Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Inverse ❯ Chapter 2
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: Misanagi 
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Drama | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 02.15.2004 | Pages: 3 | Words: 3.2K | Visits: 172 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Drama | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 02.15.2004 | Pages: 3 | Words: 3.2K | Visits: 172 | Status: Completed
Inverse
By Misanagi
Rating: PG 13
Warnings: Angst, language
Pairings: 3+4+3, R+D
Spoilers: The end of the series.
Timeline: After the battle of Libra.
Summary: Quatre rescues Dorothy from imprisonment, hoping to give her a new chance of living.
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or the characters used in this fic.
Archives: http://www.fanfiction.net/~Misanagi,
- http://www.psinergy.com/dryerspace/gundaniumline/misanagi/misanagi.html
Feedback: Yes please! misanagi_zzz@hotmail.com
Notes: I wrote this for Hex-sama and her mailing list, Lady Wing. (http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/Lady_Wing/)
Big thanks to Anne and Ruth for beta reading this for me.
“Blah” = Talk
‘Blah’ = Thought (Well, duh!)
Chapter 2
“See, Trowa? That wasn’t so bad,” said Duo as they approached the hospital on the medical wing of MO II. “Just dinner among friends.”
“I enjoyed it,” conceded Trowa, “but I still wish that Quatre was there too.”
“Winner is recuperating,” said Wufei, “he needs rest if he wants to get his strength back.”
“Besides,” said Duo, “he is already getting better. He has some color in his face and the doctor took the stitches out yesterday. Now he can move without collapsing from the pain. ”
“I know he’s getting better but I’m still worried about him. That was a dangerous wound,” said Trowa.
The group entered the medical wing, ignoring the nurse trying to tell them that the visiting hours were over. The poor girl was new; she had never encountered the Gundam pilots and didn’t even know who the young men in front of her were. She got up from her chair and stepped in front of the boys, blocking their path. Heero simply glared at her and she instinctively took a step back.
Duo looked at Heero and rolled his eyes. “Would you stop that? You are scaring her.”
Heero stopped glaring at the nurse and turned his gaze on Duo. Duo ignored him and approached the nurse. “I know that the visiting hours are over,” he said, giving her his most charming smile. “But we really want to see our friend. I promise we won’t disturb him, I’m sure he’ll be happy to see us.”
The girl smiled back at Duo and nodded. “Fine, but only for a few minutes. It is very late and the patients need rest. Who is your friend?”
“His name is Quatre Winner. He is staying in room 206,” answered Duo.
After hearing those words the nurse visibly paled. All of them noticed the expression on the woman’s face. Something had happened to Quatre.
“What is it?” asked Wufei.
“He is gone,” she answered after a moment of hesitation.
“Gone?” inquired Heero, “What do you mean gone?”
The nurse took another step back. The look on the boys’ faces clearly said that someone was going to pay if they didn’t get an answer soon. “A couple of hours ago the machines in Mr. Winner room were disconnected. We rushed in there to see what was going on but when we got there, the room was empty. We searched the whole hospital but we couldn’t find him.” She stopped for a moment and went back to her desk to retrieve something. “He left this on his bed,” she said handing Duo a letter. “I’m sorry but I can’t read this language so I don’t know what it says.”
“Thanks,” said Duo, taking the letter and walking away from the nurse so he and the rest of the pilots could read it in private. When he was sure that they wouldn’t be heard by the nurse he handed the letter to Wufei. “It is in Mandarin,” he said, answering the silent question.
Wufei simply nodded, took the letter and started reading and translating. “Heero, Duo, Trowa and Wufei:
In the past year, I have had the honor of knowing you and fighting beside you. You have become more than my comrades and I consider each one of you a friend. I wish I could say goodbye to you personally but that is, sadly, not an option.
I’m sorry, I know you are all mad at me- especially you, Trowa, but this is something I have to do.
I wish you all the best. Maybe someday our paths will cross again, until then, know that I have each of you in my heart.
Take care.
