Okay, so everybody remember back when I finished the "Tales from Gundam Island" that I said I wasn't going to post to GW for a while? I forgot about this one. I finished it ages ago. And...I'm sorta cleaning out my oneshots so I don't have anything unposted before my 2015 year of all the fic. And I found this one!

Originally I was going to post it as three chapters, but I think I've spammed enough for one night.

If you want to read this as a prequel to "The Silken Cord" I think you can make a good case for that. You could also read it as sort of a possible side story to the "Proximity to Balance" oneshots. Or you can let it stand alone. That's okay, too.

Also? Yeah. There's sort of a hint about a one-sided 1x4 thing going on here. Because of reasons.

To everybody who hoped I'd come up with JUST ONE MORE GW story, here you go!

Enjoy!

Part 1 – To the Heeros Go the Winners

"Barton. We need to talk."

The once-pilot of Heavyarms stopped smoothly, his shoulders not even rippling with the surprise Heero knew he must have felt. Trowa turned, his hair hooding his expression as always, and crossed his arms, waiting. His every move was practiced, graceful, and yet somehow menacing. He'd never quite lost that acrobat training, nor the combat training, and both tended to show when he was uncomfortable.

Heero glanced to the open door behind him, sliding it shut with the push of a button to give them some privacy. Everyone else had already left the conference room after the briefing, although even through the closed door Duo's voice could be heard echoing throughout the entire ship. But here, away from all other eyes and ears, with only a wide table, a matched set of chairs, and the stars of space through the window visible, Trowa couldn't pull his usual silent act. Heero would not permit it.

"What's wrong with you and Quatre?" he asked in his most direct way.

"There is nothing between us."

Heero narrowed his eyes at the careless word dropped into the quiet. "I know that."

"Fine." Trowa turned to go.

"Trowa," Heero stepped forward, almost within range to grab the other's shoulder if he dared keep moving away. But Trowa didn't, though he didn't turn around either. "Don't ignore me. You know what I'm asking."

"You haven't asked me anything that I haven't answered, Heero," came the composed response.

The ex-pilot of Wing Zero momentarily debated physical violence but ultimately concluded it wouldn't gain him any tactical advantage and decided against it. If Duo or even Wufei were being obstinate, sometimes a fight would force them to talk. But Trowa, and Quatre for that matter, were different. Quatre almost never needed to be induced to speak – his empathic heart knew too well when something needed to be said. Trowa, on the other hand, didn't speak unless it was absolutely necessary. Which was problematic at the moment.

"Enough games, Trowa," Heero felt his face starting to tense with frustration. "Tell me why you won't talk to Quatre anymore."

At that, the reluctant object of Heero's attention turned around. There might have been surprise in his eyes but only for the barest moment before the cool exterior returned.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do."

Heero cursed Duo internally for the convincing argument that Trowa would only respond to him, that no one else could get Trowa to talk. But whatever his discomfort, he owed Quatre enough to endure a certain amount of wasted time and frustration. And because he did owe Quatre, he would complete this mission without fail, even if it meant breaking Trowa's nose to get him to answer.

"I don't treat Quatre any differently than anybody else," Trowa finally said. "If he's got a problem, he'd tell me."

"You're wrong on both counts and you know it," Heero countered. "You don't treat Quatre well at all, and it's starting to be obvious. And he won't tell you, because he probably doesn't know any better than I do why you're doing it. You're not making sense to him. Or me."

Suddenly Trowa's full attention was on Heero in a way it hadn't been previously. It was a startling change for anyone not used to Trowa's particular mannerisms – it was almost as though he had been asleep until this moment and was now fully awake. His expressionless mask broke into something so focused it could almost be called anger except that it wasn't.

"You're the one with the problem about how I treat Quatre." It wasn't a question; it was an accusation.

"He deserves better than to be unacknowledged. You follow him when he issues field commands, but you won't talk to him otherwise. You won't even stay in a room if he's there unless you have to be present for a meeting. Why?"

"I'd think you would be glad," and a sardonic smirk made a brief appearance on his face.

But the words had caught Heero almost completely flatfooted, which only angered him further. "What do you mean?"

"You know perfectly well what I mean."

Heero resisted the urge to roll his eyes – that was something Wufei would have done, and he would not allow such irritation to show outwardly. He again calculated the value of physically threatening Trowa, but held off. As a tactic it was better served for a last resort, anyway.

"Assume that I don't. Explain it," Heero ordered curtly. As he expected, Trowa abruptly squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. While Wufei reacted more sullenly to being ordered around, and Duo's reaction was as much mockery as genuine, and Quatre's obedience was so subtle as to give the impression that he was in charge no matter who was issuing the orders, it was Heero and Trowa who would still snap to attention as soldiers. The instinct was ingrained right along with breathing and sleeping.

But what Trowa answered was certainly not what Heero had expected.

"Quatre is yours. I have been respecting the scope of my position accordingly."

He couldn't help it – Heero felt his eyes widen in confusion. He was outmaneuvered, and that did not happen often. He was in a battle and he had lost his the advantage of surprise or even of knowing the terrain. The only course of action left to him was to follow the fight until he again had the upper hand.

