was only able to take two of them out. Trowa dodged a swinging chain and side kicked the soldier in the chest.

Cathy quickly became absorbed in her own problems-namely a leering, drooling, lust-filled grin that was etched upon a battle marked face. She dodged outstretched arms and well-aimed punches. She heard a gun shot behind her and saw another soldier sink to the ground. She danced around her soldier as he pulled out a gun.

"I'm gonna kill you, bitch." Anger surged through her and she brandished her knife.

"Not today, fuckhead." She launched herself at the soldier, lancing out with her dagger as her body hit his. She heard another gun shot, but was unaware as to where the shot came from. She felt her knife sink into something soft, and gurgling sounds escaped the soldier she was now laying upon. She ignored the warm, sticky spray of blood as the soldier exhaled his last breath.

"Cathy! Are you okay?" She felt Trowa's strong hands on her, pulling her away from the cooling body. She left the knife embedded in the soldier's throat.

She felt no remorse.

"Quatre…" She struggled in her brother's arms, trying to find the blonde. There wasn't anymore fighting. Thirty men lay dead in the street and she had taken one of their lives. She had killed a man. The sound of metal grating on cement startled her and Trowa, they both turned at the sound.

"There will be more coming shortly. I suggest you leave-now." His eyes were still blazing with battle frenzy eventhough his fatigue was apparent in the way his sword dangled loosely from his fingers. "I have gotten you to your brother, he is safe as well. The fair grounds are that way." He pointed down a cheerily lit street-at least it looked better than the others did.

"You won't came with us?" Cathy stretched out a hand toward Quatre. His eyes seemed to unfocus as he contemplated.

"As much as I'd like to trust you completely, I'm afraid I cannot. Yet." He seemed to be stuck between turning to retreat and staying. Slowly he shrugged his canvas bag from his shoulders. He pressed the dirty bag into her hands. "I'll return for this."

"I'll take good care of Seb." Quatre turned to go.

"Quatre wait." Trowa reached a hand toward Quatre.

"My name is Nanashi. Who are you?" Cathy reeled from the anguish in Trowa's eyes.

"This is Trowa." Neither of the two men moved. They stared at each other as if the entire world consisted of just the two of them. She couldn't say as to what, exactly, they were thinking-they just stared. It was Trowa who recovered first.

"Please come with us." Quatre backed a step away.

"I cannot." The rumble of running footsteps echoed through deserted streets. Quatre turned to face the sound. Cathy's heart began to seize with fear. Quatre spun around and quickly shoved them toward their street. "Go! Leave now. I'll find you." She grabbed Trowa's arm and they turned to flee as Quatre turned to face another battle.

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Trowa glanced behind him as a couple dozen soldiers spilled into the open. Why was he running? Why was he abandoning the man he loved? He slowed to double back and help Quatre, but he felt Cathy's fingers gripping his shirtsleeve. He could feel her fear through her death-grip. If he were alone he knew he wouldn't have left, but he had to protect Cathy. Why couldn't Quatre have just come with them? Because Quatre was Nanashi-a nameless man with no memories other than pain. He didn't even remember me. He slid his arm around Cathy's waist and propelled her ahead.

He couldn't help himself from looking back, though. He saw the soldiers swarm around Quatre. He saw the flashing of Quatre's sword.

He saw Quatre sink to the ground-the gunshot reflecting to him moments later.

His last glimpse was of a limping Quatre cutting someone's head off.

I love you, Little One. I'll return.