-Quatre”
There was a moment of silence that was broken by Duo’s quiet question. “Does anybody else find this weird? I mean, this is Quatre we are talking about! He wouldn’t leave us, especially not Trowa, not without saying goodbye.”
Heero nodded. “He wasn’t fully recovered. I don’t think he is the type to endanger his heath without some reason.”
“What do you think, Trowa?” asked Duo.
Trowa took a moment to answer, like he was gathering his thoughts. “I noticed that he was acting strangely earlier today. He was distracted by something. I thought that he just wanted to be alone, that’s why I agreed to go out to dinner. I should have known that he was planning something.”
“We won the war thanks to Winner’s plans and he is very capable of putting them into practice. This shouldn’t come as a shock to any of us.”
“That just worries me more,” said Duo. “If Quatre didn’t want us to find out what he was doing, that could only mean that he is putting himself in danger. He is a great guy but he can be as stubborn as a mule when he wants to.”
“Let’s go,” said Heero as he started walking to the door.
“Go where?” asked Duo.
“To find Quatre.”
* * *
Quatre extended his arms and allowed the captain to lock the handcuffs on them.
Dorothy was already half way to MO II and he had completed the transfer of the money to the captain’s account so there was only one part of the agreement left to fulfill.
He didn’t mind. In fact, when he left his hospital bed, he was prepared to give up his freedom in exchange of hers. Neither of them were saints; they had both fought in a war and their hands were covered with blood. However, Quatre thought that Dorothy was lost and a holding cell wasn’t the place in which she would be able to find herself.
Quatre knew something about Dorothy that nobody else did, not even her. Dorothy Catalonia wasn’t the cold woman she pretended to be; she was capable of love.
It wasn’t something you could see. She was very careful about hiding everything she felt, even from herself, but Quatre Winner was no ordinary person. He had first noticed it when he and Heero had spent time on the Sank Kingdom. Quatre, as everyone else, had seen Dorothy interact with Relena. She had politely questioned everything Relena said and he had recognized the condescending tone, many society people used when they tried to hide their hatred for somebody. But the blond pilot wasn’t seeing with his eyes, he was using his heart - and his heart never lied.
Dorothy needed help. She needed someone to notice her the way she really was and not the hard exterior she projected. Relena had, somehow, opened up a door for the person Dorothy could be and Quatre, with a single act of kindness, had shown her the way. Now Dorothy needed to trust enough to let that person out.
Quatre believed she could do it, which was why it was so important to get her out. If Dorothy remained locked up, she would shut herself off again, and everything Quatre, Relena and even Trowa had helped to do, would be lost. If Quatre took her place, he would only sacrifice his freedom but if he let Dorothy remain imprisoned, he would sacrifice her soul.
The young man followed the guard quietly to the cell he had seen before. The guard opened the door and Quatre could tell that the man was thinking about shoving him inside but something, maybe instinct, told him that that wasn’t a smart thing to do.
After Quatre walked in to the room, he stopped for a moment to study his surroundings. There were one hundred and twelve people in the cell. Thirty eight women and seventy four men. The room had four doors. The one he had just came in, one gate at the opposite wall and two small doors on the right. He assumed those were the bathrooms since there was a line of people waiting outside to use them.
As soon as he heard the wall close behind him, Quatre walked to the front left corner and sat against the wall. From a strategic point of view, that was the safest place. A corner provided him with cover in two flanks so he could only be attacked from the front and one of his sides. To get to the back corners he would have to cross the entire room and that would leave him open to any assaults. The right corner was near the bathroom it would be more crowded than the other one. He needed to be at a safe distance so he could see everyone and determine if they were potential enemies.
The captain’s remarks about fighting were still fresh in Quatre’s mind and he knew, from experience, that people usually underestimated him for the way he looked. He really was in no mood to prove them wrong.
