"Wish Upon a Star "

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: sap, angst, fluff, AU

Pairings: 3x4

Summary: When you wish upon a star, it makes no difference who you are, unless you're the heir to the Winner business empire. So when you do find a means of escape, how long can you hold on to the fantasy, and the man of your dreams, before reality takes over?

"Wish Upon a Star "

Tree Huggers and Troublemakers:

'This place is so beautiful.' Quatre said it for what was probably the billionth time.

Admittedly, given the way he was feeling right now, the sheer feeling of liberation that he'd stood up to Iria for the first time in his life, he'd probably have found a cement factory fascinating - had Trowa chosen to take him to view such a place.

He hadn't though. They'd driven less than two hours out of the city, into a haven of greenery and singing birds and cool, silvery streams dancing over pebbles.

After half an hour, they still hadn't made it more than a mile from the car park. Quatre kept stopping to exclaim over a patch of wildflowers, or a tightly furled fern frond, or flick a pebble into one of the tiny pools.

Trowa laughed. 'You're going to have to find a new adjective, Cat. I'll lend you my thesaurus when we get home.'

Quatre stuck out his tongue, dancing a few steps away when the other man lunged to catch him. 'Spectacular!' he yelled defiantly. 'Stunning. Amazing. Incredible. Fabulous. Breathtaking. And beautiful!'

'Beautiful!' Trowa echoed, grabbing Quatre's hand and reeling him in. 'Stunning. Breathtaking. Incredible.'

The breath caught in the blond's throat as Trowa kissed him. A perfect, perfect moment. The leaves overhead echoed the colour of his eyes, and the sunlight painted red lights in his hair.

He'd been such a fool to be so nervous the previous night. Trowa was good and kind and wonderful. Once they'd moved a bit farther into the forest, and found a place where they could sit down and talk in private, he'd tell Trowa the truth.

It wasn't so very bad. He hadn't officially lied; just omitted some small truths. Well, rather large truths. But he could explain all that. It would work out.

Trowa kept holding his hand as they walked on up the path, ignoring the fact that there were a few other people around. Mostly older couples, probably retired, and usually with dogs.

It was so liberating, to be able to show affection in daylight, under the sun.

'What sort of dog would you like?' he asked suddenly, remembering something Trowa had said the previous day, and watching a black spaniel crash through the bushes after imaginary rabbits. He'd never seen a dog having so much fun. Some of his sisters had tiny, yappy lap-dogs, and of course the guards at home kept scary-looking specimens to patrol the perimeter.

'A big one,' Trowa answered at once. 'Maybe a Golden Retriever or a Pointer. I've an ex who used to breed German Pointers; they're great dogs. One day. I've taken in a few strays but it's not really fair to keep a big dog if you don't have the space for it.'

'You could take it here all the time and let it run,' Quatre suggested. 'It's such a fabulous place. If I lived here, I'd come here every day.'

'Well, I do have a business to run, so that's not all that practical. I'm really glad you like it,' Trowa squeezed his hand firmly. 'And your timing's pretty good. If you hadn't visited Sanque for another year, this part of the forest would probably all be gone.'

'What? Why? Have the trees got some sort of disease?' He knew, from his short time living in Canada that it was possible for trees to get sick, although he'd laughed at Jordan the first time his ex-boyfriend had said so.

'You could say that.' Trowa's mouth twisted bitterly. 'A disease called money. I guess you know Sanque's about to sign a treaty with your colony? Well, one of the provisos is that they need prime hardwood for some big construction project.' He waved his hand. 'This is what they're getting.'

'No!' Quatre gasped. He knew about the clauses; he knew L4 needed these raw materials, needed timber, for a new resource satellite WEI was constructing, but he'd imagined neatly sawn logs stacked in a warehouse somewhere. Not real trees.

Trowa nodded. 'Unbelievable, isn't it? Most of this is primary forest, centuries old. It'll probably last a couple of weeks once they bring in the bulldozers.'

'But…didn't anyone try to stop it? I thought you said this was a National Park. Isn't there some sort of protection order on the trees?'

'Not on this particular part. It's officially outside the park boundaries and for some reason it was never included in park legislation. It's up for grabs.'

'Maybe the people on L4 don't know it's important.' Quatre felt utterly sick. He was remembering something he'd heard Iria say months ago to one of her assistants, about 'stupid tree huggers causing trouble'. He'd asked what she meant, and got the usual answer; it was nothing for Quatre to worry about.