"What do you mean that Quatre is mine?" he asked.

"To the victor go the spoils," Trowa recited the old idiom, his eyes settled somewhere around Heero's collarbone. After a pause where he ignored the weighted silence levied at him, he continued, "The war was your victory." He shrugged as if that should explain everything.

"You're saying you have been staying away from Quatre because you think…" he paused to get his conclusions in order, "that my actions three years ago somehow earned me exclusive access to him? Obviously that isn't the case, as everyone else talks to him just fine."

"It's not just that."

"Apparently not." Heero was getting tired of this conversation. Evidently his aggravation was apparent even to someone without Quatre's empathy because Trowa's whole stance shifted. He was no longer at attention; instead he leaned forward, some of his cool exterior melted in a certain amount of heat.

"You are the person who once told me that the only way to live a good life is to act on your emotions. Your victory gave you the first right to do so."

And then Heero understood. He schooled his face into a quiet expression, denying the feelings that rose up distractingly. He owed Quatre this much and far more than he could pay back. Quatre had helped him win the war, had mastered his own demons to do it, but that was nothing. Quatre had given Heero the secure knowledge beyond contestation that he was understood. Because as long as Quatre breathed, his heart would know Heero's own, and in that, Heero would never again be alone. Quatre heard his feelings even more clearly than Heero himself could, and that was worth more than he could repay through any single act. Even this one.

"I did," he answered Trowa simply.

"I know."

"And now it is your turn."

"What?" Now Trowa was surprised.

"I'm not going to spell this out for you, Barton, but you need to talk to Quatre directly for once. Don't forget that he can sense what you feel but he can't read your thoughts. And if it hurts you, you are hurting him." Heero's eyes narrowed again. "And if you are hurting him, now or ever, you will answer to me." He turned to go.

"Heero, wait!" It was Heero's turn not to look back, but he could tell that Trowa had moved after him and then stopped. He felt the gaze on the back of his neck shift and he sensed it was now searching the stars, plotting the coordinates to the colony a certain ex-pilot was working on that very minute.

"What?"

"You know Quatre's heart better than anybody." There was bitterness in the words but he moved on. "You know how it works. None of us knows how he can feel what he feels, but you understand it best."

"Probably."

"You can even tell things about him that nobody else can. You know about him somehow, the way he knows about you. Though not the same."

"Sometimes." Heero kept his voice neutral but there was triumph in his eyes. He'd baited Trowa correctly and now his opponent had fallen.

"Then why aren't you…you and Quatre…" but he didn't finish the question.

"Because we're not," Heero said matter-of-factly, allowing no emotion at all into his tone, and suddenly grateful that Trowa lacked Quatre's unique gift. "Look," and his voice softened a little though he still spoke to the wall, "I understand how it feels to know Quatre is listening for us. We all need to know he's there. Quatre calls me the heart of outer space, but he's the heart of the Gundams and always has been. Long before I told you to act on your emotions, Quatre had perfected his. I'd trust Quatre's instincts even over my own. We all would."

He knew without looking that Trowa was nodding.

"There's something else we all know."

"What's that?"

"That Quatre's heart leads him to you."

The sudden silence was so tight it could have choked Heero if he hadn't been ready for it. He could envision Trowa behind him, shoulders curled in as though he had been struck, face still turned to the window though tipped down, just raised enough that his eyes could continue seeking the stars. Silence reigned for a few moments.

"Does yours say the same?" Heero finally asked.

"I…don't know," Trowa said slowly. "I don't know what I feel."

"Neither does he, and that's the problem." A nearly inaudible exhale of breath was enough to break Heero's stubbornness and he turned back. As expected, Trowa stared at the darkness of space through his bangs, his posture turned inward.

"What should I do?"

"Tell him," Heero replied. "You don't talk, Trowa. Try it. Even if you don't know what to say, talk to him. Explain yourself. You owe him that much." He waited a moment for that to sink in, and then continued, "And stop avoiding him."

He was only a step from the door when Trowa caught his attention again. "Heero."

"What?"

"Why did you do this?"

A dozen answers flashed through Heero's mind, along with a few nonverbal responses, and he gave himself a moment before choosing one. He looked over his shoulder again and met Trowa's eyes, knowing well enough that his own were betraying somewhat more than he would have liked.

"Not for you. But when Quatre's confused, he's not as effective. And he's not himself. If you talking to him again will bring back the clarity he needs to listen for all of us, then I'll do it. He's blocked, Trowa, because of you, and I can't get through to his heart when it is shut."

Heero opened the door and began to step through it, before stopping and saying over his shoulder, "It's in my best interest if you open it up again."

Part 2 – Between a Sandrock and a Heavyarms Place

"Nice party," Trowa said under his breath. Beside him, Quatre managed a rueful smile.

"At least it wasn't as boring as you'd feared," he replied, voice tight with pain and rasping oddly.

Trowa frowned at that, eyes narrowing. "I think I'd rather have been bored."

"I know. Me too."

It was supposed to have been a simple business conclave of various leaders from both the Earth and the colonies at a high-class skyscraper on Earth. As head of the WEI corporation, Quatre had been required to attend. But the Preventers had gotten wind of some rumors of a group not altogether pleased with some of the companies in attendance, rumors that the former pilot of Sandrock waved off. Of course there were disgruntled people out there, he had protested, and sure sometimes things got heated, but it wasn't war, he'd argued.