He didn’t know how long he would stay on the ship. The captain had told him that they would start sending prisoners to Earth the next morning, so they could be placed in a real holding facility until the day of their trials. The ship number 01517 wasn’t equipped to transport passengers so they would have to use smaller shuttles to get them to their destination. The evacuation of the ship could take some time since most of the shuttles were busy transporting the soldiers back to their homes. The prisoners would have to wait.
As he sat in the corner of the cell, Quatre only regretted not being able to say goodbye to his friends. He didn’t know if he would ever see them again and that brought sadness to his heart. All of them would be greatly missed, especially Trowa.
Quatre’s thoughts drifted to the Heavyarms’ pilot. They weren’t involved - the war hadn't given them time for that, but they cared about each other and they both knew it. He couldn’t say that he loved Trowa, not yet, but he knew in his heart that given the chance, he would fall in love with the tall pilot in no time. It seemed that he had missed that chance and he only hoped that Trowa could forgive him for that.
* * *
“He what?” asked Duo, who was standing behind Heero and reading the information displayed on the screen.
“He stole a Taurus suit and went to the Romefeller ship number 01517.”
“I herd you the first time, Heero,” said Duo. “It was a rhetorical question.”
“According to these files, that ship is being used as a temporary holding compound,” commented Wufei from his seat in front of another monitor.
“What would Quatre be doing there?” asked Duo.
Trowa sighed; he had a good idea of what the blond would be doing there. Quatre was too compassionate for his own good.
“Do you know something we don’t, Trowa?” asked Duo, noticing the worry concealed on Trowa’s features.
Before Trowa could answer Heero interrupted them. “There is a signal indicating that the Taurus Quatre stole is headed back here and should arrive in six minutes.”
“What are we waiting for?” asked Duo as he headed for the landing platform. “Let’s go and welcome the guy and while we are at it, we can also break him a finger or two for worrying us so damn much!”
Heero and Wufei nodded and followed Duo to the platform. Trowa went behind the last two, silently observing the way their bodies tensed, just a little bit. He knew that even if they didn’t want to, Heero and Wufei had learned to care about the blond Arab and they too wanted to inflict him some physical pain for disappearing the way he had.
The pilots soon arrived at the platform and remained silent as they waited for the Taurus suit to arrive. They stayed behind the door until the mobile suit entered the hangar and the outer gates were closed. As soon as the room pressure was returned to normal and it was safe to go in without a plug suit, the pilots rushed to the Taurus.
What they saw when the hatch opened wasn’t what they were expecting. Instead of Quatre emerging from the suit, they were met by a woman with long blonde hair, who only two pilots recognized.
* * *
“Dorothy Catalonia.” The words left Heero’s lips and not a moment later he had taken the gun from his back and pointed it in her direction.
Dorothy simply gave him one of her smiles and spoke in a neutral tone of voice that didn’t show any fear, “Heero Yuy, how nice to see you again.”
“So this is the bitch that tried to kill Quatre?” asked the pilot she recognized as Duo Maxwell. He too took his gun out and pointed it her way. “If we didn’t want to know where the hell Quatre is, you wouldn’t be alive right now.”
This was the first time that she realized that she didn’t know where the blond pilot had gone. “Since he didn’t come with me or in another suit, it’s obvious to assume that he either stayed on the ship or went somewhere else,” replied Dorothy calmly.
“We need an explanation right now! What happened to Winner?”
For a moment, Dorothy hesitated. “He negotiated my release from the holding ship,” she said, trying to bring as much coldness to her voice as she could. She had already hesitated and that was bad enough. She didn’t need the pilots to see her own confusion. Why had Quatre stayed behind?
“What were the terms of that negotiation?” asked the same pilot that had spoken before. His name was Chang Wufei, if she was not mistaken.
“I didn’t ask,” answered Dorothy, bringing back all the polite superiority into her voice. “It’s rude to intrude on other people’s business.”
“He probably bribed a guard or something,” said Duo.
“Yes, but that wouldn’t explain why he didn’t came back,” retorted Wufei.
“He took her place,” said Trowa, speaking for the first time.
