Across the floor, Taro was just apologizing for that very offense. Heero handed me his beer and walked over.
I looked for Missy, but she'd gotten away from Anna. I assumed she'd gone to change too.
"Oh Trowa! It's not that bad! You don't have to resort to alcohol!" Quatre came up to me, smiling. "Look at this! Two-fisted drinking!"
I smiled, "It's Heero's."
"Sure, it is. You shouldn't worry, I fixed everything."
Warning bells went off. "What do you mean?"
"I just had a pleasant conversation with Missy."
"And?"
"And she was laboring under the misconception that you were only helping her for a shuttle!"
"What did you tell her?"
"Merely the truth, that I donate a shuttle or the equivalent to the circus every year and that you and I both knew the bet thing was a joke."
"But Quatre…"
"And you even said there was nothing I could do to help! Are you putting up obstacles again?"
"That's not really the truth, I did take her in on a bet."
"Did you believe your success with her would really dictate whether or not I'd donate as usual to the circus?"
I looked at him for a heartbeat. "Not for one second."
He smiled.
"I was pretty sure in fact if I failed, I'd have to enforce your side of the bet myself."
"I'd go around you," he said.
"Yeah I know."
"So why did you let her be angry with you about it?" he asked.
I grimaced. How to explain this? "Because I wanted her to be angry."
"I don't follow you."
"When she remembered, we found out we knew each other as kids."
His eyes widened. "You did? What are the chances of that?"
"Just wait, there's more. She was a spy for the Alliance, and I was part of the rebel group she wiped out. The only survivor in fact."
He shook his head in wonder. "How old were you?"
"Around ten."
"Young."
"She taught me how to hate."
He nodded. "And how to love, pretty talented teacher. Only question is: which is stronger?"
"Hate is. I thought if she was angry, we'd be more comfortable."
"Ah, well, I helped with that. I'm sure of it. You will still be comfortable even though she's not angry," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I asked her what she was going to do, now that she knew the truth about the shuttle." He paused to take a sip of the soda he was holding.
He was going to make me draw this out of him. I gritted my teeth, and gave in. "What did she say?"
"She said you had a right to say no, and she shouldn't have pressed you for a reason. She said she wouldn't force you to come up with another reason to keep you two apart."
I nodded. "Good."
He looked at me out of the corner of his eyes. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"Has she changed? I mean when she remembered she was your enemy as a little girl, did those memories change her."
I thought about it. "No, not really."
"So what you hate isn't her now, but her then."
"But they're the same person."
"Are you the same person you were then?"
"No I…" It was like a light going off in my head. Then with wonder, the reality of it occurred to me. "I try very hard not to be…"
So hard that the least little reminder of Noname upset me. It made me angry. Now my anger at Missy made sense. Middie had come to represent everything that was evil in me. She was a reflection of myself when I was a nameless soldier and a pitiless killer. What I hated about Middie was not really her past actions, but the mirror of myself her existence showed. I hated who I was when I was Noname, therefore I hated Middie. It was not rational. I saw that now.
I had tortured her. I wanted so desperately to forget Noname, to forget my past. So much so, that when the woman I loved became a reminder of it-I pushed her away.
But she was just like me. She had a past she ran from all her life, only embracing it when she realized she couldn't love me without it.
And I loved her for it. My heart swelled in my chest and ached. I had to see her.
Quatre knew me so well. He stood by and quietly watched me come to this epiphany.
"I have to talk to her," I told him.
He smiled. "Yes you do."
"Here," I said and distracted shoved the two beers into his hands. He juggled them and watched me walk away.
I heard one of his daughters come up to him behind me.
"Daddy! You're drinking alcohol!"
"But they're not mine!" he sputtered.
Missy wasn't at the party. I looked for her. I asked. No one had seen her since she went to change clothes. I went to the women's locker room. I grabbed the first woman to emerge, who told me she'd left just a few minutes ago.
