How Deep Is Your Love
A Gundam W musicfic
by Nikholas "Katana" F. Toledo

����� I'm back, I'm finally back, tadaima!� Hello again, everyone!
Anybody out there miss the "Kissing Author"?

����� Well, here's my very first attempt at writing some seriously shonen
ai-slash-yaoi fanfic.� As you can see from the song lines' headings (domo
arigato gozaimasu to the Bee Gees and Take That for the wonderful song!),
this is a "Shin Kidousenki Gundam Wing" 3x4 story.� Here's a big banzai
to the cutest couple in that show!� BTW, copyrights belong to their
rightful owners... including the verses of "Seasons", which I made up for
this tale.

����� I need some encouragement, people... I'm thinking of doing a
companion fic to this one, starring the other pair (no, not Zechs
Merquise / Julian Peacecraft and Lucrezia Noin, at least not yet) from
"Gundam Wing": 1x2, Heero Yuy and Duo Maxwell.� I'm basing it on the song
"Don't Know Much", but suggestions and violent reactions still to the
same places, okay?� Just don't flame me or anything.� Enjoy!

����������������������������� ~ end notes ~

TROWA: I know your eyes in the morning sun

����� I'm always up at the crack of dawn - ever since I joined the circus
and had to live on the move, and especially after I took on my mission to
become a Gundam pilot, I've always awakened before the sun.� No matter
where I travel and wherever I go, daybreak finds me awake --- fully
conscious, mind on overdrive, completely ready for anything.

����� Today, though, I'm actually loath to leave the warm, soft bed and
the silken sheets that wrap around my body.� I keep on telling myself
that the paradoxically bitter cold of desert nights is making me want to
stay here and stay forever, but even as I think it, I know it's a lie.
Only one person is capable of keeping me here, and now he lies fast
asleep, huddled up against me for warmth as I am against him.

����� He stirs within my arms, and I shiver as his hot breath tickles the
skin at my throat.� Quatre... Quatre Raberba-Winner, my innocent and
beautiful angel, tightens his grip around my waist and burrows his head
deeper into the junction of my neck and shoulder.� My precious little
Arabian jewel: how I won him, I will probably never find out... it might
really be more accurate to say that he won me, and how he did it is
something that I'm only beginning to understand now.

����� The sunlight soon turns his fine, blonde hair into a blinding,
silvery-white halo.� Even after all of the times I've woken up in this
way --- with him in my arms, his head tucked under my chin --- my eyes
still hurt at the brilliance, and I have to close them convulsively to
dispel the tears of pain.

����� How can an angel, a beautiful and powerful angel like him, deal
pain?� It is a mystery that will never be solved.� I've listened to Duo
and Heero and Wufei talk about it, and our female friends, even my sister
--- when they think I'm not really paying attention.� Like me, they
cannot understand this either.� Angel of mercy, angel of death --- this
double-ness is Quatre's very essence, his totality, his... I have no
words to describe him.� He, too, is Death, just as Duo is.� A far more
merciful Death than Duo, true, but Death nonetheless.

����� He moves again, his lips sighing soundlessly open --- a wordless
appeal, a silent invitation --- and I do not, can not, will not resist.
I lean down to kiss his mouth closed.� <Good morning, my little love.>

����� His eyelids flutter, blink, then open to reveal his eyes, timeless
blue-green eyes that are deeper than any sea I've ever seen.� I drowned
in those eyes the very first time I looked into them, and I drown in them
now.� "Good morning, Trowa.� Did you sleep well?"

����� He is with me.� I need not fear anything.

��������������������������������� ~ * ~

QUATRE: I feel you touch me in the pouring rain - and the moment that you
wander far from me, I want to feel you in my arms again

����� The morning's bright sun is really a false alarm.� Already, the
first raindrops are beginning to fall, with ripe splats, onto everything
in sight --- from the small rake in my hand to the beautiful blood-red
bloom beside me, from the date-palm that looms over my head to my
hunched-over shoulders.

����� Everywhere, that is, except for my impassive clown.� Trowa Barton
remains safe and dry in the shelter of the patio, looking bored, but
something tells me I'm being watched anyway.