Still, the other ex-Gundam pilots had decided, against Quatre's wishes, to send one of them along just in case. After all, Quatre himself could hardly break cover if something went wrong – that would be more dangerous than going in unarmed. Trowa had volunteered to serve as bodyguard to nobody's surprise except maybe his own, and so the young man had donned a suit, managed to look impassively intimidating, and followed Quatre to meeting after meeting.

It had been, for the first day, very tedious. Since so much of the business talk was confidential anyway, he couldn't even be in the room with the person he was supposed to be guarding, so Trowa found himself leaning against hallway walls waiting for hours, occasionally flipping on the audio to a bug Quatre was carrying just to make sure nothing had escaped his notice. More than once Trowa had wondered why exactly he had opted for this stupid mission in the first place. It wasn't as if he didn't have other assignments with the Preventers that were a little more in line with his skills.

But at the end of the day, when the last hand had been shaken and the last laptop packed back into its case, the suave business prodigy returned to being the person Trowa knew, the person he didn't mind wasting his time to see, even if he didn't quite know why. Quatre had grinned at him in the way that made him look tremendously carefree for someone charged with both protecting people from random acts of violence and managing one of the most profitable companies in space. It was a smile that eliminated the ghosts of battles past and spreadsheets in his brain, that made him look much younger than his actual years. Honestly, Trowa would have endured this whole stupid assignment just for that one smile, though he could never have admitted it.

Quatre had whisked Trowa away from the glitz of the high-rise and the stuffiness of the business world, treating him to a fantastic dinner at a very secluded restaurant where, for once, nobody stammered when they saw his face or heard his name. For the entire evening, Quatre had chattered cheerfully, his usual eagerness not at all abated by the day's work. Trowa spoke as much as he ever did, but as always Quatre accepted it. In fact, Quatre seemed so glad that the frozenness of their relationship had thawed that he became a cheerful flood of conversation with the friend he had missed.

Quatre didn't mention Heero, so Trowa had assumed he didn't know of the other's intervention, but still, there was something restful and comforting in no longer avoiding the blond, even if on some level he didn't know what to do now that he was supposed to "talk." So he didn't. Even when the meal had drawn to a close and he had a perfect opportunity to try saying something, anything, his typical silence had reigned and he went to bed with the vague feeling that he had somehow failed a mission he didn't even know he'd been assigned.

But this day was not nearly as uneventful. Shortly after lunch had been ordered, Trowa's instincts had begun to twinge. He flipped on the audio from the bug, ignoring the raised voices of certain business men and instead listening for something else, something out of place. The bug was planted on Quatre's cufflink and he could hear the slight sound of taking notes, then a sudden intake of breath.

"Window," came Quatre's voice, whispered but clear into the microphone. Trowa turned to look out the bank of windows in the room he was stationed in to see a helicopter approaching fast. An unmarked helicopter, with more than a few passengers. His heart-rate suddenly accelerated and he was moving before he even realized it.

"Get down!" Trowa heard Quatre give the order across the echoing room, and he almost obeyed it himself – all the former Gundam pilots were well-conditioned to follow his commands in battle, given that he was just about the most effective strategist in the organization even when not plugged into the ZERO system – but Trowa instead turned it into an extra burst of speed as he raced for the door to the conference room.

A blast sounded and the door exploded under his hand, driving him back against the wall.

Shaking clear of debris from the blow, Trowa righted himself and dove through the opening into the room. The scene was pure chaos. The giant table that had dominated the space was in splinters and the various side-tables and other pieces of decorative furniture were upended and everything was covered in a layer of shattered glass. The wind whipped angrily against his skin from the helicopter poised outside, its missile-launcher still smoking a little, and a dozen armed men jumped into the conference room.

Trowa's eyes sought the only person in the area that mattered to his mission, spotting the familiar shock of blond hair in a corner. Quatre pushed the remains of a chair off of himself and moved to a crouch, surveying the room. A few security guards were coming in on Trowa's heels, but the hotel rent-a-cops were likely not going to be a match for the invading team of experienced and apparently ex-military paratroopers.

Without missing a beat, Trowa executed a perfect jump, grateful for the artistically high ceilings, and landed himself squarely in the midst of the attackers. He cut two down at once, bringing out one of his concealed weapon to fire at a third. The rhythm of the fight was soothing, causing his mind to blank and his body to react almost mechanically.

But, as he would say later, apparently working for the Preventers was making Trowa a little soft. Three years prior he would never have missed the gunman on the helicopter taking aim. Three years prior he would never have been targeted that easily.

And three years prior, nobody would have taken the shot meant for him.

Trowa heard the blast from outside the windows, his mind identifying the threat far too late. He braced himself for the impact in that flash of a second, but the blow that came was from behind instead. He stumbled in surprise, nearly falling into the gun of one of the soldiers before he caught himself and neatly disarmed the man. Turning back to where he'd been, there stood Quatre, clutching his chest against a sudden pulsing of blood and breathing hard even as he took a defensive posture against the nearby enemies. Trowa flipped his attention to the more immediate threat and with one shot eliminated the pilot of the helicopter. Without somebody at the controls, the chopper listed dangerously to the side, then swerved out of sight.