But why didn't I meet her going to the party as I left? Maybe she'd gone back to her room for something? I sprinted to the dormitory. She was on the women's floor now, though I tried not to, I'd found out the room number the day she'd moved.
I stood before her door, and I knew she was in there. All the Missy-sensitive nerves in my body were firing. I froze and let the pounding in my head subside. I knocked.
"One minute!" she called and my heart flipped at the sound of her voice.
She looked surprised to see me. "Trowa?" she said as she opened the door and paused. She wore shorts and a long t-shirt, obviously not going to the dance. My eyes drifted, unbidden over her form.
I opened my mouth, but no words came.
"Look, I'm sorry about the finale. I know it looked bad, I'll do better next time. Is that what you wanted?" She looked distressed.
"No," I said. My voice worked!
"Oh then it must be about Quatre and the shuttle."
I froze again.
"Listen, you…you don't need to come up with another excuse. I won't throw myself at you again and force you to push me away, if that's what's worrying you. We'll be just like any other two performers. I promise…"
"No," I said, "No that's not it. Please listen."
She closed her mouth and looked at me.
"It's not you," I told her.
"Not me?" she asked.
"Before I found out who you were, when you were just Missy…I…well I…"
"Loved me?" she prompted.
It was easier to admit to when she said it.
"Yes," I whispered.
"You don't have to tell me this. I know. I know that you hate who I was, and what I did. I'd like to apologize to you, but it wouldn't be true. I loved my family. I did what I had to do." She looked tired like she'd given up and really wasn't interested anymore. How was I going to fix this?
"I don't hate you Missy. I hate my past. I hated who I was." I pushed my hair out of my face. "God, this isn't coming out right…Your only sin was just reminding me of him, of Noname."
"But you're Noname." She looked puzzled.
"Yes, I know. But I didn't want to be. I wanted to forget him, forget my past. And I took it out on you. Missy, please forgive me. I'm so sorry."
"You were running from your past?"
"Yes," I breathed.
"And now?"
What could I say? A thousand things? A million things came to mind and they all wanted to be announced first.
"Don't I still remind you of Noname?" She leaned against the doorframe.
"You do, but…" I wracked my brain for the words. The words that would fix everything. "I need your help…"
She looked at me hesitantly, as if afraid I would break her heart again. "My help?"
"I need you to show me how you did it. How you got over your past. What you said the other day-you have as many good memories as bad. I want that too. Help me."
"Trowa," she whispered, there was pain in her eyes.
My courage failed me. I wanted her to just throw herself at me, so I didn't have to risk it. But she said she wouldn't. I had to do it. "Just say we can be friends again. Just give me that much."
She stepped back. "No, don't ask that of me. We cannot be friends. I won't be tortured again."
I couldn't escape my feelings at her words. My heart missed the bar and fell to the circus floor. No net. "Oh, of course." It was what I deserved. I'd treated her so badly. I'd used her.
I really had dug her up from her chosen grave. Forced her to remember. Then crushed her. Of course she couldn't trust me.
My body didn't want to believe it was over. I started forward reaching out to her, but she jumped further back from me.
I stopped. I looked down. My hair fell down to cover my face once more. "I'm sorry," I told her.
"Just go," she whispered.
I turned and headed down the hall. There was nothing more to say. I heard her door click closed behind me. It sounded like a jail cell slamming. I leaned against the hallway wall for support. Shock filled me.
I didn't know what to do. I wanted to scream, to howl like a beast, to hit something.
And I hated myself. Not just Noname, but all of me. I hated the Trowa who couldn't overcome his past. Who let Noname destroy something again. I was the one who belonged in Quatre's shelter now. I was the one left empty by the war.
It was me.
I felt a hand on my back. I stiffened, unable to move.
"Trowa," Missy whispered. Her hands slipped around me from behind until her arms encircled me. "I know I said I wouldn't throw myself at you again, but I can't help it." Her body pressed into my back, I could feel every cell of it. Her cheek on my spine, her breasts pushed tight to my lower back. I sucked in a ragged breath.