����� I've gotten used to it.� As a matter of fact, I like it when he
watches me do something, when I feel his eyes following me everywhere.
And I like it even more when he makes me stop doing things so that he
could do them in my place.� It's been a long time since anyone has ever
taken the time to care for me.� I've played the master of the house for
far too long, he says whenever he takes my place, and I never resist him.

����� Those apple-green eyes of his seem to see everything and nothing
all at once.� He does it all the time --- wherever, whenever.� It's
probably his hair that gives him that blank expression, hanging over his
face as it does.� But at least it doesn't hang low enough to cover his
lips --- those lips that are always set in a firm and almost cruel line,
yet become so pliant and soft when I kiss him.� When he lets me kiss him.

����� "You'll get sick standing out here in the rain.� Is this your idea
of death?"� I look up and there he is, holding his hand out to me,
heedless --- careless --- of his own health, as always.� My self-
sacrificing and imperturbable clown hauls me gently to my feet, leads me
right into the house and back to the bedroom that we share.

����� He sits me down on the bed and walks out of the room, and for some
strange reason I begin to shiver.� Rainstorms in the desert are rare
enough, heaven knows, and when they come, they come with a vengeance.� I
should have remembered that, and now I'm really cold.� I want him near me
to take away my chills, and I get to my feet, calling his name.� "Trowa,
Trowa..."

����� As if in answer, he reappears in the door.� His hair drips in
streams onto his shoulders, but I'm the one who's wrapped in his thick
towel.� His arms wrap around my shoulders, too, and all of a sudden I've
got my wish, and I'm happy.� I want nothing else but to stay here in his
embrace forever and for always.
��������������������������������� ~ * ~

TROWA: And you come to me like a summer breeze, keep me warm in your love
-

����� The rain continues to fall outside where mere hours ago there was
nothing but merciless, lethally hot sand.� The fool who ventures out into
that desert at high noon will die of thirst --- quickly and mercifully
enough --- within the hour.� But the greater fool who walks out into this
sudden deluge will die of a strange and dreaded fever that will linger
for days and take away not only his body's warmth but also his very
sanity.

����� Quatre told me the story one night, as we lay in each other's arms,
and I, too, was in tears by the time he was finished.� Against the wishes
of everyone in this house, he had once taken it upon himself to nurse one
of their fallen comrades, and he had had nightmares about his failure for
a long time after the man died.

����� The morning after I woke up caught in a death-grip --- suddenly
strong hands clamped like vises around mine, suddenly sharp nails digging
fire into my wrists --- with his anguished cries of entreaty ringing in
my ears.� "Please, for God's sake, don't leave me now!� You can't die!� I
won't let you... I can't let you die!"� I had had to fight him off, and
both of us were black and blue for a week afterward: my hands were
completely paralyzed, preventing me from piloting Heavyarms; his eyes
were swollen shut, and he couldn't fly Sandrock either.

����� His strangely musky scent trails behind him as he walks back into
the music room, and suddenly the room is filled with life again --- he
brought it all with him when he left, and now that he has returned to it,
so has the spirit.� The smile that he bestows upon me becomes another one
of the things I will treasure the most, a smile that is full of the
warmth and beauty --- and emotion --- in his life.

����� Bow, resin, strings, violin: the sweet notes of a song he calls
"Seasons" overpower the roaring thunder of the storm.� I watch his lips
move as he sings with it, his voice the second silvery thread that sways
in the air with the quivering of his beloved instrument.� "Stay with me
for summer's warmth, and let your memory linger through winter's storm,
touch me with the showers of spring, and kiss me with the leaves of
fall..."

����� I'm lost in the music.� I can just barely hear him say that the
song is from two hundred years ago, and then the haunting notes take me
away to a place I've never been to before.� There is peace all around, a
perfect and absolute stillness.� I can hear the grass around my feet hum
with life, and the trees, and the sky above as well.� I don't have a
shadow, but the sun doesn't beat down on my shoulders, nor does it send
shafts of pain into my eyes when I dare to look up.

