Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ III. Nocturnal State ❯ Hollow Dark ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Hollow Dark
It…was a little cold…

One two three, one two three, one two three, one two three…

Everything was dancing, though. Everyone was moving in time like a waltz… They all moved with studious motions to keep in line of the dance….

“Quatre?”

I looked to Heero curiously as the cold rain soaked my skin. He was standing up the hallway from me with that smile that no one else ever seemed to see.

Was he going to ask me to dance?

“Come on, it’s time to eat,” he muttered, pulling at my arm, though I didn’t really…feel it…if that made sense.

That was as close to a request as he’d ever get. I laughed happily, moving to waltz with him in time…the music wasn’t nearly loud enough, but that was fine. It was fine enough to dance alone…

I grinned slightly and moved toward the dining area, noting that Trowa was writing something on a note-book and Wufei had his laptop.

The wind was kinda cold…where was my coat?

“You mean Natalie singing?” Heero asked, moving into the room.

I looked from Wufei to him with a grin. “Damn song bird.”

He gave me a look, then Wufei one.

It was Wufei’s term for her, after all. Fei looked from me to him curiously. “What about the songbird?”

“Quatre said something about dancing…only music I can hear is Natalie.”

“Maybe it’s the rain,” I hazarded, looking up the street as I turned into an alley.

“Or maybe you’re nucking futz,” Trowa retorted.

“What?” I asked blankly, stopping to press my hand against a wall.

I wasn’t really crazy, was I? Wufei said I was…

“Trowa,” Heero muttered in reprimand, dragging my attention back to them as he rolled his eyes. “Sit down, Quatre. Eat something.”

I’m hungry… I concentrated on my stomach as shivers swept through me. The alley was dark…it’d been okay in the day, but it was really getting cold now…where was Trowa?

Why am I alone?

I started walking again, realizing that I shouldn’t stop moving.

I liked the rain…it sounded like home…even in the cold. Trowa said Duo was here. He dealt with the cold, so I could do it, too. I missed Duo. He hadn’t acted normal in a long time, though. I missed that Duo…the one who always had a grin and waltzed into every room as if he owned it. He’d run away from us…but I missed him.

Everything had been wrong after the war. The only thing that had been remotely right had been the computers so we could stay in touch…so we knew where we were…but Duo hadn’t taken his. Duo hadn’t taken that machine that I’d given him.

Maybe Duo didn’t like me.

I sighed, looking around as I tried to remember where I was going and what I was supposed to be doing. The alley was long and dark, and I couldn’t feel any weapons on me, which was kinda freaky, but I was near the end of the thing now.

But where was I going? Was I going back to the hotel? Heero’d told me I should, but I didn’t want to. Was I looking for Duo? I couldn’t really remember.

It was really all Heero’s fault that Duo’d disappeared on us. Duo didn’t like Heero anymore. Heero had been mean to him…abusive. Trowa hadn’t helped at all, but Trowa was mean to everyone. And Wufei? I liked Wufei.

The music caught my attention again, and I listened to it as I wandered up the alley and onto a street with a long line of people. Lots of them were looking at me with frowns…and then someone was moving from the line.

“Eh, blondie?”

I focused on him, assessing the level of threat he presented.

“You deaf?” he asked, moving closer to study my eyes. “You hear me?”

“I can hear,” I muttered, wanting to back off uncomfortably.

Why was I alone?

“Why you out here in the rain, huh? Where’s your jacket?”

“I…left it in the hotel,” I noted, looking around again as I crossed my arms.

“You should go get it,” he noted.

I nodded.

His eyes were nice. The way he was looking at me was nice. Even when he rolled his eyes it was nice, the good-person sort of nice…and he pulled off the jacket he was wearing and offered it to me. “You need it more than me, huh?”

I took the thing from him, pulling it on…it was warm.

“Rick!” a female whined from the line. “Come on, already!”

Rick winked at me, turning and darting to the guy who was studying me over and taking money.

I smiled slightly at him, and then looked to Rick. “Thanks.”

“No problem, good deeds breed like rats!” he and the woman disappeared laughingly into the building.

Rats were gross…we’d had rats in our house once and my sisters had absolutely lost their minds over it with disgust.

I turned to start walking again.

“You okay, blondie?” someone else asked. “You look a little sketchy. You need a cab?”

I blinked at him a second and shook my head, starting to walk faster. The noise of the music started fading behind me, and I wondered briefly if I was hot. I couldn’t really tell, because back home the air was warm all the time, so feeling the rain and the warm…I shivered again.