"Quatre!" Trowa read the situation instinctively. There were still easily half a dozen well-armed men clambering over debris in their direction, and more than three times that many business men and women cowering, those that weren't unconscious or worse. And though a part of him was angry on behalf of them all, he only raged at the spilled blood of one. Grabbing hold of Quatre's shoulder, he hauled the blond over behind some cover. The armed intruders also vanished into the ruins of the room.

It was only after Quatre tried and failed to joke about things that Trowa realized the extent of Quatre's injury; his voice was raspy and whistled in his chest cavity ominously. The shot from the helicopter had been a significantly-sized bullet, and something of that magnitude could do a lot of damage. Trowa would have guessed probably Quatre had a deflated lung at best, worse if an important artery had been nicked. There was certainly enough blood to suggest worse. He had to get him out of there and fast.

"We're going," he said shortly.

"But what about…?" Even bleeding his life-blood to the floor, apparently Quatre couldn't forget the innocent. Trowa would have been amazed if he had had the time.

"Hear that? Sirens. Help's coming to everybody else. But I'm getting you out first."

Trowa turned towards the doorway and found it already barricaded by several of the armed men who apparently had no intention of letting their victims escape and were settling in for a long hostage negotiation. He could probably take them all down, but he couldn't do that and get away with Quatre fast enough. The ex-Gundam pilot in him argued for him to ruthlessly eliminate all threats, then deal with the collateral. But something inside refused. Something inside would not let him leave Quatre, not even for a second, not even if it meant removing those that would kill others here. To leave Quatre unguarded, to leave him bleeding, Trowa could no sooner shoot down the moon. So he decided on the only course of action that felt right.

"Hold on," he said, pulling Quatre's arm over his shoulder. He noticed with concern that there was no objection, no clever alternative tactics, no word of admonition or thanks. Quatre's eyes were open, but his face was getting paler by the minute, his breathing a scratching, awful sound. "I mean it," he said, earning a very slight change in Quatre's unfocused gaze as he tried to obey. "Hold on to me."

Trowa knew he would only get one chance at this crazy move, and it was just a good thing Quatre didn't weigh nearly as much as any of the other pilots. This same maneuver with Duo or Heero would probably get them both killed.

With his free arm Trowa fired several shots, forcing the attackers to duck his precise aim. With that tiny window of safety, he sprinted across the ruins of the boardroom to the blown-out windows, dragging the increasingly-weakening body that clung to him as he went. As was his engrained habit in any building or ship or other confined space, he had already identified three ways to escape, only one utilizing the obvious exits. It was an old habit and had served him well many times. So Trowa already knew his goal, and his chances of reaching it successfully. Though the high-rise hotel stood somewhat apart from the rest of the city, it wasn't totally isolated. An adjacent building had a tall antenna that stuck up almost to the level of the floor they were on, and not far beyond that was a flagpole that went all the way to the ground. Trowa knew he could make the jump solo – he just didn't quite know if he could make it with a passenger.

He spared a glance to Quatre, who seemed to be reading the plan in his mind. The blond shifted his hold on Trowa, wrapping his arms tightly around him from behind, locking his hands onto his forearms and burying his head into Trowa's back to make himself as small as possible. Trowa could feel the shaking of Quatre's muscles – his hands were icy and probably partly numb. Something wet and hot soaked through the suit-coat and trickled down Trowa's back and he realized it was blood. Too much blood. A gunshot sounded behind them, and Trowa turned back to the ledge. It was crazy, but either he tried the impossible or he'd lose Quatre in the next few minutes.

He jumped.

Trowa twisted in the air, momentarily flipping upside-down to pick up more momentum, then stretched out his hands. He caught a cross-beam of the antenna as if it were a circus trapeze, and, swinging them both over it once, released it, now flying for the flagpole.

Suddenly, in mid-air, Quatre passed out. Trowa could feel it as his passenger went limp and began to fall away from his controlled movement. Breaking the tight position he had twisted his own body into would mean he wouldn't be able to control their trajectory as well, but if he didn't, Quatre would fall.

Trowa untucked one arm and lashed it around Quatre's waist, crashing into the flagpole with the other outstretched. He could feel his arm move out of its socket, and probably at least one bone broke, but he held onto the pole with all his strength, quickly sliding down it to the ground with the limp body hanging at his side. Sirens were everywhere around them as help raced to the hotel, but Trowa needed help, too.

Trowa set his burden down as soon as his feet hit the grass and took stock. Quatre's blood was everywhere, all over them both, and its steady stream was slowing down. Quatre was dying right there and then. Trowa's world narrowed – with too much experience, he quickly put pressure on the wound, gathering what remained of Quatre's suit-coat to serve as a compress. A detached part of his mind noticed that he was still acting efficiently and correctly, every line of his body reacting with the appropriate training of a solider. But there was a hoarseness in his voice he didn't have time to examine as he found himself issuing orders to Quatre.