����� He appears from out of nowhere in this dreamscape, a tiny shape in
the distance that gradually grows as he comes toward me on flying feet.
His laughter takes on the notes of the song and he wraps his arms around
my neck, singing into my ear in a lover's voice: "And I will love you
through the changing seasons, I will cherish you through the flying
years."

����� And as I kiss him --- both within the dream and without, as the
song ends --- I realize that the song speaks nothing but truth.� This is
destiny, this is fate.� I can't stop myself from loving him any more than
I can turn my back and walk away from the Space Colonial Stars that are
my --- our --- true home.

��������������������������������� ~ * ~

QUATRE: Then you softly leave - and it's me you need to show - how deep
is your love

����� My world shatters around me as I wake up and realize Trowa is gone.
Even before I throw off my covers and run out of our room, I know I won't
be able to find him no matter where I look.� But something keeps me going
anyway, and soon I'm standing outside, near the pool, and all I can see
is the sunlight glinting off Heavyarms' armor as it makes its way into
the skies.

����� The bed seems so empty without him there.� I sit down on the
crumpled sheets and the hot tears begin to burn my eyes and my cheeks.
Now I know why he was so tender to me last night, why his kisses felt so
good, why he held me so tight.� I can't think of a reason why he should
leave now --- none of us have received any mission orders for some time -
-- but he's gone, and there I was, enjoying myself, last night when he
was really saying goodbye with every touch of his hand.

����� *Thump* goes the door and I bolt up, hoping against hope that it's
him and he's come back to ask me to go with him --- anywhere is fine, as
long as I'm with him.� But when I open the door, the corridor is empty
and it takes me a long moment to dash away my tears and spot the piece of 
paper at my feet, my name written across it in that familiar scrawl.

����� My heart beats loudly in my ears as I unfold it, emotions waging
war in my head.� I anticipate what he's going to say but I dread learning
that he has to go, I want to know he loves me but I can't take the pain
of seeing the word "goodbye" at the bottom.

����� <First star.� I love you. --- Trowa>

����� I smile, and blink hard, and wipe away the tears with the back of
my hand.� He lives by the stars: living on the move, with the traveling
act that he was once a part of, has taught him to make the stars that
wink down from the heavens his guides.� Even if "first star" can mean
anywhere from dusk to midnight --- tomorrow evening, if it rains again
tonight --- I am at least sure that he will come back, and that I will
see him again.

����� He doesn't have to say he loves me, either, because I know that he
does, but he's written them down, right here and right now.� The note
goes into the pocket over my heart and it will never leave me, from now
on until Death comes for me and even beyond... I will ask that my body be
burned with it, and my ashes scattered into space.� Then I can be one
with the stars that are his guides and he only has to look up at night to
see me, shining down upon him for all eternity.

��������������������������������� ~ * ~

TROWA: How deep is your love, I really need to know

����� The great house is like a tomb as I vault down from my mobile suit.
No welcoming light shows in any of the windows, no cheerful clatter or
noise from within rises to my ears.� The great doors swing open before my
very eyes, but the same eerie, haunting silence shrouds everything in
shadows.

����� My footsteps echo forlornly as I make my way up to the room that I
share with my angel.� In another place and time, he would be here,
walking beside me, already tugging my coat off if I was wearing one or,
if not, he would just be reaching out for my hand.� He would take a comb
from his dresser and run it through my hair, whether or not I protested,
just because he wanted to.� I never realized how much I missed that
simple "ceremony" of ours.

����� I never realized I needed him so much.

����� I almost don't want to step back into that room if I'm only going
to find it empty, as empty as my heart now that my angel has flown away.
Although my hands reach out of their own volition and grasp the doorknob,
I don't dare look up --- I don't want to find the same emptiness here
that I've seen throughout the house...

����� The room blazes with the flames of a galaxy of candles, throbs with
the haunting notes of a heartbreakingly familiar song, echoes with the
broken voice that I almost don't recognize.� My eyes were caught by
surprise by the sudden blaze of light after the darkness of the rest of
the house.� I almost don't see Quatre standing there at the window,
playing his violin and trying to sing "Seasons".

