"Difficult Questions"

Archive: http://www.gundam-wing-diaries.150m.com/

Rating: PG

Warnings: um, I think there's a "damn" in there somewhere...

Disclaimer: There's a rumor going around, but that's all it is...

Pairings: 1+3

Author's Notes: Written in an hour and posted immeadiately. This is a POV, which some think should be in the warnings, but a lot of my best work is POV. The pairing is 1+3, which you could have figured out by process of elimination, but I'm saving everyone the trouble. And I haven't forgotten or abandoned my other stuff, I promise.

"Difficult Questions"

I don't know what I'll tell him. He's still so young, but it won't be long, he'll ask. As soon as he's able, he'll ask
about her. I've pictured it a thousand times, in many places, phrased many ways, but in every imagining, I just sit and gape like a landed fish.

There are many things I could say, of course, but I don't want to lie to him. Not in the blatant way the situation would require. Somehow, I just can't bring myself to tell him I loved her. Or that she loved me. Or even that she was a good wife or a good woman. She was my nightmare, my reason for working twelve hours a day at a time when I was so messed up I probably shouldn't have been working at all.

I could tell him she was pretty, but constant stress and passing time were not kind to her, nor was that drinking habit she had for a few years. Somehow `she used to be pretty' just doesn't sound the same.

Telling him that she gave me him would work, for a while, while he's young, but as he grows, I know he'll see it for the cop-out that it is. He's so insightful about his father, even now. I don't know where he gets that from, certainly not either of his parents.

I will admit I've been tempted to recruit one of his `uncles' to field the questions. Quatre has a knack for saying exactly what
someone needs to hear, and I've heard Wufei turn the odd eloquent phrase. Duo might work better than either of them though, because he, at least, would tell the whole truth, ugly as it is. He'd probably even be able to soften the blow. Oh, yes, I'm tempted, but I will never ask. It would monumentally unfair, even if I could get one of them to agree.

Strange, really, that as much as I wish that someone else would do this, my biggest fear is that he will ask Trowa instead of me. He loves Trowa so dearly, and I'd hate to think that he had hurt him, even inadvertently. Trowa came into our lives so tentatively, so carefully, and one wrongly placed question might well undo all I've done to make him feel welcome and appreciated.

He's done so much, and asked so little. Less, I know, than he wants and needs. Less than I need, for damn sure. But, patience is a virtue that Trowa and my son together are teaching me. It has to be right, and we both know it.

So, if his hands linger beyond necessity when he smoothes my shirt, or if I stare too long while watching him patiently duck my toddler's morning Cheerios, it's okay. It means something, but that something is delayed, for now.

My son approaches with a serious look on his face and sits on my lap. He looks up at me with curious, sad blue-violet eyes and
asks, "Daddy, where's my Mommy?"

And I'd thought he was still too young. Shows what I know about being a parent. I hug him close and give him a sad little smile.
Somehow, I know just what to say. "She died when you were a very little baby, but she loved you, very, very much."

"Is that why Trowa came?" I start to say no, that it's more complicated than that, but it really isn't.

"Yes. Trowa came to love us and to take care of us, because he knew that with Mommy gone, we would need someone to do that. He doesn't want to take Mommy's place, though. I think he wants his own place."

"If Mommy hadn't died, would she have stayed with us forever?" he asks.

The white lie falls easily from my lips. "Yes, she would have, forever." One of us, anyway. She would have divorced me, eventually, I'm sure.

"Maybe if you give Trowa a ring like the one you gave Mommy, he'll stay forever."

Out of the mouths of babes. "Where did you hear about that?"

"Trowa. He showed me Mommy's picture, an' I asked about it. He said you gave her the ring so she'd know you wanted to be with her."

I think about that for a long moment. Then I ask, "Are you particularly worried that Trowa will leave?"

He pouts a little, saddened by the very thought. "He might. We haven't asked him to stay forever."

I stand, scooping him up. "Well, kid, when you're right, you're right. We'll go right now and you can help me pick a ring to
give him. And tonight, we'll ask him to stay forever. You and me together. We may have to get on our knees and beg, though."

He giggles, a pure, happy sound. I consider what to say when I talk to the sales clerk at the jewelry store. We're certainly not
ready for a wedding ring, not now, if ever. A promise ring seems more appropriate, a token to show depth of the feelings we both have for him. For I'm not in this alone. I've seen that same thunderstruck adoration I feel on a certain three-year-old face.

In a way, it should seem so backward, to offer a man a ring and then, perhaps, dare to kiss him for the first time, but it just
seems right. I've ever done things my own way, and my boy is that much like me. If Trowa decides to have us, he should at least know what he's getting into.

As I strap him into his toddler seat, he asks, "Daddy, if Trowa stays forever, will he be another Daddy, or a new Mommy?"

I laugh a little as I slide into the driver's seat. I've done my time, for now. My turn for answering difficult questions has
passed. "Son, that's something you'll have to take up with him."

~ * ~

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