Okay, I don't own Gundam Wing or any of its characters. So don't sue me or anything. Also "Pale September" is a Fiona Apple song from TIDAL. She wrote the lyrics and music. If you've never heard the song, then you should because it's a really nice song, to fit the main characters of this song fic. Read further explanations at the end of the story. PLEASE!!!!!!!!!! Thanks to Kai, who has been kind of enough to be my editor! Now enjoy...
Pale September, I wore the time like a dress that year.
The autumn days swung soft around me, like cotton on my skin.
The crispy September air floated with its moist air. All around the leaves have started falling. The brilliant greens faded to show the fiery reds, and the warm autumn colors. How cold this place would quickly become. But that didn't stop the grand old circus from enjoying the day in another colony. How happy the circus troop was. Tonight was their last night, and soon they would move on to another colony for a long waited vacation. Just a little piece of quiet before they had to travel off again. He came back to his new home, his new family after the wars had ended to rest and find the place that he belonged. As he walked among the familiar tents, and breathed in the familiar scent of popcorn, he headed towards the midway. A wonderful sound drew him closer and closer until he saw what he had been searching just now.
The music of the accordion sounded throughout the circus ground. He walked closer to musician. He took out his flute and played along. That sweet melody echoed in unison, both accordion and flute. He enjoyed that nice musical session with David, the accordion man. Just then a beautiful, harmonious voice sang the words to the song. "Speed Bonny Boat like a bird on the wing. Onward the sailors cry, they cry... carry the lad who is born to be king... o'er the sea... to Skye..." Trowa needn't glance up. He could tell it was Catherine. The dear little Catherine. The woman who became his big sister.
Such sweet harmony and such a happy moment together. As he played on, his mind couldn't help but drift to another time. Catherine smiled down at Trowa as she looked deeply at him. It was like she could look beyond his face, his eyes, his mind, and peer into the lost soul that he had. She knew what he thought. He knew she knew his thought. That moment when they had the rain storm...
Rain suddenly fascinated him that particular day. Trowa didn't know what came over him. A sense of hope came over him as he walked through that drizzle. Through the woods, he walked and journeyed to no particular place. The rain began falling heavier. Somehow walking now made his mind wander. Wander towards some unknown far away place. Another time that was completely strange to him, though he couldn't help thinking of it. "Rain. Why does rain make me feel so strange?"
Horses neighing, a rainy day. A muddy road. People screaming. A boy and a girl missing from a family. "Why would I care what happens to a couple of little kids?" He asked himself. Yet, he felt so sorry for them. He kept walking on endlessly. "Know how you feel kids. Know how you feel." He walked over the crisping leaves. The steady beat of rain on the trees tapped onward. He only listened to that sound.
His mind wandered. "Where the hell am I going?" After another moment, he thought, "I don't care anymore. I don't care about those stupid old questions anymore. I just don't want to think about them anymore." The sound of the forest was all that he could hear. "I just want to be alone. I'll never find the answers." His mind wandered back to those two children. The cold, wet mud felt to soft and familiar to him as he stepped into mushy dirt. "Why didn't I just die there?"
"Trowa! Trowa!" a voice called from the distance.
He heard that voice, but he didn't care. He just kept walking. The sound kept coming closer to him.
"Trowa! Please come back!" Suddenly the world felt cold, and darker. All he could feel was ice around him as his eyes closed.
But as the embers of the summer lost their breath and disappeared.
My heart went cold and only hollow rhythms resounded from within.
He groaned a little. He saw he was covered in towels and blankets. He was no longer freezing. He sat up from the bed he slept in. It was the trailer that he and Catherine shared. She walked in and smiled. "Trowa."
"What happened?" he said groggily. He only stared at her.
"You were out in the rain for three hours. I went after you, but you couldn't hear me. I had a feeling where you were. Then there you were lying there on the floor. You had a bad fever and you were freezing. I was afraid you'd die if you were out there any longer," she said seriously. She sat on the bed beside him.
Trowa couldn't believe her. "Why didn't you let me die? I wanted to be out there. If I was meant to die in the freezing, cold rain, then who are you to stop that? Maybe I was meant to die. It's just as well. There's nothing much in life to keep me here." He stared out the window. "Nothing."
"Oh Trowa. I couldn't let you die."
"Why do you even care about me?" he asked her.
"I care a great deal. I couldn't bare to think what would happen to you if you were hurt," she started calmly. She honestly felt that way about her little brother.
"I don't see why you should. I've never done right by you. I'm just a stranger. Trowa Barton isn't even my real name..." he said with slight agitation of his old frustration.
But then he rose, brilliant as the moon in full.
And sank in the burrows of my keep.
"It isn't? Then it doesn't matter. I would care about you, no matter what your name is." He just stared at her with his defeated, embittered look. Catherine couldn't stand it any longer. "Don't you understand? Has it gotten through your thick skull yet?!!" Catherine was frustrated. For months, she had taken care of him, and gave him a place with her in the circus. At first, she accepted his distance. He was a loner for so long, he had no real experience being with another person, who would care and look out for him. But it had been quite sometime now, and most people would have at least been less aloof than him. But he hasn't.
And all my armour falling down, in a pile at my feet.
