by Misanagi
To Anne, thanks a lot for beta reading and helping me so much with my story and my writing.
Quatre was too tired to speak. Between the hypnosis, and the headache he had for trying to bend his mental block, he was ready to pass out as soon as his head touched the pillow. Trowa barely had time to get him upstairs before the blond was sleeping soundly on their bed. Trowa took a couple of moments to look at him. That kid he saw in his vision had grown up to be the person in front of him. He had never doubted his lover's strength, but after seeing what he had gone through in his childhood, he was even more amazed. How often had things like that happened to Quatre? How many more hidden memories were resting inside Quatre's head?
A soft knock on the door interrupted his meditations. He turned around to see Heero quietly looking at him from the door. Trowa nodded at his friend, and gave Quatre one last glance, before following Heero downstairs.
Duo, Sally and Wufei were talking quietly when Heero and Trowa entered the living room.
"How is he?" asked Duo, as soon as he saw Trowa.
"He needs to take a nap; he is just tired but he'll be ok," said Trowa as he sat on the couch.
"Oh man! That was really weird! I mean, we just took a trip inside Q's head! It was so frustrating; I saw that witch hit Quatre and I couldn't do anything about it! She even had the nerve to go through me! Literally!"
"It was Winner's memory," said Wufei, seriously. "He has no recollection of us then, so naturally as we didn't exist in that reality, we could only observe, not interact."
"I know that!" said Duo, giving the Chinese man his best 'you know I'm not stupid' look. "But it's still frustrating as hell. Tell me that you weren't thinking of ripping that weak woman's head, Wufei?"
"No, I wouldn't rip that woman's head. That is beneath me. I do not fight those weaker than me."
Sally sat quietly at her chair. Her eyes were fixed on the Chinese man in front of her and she couldn't help but smile at his words. Wufei might act like a bastard, but those who knew him well enough could tell that all those fierce words were just a mask used by the loving and caring man who was inside. She felt lucky to be one of the few who knew the real Wufei.
"Trowa, has Quatre ever said anything about Sheara?" asked Heero.
"He has many sisters but he doesn't talk about them much. He doesn't really know most of them. He gets calls from them sometimes but those are mostly work related. Normally he doesn't use their names; he just calls them sisters. 'My sister said this or that', never their first names."
"I think we need to find out more about Sheara. I don't know why anyone would want to block this episode from Quatre's mind, but I have the feeling that Sheara Winner is involved," Heero said, standing up. "I'm going to see what I can find," he finished as he headed upstairs to his room.
"Well, I'm gonna fix lunch, I'll tell you when it's ready," said Duo and headed for the kitchen.
"I think I'll take a nap too," said Trowa getting up and heading for the stairs. "Please wake us up for lunch."
Wufei and Sally watched them go and sat in uncomfortable silence for a moment. Sally was unconsciously playing with one of her pig tails and looking at it as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. Meanwhile Wufei was trying very hard to ignore the woman in front of him but it was proving to be a very difficult job. The way she moved her slender fingers and the look on those eyes, he couldn't take his eyes away from her.
"We really appreciate what you are doing for Winner," he said out of the blue.
She raised her head and looked at him, a little surprised at his words. "I want to help but I'm still confused about a lot of things. I don't understand this empathy thing very well."
"I have to admit that when Winner first told us about it I didn't believe him." Wufei smiled a little as memories flooded his mind.
"It had been about two months since the Mariemeia incident and we'd been living together for about a week. We were still in the process of re decorating this house; there were boxes everywhere and Maxwell kept saying that he would pick his things up later. He eventually did, but I had to threaten to cut his braid with my katana while he was asleep.
"Anyway, we were in the middle of moving that big piano," Wufei said, pointing to the old looking white piano sitting on one side of the living room. "When Maxwell tripped with one of his boxes and lost his balance, he fell with the piano on top of him. I was on the other side of the dining room when I heard the crash so I came running to the living room. When I arrived Yuy was already trying to lift the piano off Maxwell. I helped and we managed to lift enough for Maxwell to crawl out but he wasn't moving. Later he told us that he was in too much pain to move. Then I heard rushed footsteps and Barton and Winner entering the living room. Barton rushed to our side and helped steady the piano that was already too heavy for us. I sprained my wrist because in the rush to help Maxwell I didn't take a good hold, but I decided that my wrist could wait until after my friend was all right.
