Forever Alice

Author: DSM Rating: PG-13 Genre: POV, Angst, Introspective Pairings: 3+4,1+2+1. Warnings: Slight ( very slight.) language, Angst Summary: How the world sees you and how you see yourself can paint a completely different picture.

A/N: Because I really think there's more to be said about Quatre Winner. Because this somehow fits my idea of how he could view himself. And so I wrote this fic.

Dedication: To Seamus Harisen.he'll know why. Wherever he is now. And to my Tro-chan *grins and winks* You know who you are.

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Watching.

How is it one can spend so much of their existence watching the world revolve around them without truly feeling they have any part within it? Is it not peculiar even in a sea of people, a crowded room full of dignitaries, friends, family and even foe, one can feel so entirely alone without even trying. No man is an island.but I am. An island set adrift, floating powerlessly on a torrential current as everyone storms about around me. I stand on the shore, overlooking that vast ocean unsure of how to take that first step and dive into the water to swim amongst everyone else. Stranded on the sandy banks, no helpful stranger calling, "Come on in! The water's fine!"

I crave to hear that voice.

However, there is no helpful stranger, no insistent voice calling out to the lost soul on the shore. So I remain here. Stranded. Alone.

Watching.

I often wonder if one single eyelash would bat if I threw my head back and screamed. It would echo around the room and everyone would continue their little pretenses, would sip their champagne and wine, heedless of the one standing broken on the dance floor. I am hardly invisible. That is an impossibility for me even if for one moment I disappeared into the shadows. I am a fixture, needed, vital, taken for granted but still never really noticed. Never really seen.

I stand shaking the hand of some foreign minister for something or other that I could recall at a moments notice if I really cared to, if my mind cooperated with me. So I offer the man a pleasant smile, an empty platitude and once he is appeased, politely not listen as he rattles off something I am sure I have heard multiple times tonight and am really not concerned with hearing again.

Call me self absorbed and I would be the first to agree with you.

My mind is focused on things other than business and politics tonight, even as I mingle around the room playing my ever present duty as the head of the most powerful family company in the Earth Sphere. I am more preoccupied of late and really can't be concerned with the endless squabbling of the societal world I was created to become a part of. A scientific product raised, molded, crafted, and if I am to heed the gushing of any number of people, destined to be what I am. It matters not if I wish to be this product so well marketed. It matters not if I wish to be a part of it anymore than I wish to be anything else but.

The scion of the Winner Empire. I've long since lost my name.if I had one to begin with. A true name and not something that means another thing entirely to the world so intent on making me something I am not.

Though I have yet to discover what it is I actually am.

My thoughts are excruciatingly loud tonight and I bid my leave from Nameless Politician #343 before his mindless drivel drives me into the pits of insanity. I signal a passing waiter with the barest nod.something instilled within me before I scarcely could speak the word 'waiter'.and acquire another glass to replace the one whisked off on a silver platter. Efficient staff are not hard to find when you have the money to pay what it takes to provide the incentive for one to work hard.

I feel suffocated, head a ramble of unwanted thoughts, a heart full of emotions, half of which probably aren't even my own. It is my gift, my curse and while I am almost invincible in a board room, the echo of emotions playing throughout the room is nauseating. I crave escape and though I know the moment I step from the room my presence will once again be needed, I climb the staircase to the upper level surrounding the ballroom and hover in the open doorway to one of the many balconies.

Rubbing the bridge of my nose briefly, I down half of my champagne before flicking my eyes in an all encompassing sweep of the room, a movement born of that part of me always remaining a soldier. Though to look at me, immaculate in a crisp tuxedo, polished leather footwear and designer styled platinum hair, you'd hardly think I'd become accustomed to crawling through hellholes and inhabiting much worse while slaughtering hundreds, thousands, on a daily basis.

I've been called the 'Darling', the 'Angel' of the Business/Political world. The papers, the tabloids, the television all plaster my image for the entire world to see. This innocent with the sunny grin and a fragility born of those belonging in true aristocracy smiles back to thousands, millions, billions and they all believe the reality they are told to believe. It just reinforces my belief that I am invisible, trapped behind a mirror held up to the world.a mere reflection of what people want to believe, have been coerced into believing they see. Nothing more than what I was bred to be.

A lie.

Leaning against the frame of the doorway, I catch sight of four familiar figures as they move about the room and for my eyes, the explosion of color emanating from their emotions separates them from the monotone of the crowd around them. They are always clearer, more distinct in their emotional projection than anyone else I have met and I would like to believe it is due to some unspoken connection we have developed over time.

If only I didn't know better.