"No. You didn't get lost with ZERO, you didn't get killed by Oz or the White Fang or Dorothy, and we didn't lose you to space. I won't let some nameless nobodies kill you now!"

An ambulance racing towards the scene of the attack approached, and Trowa risked pulling one hand off Quatre's chest to wave. Maybe it was the oddly magnetic draw all the ex-Gundam pilots seemed to have when it came to commanding a situation, or maybe it was the hand red with blood, but the ambulance screeched to a halt beside them and a set of paramedics rushed out. The next few moments were a flurry of activity as Quatre was hauled onto a stretcher, stabilized as quickly as it could be done, and piled into the ambulance. When Trowa climbed in beside the paramedics, they didn't argue – they just pushed him to the side while they worked.

Trowa found, somewhat surprisingly, one of Quatre's hands in his own, cold and pale and terribly still, yet sticky wet with blood. He gripped it tightly, as though he could force the life back into the heart whose beat was growing slower, force energy into the mind that couldn't, couldn't fall still.

"Don't you dare die, Quatre. Don't you dare." Trowa was too angry to worry about grief. "You're stronger than this. Now prove it. You don't get off so easy. Fight, Quatre."

A strange look from one of the paramedics, still flurrying around the motionless patient, reminded Trowa that he was not in his cockpit, that he was not alone, that he could not, should not let them see or hear too much. But the conversation not long before with Heero flashed in his memory, and with blood cooling on his palm nothing could stop the words from coming.

"You always know what I'm thinking even when I don't say anything. You know about all of us. You felt Heero's pain, you knew I was alive. Can't you tell what I'm feeling now?"

Quatre's brilliant eyes slid open slowly, his gaze suddenly focused but brittle like ice in the sun.

"Yes," he rasped, completely ignoring the paramedics. "Better than you can. It's okay. I'm not giving up, Trowa. Just keep calling me back, and I'll…I'll find the way." And then he was out again. But this time, Trowa was calmer, able to let him rest without the frantic worry. If Quatre said he was fighting, if he said he'd make it, he would – his word was sacrosanct.

The arrival at the hospital and subsequent emergency care passed both slowly and quickly, differing from moment to moment. He managed to get his arm looked at in record time, this probably having to do with his unique security clearance and his refusal to have Quatre out of visual range for more than a few heartbeats. But worse than watching doctors flutter over the too-still body was the number of calls he had to make: to Quatre's sisters (thankfully only one – Trowa didn't have the patience to call all of them), to Rashid (who would be pissed once he was no longer worried), to the Preventers (who wanted to know everything about the attackers), and to Heero (who only wanted to know about Quatre). From there, Trowa knew the news would spread as it should to those with a right or need to know. And then it was back to watching and waiting.

And all the while, as if the blond could hear him, Trowa thought at him everything he could possibly have wanted to say and many things he would never admit aloud. Described how incredibly stupid it was for Quatre to have taken the shot meant for him. Lectured him on his catastrophic lack of priorities concerning his own well-being considering how important Quatre was to so many different people for so many different reasons. But externally, he leaned on whatever wall was nearest, perfectly still, glaring murderously at anyone who dared suggest he leave Quatre unwatched, unattended, alone.

Quatre had told Trowa to keep calling him, and it would take greater violence than he'd seen in the war to keep him from following that order.

Hours later, Trowa was ensconced in a chair in a private room where Quatre lay, plugged into more machines than seemed to fit in the small space. Alone, Trowa allowed himself to speak aloud again. He wasn't a verbose person by nature, quite the opposite, in fact, but if he kept still the only sound was the ragged breathers and the heartbeat monitor, and those sounds were too close to death for his ears to withstand.

"Wake up, Quatre. You said you'd find your way back, and now's the time. Your sisters are worried. Rashid and the other Maganac guys are pretty mad at me, and I really don't want to have to face them when they get here if you're not awake to call them off. And Heero's actually coming to make sure you're okay – he wouldn't believe me or the doctors and has to see for himself how you're doing. You don't want him to see you this way. But I think he'd know if you…if you didn't wake up. Same as I'd want to know, even if I can't. I'm not Heero, but I'd want to be able to know that way."

He thought about that for a moment, then continued to speak, a little more slowly, a little more intently.

"Somehow, as soon as you started listening to us, to all of us, we started listening for you, too. They don't know about you the same way you do them, and neither do I. Heero and Duo and Wufei and I didn't feel your pain the way you feel ours. But we know enough. Heero especially. There's so much strength in that, in what it must take to listen to us all through everything we've experienced, and maybe we just don't have enough strength to hear you the way you can hear us. I don't know how you do it exactly, but you can't stop listening to us. You just can't. Without you to hear us, I'm not sure we'd still…"

A sudden, terrible, wonderful realization broke over Trowa's mind, something too immense for him to even completely grasp all at once. The conversation with Heero suddenly meant something else, something more than it had before. Something about the importance of the person lying in the bed, about how lonely his heart would feel if that person were to stop listening for him.

Trowa was seized with the sudden fear that, if Quatre slipped away from him, the space between his every heartbeat would be colder, meaner, emptier. That he was better, more alive now, because his heart could be felt by that oddly fragile and yet impossibly strong soul in the bed. There was something here, something Quatre was or did or gave him that he didn't want to lose. That he was afraid to lose, more than he'd ever been afraid of anything in his whole tragic life.