����� He can't do it --- he's crying so hard he can barely scratch out
the melody, and it's my fault.� All my fault, and no way to make amends,
unless... unless....

����� I take a deep breath and open my mouth.� "Time will fly on and on
and pass our short lives by, still I'll remain forever waiting by your
side.� My love will stay through the long and restless years, my heart
will be yours, though we wander far and away.� Forgive me, forgive me, my
angel..."

����� He gathers me into his arms and inexplicably I begin to cry, too,
just as he had been minutes earlier.� I can't stop myself, the tears are
falling so hard, but my heart is emptying itself out to him and I have no
way to stop it from doing so --- I do not want it to stop.� Vaguely, I
wonder if his Space Heart can allow him to read my mind --- I need to
tell him that I need him more than anything in this world but somehow I
just can't find the words...

��������������������������������� ~ * ~

QUATRE: Because we're living in a world of fools, breaking us down, when
they all should let us be

����� "Good mornin'!� Here we are, Quatre-sama, how're things goin' with
you?"

����� Hearing Duo Maxwell's peculiarly accented voice makes me glad to
have the other pilots around today --- it makes for such a refreshing
change, having someone to share our home with.� I can never tell what's
going to happen when they're around... I smile as I remember the last
time.� We'd actually had ourselves a rouser of a pillow fight, just like
a bunch of overgrown kids: Duo himself, Heero Yuy and Chang Wufei against
Trowa and me, chasing each other all around the house.� And I'd gotten
the shock of my life to find Heero and Duo sleeping in each other's arms
when it was all over.� I had never noticed that Heero had begun to return
our rambunctious American friend's affections.

����� The loud splash that Duo makes as he dives into the pool jerks me
out of my reverie.� He cheers raucously as Heero does the same: backing
up, running and then leaping high into the air, cleaving the surface with
his toes as he goes in with his hands held high over his head.� Wufei
slides in like a seal, and there's more laughter, Duo's voice uppermost -
-- as usual --- as he heaves himself out of the pool for another dive.

����� Their laughter is contagious as they clown about in the cool
water... and I turn away and head back for my room so I can change in
peace.� I don't know why I'm being so modest about this, we're all the
same here, but I simply don't want to do anything like undressing in
front of them --- only Trowa has the right to see me that way.� It sounds
strange, but then, when and where he and I are involved, it's bound to be
anything but ordinary.

����� I draw the curtains and close the door, but when I shrug out of my
vest, large and somewhat callused hands come around my waist to tug at my
shirt buttons, and hot breath tickles at my ear.� I lean back into
Trowa's heat, smell the sweat that lingers on the hard planes of his
body, reach up to put my arms around his neck.� My head falls back onto
his shoulder and his mouth clamps down onto the pulse at my throat, and I
know he can feel it --- no, *hear* it --- hammering right under his
tongue.� "Trowa...."

����� "Time for a swim."� As suddenly as he came, he breaks away and I
almost fall onto the floor, my knees so weak I can hardly stand up
straight.� There must have been a very disappointed --- and embarrassing!
--- expression on my face, because he smiles with his eyes closed as he
sits down on the bed and pulls off his sweatpants.� "Tonight, little
greedy one," he chuckles, just before he bends down to kiss me, hard and
demanding.

����� I can just about hear Duo's voice now... he's going to crack
another one of those off-color jokes of his when he sees how bruised and
swollen my lips are, but all of a sudden I feel lightheaded enough not to
care.� Why should I?� I belong to Trowa and nothing can change that.

��������������������������������� ~ * ~

TROWA: We belong to you and me

����� Familiar, long-fingered hands curve around my forearms as I lean
back into the cushions at the end of the day, and my angel's voice says
quietly into my ear, "Trowa, tell me you're not tired yet... I've got
something planned for us tonight."