And my winter giving way to warm, as I'm singing him to sleep.
"Well...well... the eternally patient Catherine has finally found a soul that she can't save," was all he said. "You can't redeem me from my eternal desolation, Cathy. You can't give me a band-aid when I need surgery. You can't just give me a handout and hope that I'll be all right."
She started tearing. She couldn't believe that he was being so cruel to her feelings. "I can't believe you. Is that all you think I've been doing? Feeling pity for you? Trying to create a new life for you? Is that it? Well I will tell you right now, Trowa Barton!" She stood up from her seat over him. "You have never made things easy for me. But I put up with it. Because, deep down inside, I know you liked someone loving and caring for you. I know that you wanted that kindness that you never had before. You ask me why I care?" She held her hands in small fists at her side.
"Yes, why do you give a damn about what happens to me?"
"I'll tell you why!" She lowered her voice and sat back down. "I have never doubted that you are capable of so much more than you have given yourself credit for. I thought that I could make you realize that. But I see, that you won't do it." She turned from him.
He goes along just as a water lily.
Gentle on the surface of his thoughts his body floats.
Unweighed down by passion or intensity.
Yet unaware of the depth upon which he coasts.
He was silent, calm faced. Unfazed by her furious emotion-driven speech. Then he had carefully digested every word she said, every tear she shed. It finally hit him. He couldn't stand seeing Catherine cry. It was like that time he tried to kill himself by throwing himself into a fight he knew he couldn't win. But she wouldn't let him give up. Not that easily. He realized how much she loved him. He turned her face to meet his face. He reached a finger to wipe her slow, trickle of tears that flowed down her face. "You're crying for me?" he said so very gently.
She didn't say a word, but nodded a little. She blinked her eyes to try to stop the tears. She gathered herself enough to look into his eyes. She let out all the emotion and energy she could in that speech. After another moment, she re-gathered the energy to speak. "You understand now? Do you really understand?"
"Yes, my dear Catherine. I see things so much more clearly. I'm sorry." He looked at her. He laid his head on her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him. She gently rocked the both of them, back and forth, like she was Trowa's mother.
And he finds a home in me.
For what misfortune sows, he knows my touch will reap.
"I'm glad you understand." She hummed sweetly.
He looked up at her. "Funny. I seem to remember something. I have a strange memory just now."
"Of what?" she asked still rocking and humming.
"I kind of remember. I was a little boy, and a girl, a little older than me, was doing what you are doing now..." he glanced at her. He had never looked at Catherine's face at that angle, from below her face looking up. His eyes lighted up a little. "It was you! You're that girl... my sister?"
She stopped and looked down at him. "I know. It doesn't matter whether I'm your sister or not. I would still love you anyway, Trowa. I lost my brother, Triton Bloom. But I got a new brother now, as Trowa Barton." He leaned his head on her shoulder again. She went back to rocking and humming.
And all my armour falling down, in a pile at my feet.
And my winter giving way to warm, as I'm singing him to sleep.
Slowly, his mind drifted back from the past. His mind focused on the present, the music, the rare, radiant harmony. He calmly looked and played on.
"...take flight!" finished Catherine. A crowd had gathered around the two musicians and the young songbird. They all took a bow. Trowa took Catherine by the hand and walked away from the ground. They were going off on another one of their walks. She would tell him about his lost childhood, and he would tell her what he could remember of his past, and how he became Trowa Barton.
"You can call me Triton if you want. I'll just have to get used to it. That's all," he said to her.
"No. I like Trowa. I think it's a nice name."
"All right then. I'll still be known as Trowa Barton."
"Trowa?"
"Yeah, Cathy?"
"I'm glad you trust in me."
Trowa looked at her thoughtfully. "And thanks for not giving up on me."
And all my armour falling down, in a pile at my feet.
And my winter giving way to warm, as I'm singing him to sleep.
Author's Note: Still with me? Good. Well, I hope you liked my story. How in the world did I come up with a songfic like this? Well I was writing this story, and just as I was in the middle of writing this, I was listening to Fiona Apple's TIDAL. It was playing "Pale September". The lyrics were nice, and the music seemed to fit the mood of my story. So I looked at the lyrics page in the cd. As I read them, I realized how well the words fit the story. I decided to turn this into my first ever songfic. I was right before the part where Trowa finds out he is actually Catherine's long lost brother. I carefully did my best to divide the lyrics of the song to fit into the various parts of the story. Then I wrote the rest of the story to fit the mood of the rest of the song. I sure hope I did a good job of it.
(Just in case you don't know. Trowa really is Catherine's brother! At least what I heard says so. I have been told that in the manga version of Gundam Wing, some how Catherine and Trowa find out they are actually siblings. Don't ask me how, because I've never read the mangas. This was just one of those facts that I came across when I looked for some GW sites. But even if it's just a rumor, this is still a nice story. Isn't it?)
You must wonder why I named the story the way I did. Well, as I thought of the title, I was thinking of calling it "The Big Top". But as I began writing it, the feel and direction of the story completely began to change. Well, I thought about how dull "Big Top" was. Then I was reminded of a movie title I saw called "Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb". So I added that "or How I Learned to Love My Beloved Catherine Bloom."