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"Apres La Guerre "Written By: Waterliliylf Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing. All rights
remain with Bandai, Sotsu and associated parties. No profit being
made here. Rating: R Warnings: Duo POV, angst, sap, humor Pairings: eventual 1x2 Summary: Post War Fic, mostly Duo POV set seven
years after the end of the War and absolutely oozing angst and sap
and humour and confusiona and Duo-suffering.. Long 1x2 get together
fic "Apres La Guerre " Chapter 95– Alignment:
He'd always hated drawn-out goodbyes, something he'd
never had the heart to tell Quatre. It had been easier just to watch
them drive off in Heero's car. It wasn't like he wouldn't see them
soon enough. He'd booked a return flight to make Duo happy, promised
he'd back in a few months. He was alone, then, walking into the terminal. The girl
at the check-in desk gave him a slightly puzzled glance and then her
eyes widened when she saw his ID. He was travelling under his real
name for once, or at least the name he'd chosen for himself. There
were a few advantages to notoriety though; she just nodded to his
request and she was smiling a little coyly as she wished him a safe
flight and handed him baggage tags and printed documentation for Colombo. Sri Lanka wasn't all that important. He'd chosen it
at more or less at random. Somewhere he'd never been. There were direct
daily flights to Florence which had pleased Duo. There was a rehabilitation
centre for tigers and other animals which was prepared to overlook
his lack of formal qualifications in favour of experience with big
cats. He could find a place to live near a beach, something he'd always
wanted. The others had helped him choose where to go. He thought
Duo had pressured him slightly toward Sri Lanka from the start. Of
course. He and Quatre had always told each other everything, and Sri
Lanka had been a fantasy of Quatre's for years. Being Quatre, he'd thought about hammocks slung between
palm trees, and tiger cubs gambolling in the garden of an old colonial
villa, and their own yacht. It had only ever been a dream, so Trowa
had never told him about the poverty and the monsoons that turned
roads into torrential rivers every year, and certainly never about
the many species of spiders that lived on the island. The way Quatre had grown up, he'd never really got how
most people lived in a very different world. It had been infuriating
or endearing, depending. Like Quatre himself, if you thought about
it. Classic poor little rich kid, who'd run away from home
and promptly fallen for the sort of person his family would despise
most. That wasn't fair, though. Trowa bought a cup of something
that claimed to be espresso from a vending machine. He drained the
last drops of his questionable coffee-flavoured drink and shouldered
his bags. Then he saw him. Because he was Quatre Winner and terminally courteous,
it took him twice as long as it should have to reach Trowa. He had
to step aside for everyone going in a different direction, and apologise
for bumping someone's trolley, and help an old lady with her bag. It took a minute to work out why Quatre looked different,
before he realised that Quatre was alone and he never was in a public
place. He had no bodyguards shadowing him; no assistants scurrying
in his wake with memos and clipboards and schedules. He looked like any other tourist, with a backpack and
a smaller bag over one shoulder, and his violin case. Better than
he had been on L4; most of the bruises had faded and you could only
see him favouring one leg if you were looking for it. He was wearing a t-shirt with short sleeves, something
he never did. Even after all those years, the jagged scars on his
wrists were still shockingly vivid. He'd always refused any kind of
cosmetic skin grafts to hide them. Because Trowa knew to look for
them, he could see the other scars on his arms; the tiny nicks criss-crossing
the pale skin where he'd cut himself. It was nearly two months since they'd met on L4; since
they'd said goodbye. 'Hello.' Trowa nodded. 'What are you doing here?' 'I don't know.' He'd always had courage; Trowa was the one to drop his
eyes. 'Quatre Raberba Winner without a plan. Not something you see
every day.' 'It feels very odd. I do have something for you.' He
handed Trowa a white envelope. 'I don't want money from you, if that's what it is.'
He meant it to hurt and it visibly did. 'It's not that. I wouldn't. Please. Open it.' Trowa read the letter once, too fast, and then a second
time to check he hadn't imagined it. 'Is this real?' Quatre nodded, sidestepping a couple of girls with a
laden trolley. 'It was about time, I thought.' 'How'd your sisters take it?' 'I'm sure you can imagine.' Quatre gave him one of those
sudden little smiles that were never for public consumption; a blend
of mischief and sly delight at his own cleverness. 'Not awfully well.
They shouted a lot.' 'That I can imagine,' Trowa said dryly. He'd lived with
the Winner family's disapproval for years, not caring for his own
sake, but there'd been times when he'd wanted to kill the whole lot
of them for upsetting Quatre. Quatre didn't seem to care overmuch
this time. He looked back at the letter. 'I like that you've given shares to all WEI employees
as well as your family.' Rather a lot of shares, actually. The sisters
wouldn't have liked that either. Quatre had provided for them; they'd
be comfortably off for the rest of their lives, but they'd never been
satisfied, whatever he did. He imagined there had been a hell of a
lot of shouting when their brother announced he wasn't just giving
up his position at WEI, but giving so much power to mere staff members. 'It seemed fair. It was one of your ideas in the beginning,
remember? Allowing staff to buy shares as a performance incentive.' 'You're really just walking away?' Oh, they'd talked
about it. When they'd first gone to L4, after the war, it had been
on a purely temporary basis. Until they made the company profitable.
Until Quatre's twenty-first birthday. Until Quatre found someone he
could trust to take over. Until one more merger or expansion or project
that needed his input was completed. And Trowa had never pressed him, because he knew just
how much of Quatre was bound up in his father's legacy. Atoning for
the people he'd killed. Assuming responsibility for the colony his
ancestors had founded. Trying to make his dead father proud. Quatre just nodded, looking slightly surprised himself.