"Soon enough Maxwell managed to get himself from under the musical instrument and we rushed to his side to see if he was all right. It took us a couple of moments to notice that Winner was leaning heavily against the door and holding his chest so hard that I thought he might be having a heart attack. We stayed there, frozen for a moment, and saw him take painful breaths and then look at us with blurry eyes.
"He has a broken rib," he said with a steady voice. "We need to bandage it and he'll be fine."
"We did as we were told and took Maxwell up to his room to rest. That's when Maxwell told us that the strangest thing had happened. When the piano fell and he was pinned to the ground he felt his rib breaking. Then, when we took it off him he tried to move but a fresh and powerful wave of pain took a hold of him. He thought he wouldn't be able to move when he felt the pain suddenly recede; it didn't stop but it lessened considerably so he was able to move. Since then the pain had been the same.
"I've broken my ribs before and every time I did it was hell, I don't understand what's happening now," he concluded.
"That's when we realized that Winner wasn't there with us so Barton went to look for him. It didn't take long for them to enter the room. I could see that Winner was in pain, just by looking in his eyes. I don't know why but Maxwell knew instantly that something was wrong with Winner. He asked him and looked at him with those eyes that didn't leave room for arguing or lying. Winner then sat on a chair by the bed and looked at us for a moment before starting to talk. He said that he was an empath. We just regarded him silently and I wondered if he had lost his mind or something. What a hell did being an empath mean?
"He told us that he'd had the gift to feel people's emotions all his life. His talent had been evolving and he was getting stronger all the time. At the beginning of the war he felt a special connection with the four of us, and his gift was more powerful where we were concerned. He knew how to put shields around him so he wouldn't feel our emotions all the time but when the emotions were too strong they could break his barriers.
"Yuy went completely livid after Winner told him that he had felt him self-destruct. He said that since he mastered the Zero system his empathy had been getting stronger. Before, all he could do was feel a reflection of our emotions but lately he had been able to 'take them away'. I asked him what he meant by that and he said that he could steal other people's emotions if he wanted to. He said that, as always, it was stronger with the four of us so he could steal almost an entire feeling. If, for example, he tried to help his secretary with her stress he could take some of it but she would still feel the emotion, just not as strong. With us he could take almost all the stress so all it was left was a small feeling of worry. We tried to stay as calm as we could but it isn't every day that one of your closest friends tells you that he's been into your mind and has also been stealing something that it shouldn't be possible to steal.
"He said that at first he wasn't aware that he was doing it but since figuring it out he had put all his barriers up again. He also said that he wasn't able to take all the feelings away, only a specific kind: the bad ones – fear, pain, suffering, sorrow, loneliness. We were all in shock. I don't know if the others believed him right away or if, like me, they were thinking that he had gone mad. Maxwell was the first one to recover and he asked Winner what happened to those feelings he stole. It took a moment for Winner to reply; he looked at each of us and then rested his eyes on Maxwell and gave him a small knowing smile. "I keep them," he said simply.
"It took a moment for us to understand what he meant and then everything turned to chaos. Barton hugged his lover really tightly while Maxwell pleaded with him to give him his pain back. Yuy was busy taking care of his own lover and trying to calm him down. I just looked at them all and finally said in a loud voice, so that they would hear me, that I didn't believe him. Apparently the others didn't think the same way as I did. Winner looked at me with his pain filled eyes and asked if he could prove it to me. I nodded; I didn't know what he could prove. I realized what he meant when the dull pain in my wrist almost disappeared.
"It is sprained; you should bandage it," he said. When he had finished speaking the pain returned to me. After that there was no way I wouldn't believe him. He had demonstrated that what he said was true and he was honorable enough to ask for my permission before going through my mind.
"It wasn't as easy for the rest. Well, Yuy just took the new knowledge as another important fact to know although he was still troubled by the whole self destruction pain sharing thing. Maxwell, being as he is, hugged Winner and made him promise never to help him that way again unless it was absolutely necessary. He is not one to see his friends suffer for him; however that didn't stop him from cursing when Winner returned his pain.