Her voice vibrated through me as she spoke. "I can't be your friend, I just can't. Not with how I feel. How I love you. But you don't need an excuse to push me away. Just tell me no, and I'll never…but I can't be only your friend. I just can't…I…" She was crying.
I pulled her hand from my chest with both of mine. I turned it so I could look in the delicate inside of her palm. I kissed her there. She gasped.
I turned in her arms. The look in her eyes was enough to drive me insane. Love. Yearning. Wanting. She was perfect. I stood there and looked at her, as I wanted to. Claiming her with my eyes. The soft delicate curves of her face, the deep loving pull of her eye, the questing fullness of her mouth.
My own beautiful statue come to life. A gift of the gods. She was mine.
I stroked her cheek and watched with wonder as her eyes fluttered in response. She turned her face into my hand. She kissed my fingertips and it felt like little electric shocks were shooting up the nerves of my arm.
My hand slid behind her head and I tilted her mouth up to mine. When our lips met, it was like the end of the world. All the thoughts in my head silenced and focused on this one task. On the press of her lips, the sigh of air as she opened them for me, and the absolute wonder of exploring her mouth with mine.
Gone were any ideas of holding back and dating her or seeing if my emotions were true. They were true. Love is not a feeling a man can put to words very easily, but I knew I was happy. So incredibly happy.
This is what I was looking for that day, as I stood over the body of the man who taught me to fight, looking at the girl who taught me to hate. I was looking for redemption. Looking for someone to teach me to love.
I've killed innumerable people during the war. More than any man, who wishes to remain sane, dares count. But I've only brought two back to life. Middie Une, and myself.
The rest of the story, as you know Ms. Grimm, gets me to where I am now. My wife and I have two beautiful boys, both it seems like trapeze better than clowning, but I'm convinced they'll outgrow it.
My sister married Heero and made him two homes. The first in a mansion, but that lasted only for the first four years. The second home was as I predicted. This season, she's back with her daughter Amanda and a very promising young clown in Heero's son René. Heero visits so often his bodyguards have become a nuisance.
Quatre, as the tabloids will tell you, never got Dorothy to come back to him. Instead, she allows him to visit. As a result, he spends way too much time on Earth. If not for his daughters, I think he'd abandon the colony all together. He remains a man torn between his family and his love. But I think he's better off than he was.
You might also be interested to know that Missy and I went back to St. Petersburg three years ago. We did some digging and found that her brother Alex survived the war. He lives there with his wife and four nearly grown children. Their reunion was a poignant and touching one. Alex knew nothing of the other two brothers, and we help him with the search now. We don't hold out much hope, but then Missy came back to life, so you never know.
Is this the part where I say 'and they lived happily ever after'? I think if I did, you wouldn't believe me. Life, for two people touched so deeply by war, can never be completely happy, but at least it is a burden we no longer have to run from, or carry alone.
I have to thank you, Ms. Grimm, for suggesting I undertake this enterprise. Although I was uncomfortable writing the difficult parts, I am pleased to have told this story in such detail. I never could've accomplished it in an interview with you, and this part of my life is very important to me.
I look forward to seeing the manuscript soon. Good luck on muddling through my amateur ramblings. If you have any questions or need clarification, please don't hesitate to ask.
Yours truly,
T. T. Bloom
"There's no business like show business like no business I know!
Everything about it is appealing
Everything the traffic will allow
Nowhere can you get that happy feeling
When you are stealing an extra bow" - Annie get your Gun
Ladies and Gentleman, children of all ages! In the center ring! The one and only Alisa Grimm herself! The wonderful editor of 'My Statue'--MidiiUne! The Greatest Show in the Universe is forever greatful!
This fan fiction is written for entertainment only, the author does not claim to own any part of Gundam Wing. Please do not distribute. Gundam Wing© Bandai, Sunrise, Sotsu Agency.