Everyone was silent for a moment and let the meaning of Trowa’s words sink in. Dorothy felt another piece of her mask breaking when she realized what Quatre had truly done to get her out. ‘He sacrificed himself, for me. Why?’
* * *
“Wait a moment, Trowa, ‘cause I want to be sure that I understood what you said. Are you telling us that Quatre is now locked in a cell so the bitch that tried to kill him could go free?” asked Duo.
“He begged me to spare her life before; I’m really not surprised that he would do something like this,” replied Trowa. His voice was calm but inside Trowa was furious. Quatre could be really selfish sometimes without even noticing it. Yes, it was easy to self-sacrifice but he wasn’t thinking how his actions affected the people around him. Trowa would rather be locked up himself than be free, knowing that Quatre wasn’t. They both knew that they were attracted to each other and after the doctors had declared that Quatre was out of danger, Trowa was hoping that they could finally act on their feelings. But now, Quatre had condemned them both.
Trowa looked at Dorothy coldly. Was she really worth a life time of wondering what could have been? Trowa was using all his self control to just stand there and look at her. He was frustrated and the person responsible for that was standing in front of him looking calm and collected, as if nothing had happened.
* * *
Unfortunately, Trowa couldn’t read minds and was oblivious of the torment Dorothy was going through. She never thought she would see the day when another human being would do something for her without expecting something in return. Never could have she imagined that one day, someone would give up his freedom to save her. Why? What was in it for Quatre Winner? Her mind kept telling her that there had to be something, that there was not such thing as a selfless act but no matter how hard she looked; she couldn’t find an ulterior motive.
The four men in front of her obviously had no problem killing her; why couldn’t Quatre be like that? It wasn’t that he was incapable of taking a human life; he had taken many during the war, so what made her so special? She wasn’t a kind person or an innocent. She had led the mobile dolls in battle and tried to kill him repeatedly, so what did he see in her?
And then it hit her. Like she had opened her eyes for the first time and was finally able to see the person Quatre Winner was. He cared, he truly cared about people and he had saved her because he thought that there was something in her worth saving. That’s when Dorothy started to question everything she believed about herself and a little voice kept telling her that maybe Quatre was right, that maybe there was still hope.
* * *
TBC
By Misanagi
Rating: PG 13
Warnings: Angst, language
Pairings: 3+4+3, R+D
Spoilers: The end of the series.
Timeline: After the battle of Libra.
Summary: Quatre rescues Dorothy from imprisonment, hoping to give her a new chance of living.
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or the characters used in this fic.
Archives: http://www.fanfiction.net/~Misanagi,
- http://www.psinergy.com/dryerspace/gundaniumline/misanagi/misanagi.html
Feedback: Yes please! misanagi_zzz@hotmail.com
Notes: I wrote this for Hex-sama and her mailing list, Lady Wing. (http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/Lady_Wing/)
Big thanks to Anne and Ruth for beta reading this for me.
“Blah” = Talk
‘Blah’ = Thought (Well, duh!)
Chapter 2
“See, Trowa? That wasn’t so bad,” said Duo as they approached the hospital on the medical wing of MO II. “Just dinner among friends.”
“I enjoyed it,” conceded Trowa, “but I still wish that Quatre was there too.”
“Winner is recuperating,” said Wufei, “he needs rest if he wants to get his strength back.”
“Besides,” said Duo, “he is already getting better. He has some color in his face and the doctor took the stitches out yesterday. Now he can move without collapsing from the pain. ”
“I know he’s getting better but I’m still worried about him. That was a dangerous wound,” said Trowa.
The group entered the medical wing, ignoring the nurse trying to tell them that the visiting hours were over. The poor girl was new; she had never encountered the Gundam pilots and didn’t even know who the young men in front of her were. She got up from her chair and stepped in front of the boys, blocking their path. Heero simply glared at her and she instinctively took a step back.
Duo looked at Heero and rolled his eyes. “Would you stop that? You are scaring her.”