Duo Maxwell, somehow roguishly unique and yet elegant in his tux, hovers around Heero Yuy with adoration shimmering golden around him, even as it shines clear in amaryllis eyes. Heero, pristine and ever perfect in his unassuming tux, leans casually against the wall beside him. His eyes survey the room but I watch knowingly as they return always to glance at his companion before resuming their surveillance. It is an eternal dance. Duo forever Heero's closest friend, regardless of the cry of his heart and soul for that something more, and Heero, uncertain and unsure, soaking up the unconditional love that pours from Duo's every gesture and word. They dance this never ending tango and even though their love burns brighter than a small sun, they never break free from the steps. They will someday, I am sure, and I pray every day that someday is soon. However, I expect I will be receiving a call in the very near future from my braided friend with the very latest tale from a not so unrequited love.

It is not so surprising I quickly fell into the role of confidant soon after Duo and I became friends. I do not know quite how it happened and exactly when the event took place but soon found myself on the receiving end of all of Duo's hopes and fears regarding the pilot of Wing Gundam. Throughout the war and even now in the years after I have followed this love story between these two stubborn soul mates that refuse to get past their own fears and reservations and just accept what destiny has written. I wish with my entire being they would.

Because I am gradually beginning to hate the sound of the name Heero Yuy.

I do not begrudge their love, please do not misunderstand. How could I begrudge two astounding and incredible people something so beautiful? How could I when I have so avidly watched their love grow from the very start? I believe I knew even before they were aware of it themselves.

But.

Jealously is a twisted emotion. Envy even more so. I cannot help craving something that I desire so much but feel I will never truly be able to grasp in my own hands.

As if sensing my eyes on them, the pair in question lift their own to regard me. Duo favors me with an enthusiastic wave while Heero simply inclines his head, that ghost of a smile on his lips. I pull a sunny beam from my repertoire, the smile gaining a swift grin from Duo and a slightly larger pulling on Heero's lips before once again their attention is elsewhere.

I have fulfilled my role.

Another gulp from my glass and my eyes rest on the form of Chang Wu Fei, engaged in a heated debate with yet another dignitary I care not to know. My lips quirk at the familiar sight and I can't help the small chuckle that escapes my lips at the poleaxed expression on the politician's face. I imagine every one of his blasé opinions is crumbled into dust by Wu Fei's astounding intellect and even more powerful will. Wu Fei's mind is a force to be reckoned with and even I have floundered in debate with the accomplished scholar and fallen prey to the very force of his will. Wu Fei is an amazing individual, despite the self deprecating guilt and pain that taints his soul.

My eyes continue to the final figure and I choke on a pained heave as penetrating emerald eyes pierce straight through my soul, ripping through with nauseating efficiency. Impassive as always, face giving nothing and eyes spilling no secrets yet his heart screams louder than any vocal cry ever could, seizing my own in firm hands. Such intensity in his longing, in his desire and such agony in his rejection. With every day I blindly refuse to acknowledge what those eyes are begging for me to see, the further I watch him break.

I am shattering Trowa Barton's heart everyday and I am powerless to stop it.

He believes he loves me. It radiates from his soul every time I am near him and my heart cries out to alleviate him from his pain.

But I never do.

How can I when what he is offering I just cannot accept, though every fiber in my body is screaming, pleading, begging for me to do so. Trowa offers me his heart, his love, his protection but how can I give myself in return when I know he doesn't see the me hidden behind the façade of the one he sees as his 'Angel'? I am not the person Trowa thinks he sees, he knows, and he loves.

That person is not worthy of the priceless soul that inhabits Trowa Barton's body.

I tear my eyes from those pained orbs and turn, retreating from the doorway and out into the night. I am hiding and I know it, wallowing in a self pity so black and a guilt so deep that I fear I may drown under it soon. My body feels iron clad and I slump against the railing of the balcony, once again bringing my glass to my lips. The beauty of the full moon casting its glow over the world beyond has no meaning to me and my gaze is empty as my eyes grace the visage of the spectacular gardens surrounding this estate. My mind still rests with the four men within the room behind me.

I was naïve, I am not afraid to admit it, when I first became a Gundam pilot. Not of war.oh no. I was aware of the price I was to pay for accepting the responsibility that came with controlling the machine of death that was placed in my hands. I may have abhorred the thought of taking another life but I was not about to gloss over murder with sentimental notions of what was 'good' and 'evil'. I knew my duty as clearly as my comrades did and I followed it as steadfastly as they themselves did.

No my naivety stemmed from a hope that I would finally find a place to belong. A place where I would no longer feel so isolated and so alone in everything I lived, loved and believed in. That somehow I would find that something to fill the ever present hole voiding my soul, the missing piece to the jigsaw puzzle that I could never seem to find.

Completion.

But it was not to be and I was a fool to ever believe it would. I was born with everything, life with benefits handed to me on a golden platter and the world just waiting for me to seize control and mold it into what I willed. That was what my father bred me to be and I, foolish child that I was, ran away with notions of fighting for what was 'right'. Of becoming part of something greater than what my father had already boxed up for me and left just waiting to be opened. I wanted to find people who would understand, who would join together and become one.