����� I help him get into his coat at the door, and he runs out into the
evening breezes, the wind tossing at the hair that turns to molten gold
in the moonlight.� He turns back, his hand closes about mine, he pulls me
toward the trees, and soon we're lost among the towering trunks that loom
over us like forbidding shadows.� It's easy to get lost in this type of
forest, despite the moonlight that shafts down to the grassy floor.� But
for the first time in a long while, I let go of my instincts and instead
concentrate on the warmth of the hand that wraps around mine.� I need not
fear anything, not while I'm with my angel.

����� A clearing up ahead, and a fire fills the woods with its cheery
crackling song....� "Happy birthday, Trowa," Quatre suddenly says as he
walks up to stand in front of me, the cake in his hands ablaze with the
glow of eighteen candles.� "I hope you don't mind... I asked Heero and
Duo to pull your file from their databases, and that's how I found out
about your birthday.� I baked the cake myself... your sister gave me the
recipe... it's a strawberry shortcake, she said it was the kind of cake
you liked...."

����� I cannot help but blink a few tears away as he holds out the cake
to me.� No one else has ever bothered to remember my birthday... I
thought receiving a few simple gifts was enough, a whole year ago when my
sister Catherine gave me one of her daggers and the silver star from her
hair, saying they were things that I could remember her by.� I knew that
I was seventeen on that day, but it was never marked like this, with a
cake and candles and my angel smiling up at me....

����� "Come on, you're supposed to blow out the candles, or else you'll
never get to eat the top layer.� Unless you want to eat candle wax along
with your cake, of course," he says with a chuckle as I continue to stare
into the flaming candles.� I purse my lips and get ready to blow, but as
I inhale he suddenly says, "Close your eyes and make a wish first...
that's what you do before you blow them out, so it'll be sure to come
true."

����� There is only one thing that I could ever ask for now.� <I want to
be yours forever and always, little angel... I want to belong to you...
that's all I ask, Quatre...>

����� "That's one gift.� Here's the other one, Trowa."� He puts the cake
down, his arms wind about my neck, he kisses me hungrily, and his lips
taste sweet, like the soul that he has offered upon them.� I hold him
close to me and do the same, finally and irrevocably giving myself to him
as he has to me.� <Let me be yours... not just tonight, but for all the
years to come.>

��������������������������������� ~ * ~

QUATRE: And I believe in you - you are the door to my very soul, you're
the light in my deepest darkest hour, you're my savior when I fall

����� The abhorrent realization twists mercilessly inside my gut, like a
sword, and it shatters my soul into a million pieces.� I almost killed
Trowa a year ago today, and the madness of that battle slashes through me
once again...

����� :The cockpit explodes, hot flames licking through metal and glass
and space suit, ashes flying through the enclosed space to sting wide-
open, exposed eyes.� Through the gaping hole my cannons have blown in
Vayeate, I can just barely make out a face that is looking up at me with
disbelief and fear --- half a face, really.� Trowa's face, his features
distorted now by the unearthly glow of the fire that is slowly consuming
the mobile suit.

����� I can hear my own voice as it echoes hollowly through the void: "I
asked you to keep your distance!� Stay back, or I swear I'm going to kill
you!"� <You turned your back on me... where were you when I was in pain,
Trowa, where were you?� You left me when I needed you!>� The cannons
swivel up to bear on him one last time, and somewhere deep inside,
somewhere the madness hasn't yet perverted, I can feel myself beginning
to die as I stab at the red button on my joystick...:

����� "How many times do I have to tell you this, Quatre?� I forgave you
long ago, even while I was still drifting in space, while I was fighting
the madness inside me.� I fought you inside, too... but I forgave you and
I hurt for you... when you destroyed Vayeate, I knew then that you had
just gone through something terrible, and I hated myself, because I had
not been around to help you through it...."

����� It's my turn for disbelief as Trowa stops to catch his breath.� He
doesn't say much, only when his emotions take over and carry him away on
their raging tides.� But it's no wonder that we all listen to him
carefully when he does because, despite the emotions, he manages to make
perfect sense.

����� Right now, he is making sense to me.� But, even as his hands reach
out to grab my shoulders and pull me nearer to him, I shrink away from
his touch, and the knowledge that my blind, insane anger almost led me to
kill him sears its hateful brand into my soul.� Instead of the bright
sunlight that glistens off his flute as it lies across the table a long
step away, I see the inescapable darkness that almost destroyed me that
had led me to destroy both the Vayeate and the Space Colonial Star.� A
darkness that knows no bounds and until now fights to overpower both of
my hearts.