"You won't lose me. You saved me. So stop worrying." His voice was rough and difficult to understand around the mask that provided the life-giving air he so needed, but Trowa heard it anyway. Quatre's eyes were dulled from pain and drugs, but they were open, and there was a smile in them somehow.

"Thanks," Trowa said, suddenly unable to speak anymore, suddenly quiet, suddenly shying away from that mountain that had moved in him. He allowed himself to relax outside, but inside something was changing, something was thawing. He remembered Heero's words about his own silence, but with Quatre's eyes staring at him he couldn't seem to find words to match them.

"Hey Trowa?"

"Don't talk, Quatre. Just rest."

"Trowa?" Apparently, he would not be denied. Trowa almost snorted – leave it to an ex-Gundam pilot turned CEO of a major corporation to be too stubborn to listen to good advice.

"What?"

"What you did to save me…"

"You saved me, remember?" He cut off the rest of Quatre's question, tight inside, intimately aware that this person, this important person, had almost been lost in what should have been his place. He would have survived with no one to feel his heart ever again, and he'd have had to face Heero and Duo and Wufei and see them live with the same. Quatre looked at Trowa with an expression that very clearly didn't much care what he had risked for Trowa's sake. He wanted to say something, and he was apparently unwilling to accept Trowa's attempt to redirect him. "Yeah?"

"Did you get hurt?"

"You're half-dead and you're worrying about me?" Trowa looked at Quatre in confusion, and the smile was wider still in the eyes that met his. He nodded and held up the sling that bound his arm.

"Going to…be okay?" Apparently the effort of waking was taking its toll, for Quatre began to slip back to sleep, but he mumbled around the mask anyway and his eyes moved to the blood-splatter, the stains on Trowa's shirt.

"I'll be fine. Just a broken bone, nothing serious."

"I'm glad. But Trowa…" And his eyes slid closed and his smile relaxed as he sighed into sleep, "I'll tell you someday."

When he was completely sure Quatre was asleep, Trowa let out the breath he'd been holding and answered very softly.

"I know. I'll tell you someday, too."

Part 3 – Hearts Speak Louder Than Words

The hangar bay was never really deserted, but it was certainly quieter in the middle of the night than usual. Quatre's steps were oddly loud as he wandered between pallets of supplies, parked ships, and the mechanics' areas. Looking around at the evidence of strong Earth-colony trade and travel, he felt his face relax into a small smile. So much had changed. Three years prior, this hangar had been filled to the brim with mobile suits, armaments, ammunition, and soldiers. And now it had been refitted for peace.

Of course, that was because he was in one of the "commercial" bays. If Quatre had wanted to see weapons he would have been wandering the Preventers' hangar. But that wasn't where his quarry was hiding.

Kicking off, Quatre allowed himself to float upwards, dodging easily around a few unmoored crates. He winced slightly as his body protested his use of his arms to propel himself from a catwalk farther into the upper reaches of the bay. Space did seem to help healing in general, the lower gravity of the transports and stations taking certain pressures off the body, but it was still scarcely a few weeks since his near-fatal experience. Apparently not enough for his shoulders to be ready for the movement.

"You do manage to get yourself into the oddest places sometimes, Trowa," he thought to himself, ignoring the twinge of pain. He'd come this far – he wasn't about to go back to bed yet.

There! Perched on one of the wall-mounts that used to hold mobile suits and now had been jerry-rigged for the larger spare parts that were the cargo of this particular transport, a shadow and a shock of hair stood out in stark relief from the grey walls. Quatre navigated his way over, shifting his trajectory halfway along so that he didn't come up on Trowa's blind side. Sneaking up on and startling a former Gundam pilot, even in minimum gravity, was still a quick way to get oneself hurt and Quatre had always hated the feel of torn stitches.

"Quatre," Trowa's voice was low and flat. "You should be resting."

The blond shrugged and settled a little uneasily onto another mounting bracket where he could sit opposite Trowa. He tried to keep his movements effortless, but a narrowing of Trowa's eyes indicated that Quatre hadn't been quite as stealthy as intended.

"I'm fine," Quatre said. "Besides, if I stayed in my room I'd never be able to thank you." At the raised eyebrow, he continued, "You haven't exactly been my most frequent visitor. And I did want to thank you."

"You already did."

"Not really. I was pretty out of it," he said good-naturedly. "You deserve more than me half-asleep when I talk to you."

Trowa didn't say anything, but Quatre's heart became at once aware of a strange tension and, reaching out a little farther, an inner turmoil in his companion. Trowa was pretty good at masking and controlling his feelings, but not enough to keep Quatre from them entirely when caught by surprise. And if Quatre had been a betting man, he'd have wagered that what he'd just said had prompted something in Trowa that made him at once unsettled and uncertain, yet there was something more positive, too. Relief? Gladness? It was hard to say for sure.

"You saved my life. Again. So thank you," Quatre said, looking into Trowa's face until he met his eyes.