He'd just nodded and gone back to working on something he couldn't remember now.

'Sure they don't,' Trowa said acidly. 'We organised all sorts of protests. That's how I know Zechs, really. He took most of the photographs we used on our posters.'

Quatre's mind whirled again. 'I thought you said you knew him because he'd dated a friend of yours.'

'Well, yeah, but that was years ago. I didn't like him much, back then, to be honest. But he really threw himself into this project. We worked on a lot of stuff together; he was totally committed. I suppose we got to be friends, a bit.'

Another puzzle piece fell abruptly into place, the click all but audible. No wonder Zechs didn't want to be friends with him anymore. Not if the Winners were determined to destroy this place.

But he'd never said anything, never tried to persuade Quatre otherwise, which didn't make any sense.

'I don't know if the protests were ever broadcast on L4,' Trowa continued. 'Probably not. Our economy needs this treaty more than it needs a few trees. We've been an isolationist country for centuries, Cat. The Peacecraft monarchy never wanted Sanque to get involved in any of the European conflicts. We're a small, mountainous country so I guess we were never important enough to bother about. The present government is trying to change that a bit, to sign trade agreements with our neighbours, but they're not interested in us. Sanque doesn't want to become a part of the European Union; we'd just get swallowed up in all the bureaucracy. That's why the deal with L4's important. A pity we have to sacrifice places like this to get it, though.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Hey, it's not your fault. I didn't mean to make you feel bad. I'm sure most of the people on your colony would feel like you do. It's that Winner family who's behind it. By all accounts, they pretty much run L4 and they seem to think they can do the same in Sanque.'

Quatre swallowed, wondering if this was a good time or not. Now or never, maybe? 'The Winners? Trowa, I don't think they're that bad. They've done so much for L4; it's because of them that it's a prosperous colony. Perhaps they just don't realise how much these trees mean to people?'

'You're sweet, you know that?' Trowa gave him a quick kiss. 'But you don't have to make excuses for people just because they're from L4. They know damn well what's going on. They see Sanque as something to be exploited, just so they can get a few more billions in the bank. It's really sick.'

His expression darkened. 'I'll tell you something about the Winners, Cat, and then you won't feel you have to defend them any more. Their CEO's a woman called Iria, you probably know that?'

Quatre nodded, feeling utterly, totally sick.

'Well, she's a total harpy. A couple of months ago, she was here to give a press conference on all the benefits Sanque would get from this treaty.'

'But it is beneficial…..isn't it?' Quatre blurted. 'I've read the financial papers at home. It looks like a wonderful deal for both parties.'

'Well, yeah, on paper it looks pretty good, provided you don't start digging into all the small print. There're all these obscure clauses about penalties if we don't meet our exact trade quotas, about how L4 is going to have influence on our foreign policy and all sorts of shit. Anyway. This press conference was meant to be a nice shiny happy event; they only invited reporters whose editors were sympathetic to the deal but this friend of mine, Meiran, blagged her way in and started asking awkward questions. She was hustled out by security and next day when she went to work, she was told that her magazine had changed ownership and she no longer had a position there.'

'That's so awful.' Quatre swallowed past the terrible lump in his throat. God. He'd known about all of this, or at least he could have known if he'd taken the trouble to find out any of it. Iria had taken him out for lunch a month or so previously and they'd toasted WEI's first venture into the world of publishing on Earth. 'What's your friend going to do now?'

'She's doing some freelance work. Her cousin's one of my oldest friends and he's helping her out a bit. But that's the sort of thing that happens to people who stand up to the Winners. Anyway, none of it is anything to do with you.'

He took one look at his companion's downcast face and sighed. 'Cat, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to jump on my soapbox. None of this is your fault, OK? You're not responsible for what these damn parasites are doing.' He grinned suddenly. 'I'll tell you one thing; the word 'Winner' has pretty much become the latest obscenity in Sanque. It'll probably end up in the next edition of the Sanque Dictionary, with that bitch to illustrate what it means. Now come on. We're supposed to be having fun today. Race you to the top of the hill?'

'You always cheat,' Quatre panted a few minutes later. His chest was heaving, he had twigs and leaves in his hair from forcing his way through bushes, and it felt great. So much better than the running machines in his gym.

And if he ran far and fast enough, maybe he could get away from who he was.