The line of people was long gone, and there wasn’t any music left. I smiled slightly at a blond standing not far away, and he smiled very slightly back at me. This meant something, but I wasn’t sure what as I looked around and he looked away—I could see him out of the corner of my eyes.

I heard a rig and darted behind the building with my heart slamming in my chest. If they found me without Sandrock I was toast…I was toast on a stick…a very painful stick…and loud. Their MS were coming closer, and I needed to find my damn gundam.

Where was it? Where had I left Sandrock?

How the fuck did you lose something with a fifty foot head?

I ran down the darkened alley, hoping the damn mechs didn’t have headlights that could get all corners. It was cold enough in the rain that a heat sensor might take a few minutes to see me, and maybe before it could scan I’d be safe.

Maybe pigs would fly, while we were at it.

My foot slid out on something wet, and my stomach twisted as I fell and pain blossomed across my hands and through my wrists.

I had to get back before Duo disappeared! I had to get back to them…

Light flashed above me, and I darted into an alcove…I’d broken my wrist, hadn’t I? Damn it…where was a medic?

The roll of thunder across the sky was so loud and so present that I whimpered as I stared at the clouds overhead…and then I heard it.

It was a consistent thudding from the building whose door I was hiding in, thudding like foot-steps.

I darted from my hiding spot…and ran.

x x x

“When he left was he alone?” Trowa demanded of the woman behind the counter, pointing at Heero. “Did someone follow him out?”

She shook her head as she thought. “No one…left for a good ten minutes.”

“Was it Mr. Winner?” Trowa demanded.

“No…it was a man checking out,” she replied, frowning more. She could sense the urgency, and wondered if there were any more problems she could cause. She’d told these people that Chang was in the building when he hadn’t wanted her to, so she was very nervous about giving them any information.

“Have you seen Mr. Winner?” Wufei demanded irritably.

Duo’d decided to head home, seeing as his wife was with their two children and probably fairly pissed at him on top of the fact that he…wasn’t comfortable with any other pilot than Wufei.

“No…I haven’t,” she noted, tilting her head. “Is there a problem?”

“You think? Fuckin’ genius,” Trowa said the first to her and the second to Wufei as he turned and stormed up the employee=only hallway behind the desk.

“Sir! You can’t go back there…please…”

Wufei, who’d followed, turned to display his badge to her. Even if she had no idea what the thing was for, badges meant authority, and she wouldn’t be held accountable for them doing anything once they started flashing them.

She frowned, watching them go.

“I need to see when Mr. Winner was last on camera,” Trowa informed the security guard who’d stood. The other man was halfway to his feet.

“Mr. Winner?” they asked blankly.

“Blond guy from our party,” Wufei agreed. “It’s been a few hours since we’ve seen him…he has mild schizophrenia and we need to keep an eye on him.”

“Then why did you let him leave?” the man sitting asked, giving them all disbelieving looks.

“I didn’t let him!” Heero shouted, obviously somewhat distraught as he started forward.

It really wasn’t his day.

“You need to calm down,” Wufei noted, turning to intercept him and backing him to the wall. “This isn’t your fault, this isn’t anyone’s fault…we just need to find him. He usually chooses to stay with us, so it’s not like you would have known he was going to do this…so just calm down.”

The guards were frowning at the three of them—notably at the various bruises and abrasions on Heero’s face as a result of his and Duo’s face-off.

Heero nodded, looking down and away.

“He followed him out of our room,” Trowa noted, pointing at Heero again. “And we assumed he’d gone with him. He didn’t, and we don’t know which way he left, so cue up the recordings…”

The guards looked at each other, and the one sitting down shrugged slightly. “Well…he didn’t leave out the front doors.”

“What?” Trowa demanded, focusing on him. “Just…”

“He took the fire escape on your floor,” the one standing noted with a shrug. “We get alerts when those doors are opened,” he pointed at a wall of screens. “He took off out it, we just figured he was being an ass.”

“What way did he go?” Trowa’s tone had went dangerous.

“I couldn’t tell you, sir,” the man replied, indicating the screens again. “As soon as the doors close, we see nothing.”

Trowa looked to Heero and Wufei in alarm.

“The exit he took led to the street, so it’s not likely that he injured himself there…but we don’t know where…we don’t have cameras on that side all day.”

“Great, time to go primal and track,” Wufei muttered dryly, looking to Heero again. “You in control of yourself? Or should I go get you a sword to commit honorable seppuku?”

Heero glared at him…and stormed from the room.

Trowa punched Wufei in the arm, and followed the Japanese man out.