Chapter Text
Trowa called Quatre on the way to the shuttle port. He was on the fence about it--he wasn't sure until he was actually in the cab that he would tell Quatre at all. But he hadn't left a note, and in the end he couldn't bear the thought of leaving without saying goodbye.
He listened to warm rain tick off the windows of the cab as they sat in heavy traffic, listening to the phone line ring through until he heard Quatre's voice on the other end.
"Hey, what's up?"
Trowa closed his eyes against the rain, against the warm casual affection in Quatre's voice. It was too easy to imagine him between meetings in his skyscraper on L4, his tie loosened and a cup of Turkish coffee steaming in his hand.
Trowa was silent for a few seconds, fighting for the words. Long enough for Quatre to speak again. His bright tone had changed.
"Trowa, what is it? What's wrong?"
"I'm leaving," Trowa said. "I'm on my way. I've already gone."
Now it was Quatre's time to be silent for a few shocked beats before he finally responded, sounding as if Trowa had reached out and slapped him through the phone, hard enough for his ears to ring with disbelief.
"I...why? Did I do something wrong?"
Trowa squeezed his eyes shut, grateful that the cab he'd ordered was an automaton, so there was no bored, sleepy-looking cab driver to hear him or see the agony that crossed his expression at the plaintive sound of Quatre's voice.
"No. Nothing like that. I just have to go."
When Quatre spoke again, his voice sounded more sure and strong. His solving-problems voice.
"Turn around, Trowa. Whatever it is, we can still fix this."
"No. It's done," Trowa said, feeling a hot lump in his throat, making the words sound harsher and more raspy than he intended. He swallowed again and again, but it would not go away.
Quatre was quiet again for a few seconds, then spoke, sounding defeated. "Where will you go? What are you going to do?"
Trowa sighed, hearing the acceptance in Quatre's tone and not wanting it. He didn't want Quatre to cry and scream either, but something about Quatre's resignation felt like being thrown away. It was the same as when Trowa had been withdrawing from him and he said nothing. Go, then. That's what it felt like.
"Fight."
"Trowa, no," Quatre said, sounding frightened for the first time in their conversation. "Please. If you ever cared about me at all, you won't do this. You can do anything in the world you want but that. I'll help you. Just...please let me help you. Don't shut me out."
"You can't help this," Trowa said. "I'm sorry. I really am, you know."
"Why? Why aren't you willing to let me help you? Do you love killing so much?" Quatre said, and now Trowa could hear a thread of warm impatience in his voice. That's good, Trowa thought. Let him be angry. I'd rather him be furious than heartbroken.
"It's just something I have to do. You don't understand, and that's fine. You weren't meant to understand everything, Quatre," he added, more softly.
"You're going back to Africa, aren't you?"
Trowa took a deep breath, trying to ground himself in the present, the idea was so surreal. He breathed in the new car scent of the cab, the sterile tang of the car's HVAC unit, so removed from the damp green smell of the soft rain beyond. Two worlds, completely divided. That was Earth and the colonies. That was Africa and the rest of the Earth.
"Yeah," Trowa said. No-Name was born there. No-Name will die there. He felt free in the thought, knowing that by some perverse miracle, Quatre had never been able to feel what he was thinking, even though Quatre could read everyone else around him like Morse code only he could hear.
"We can go there together," Quatre said, quieter now. Cajoling with his soft tone. Trowa recognized all the different tactics of negotiation that Quatre used in business, Quatre going through every card in his hand, and he hated it. He hated that he saw it. "You don't have to fight again. We can just go on safari. We can stay as long as you want."
"I want to fight again," Trowa lied.
"You're trying to kill yourself," Quatre said, his words breaking into a sob that made Trowa feel like someone was reaching into his chest and squeezing as tightly as they could. He blinked hard. Goddamn you, Quatre, he thought. Goddamn you for knowing me so well. How could I have ever let you?
Trowa was quiet. He didn't deny it, and nothing that wasn't a denial would come to him.
"You don't have to go back," Quatre said, still quietly crying now in a way that made Trowa's heart hurt. Trowa hoped that he had stolen away to some quiet office with a closed door, dismayed at the idea of Quatre having a breakdown like this over the phone in front of his subordinates, his corporate peers. They would smell his broken heart like blood in the water.
"You don't have to stay with me, you never did, but please don't go back. I love you. I don't want you to die."
"I love you. That's why I have to go," Trowa said.
"When are you coming back?"
Trowa rubbed his face wearily. He would be at the shuttle port in less than ten minutes.
"I'm not."
Trowa squeezed his eyes shut as he heard Quatre break down, then fight to compose himself. When Quatre spoke again, his voice was still full of sorrow, but it was calm.
"You don't have to do this, Trowa. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. If you need to speak to somebody, if you're struggling with everything, I have the money to get you help. You don't have to do this on your own."
I'm not doing this on my own, Trowa thought. Thinking of dark cobalt eyes, the color of the night sky right before dawn.
"I want this," Trowa said. "I just didn't want to leave without saying goodbye. I'm sorry about the timing. I hope the rest of your meetings go well."
"Please, Trowa."
"I have to go now," Trowa replied, gently. "Take care of yourself. I love you."
He hung up before Quatre could beg anymore.
Quatre did not call back.