Heero stopped glaring at the nurse and turned his gaze on Duo. Duo ignored him and approached the nurse. “I know that the visiting hours are over,” he said, giving her his most charming smile. “But we really want to see our friend. I promise we won’t disturb him, I’m sure he’ll be happy to see us.”
The girl smiled back at Duo and nodded. “Fine, but only for a few minutes. It is very late and the patients need rest. Who is your friend?”
“His name is Quatre Winner. He is staying in room 206,” answered Duo.
After hearing those words the nurse visibly paled. All of them noticed the expression on the woman’s face. Something had happened to Quatre.
“What is it?” asked Wufei.
“He is gone,” she answered after a moment of hesitation.
“Gone?” inquired Heero, “What do you mean gone?”
The nurse took another step back. The look on the boys’ faces clearly said that someone was going to pay if they didn’t get an answer soon. “A couple of hours ago the machines in Mr. Winner room were disconnected. We rushed in there to see what was going on but when we got there, the room was empty. We searched the whole hospital but we couldn’t find him.” She stopped for a moment and went back to her desk to retrieve something. “He left this on his bed,” she said handing Duo a letter. “I’m sorry but I can’t read this language so I don’t know what it says.”
“Thanks,” said Duo, taking the letter and walking away from the nurse so he and the rest of the pilots could read it in private. When he was sure that they wouldn’t be heard by the nurse he handed the letter to Wufei. “It is in Mandarin,” he said, answering the silent question.
Wufei simply nodded, took the letter and started reading and translating. “Heero, Duo, Trowa and Wufei:
In the past year, I have had the honor of knowing you and fighting beside you. You have become more than my comrades and I consider each one of you a friend. I wish I could say goodbye to you personally but that is, sadly, not an option.
I’m sorry, I know you are all mad at me- especially you, Trowa, but this is something I have to do.
I wish you all the best. Maybe someday our paths will cross again, until then, know that I have each of you in my heart.
Take care.
-Quatre”
There was a moment of silence that was broken by Duo’s quiet question. “Does anybody else find this weird? I mean, this is Quatre we are talking about! He wouldn’t leave us, especially not Trowa, not without saying goodbye.”
Heero nodded. “He wasn’t fully recovered. I don’t think he is the type to endanger his heath without some reason.”
“What do you think, Trowa?” asked Duo.
Trowa took a moment to answer, like he was gathering his thoughts. “I noticed that he was acting strangely earlier today. He was distracted by something. I thought that he just wanted to be alone, that’s why I agreed to go out to dinner. I should have known that he was planning something.”
“We won the war thanks to Winner’s plans and he is very capable of putting them into practice. This shouldn’t come as a shock to any of us.”
“That just worries me more,” said Duo. “If Quatre didn’t want us to find out what he was doing, that could only mean that he is putting himself in danger. He is a great guy but he can be as stubborn as a mule when he wants to.”
“Let’s go,” said Heero as he started walking to the door.
“Go where?” asked Duo.
“To find Quatre.”
* * *
Quatre extended his arms and allowed the captain to lock the handcuffs on them.
Dorothy was already half way to MO II and he had completed the transfer of the money to the captain’s account so there was only one part of the agreement left to fulfill.
He didn’t mind. In fact, when he left his hospital bed, he was prepared to give up his freedom in exchange of hers. Neither of them were saints; they had both fought in a war and their hands were covered with blood. However, Quatre thought that Dorothy was lost and a holding cell wasn’t the place in which she would be able to find herself.
Quatre knew something about Dorothy that nobody else did, not even her. Dorothy Catalonia wasn’t the cold woman she pretended to be; she was capable of love.
It wasn’t something you could see. She was very careful about hiding everything she felt, even from herself, but Quatre Winner was no ordinary person. He had first noticed it when he and Heero had spent time on the Sank Kingdom. Quatre, as everyone else, had seen Dorothy interact with Relena. She had politely questioned everything Relena said and he had recognized the condescending tone, many society people used when they tried to hide their hatred for somebody. But the blond pilot wasn’t seeing with his eyes, he was using his heart - and his heart never lied.