'That's because I always like to get the prize.' Trowa took his mouth in a long, very thorough kiss, caressing Quatre's tongue with his own and then apparently trying to stroke his tonsils. Which had been removed when he was seven anyway. 'You are totally delicious. Now, open your eyes and look at this.'

He spun Quatre in a circle and the blond gasped in delight. 'It's beau – er, it's stunning. So much green. And no buildings at all. It looks like people have never even been there.'

Trowa smiled. 'That's the Nova National Park. It's one of the largest in Western Europe.'

'Can we go?'

'Not today; there isn't time. If you really want to explore properly, you need a few days. A week if you've got time. It's easier to hire horses so you can cover more ground. Can you ride?'

Quatre nodded eagerly. He wanted to go into that place, that depth of forest, more than he could say. He would be able to forget who he was. 'I love horses. Do you think we could go there sometime? Please?'

'You sound like a little kid,' Trowa teased affectionately. 'I don't know; I'll have to talk to Duo about how much cover he can do. I've got a uni student who helps out part-time as well; I can ask her if she wants some extra hours. I should be able to sort something out. I suppose it's up to you after that. How long more are you going to be here?'

'I don't know.' Jerked back to reality with a resounding thump, Quatre looked up sadly. It was stupid, fantasising about all this. There was no way he'd ever be able to do anything like that; to take off into the wilderness with Trowa for days on end.

'Come here a minute.' Trowa sank down on a fallen log and pulled Quatre beside him, one hand stroking the back of his neck. 'Why can't you tell me what the problem is, Cat? Stop telling about all these vague family problems and tell me what's actually wrong.'

'I wouldn't know where to start.' He look his head drop against Trowa's shoulder and the other man dropped a kiss to his forehead. 'I'm tired. I'm twenty-three, Trowa, and I'm just so tired. Of everything. The night I met you, I'd been standing on my balcony at the hotel, and I actually thought, just for a fraction of a second, how easy it would be just to fall.'

'Jesus, Cat!' Trowa hugged him protectively. 'Things are never that bad.'

'It was only for a tiny second, really. I'd never do anything like that. I was just feeling…hopeless. I 'd had a horrible, horrible row with my sister, and I could see myself spending the rest of my life being miserable, trying to please my family and never getting to be happy.'

'Then, walk out,' Trowa said bluntly. 'You're a smart guy. You can get another job. Hell, I'd hire you in a second. Your family will come 'round.'

'No, they wouldn't. It's L4, Trowa. If I did something like that, I'd be disowned for ever. It happened to one of my aunts; she fell in love with an American who was working for my grandfather, and eloped with him. As far as my family is concerned, she doesn't exist. It's worse than if she'd died. No one's allowed to speak about her, all the photographs she's in, everything, they were all destroyed. I – I don't want that to happen to me,' he said in a small voice.

'Oh,baby. If your family really loves you, they won't do anything like that.'

Quatre shrugged. It was so, so tempting to believe that; to believe that his father would understand. After all, he'd gone against his own parents' wishes, to marry a blonde foreigner.

It was tempting to believe it, standing in Trowa's embrace in the most beautiful place he'd ever seen, but it was just a fantasy.

'It's not about love. It's about responsibility and duty and respect. When my father was younger than me, his parents arranged a marriage for him with the daughter of friends of theirs. Then he met my mother. She was on L4 to take part in a charity fashion show, and they fell in love. He was the favourite son, the baby, but my grandfather never spoke to either of them for years.'

Trowa kissed the top of his head, very gently. 'That's a horrible way to treat your own kid. But wouldn't it make him more sympathetic to you wanting to make your own life?'

'Not really. It was very hard, you see, those first years when they were married. My father's family treated him like an outcast. Then his older brother, my uncle, died in a 'plane crash, and Father had to take over the business, but he was still excluded from a lot of family occasions. My mother missed Earth terribly and my father's family was never very nice to her. They always treated her like an outsider, who'd seduced my father away from his duty. I think, in a way, my father's always felt guilty for that, and it's why he wants me to do everything properly.'

'Marry a suitable girl he's picked out for you?' Trowa's eyes, on him, were suddenly very keen.

Quatre shrugged. 'One day. Maybe. He does know I'm gay, but…. I don't know, Trowa. It's not easy on L4. He does love me, you know. He only wants what's best for me. And he's not very well; he had a stroke a few years ago, and his heart's never been strong since then. I'd hate to do anything that might hurt him even more.'