"I should be the one thanking you. You took that shot for me," Trowa said, finally holding Quatre's gaze. His emotions were locked down again, but Quatre knew they were not quiet. He just couldn't quite read them, not without really working to invade Trowa's privacy, and that was something he would never, ever do. In the ambulance and the hospital Quatre had a vague memory of being much more aware of Trowa's emotions, but between the pain and the medications he had forgotten most of what he'd sensed. And after he'd woken up to a room full of somewhat-cranky friends and allies, Trowa had backed off again, like before. He'd been nearby, but he'd stayed out of the room, out of line of sight, away from Quatre's empathy.

"Well, I couldn't let you get hurt. You were there because of me. And we can do this all night, you know," Quatre smiled his best disarming smile. "But we're both alive and safe and you made it happen. Can I thank you for that and leave it there?"

"Quatre…" Trowa's eyes flickered for a moment and Quatre had a glimpse of hesitation and regret and…something more before it all winked out again. Confound Trowa's ridiculously masked emotions; he was more frustrating that Heero!

"We should arrive at the colony in a couple of hours," Quatre said, trying to fill the quiet with something comfortable, something normal, anything mundane enough to lure out Trowa's feelings the way he would entice a frightened bird to him. "I know I'll be out of action for a little while yet, but I'm sure there'll be something waiting for you when you get back to the Preventers."

"Quatre, there's something…" Trowa began. But he stopped and his face shifted into a mask of neutrality. He took a breath and seemed to be thinking before he spoke again, "How good are you really at reading the emotions of other people?"

It didn't seem to be what he'd started to say, but it was better than nothing. Quatre sat back a little and regarded Trowa steadily.

"It depends on the person. With the majority of people it's sort of moderate, I suppose. I can sense many things, but not all the nuances or the undertones. With some people, I can feel everything as clearly as if it were me, sometimes even more clearly. With other people, I can't really tell how they're feeling unless I really try. And it always seems like I'm intruding when I do that, so I don't usually."

"What about Heero?" Trowa asked, something sharp in the way he said Heero's name, and he dropped his eyes from Quatre's.

"Heero is one of the clear ones," Quatre said slowly. "He was the first that way."

"And what about me?"

Quatre drew in a breath. That one question had blown open Trowa's steely control, and suddenly he was flooded by the bright, conflicting, powerful feelings roiling around inside the taciturn ex-pilot. Pain, fear, doubt, a flutter of hope, something that could only be described as "longing," jealousy, resignation. They mixed and mingled in a whirlwind.

"Well," Quatre waited until Trowa looked at him again. "Usually you're one of the ones I can't read."

"But not right now?"

"No."

That added a layer of denial, refusal, shame, and yet again stubborn hope and an infusion of happiness that brought something soft to Quatre's own heart. He realized all at once exactly what had been keeping Trowa from him. And that it would have to be him that made the first move.

"At first," he began in a low voice, "I thought I couldn't read you because you were so well controlled. That's how it was when we first met. And when," he swallowed a surge of bile, "when I was plugged into ZERO the first time, nothing made sense. I couldn't even figure out my own emotions. And afterwards, when I found you on that colony, that's when I realized I really, truly couldn't feel your heart at all. I thought…"

He closed his eyes. "I thought I'd lost you because you hated me and had shut me out."

"Quatre…" Trowa's face had softened, but his emotions were no less turbulent.

"I didn't blame you. I couldn't. After what I'd done, how could I expect you to trust me? And I couldn't…I couldn't bring myself to ask. Even when you came for me when I was fighting Dorothy I think I was afraid to see what you really felt. I've been afraid ever since." Quatre hung his head.

"Quatre," Trowa said again, this time reaching out a hand and, after just a moment's hesitation, pulling Quatre's chin up. Their eyes met and Quatre knew neither one of them missed the jolt that went through Trowa's heart, the fear, the pain, the hope, the exquisite joy.

"Quatre, you and Heero…" Trowa began, fighting for words even as his heart began to beat faster and his feelings spun even a farther out of his control. Quatre smiled then and put a hand up to cup Trowa's against his cheek.

"I loved you first, Trowa."

There it was. He's said it. He'd said it and he knew Trowa heard it, not just with his ears, but with his soul.

Trowa closed his eyes, his expression shuttering and stilling until he might have been a mannequin. The feelings that had flowed from him to Quatre abruptly quieted until they were almost silent. Quatre's own heart was beating with powerful emotion, not just fear and uncertainty, but affection and trust and hope, and none of that echoed back to him. His space heart lurched and he released Trowa's hand.

"I'm…I'm sorry." He bit his lip as nothing filled the void left when Trowa's emotions had pulled away. There was no answering affection or joy now. Nothingness.

Trowa was still motionless with his eyes closed, and then Quatre couldn't bear it anymore. His courage, legendary in battle but so much more fragile here, failed him and he pushed off from his perch and made his way down to the hangar floor. Tucking his hands into his pockets, he used the low gravity to take long, smooth strides away, away as fast as he could go without quite fleeing. His breath hitched in his throat and there was a white-hot hole in the center of his vision and he was shaking and it had nothing to do with his injury.

He'd been wrong. Trowa couldn't let himself love him in return, no matter how it had appeared.