"With Barton, it was more difficult. They had been together for almost two months and had been very close during the war. Barton felt betrayed somehow. He was also mad at himself, for not noticing before. It was the biggest fight I've ever watched them have. It lasted almost two weeks but they care too much about each other to let something like that keep them apart. Eventually Barton accepted Winner for who he is and Winner promised not to keep things from him again. So do you understand why this whole buried memories thing is so complicated? Barton isn't mad with Winner, because he knows that keeping that information away from him wasn't his choice, but we are all very worried."
Sally didn't know when it happened but before she could do anything about it, she was in front of Wufei hugging him and gently caressing his hair. Wufei didn't react; he was too busy enjoying the comfort Sally was giving him to care about what she may be thinking. Unfortunately for both of them, the moment was cut short by the loud scream coming from the kitchen.
"Lunch is ready!" Duo Maxwell stated, loudly, so everyone in the big house and probably some neighbors could hear him.
Wufei looked up at Sally and smiled. An invisible barrier that kept them apart had just broken and he was glad.
"Do you want me to go tell Heero and Trowa about lunch?" she asked, smiling back at him.
"No, we are used to having Maxwell communicate with us in this way. They'll be down in no time."
Sally nodded and they went to the dining room to have lunch. The smell of fried potatoes and BBQ sauce assaulted their nostrils the moment they came through the door.
"Maxwell, are you cocking that unhealthy junk food again?" asked Wufei, pretending to be annoyed by his friend but, in fact, looking forward to some grease filled dinner for a change. Of course that didn't mean that the others should know about his secret enjoyment of the richly flavored dishes.
"Q loves my BBQ wings," said Duo, coming out of the kitchen with a plate filled with said wings in one hand and another with French fries in the other. "Now stop complaining, Wufei; even you need some flavor on your diet now and then."
Duo ignored the angry glare he was getting, and went back to the kitchen. Wufei sat beside Sally as he silently pondered if Duo could read into his annoyed act. However his thoughts were interrupted when Trowa and Quatre arrived. Quatre looked much better, the nap had been a good idea and the color had returned to his face. The blond smiled at everyone in the room as he took his seat.
"Now, where is Heero?" asked Duo, after he finished bringing the drinks to the table.
"I'm here," answered Heero, as he walked into the room with some papers in his hands.
"So, did you find anything about Sheara?" asked Trowa, helping himself to some chicken wings.
"Not much. I know she used to work as head of the resource satellite Quatre used to live on but she vanished a month after the start of Operation Meteor. I haven't been able to locate her."
"I know where Sheara is," said Quatre. Everyone looked at him expectantly while he took a sip of his coke. "She is managing one of our satellites near the L4 colony. I talk to her a lot; she calls constantly to ask for more funds. Lately she is been pretty insistent; she wants a large sum of money to start a new project. She'll go ballistic when she finds out that I won't be taking her calls for a few days."
"You talk to her?" asked Trowa. "After everything she did to you?"
Quatre only nodded; he didn't want to talk too much and get another headache. He was still suffering from the last one.
"When are you supposed to give her your answer?" asked Heero, looking at Quatre.
"I never told her when; she wants it right away but I told her I needed time to review her project before I could make a decision."
"And have you?" asked Wufei.
"Not yet, I've been busy with other matters but I was thinking of doing it this week. The files must be in my office somewhere." Quatre took another large sip of his coke. "I'll call Cecilia and tell her to send them with the rest of the paper work."
"Yes," said Heero, "I would like to take a look at them."
"Just what are you planning now, Heero?" asked Duo, as he swallowed his last piece of chicken.
"I don't know yet but I have a bad feeling about Sheara."
"Oh, I wonder why that is?" said Duo, his voice full with sarcasm.
Just then the door bell rang. "I'll get it," said Trowa as he got up and headed for the door. He returned a couple of minutes latter with a box filled with papers. Quatre sighed the moment he saw them, he had a lot of work to do.
"Just give me that, Trowa," he said, rising to his feet. "I'd better start working if I want to ever sleep again." He went to the kitchen and got another coke can from the fridge, then he took the box from Trowa's hands. "Are we going to continue with the hypnosis today?" he asked Sally, stopping just by the door.