'It was easy, in the end. It felt right. I don't know. Some of it
was fun, at the beginning, wasn't it?' Trowa suddenly realised he was smiling. Some of it had
been fun. Lots of it, actually. Screwing Quatre in his office, over
the desk that had belonged to generations of Winners, or in one of
a succession of swivel chairs that always broke in the end. Video
conferences with Trowa in the room next door, setting each other increasingly
outrageous dares. And they'd always worked well together. They'd taken
files home and studied them in bed, documents and lube strewn over
the sheets, laughing at the disapproval of Quatre's stuffy board members
if they could see. Laughing at the sheer audacity of two teenagers
taking over the largest corporation on L4. 'It was fun,' Trowa said softly. When it had all started
to go wrong, he'd stopped thinking about that. 'You've really given
up away your entire stake in WEI?' 'Well. Not exactly. I have enough shares that I qualify
to attend board meetings if I want. And I'll still have some say in
the company's future. I think that's important.' Of course. Always the strategist. That was all right.
Trowa wouldn't have expected anything else. What happens now?' 'That's up to you.' 'Oh, no. That's not fair, Quatre. You can't just do
this, all of this, and then turn up out of nowhere and put all the
pressure on me.' 'No. I know it isn't fair. But I wanted to see you before
you left. I wanted to say that everything I said on L4 is still true.
It always will be. I'm yours, if you decide you want me. You don't
have to decide now or anything. You can just call me.' 'You know I'm going to be in the jungle. Not the easiest
place to make phone calls.' Quatre nodded. 'I know. I looked it up on-line. It looks
wonderful.' 'Not really your sort of thing.' Trowa flicked a glance
at the nearest clock. Thirty minutes to board; time to start heading
through Security. 'Jungle, in the middle of nowhere. Electricity only
for a few hours in the evening.' 'It's a beautiful place, I thought.' Quatre fell into
step beside him, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. 'Yeah.' He tried, stupidly, to imagine Quatre in a bamboo
hut instead of a boardroom. 'You'd be bored.' 'You'd be there,' the blond said simply. 'I'd be working. There's a team that spends days at
a time in the jungle, monitoring the tiger population, keeping track
of animals that've been released. I want to be a part of that. What
would you do?' 'Apart from wait for you? The website said the animal
centre is part of a whole community initiative. There's a school and
a clinic and they're trying to attract eco-tourists. I'm sure I could
help out somewhere. And I do have that romance novel to write, remember?' Quatre flinched. 'Quat.' Trowa gentled his voice. 'Listen. Ever since
we met, my whole life's revolved around you. I need to be by myself
for a bit and sort stuff out. Decide what I actually want to do with
the rest of my life.' 'Yes, of course. I understand all of that. But maybe
I can come with you?' 'That kind of defeats the purpose,' Trowa said quietly,
stopping at the security gates. 'I can't go through there.' 'You don't have a ticket?' That was actually
a surprise. 'No. I thought about it but it seemed too like tempting
fate.' 'Probably too late to buy one now.' 'Probably.' Quatre swallowed. Trowa knew just how that little dip between the flare
of his collarbones would taste. Just as his tongue remembered the
rough tissue on the inside of his left wrist where he'd cut himself
to the bone, and the little circular scar where Dorothy Catalonia
had tried to kill him. Twice that he'd almost lost Quatre. Twice that
he'd held his lover and watched him bleed and thought that it had
been inevitable all along; that there was no way that someone like
him would get to keep someone like Quatre Winner. It wasn't inevitable this time. 'Will you please call me? Please. Just to say you're
all right. That you're happy.' His voice broke, very slightly, on
the last word and of course Trowa couldn't let it end like that. He took Quatre in his arms without even thinking about
it, and then realised that it was probably allowed now, even with
people watching. 'I've only ever been happy in my life with you. You
know that.' 'Trowa, I don't know how to be without you. I
tried and everything went so wrong.' 'I wasn't so great without you either,' Trowa confessed
and kissed him, and everything in the universe was suddenly, overpoweringly
right. Sure, it had made sense to go off alone to find himself,
and find something he wanted to do, but fuck it, Quatre was right. They could do that together. Someone wolf-whistled behind them, and a camera flash
went off. Hardly surprising; two former Gundam Pilots making out in
the middle of a crowded airport. 'Oh, no!' Quatre hid his face in Trowa's chest, mortified. Trowa just shrugged. 'Bound to happen sooner or later.
Who cares?' If the photograph came out halfway decent it would be
worth a fortune; the first picture of the two of them together. The
Winners would have apoplexy, which would bloody well serve them right.
Just to make sure, he kissed Quatre again, very thoroughly, ignoring
the little squeak of protest. There were more whistles and camera flashes and then
a smattering of applause which grew louder. Trowa looked up and just grinned. 'Smile for the nice
people, Quat.' Quatre looked, for a second, as if he didn't know whether
to run or burst into tears. But he'd spent the last six years giving
press conferences and presentations and he'd become an expert at it.
He was still scarlet, still clinging to one of Trowa's hands, but
he managed a very creditable smile. Come on. Let's get out of here. The plane leaves in
fifteen minutes. You're not the head of WEI anymore. They won't wait
for you.' 'Trowa, I can't.' 'You have ID on you? Then you can.' He fished in his
pocket and took out the boarding pass for two passengers. 'I got it
just in case. You know me; I've never believed in fate and all that
shit.'
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