Dorothy needed help. She needed someone to notice her the way she really was and not the hard exterior she projected. Relena had, somehow, opened up a door for the person Dorothy could be and Quatre, with a single act of kindness, had shown her the way. Now Dorothy needed to trust enough to let that person out.
Quatre believed she could do it, which was why it was so important to get her out. If Dorothy remained locked up, she would shut herself off again, and everything Quatre, Relena and even Trowa had helped to do, would be lost. If Quatre took her place, he would only sacrifice his freedom but if he let Dorothy remain imprisoned, he would sacrifice her soul.
The young man followed the guard quietly to the cell he had seen before. The guard opened the door and Quatre could tell that the man was thinking about shoving him inside but something, maybe instinct, told him that that wasn’t a smart thing to do.
After Quatre walked in to the room, he stopped for a moment to study his surroundings. There were one hundred and twelve people in the cell. Thirty eight women and seventy four men. The room had four doors. The one he had just came in, one gate at the opposite wall and two small doors on the right. He assumed those were the bathrooms since there was a line of people waiting outside to use them.
As soon as he heard the wall close behind him, Quatre walked to the front left corner and sat against the wall. From a strategic point of view, that was the safest place. A corner provided him with cover in two flanks so he could only be attacked from the front and one of his sides. To get to the back corners he would have to cross the entire room and that would leave him open to any assaults. The right corner was near the bathroom it would be more crowded than the other one. He needed to be at a safe distance so he could see everyone and determine if they were potential enemies.
The captain’s remarks about fighting were still fresh in Quatre’s mind and he knew, from experience, that people usually underestimated him for the way he looked. He really was in no mood to prove them wrong.
He didn’t know how long he would stay on the ship. The captain had told him that they would start sending prisoners to Earth the next morning, so they could be placed in a real holding facility until the day of their trials. The ship number 01517 wasn’t equipped to transport passengers so they would have to use smaller shuttles to get them to their destination. The evacuation of the ship could take some time since most of the shuttles were busy transporting the soldiers back to their homes. The prisoners would have to wait.
As he sat in the corner of the cell, Quatre only regretted not being able to say goodbye to his friends. He didn’t know if he would ever see them again and that brought sadness to his heart. All of them would be greatly missed, especially Trowa.
Quatre’s thoughts drifted to the Heavyarms’ pilot. They weren’t involved - the war hadn't given them time for that, but they cared about each other and they both knew it. He couldn’t say that he loved Trowa, not yet, but he knew in his heart that given the chance, he would fall in love with the tall pilot in no time. It seemed that he had missed that chance and he only hoped that Trowa could forgive him for that.
* * *
“He what?” asked Duo, who was standing behind Heero and reading the information displayed on the screen.
“He stole a Taurus suit and went to the Romefeller ship number 01517.”
“I herd you the first time, Heero,” said Duo. “It was a rhetorical question.”
“According to these files, that ship is being used as a temporary holding compound,” commented Wufei from his seat in front of another monitor.
“What would Quatre be doing there?” asked Duo.
Trowa sighed; he had a good idea of what the blond would be doing there. Quatre was too compassionate for his own good.
“Do you know something we don’t, Trowa?” asked Duo, noticing the worry concealed on Trowa’s features.
Before Trowa could answer Heero interrupted them. “There is a signal indicating that the Taurus Quatre stole is headed back here and should arrive in six minutes.”
“What are we waiting for?” asked Duo as he headed for the landing platform. “Let’s go and welcome the guy and while we are at it, we can also break him a finger or two for worrying us so damn much!”
Heero and Wufei nodded and followed Duo to the platform. Trowa went behind the last two, silently observing the way their bodies tensed, just a little bit. He knew that even if they didn’t want to, Heero and Wufei had learned to care about the blond Arab and they too wanted to inflict him some physical pain for disappearing the way he had.
The pilots soon arrived at the platform and remained silent as they waited for the Taurus suit to arrive. They stayed behind the door until the mobile suit entered the hangar and the outer gates were closed. As soon as the room pressure was returned to normal and it was safe to go in without a plug suit, the pilots rushed to the Taurus.