Sally thought about it for a moment. After everything that had happened she wanted to know more. Quatre couldn't speak about his memories but he could show them to his friends. She wondered if continuing with the hypnosis that soon could affect Quatre or the others, but they had been just fine and Quatre had recovered his energy after a nap. She didn't know why but there was something that told her that time was against them. "Yes," she answered finally. "Tonight after dinner; you have the entire afternoon to yourself."
Quatre nodded and looked down at the mountain of papers he was supposed to read. 'Yeah,' he thought tiredly. 'All to myself.'
"What can I help you with, Mr. Winner?" asked Cecilia from the vid phone.
"Cecilia, do you remember the files that were sent from L4364XV a few days ago? I need them so if you could please send someone here with them…" said Quatre, turning around after hearing the door opening. Trowa walked silently inside and stood behind Quatre, waiting for him to finish his conversation.
"Certainly, Mr. Winner. Anything else?"
"Any urgent messages?" asked Quatre, fearing the answer.
Cecilia gave a soft chuckle before replying. "Everyone thinks their message is urgent, it's like they need you to take their hand and walk them through the simplest tasks, Mr. Winner. Don't worry, I told them that you weren't paying them so you could do their work for them. Don't look so concerned, Mr. Winner, everything is just fine here; we can manage without you for a few days."
"Thank you, Cecilia, I don't know what I'd do without you," said Quatre, smiling. "Have any of my sisters called?"
"Let's see," answered the secretary, looking at some papers on her desk. "Mirna called at nine to ask about the new contractor for the Majestic project but I told her to call resources for the information. Yael called at ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />nine forty five about the L2563D shipment but I answered all her questions. Sheara called at ten fifteen; she wanted to know, again, if you had made a decision regarding the L4364XV founds. I told her that you would be out of the office for a few days but that you'll get back to her as soon as you have an answer. Needless to say, she wasn't very pleased about it."
Quatre took a deep breath. "Anyone else?" he asked.
"Yes," answered Cecilia, "Latife called at eleven, she said she is on Earth and wants to see you. She left a number to contact her."
Quatre smiled and told Cecilia to send him the number; he thanked his very efficient secretary for all her help and cut the connection.
"Are your sisters always this demanding of your time?" asked Trowa, hugging his boyfriend from behind.
"Kind of but all the calls are normally company related so they don't take long. I almost never talk with the ones who don't work for Winner enterprises. Some of them call sometimes to ask for money, but I don't talk with the ones who have their own jobs and don't need the company's support; they are like strangers to me."
"Who is Latife?" asked Trowa, remembering that Quatre actually wanted to speak to her.
"She is one of my sisters, one of the youngest; she is only seven years older than me. I actually met her only a few years ago. After the war had finished and I took over Winner Enterprises, she tracked me down and called me; she wanted to meet me." Quatre took a moment to think of how to phrase his next sentence; he hated not being able to talk freely about his childhood. "She was in a boarding school on another colony with some of my other sisters while I was on L4. When she came home, the war had already started so we didn't have a chance to meet. At first I thought that she wanted money or something like that but it turned out that she is a very successful genetics doctor. She lives on L1 in relative comfort and is happy. I don't see her much but every time we are in the same area, we talk. Last time I was still living on L4 so I guess I forgot to give her the number for the new place."
"You never said anything about her," said Trowa.
"I didn't, did I? I guess I forgot about her too; it's been so long since we last saw each other, I think that's sad."
"You should call her and see her again, I think that'll be good for you."
Quatre nodded and sat in the couch with a couple of folders in his lap. "If you don't have anything to do," he told Trowa, "you could keep me company."
Trowa smiled. "I was thinking of doing just that," he said as he sat in the couch beside his boyfriend. "That's why I brought this book with me."
Quatre smiled and rested his head on Trowa's shoulder as he opened the first folder. "And we have the afternoon all to ourselves."
Heero opened the door before the delivery man had time to ring the door bell. He took the file from the man's hands and closed the door without a word. He had things to do and there was no time for formalities. He climbed back to his room with the file in his hands. If his suspicions about Sheara Winner were right, he had no time to waste.
to be continued...
Notes:
Latife was my grandmother's name. It's pronounced Lah-tee-feh. I wanted to show that not all of Quatre's sisters are like Sheara and that they are a very different group of people.