FIC: Changing Times, Changing Cars [Gundam Wing, Cathy & Pagan]

[omnicat]

Title: Changing Times, Changing Cars
Author: Omnicat v''v
Rating: K / G
Genre: General.
Spoilers & Desirable Foreknowledge: Everything you can get.
Warnings: None.
Pairings: Mentioned Heero Yuy x Relena Peacecraft and Catherine Bloom x OMC.
Disclaimer: I no own, you no sue.
Summary: Heero has moved up on the social ladder of hitch–hikers since his road tip with Trowa, so Cathy gets to meet Pagan and his wise words.
Author’s Notes: Enjoy your reading.
 

Changing Times, Changing Cars

After the fifth time in a row that Trowa bringing friends home or friends of Trowa’s coming to look for him resulted in him ending up in battle, Catherine had come to a decision: she didn’t like Trowa’s non-circus friends until after they left.

It’s hard to physically keep in touch with a group of people scattered all across the Earth Sphere, especially when some of them never stay in the same place for more than a few months and some - to put it lightly - put up more of an effort than others. But old acquaintances from the war do drop in on a show every now and then, and Catherine is never able to soothe her fears and suspicions until their departure. Those mercenaries and freedom fighters may have come first, but Trowa is a child of the circus now, no longer a soldier. The war is over, the gundams destroyed, the fate of the world passed on to the hands of those who have voluntarily chosen to devote their lives to it. Trowa has chosen to leave that life behind: they no longer have the right to take him away from his family and friends in the troupe.

But for all her misgivings and rampant ‘mother hen tendencies’, as Trowa himself fondly calls it, she is most of all surprised when, upon returning from some mid-morning courtship with a handsome acrobat, she finds an old man with grey hair and the heaviest eyelids she has ever seen in a fold-up chair in between her and Trowa’s trailers. He is drinking tea and despite his starched suit, ramrod straight posture and the protruding pinky as he holds the inelegant mug, seems perfectly at ease in the noisy chaos of the camp.

"Good morning!" The man calls out heartily, stands up and bows. "You must be Miss Catherine."

"Y - yes, I am. It’s nice to meet you, Mister..."

"You can call me Pagan, Miss. I’m here as Master Heero’s chauffeur."

She remembers Heero: his eyes were wary and his hair was messy no matter what either of them did to it; he’d slept off a month-long coma with them and caused Trowa to try to blow himself up with his mobile suit. All before they ever learned his name. But he is also the one who, after Quatre Winner, Trowa was most fond of, and though he doesn’t visit often, when he does he and Trowa seem to speak a language of their own.

Since when did that guy have a chauffeur?

"Master Heero and Master Trowa have retreated to an empty field nearby with a board and a set of knives." Pagan informs her, neatly forestalling the question she was about to ask. "They should be back shortly."

After an awkward moment of homely instincts warring with the image of a professional butler, Catherine gets the old man to sit down again, let her get a chair for herself on her own, and manages to have a polite, if not very meaningful conversation while they share some more tea. She wants to go check on the younger men, really, but it seems awfully impolite to leave an old man all alone. She finds out Pagan is an old family friend of the Darlians and that the Vice Foreign Minister herself has insisted that he’d drive Heero.

Despite everything, Cathy is impressed. Heero Yuy has come a long way since the days that Trowa toured him around Europe in a second-hand MS transport vehicle.

When Trowa and his friend return, it becomes clear why the latter hasn’t driven his own car: he walks with a crutch and a cast around his leg.

"I see you two have met." Trowa says.

"You got hurt again?" She cannot stop the words, nor the note of alarm in her voice. But at least that last one can be passed off as concern for Heero’s sake.

Heero doesn’t seem to mind the greeting and merely sticks out a hand for her to shake. "I fell off a roof."

"Who falls off a roof?"

"It’s winter in Japan. I was preoccupied and didn’t notice the frost."

Had it been anyone else, Catherine would have thought he was embarrassed. But she is relieved: the international crises she’d immediately started to fear for doesn’t sound any more serious than an accident while putting up Christmas lights.

"I never thought I’d live to see the day." she says more kindly, and offers him her chair. "The Great Heero Yuy, crippled by a lowly roof."

"I wouldn’t exactly have called it low." Heero says, sitting down on the proffered chair with a grimace. "And the crutch was something Relena insisted on."

No doubt about it. Heero Yuy or not, he is painfully embarrassed.

"Which reminds me." He takes an envelope made of heavy cream-coloured paper with gilded edges from his pocket and hands it to her. "You’re invited too."

She stares at the fancy thing. "Invited?"

"To my wedding." he says with a sudden grin that takes her completely by surprise.

"They beat you and Christopher to it, sis. You’re getting old."

"Hey!"

Trowa laughs and mock-hides behind Heero, who says with a wry kind of indulgence: "Hiding behind an injured comrade? What kind of soldier are you?"

"A living one."

They smirk about it and the exchange is followed by others ranging from manners (the other’s, that is) at the coffee table to those between the sheets. The apprehension gradually drains from Catherine. She makes some more tea, manages to stop thinking about impeding disaster and even adds a little to the conversation.

By the time of that evening’s show, she is back to enjoying any and all human company and looks forward to dinner. Heero is still an oddball whom only Trowa seems truly able to tune into, the little chameleon, but old Pagan turns out to be good for quite a pleasant conversation too, now that things have defrosted. His store of memories is as vast as any of the circus grannies and grandpas.

It is too bad, she thinks, not unappreciative of the irony, as she darts in to peck Heero on the cheek unawares, that next time she’ll have to overcome her apprehension about them all over again. And that she’ll probably be shooting glances at the sky all throughout the wedding, waiting for Relena Darlian to become the next big figure to be gunned down, and a new war to start.

For her family to be ripped apart all over again.

Trowa leans against the side of the limousine to exchange a last few words with Heero, who has decided to do his leg a favour and arrange it under the passenger seat dashboard instead of standing on it any longer - a normal thing that stands out against her mental image of the man like a platypus in a backyard pond. Catherine marvels at the lengths his wife-to-be can make him go.

And how utterly bizarre that train of thought, though inconspicuous enough when interpreted as separate components, is, when taken all together.

Pagan touches her shoulder, his barely visible eyes shining grandfatherly. "I can see you have been troubled, Miss Catherine. We hardly know each other, but allow me to share something with you that might allay your fears."

She raises here eyebrows, he smiles.

"Many people see the gundam pilots as storm crows, taking their appearance as a sign of a coming conflict. And for a while this was correct. For many years they have lived tumultuous, fleeting lives, always on the look out, always on the move. But one by one they have each found a perch to settle down on and build their nest. Master Trowa was the first to do so; Master Heero is the last. There have been times I thought the day would never come, and by choosing Miss Relena he has chosen to stay in the thick of things for a long time still.

But the fact of the matter, Miss Catherine," Pagan leans in conspiratorially, moustache twitching. "is that they have all, one by one, found a place where they no longer have to fear the death and destruction that drove them to the front lines of the battlefield. The world has become a different place than it was when either of us were young. I think things will be alright now."

Catherine could only assume he knew what he was talking about.

She managed to get in a peck on Pagan’s cheek too.
 

PSAN: Read and Review, please! ;D