What they saw when the hatch opened wasn’t what they were expecting. Instead of Quatre emerging from the suit, they were met by a woman with long blonde hair, who only two pilots recognized.
* * *
“Dorothy Catalonia.” The words left Heero’s lips and not a moment later he had taken the gun from his back and pointed it in her direction.
Dorothy simply gave him one of her smiles and spoke in a neutral tone of voice that didn’t show any fear, “Heero Yuy, how nice to see you again.”
“So this is the bitch that tried to kill Quatre?” asked the pilot she recognized as Duo Maxwell. He too took his gun out and pointed it her way. “If we didn’t want to know where the hell Quatre is, you wouldn’t be alive right now.”
This was the first time that she realized that she didn’t know where the blond pilot had gone. “Since he didn’t come with me or in another suit, it’s obvious to assume that he either stayed on the ship or went somewhere else,” replied Dorothy calmly.
“We need an explanation right now! What happened to Winner?”
For a moment, Dorothy hesitated. “He negotiated my release from the holding ship,” she said, trying to bring as much coldness to her voice as she could. She had already hesitated and that was bad enough. She didn’t need the pilots to see her own confusion. Why had Quatre stayed behind?
“What were the terms of that negotiation?” asked the same pilot that had spoken before. His name was Chang Wufei, if she was not mistaken.
“I didn’t ask,” answered Dorothy, bringing back all the polite superiority into her voice. “It’s rude to intrude on other people’s business.”
“He probably bribed a guard or something,” said Duo.
“Yes, but that wouldn’t explain why he didn’t came back,” retorted Wufei.
“He took her place,” said Trowa, speaking for the first time.
Everyone was silent for a moment and let the meaning of Trowa’s words sink in. Dorothy felt another piece of her mask breaking when she realized what Quatre had truly done to get her out. ‘He sacrificed himself, for me. Why?’
* * *
“Wait a moment, Trowa, ‘cause I want to be sure that I understood what you said. Are you telling us that Quatre is now locked in a cell so the bitch that tried to kill him could go free?” asked Duo.
“He begged me to spare her life before; I’m really not surprised that he would do something like this,” replied Trowa. His voice was calm but inside Trowa was furious. Quatre could be really selfish sometimes without even noticing it. Yes, it was easy to self-sacrifice but he wasn’t thinking how his actions affected the people around him. Trowa would rather be locked up himself than be free, knowing that Quatre wasn’t. They both knew that they were attracted to each other and after the doctors had declared that Quatre was out of danger, Trowa was hoping that they could finally act on their feelings. But now, Quatre had condemned them both.
Trowa looked at Dorothy coldly. Was she really worth a life time of wondering what could have been? Trowa was using all his self control to just stand there and look at her. He was frustrated and the person responsible for that was standing in front of him looking calm and collected, as if nothing had happened.
* * *
Unfortunately, Trowa couldn’t read minds and was oblivious of the torment Dorothy was going through. She never thought she would see the day when another human being would do something for her without expecting something in return. Never could have she imagined that one day, someone would give up his freedom to save her. Why? What was in it for Quatre Winner? Her mind kept telling her that there had to be something, that there was not such thing as a selfless act but no matter how hard she looked; she couldn’t find an ulterior motive.
The four men in front of her obviously had no problem killing her; why couldn’t Quatre be like that? It wasn’t that he was incapable of taking a human life; he had taken many during the war, so what made her so special? She wasn’t a kind person or an innocent. She had led the mobile dolls in battle and tried to kill him repeatedly, so what did he see in her?
And then it hit her. Like she had opened her eyes for the first time and was finally able to see the person Quatre Winner was. He cared, he truly cared about people and he had saved her because he thought that there was something in her worth saving. That’s when Dorothy started to question everything she believed about herself and a little voice kept telling her that maybe Quatre was right, that maybe there was still hope.
* * *
TBC