Comrades.

A band of brothers.

Family.

I found none of those things. I found four individuals with so much to give and yet who had received so very little. Heero, an orphan raised as an assassin, trained to become a machine of war as surely as his Gundam was. Duo, an L2 street orphan so used to having nothing, losing all those he loved and the only home he'd ever known only to become a soldier, to become Death, in the war that had taken all from him. Wu Fei, who had watched his wife die at the hands of Oz, who watched his colony destroyed before his very eyes. And Trowa. Trowa who was raised by mercenaries, without a name, only having one after he stole it from a dead fool who glorified war. Trowa who had no identity, no home.nothing.

And I? I believed I would be able to identify with these boys, these men?

I was a fool.

They never really saw me as a warrior, a soldier. Even as they recognized my skill for tactics and my abilities as a leader, somehow I always believed they did not think me fit for the trauma of war. I was an innocent. I was a Relena Peacecraft who knew how to pilot a Gundam. Never mind I had marksmanship as good as any of them. Never mind I knew several ways to kill a man with my bare hands. Never mind I had been trained in the art of war just as they had. Because they only saw the angel-faced Winner heir, the rich boy with the big heart that believed he could fight in a war. I was to be protected and admired but never accepted.

The war was no place for bleeding hearts.

My desire, so passionate, was compelling but in the end just not enough. I helped unite five lost souls for the final battles but I never found the unity, never found that sense of belonging that I so desperately craved. I found four friends who could understand the horrors of war that was our shared experience but never the kinship I thirst after.

Stupid.

Why would I even hoped to think I would ever be something close to those remarkable examples of strength and sheer human spirit in the room behind me. They've taken what life has thrown at them and rolled with the punches, stood up, and kept on forging ahead, knowing that more torment may come but still fighting and living.

And me?

When life gets me down I build a weapon of mass destruction, annihilate colonies, almost kill the person dearest to me in the world, and turn into a bitter little rich boy hiding from the world on a balcony, slowly getting drunk on champagne worth enough to feed a starving family.

The glass slips from my fingers only to shatter on the ground below as I slide boneless to the floor. I can't give a fuck about the thousand dollar tuxedo I am soiling and tearing as I collapse against the marble stone. I'm too exhausted to give a fuck about anything anymore.

Yes, I curse. I'm not fucking Prince Charming with all the social graces and perfect manners all the bloody time.

My head is in my hands and it is all I can do not to break down and simply weep. My shoulders are trembling with every sob repressed and I feel the tell tale sting of tears welling in my eyes.

I refuse to let them fall.

I do not want to be the weak fool of a child I feel I am anymore. Do not want to be this twisted, jaded example of humanity I've become. What right do I have to feel this way? I have been given everything but when I don't receive the one thing I want I bitch about life's slight like a spoilt brat.

Pathetic!

God, I am so tired.

A hand falls heavy on my shoulder and I flinch in surprise before his essence wraps itself around me. Still I refuse to raise my head, refuse to let him see how pathetic I've become even as I crave for him to accept the truth.to love the me I am rather than the me he thinks he sees.

"Quatre?"

There is such sadness in his voice, such pain in his heart and I hate myself a thousand times over knowing I'm doing this to him. Guilty.always so guilty. I have so much to apologise for. To him. To the others. To the entire world.

His long fingers brush across my cheek and I bite back a curse as I feel the dampness he catches on fingertips. One elegant hand cups my face as he lifts my eyes to meet his own and I am drowning in the sorrowful emerald orbs that fill my vision.

"What's wrong, Quatre?"

I want to tell him.want to hand him the broken pieces of my soul.but even as I am screaming for his love, I am fleeing from him. The fear is always there, the reality my heart is always dragging before my eyes.

Which Quatre Raberba Winner does Trowa Barton love?

"Quatre? Please? Why are you crying?"

I am too tired to fight anymore, too tired to think. I just want these voices in my head to quiet and leave me with some measure of peace for just one moment. I am collapsing against his chest before I am even aware of moving and my tears are staining his shirt but I cannot call them back. Burying my body into his warmth as his arms surround me and he pulls me into his embrace, I whisper, cursing the brokenness of my voice as it escapes my lips.

"Just tired. So very tired."

His arms tighten and he is crushing me almost painfully against him and I am hating myself for allowing him even though I know I am just too weary to pull away now. My soul is screaming for this one moment of respite Trowa is offering.

But.

But still.

The black cesspool of doubt swallows me and I am behind that mirror again, looking out.begging.screaming.banging my fists against its surface. The Looking Glass. I see what I desire most, what I crave, hunger, thirst after but it remains out of my reach. I am never seen.me here behind the Looking Glass.

Watching.

Trapped.

Forever Alice.