����� "Look at me."� He places his hand under my chin and forces me to
meet his eyes... my beautiful impassive emotional clown.� "You are still
my angel, Quatre, no matter how many times you tell me that you are not.
I have always believed it... I know it is the truth, and I believe in it
with all of my heart and soul.� How can you not be my angel, you who are
like the sun to me?� You are my sun and moon and all the stars that shine
in the skies... you are my light, Quatre, please believe what I am
saying."

����� <Not me, Trowa... not me.� *You* are the light that helps me find
my way... you are the flame that burns within me, the fire that dispels
the shadows of my heart and warms my soul.� You saved me from my
insanity; you made me whole again.>� I can't say it out loud, not yet,
but I know these words are as true as what he's telling me now... I, too,
believe in it with all of my heart and soul.

��������������������������������� ~ * ~

TROWA: And you may not think that I care for you, when you know down
inside that I really do

����� "Hey, Trowa, that you?"� Duo's unmistakable voice finally filters
through the static-filled line.� "I got the goods!� I'll be over in a
few.� And, oh man," he pauses and I hear him gasp for breath, "this is
the best idea I ever heard of!� Wonder if it'll work on Heero... in any
case, I wish ya luck when you give this to the little guy... I'm sure
he's going to love it!"

����� I hurry to the door when the bell rings, calling to my angel to
stay put, and I crack it open cautiously, before swinging it out all the
way.� Just as I had hoped, there's no one in sight, not even a shadow,
and all I can hear of Deathscythe is the faintest roar on the wind as Duo
flies off.� And, just as I had wanted, the tiny box sits at my feet, so
small that if I hadn't known and planned about it all along, I would have
missed it.

����� I step outside for a moment, close the door behind me, and undo the
catch.� The blue-green stone embedded in the silver band might be small,
but it's enough to throw flashes of ocean-colored fire into my eyes.� My
fingers run over the inside of the ring, their tips tracing the words
that I have always wanted to say to him: <Ai shiteru, chitenshi,
shitenshi.>� I put it back inside and close the box, and take a deep
breath as I reach out to open the door.

����� "Trowa?� Trowa, where are you?� Trowa!"� The door flies open and
there he is, the sunlight silvering his hair and lighting his eyes as it
always does.� "There you are!� I was wondering where you'd gone off to
again...."� I could look at him like this forever, but I don't want to
leave the words unsaid.� As I open my mouth to speak, he takes my hand --
- my free hand --- and pulls me back inside with a laugh.� "Come on,
lunch is ready... we can't let it get cold!"

����� "Quatre."� He stops short and turns back to me in the foyer, and
this time his face is in shadow, from the curtains that hang in the
windows.� This is the moment... I swallow down the sudden lump in my
throat.� All of a sudden, I'm afraid --- <What if he says no?> --- but
I'm here and he's there and I may as well get on with the show.� I get
down on my knees and open both my other hand and the box that sits within
it.� "Quatre Raberba-Winner, will you marry me?"

����� I watch as his eyes widen and then close, a strange unreadable
expression crosses his face briefly, and then just as I feel my world
crumble down around me he's on his knees beside me, his arms around my
neck, laughing and crying at the same time.� At first, I can't make the
words out - but then he pulls away, sniffs hard once and then cries out
happily, "Yes, yes I will!"� He leans forward and whispers in my ear,
"I've been waiting for you to say that for so long... I had almost given
up on you..."

����� I take another deep breath and say it out loud --- "I love you,
little angel" --- and I hold him in my arms, happy to finally be his,
happy to finally say it.� <Let me be his forever,> I find myself praying
to whatever or whoever has sent him to me, deep inside.� <Let me stay
with him for the rest of my days, forever and ever, until the darkness
takes us both away....� Let me care for this angel for as long as I can
do it, please, that's all I ask...>

������������������������������ ~ the end ~

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