* * *
Heero met him at the shuttle port. For a brief second, Trowa almost didn't recognize him. The former Wing pilot had grown both taller and wider since the Waltz. Even under a longsleeved gray dress shirt Trowa could see the rippling flex of new muscle where Heero had obviously been spending a pathological amount of time in the gym. But he still had the wiry, graceful frame that Trowa remembered from their youth.
Heero had a shadow of stubble across his sharp face that belied his real age, and his hair was cut into an undercut. The top of it was as wild as ever, Trowa noted. And his eyes were the same. Trowa felt them cut straight to the heart of him when Heero met his eyes across the port corridor and then strode towards him, a backpack over one shoulder and a small rolling suitcase in one hand.
Even with the military style undercut, the gold wire-rimmed glasses Heero wore and his slacks and his pensive expression gave teaching assistant more than assassin, Trowa thought. But he knew looks could be deceiving.
Instead of greeting him, Heero just sat his backpack on the carpet and moved to sit in the terminal seat next to Trowa, almost close enough for their knees to touch. He rested his elbows on his knees, looking at Trowa out of the side of his eyes. The shaved hair on the back of his nape and skull looked as soft as velvet. Trowa felt the brief impulse to reach out and brush his fingers across it and crushed it fiercely.
"Good morning," Trowa said, watching him. Thinking, He's grown up. We all did, I guess.
"Why are we doing this?" Heero asked.
Not you. We. Trowa felt some emotion he couldn't identify swell in his chest.
"I know why I'm doing this," Trowa replied quietly. "Why are you doing this?"
Heero turned and watched him, unblinking as a hawk, in that way that Trowa found both arousing and frightening, locked under that blue gaze. He just looked at Trowa for a few seconds, and Trowa let him.
"You saved my life," Heero said finally, turning away again and closing his eyes.
Trowa laughed. He couldn't help it. He shook his head ruefully. "And what? Now you're going to save mine? Give me a break, Heero. Go home. Go home while you still can." He put a hand on Heero's shoulder, expecting Heero to shrug him off or move away from the comforting gesture out of habit. But instead Trowa was shocked when Heero's hand came up to cover his, the warm callused contact of his palm. Heero still wouldn't look at him.
"I'm not letting you go alone," Heero whispered, his eyes still closed. "So if you go, I go."
Trowa pulled his hand away, shocked and a little disgusted at himself. I should never have called him. Why the fuck did I do that? "You can't blackmail me into not doing this, Heero. I care about you, but you can't do that."
Heero opened his eyes and looked at Trowa again then, and Trowa felt like the expression in that cobalt gaze held mild contempt for him.
"Do whatever you want," Heero said, coldly. "I'm just telling you the facts. I'm not letting you kill yourself. I'm not letting you put Quatre through that. Back then, you made me stay. Now I'm making you stay. Even if that means I have to go. Fight if you want, or if you think you have to, but I'm not letting you kill yourself."
"You don't have to do anything, Heero," Trowa said. "Nobody made you come here. I specifically told you not to. I'm telling you right now."
Please don't go, Trowa thought.
Heero made no move to leave. He was still gazing at Trowa, searching his face with a mild scowl. Then he checked the delicate-looking watch at his left wrist before cutting his eyes back to Trowa.
"The shuttle leaves in an hour. Do you want to get some books before we leave?"
Trowa sighed, and stood up, grabbing his own luggage.
"There was a newsstand back this way," he said, and Heero got up to follow him.
* * *
They spent a small fortune in books and snacks. Trowa instructed Heero to stock up with as many odds and ends as he could stuff into the nooks and crannies of his bags--candy, nuts small sodas, phone chargers, tissues, chips. Whatever they didn't keep for themselves could be quickly sold again when they got where they were going.
Other than discussing which books they had purchased--Trowa had selected a completely forgettable-looking spy novel, and Heero a nonfiction book about people who climb Mount Everest--the two were quiet with each other. Trowa still felt chilled by Heero's cold gaze, his contempt.
Heero didn't approve of his method. When Heero decided to kill himself, he pushed a button.
Coward, Trowa thought. He thinks I'm a coward. And he's right. If I wasn't, Arno would still be alive. They all would be.
But Heero was gentle towards him anyway, the entire time until they boarded the shuttle that would take them to Tanzania, and then the smaller plane that would later fly them to Somalia. Trowa had been told there would be steaming jungle work, wet work, and yet here they were, headed to one of the driest, most war-torn countries on Earth. False advertising.
It'll still be wet work, Trowa thought. It'll just be blood, not rain or mist.
A few times, Trowa saw Heero look at his phone. He didn't ask Heero about it until they were already in the sky. The decision fatally, irrevocably made.
"What did you tell Duo?"
Heero flinched a little, surprised out of his numb gazing out the airplane window, and when he met Trowa's gaze, Trowa thought he saw a flash of shame in Heero's face.
"I didn't." Heero turned, looking out the window again. His tone was flat. "He left me a bunch of messages. I turned my phone off."
Trowa shook his head. For God's sake, why? he thought, feeling a species of miserable, dim dismay at the thought. Wanted to ask. Didn't you love him? Don't you still? Trowa had conflicted feelings about Duo that he had never been able to articulate to either Quatre or Heero, but the idea that Heero had just vanished on him without so much as a note still bothered Trowa for some reason.
"You shouldn't be here," Trowa said instead, and discovered that now his tone was the one that was cold.
"Too late," Heero replied.
Trowa was silent. It was the truth.
"Besides, you told me once that I died a long time ago," Heero said, glancing at him again. "And ghosts can go wherever they want."