And he still couldn't blame him. He'd thought after all this time, after the strange silence at the end of the war, after their recent adventure, that there must be something. That what he felt, what he'd felt from almost the first moment Trowa had "surrendered" to him at their first meeting, was returned. But now he knew that if those feelings had ever had been, what he'd done under ZERO had probably annihilated them beyond even the courage of a Gundam pilot to risk again.

And he couldn't be angry about it at all. Not at Trowa. Never at Trowa. He held back the beginnings of a sob.

A hand on his shoulder caused Quatre to turn quickly, already bringing up an elbow-strike, but it was neatly deflected and suddenly he was pressed tightly against a warm chest. The angle of their positions meant his head was tucked under a firm chin, and he didn't need the color of the sweater to know it was Trowa who had followed him, Trowa who was holding him.

"Trowa," he began, flailing a bit with his arms.

Trowa tightened his hold, pinning Quatre to him, pulling him closer and burying his face in Quatre's hair. It didn't take an empath to feel the pounding in his chest, the shaking of his arms as he tried to hold Quatre tighter still. If he hadn't been still recovering from his wounds, Quatre guessed Trowa would have held him so tightly neither of them could have drawn breath.

Then Trowa pulled back all at once, holding him at arm's length, gripping his shoulders and staring into Quatre's wide eyes. His face was flickering between things too quickly for any one expression to settle but all of them were shades of worry or anxiety or uncertainty. He squeezed his fingers into Quatre's shoulders, his arms tense as though he were expecting Quatre to break away at any moment.

"Quatre, if I don't want to know what I'm feeling, do you think that might make it harder for you to read me?" The question was asked in an almost-cool tone of voice, but the intensity of his gaze betrayed him.

"I…guess so, maybe," Quatre felt out of breath, almost dizzy. He'd been beginning to sink into loss and now there was hope burning bright. "But I can't make you feel if you don't want to, Trowa."

"That's not what I mean. Let's try an experiment. You've always known what I was feeling when it mattered, even if you weren't aware that you were sensing me. You knew what was in my heart when I couldn't even remember you. You knew what I was feeling then, when I didn't have the memories to keep me from hiding it. So if I stop hiding from you again, what do you think your space heart will tell you now?"

Quatre closed his eyes again and concentrated. He pushed back his own misgivings and fears and just listened to the heart before him. He heard Trowa take a deep breath and sigh and then feeling exploded into them both, powerful, unfettered, leaping emotion that defied all words but ended in joy. Connection. Need. Hope. Trust. Affection. Love.

As those emotions flowed into Quatre and his own leaped to new life in response, he felt something snap inside. But not like a broken bone or a part of himself falling apart.

Instead, he felt himself come together as though an essential chamber of his heart had at last burst into existence. As though the circuit was finally closed and where they had been two they were now connected. Joined. Inevitably and inextricably bound.

Quatre didn't know he was moving until he felt his own cold fingers spread over his chest as though absorbing the answering warmth in himself. He felt his face soften as that impossible emotion washed over him and left him shaken to his core and yet more centered than he'd ever been in his life. It was probably a goofy expression, and made goofier by the sudden wetness on his cheeks, but he didn't care.

"Trowa…"

"Come on, Quatre," and Trowa moved to his side. Quatre didn't open his eyes, but he knew when Trowa reached out tentatively, and his own hand unerringly found its way to Trowa's and settled into it. It was such a simple gesture and yet Quatre could tell that Trowa was nearly floored by it, that Trowa could feel that his heart had just been wrapped up in Quatre's own. The blond could sense how, beneath his quiet and strong exterior, Trowa's heart was fragile and tentative. And precious.

No wonder he hadn't been able to read it. Where Heero's heart had learned to scream, Trowa's was trained to whisper. But now that he was listening, Quatre knew he would never fail to hear it speak again.

"Is it time to go home?" Quatre asked, finally opening his eyes, radiating the unspoken emotion and connection he sensed between them. This had been forged years ago, and now acknowledged, it would never break or bend to anything again.

"Yeah, I guess it is. Besides, you should be resting," he repeated, more gently this time. Trowa didn't pull his hand back, and Quatre's smile deepened. He tried to send through that calloused palm the serenity and certainty of his own spirit, the knowledge that he would cherish what had been entrusted to him with all his heart. And Trowa smiled. Really smiled. It was like the sun warming the whole of outer space, and Quatre reflected it back with all his might.

Mostly oblivious to their surroundings (as oblivious as those who had been Gundam pilots could ever be of their environment, that is), hand-in-hand Trowa and Quatre made their way back to Quatre's room on the transport. They didn't speak; there were no words for what they might say. Trowa could no longer hide his feelings from the heart that had so long waited for them. And Quatre glowed for both of them, let the triumph of love no longer denied ring in his every footstep.

And from an upper deck, unseen, but not unfelt, a familiar tingle swept through Quatre's empathic awareness. He didn't look up, but he knew who stood there, witness to it all as he had been witness to everything else from the start. He didn't even need to see Heero to know what he was thinking generously on behalf of the pair he watched over.

"The only way to live a good life it to act on your emotions, Quatre."

"I will, Heero," Quatre promised, tightening his hand and his heart around Trowa's. "I will."