'So what are you going to do?' Trowa sighed. 'No. Make that what are we going to do?'

'We?' Quatre looked up, his fog of depression pierced by a single pronoun.

'We as in you and I,' Trowa said firmly, grasping Quatre's chin and looking into his eyes. 'How long have you got before you have to go back home?'

'Maybe a week or so.' God, Iria would be furious. But a week sounded so…..permanent. An actual proper time period. And if Trowa got to know him better, he'd find out that he wasn't like the rest of his family, and then he could tell him the truth and maybe they could work something out from there.

After all, he would be the CEO of Winner Enterprises. He'd be expected to visit Sanque regularly. Maybe he and Trowa could arrange to meet discreetly every so often.

'Right. A week. I'm going to hold you to that, Cat. I think you need to see that you've got actual options in your life. You can make your own choices. And there's one other thing you seem to be forgetting. I saved your ass on Sunday night, right? Doesn't that mean I own you from now on?'

'Not exactly.' Quatre could feel a faint smile blooming under the tears. 'It means you're responsible for me.'

'I'm a very responsible person. Ask anyone.' He leaned a little bit closer and whispered in Quatre's ear. 'I sort of liked the idea of owning your ass, you know?'

'Oh!' Quatre could practically feel the heat radiating from his face, but he forced himself not to look away. 'I, ah, well, I suppose you do. Are you quite sure you want to be responsible for my…um, my ass?'

'Absolutely.'

'You don't know anything about me, not really.'

'No?' Trowa looked faintly amused. 'Let's see. I know you prefer being called Cat to your real name. You can't drink alcohol, you're a great dancer, you kiss like a dream. You're seriously sexy but you don't know it. You're lonely. OK so far? You're great with people; I was watching you in the shop yesterday. You were talking to everyone, even the little kids, like they were the single most important person in the universe. And you really listen when someone talks to you. That's actually pretty rare. You blush when you get compliments. I'd say that was cute, except I think it means that you don't get many of them. You like to make people happy, for them to like you, and I think that's partly why you've got these issues with your family. You need to learn to stand up for yourself more. What else? You're funny and very attractive and when you really, really smile, you could probably power up the whole city. And I really like you, in case you haven't copped on yet.'

'I really like you too,' Quatre told him quietly.

'OK. In my book, mutual really liking is a good sign. Now, come on. Let's find a nice place for a picnic and then there's another really great viewpoint over the lake, a couple of miles away. How's that sound?'

'Peferct.' Quatre let the other man pull him to his feet. For the first time in weeks, months, he was starting to feel a tiny glimmer of light. Of possibility. Trowa liked him. Of course, the other man had no concept of what Quatre's life was really like, but some of what he said made sense.

'Race you,' he yelled suddenly and took off in a mad headlong dash down the slope, hurtling through brambles and ducking lower tree branches before losing his footing and sliding all the way down.

'I won,' he gasped when Trowa, still on two feet, almost fell over him.

'You cheated.'

'I still won,' Quatre insisted. 'Don't I get a prize?'

'I'll give you prizes,' Trowa growled, and pounced.

Quatre was still laughing through swollen, bruised lips when Trowa hauled him upright.

The tall man made a face. 'Look at you. I'm not sure if I want such a scruff for a boyfriend.'

Quatre froze, the smart retort dying on his lips. 'B-boyfriend? Me? Really?'

Trowa considered it, grinning. 'Well, maybe if you cleaned up a bit, I'd think about it.' He winked. 'Lucky that I know you scrub up well.'

Quatre had never, knowingly, pouted in his entire life. He did so now, or at least his lips did. 'So you're only with me for my looks?'

'That's pretty much it. I'm the shallow, superficial type, in case you haven't realised that yet.'

'Oh, I have,' he played along gleefully. 'And you're horribly bossy. From the very moment you started talking to me, you were trying to tell me what to do. I've no idea what I'm doing with you, really.'

'What are you doing with me, Cat?' Trowa pulled him suddenly to a halt. 'Really?'

'I-I'm not sure where to start.' His voice came out just a little shaky. 'You're everything. Everything I could possibly want. I love talking to you, and you make me laugh, and I feel different when I'm with you. Happy and full of potential and interesting.'

'You are all of those things,' Trowa insisted softly. 'I can't see how you don't know that but you are. Now, come on. I don't know about you, but I'm starving.'

 

~ * ~

Chapter 14

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