FIC: The Heart Is where Home Is [Gundam Wing, Trowa]

[omnicat]

Title: The Heart Is where Home Is
Author: Omnicat v''v
Rating: K / G
Genre: General
Spoilers & Desirable Foreknowledge: The anime and Episode Zero.
Warnings: None.
Pairings: None.
Disclaimer: Just borrowing. Will return in original state - or something like it, at least. x3
Summary: Snippets of Trowa POV introspection at several points throughout the series... about his trailer. His heart is where his home is, after all.
Author’s Note: The middle date (the one with amnesiac!Trowa) was taken from a timeline at AboutGundamWing . Com. The others should be obvious; the series started on April 6th, the day before Relena’s birthday, and ended on Christmas of the same year. Enjoy.
 

The Heart Is where Home Is 

 AC 195, April

The trailer they assign him is thoroughly impersonal. The carpet, wallpaper and upholstery an unassuming pallet of browns and grays, with a stash of towels and bed linen of almost military uniformness. It’s fine by him. All the practical necessities are there, and all the things that would distract him and turn his mood back to the garish little circus world he’ll be hiding in in between missions are not.

‘Do you miss it? You looked kinda nostalgic.’

What have I gotten myself into?

Catherine Bloom, the knife thrower he’s been partnered with, understandably disagrees with his silent assessment.

“It’s awfully empty and boring in here.” she says as she looks around from her place against the doorframe.

“It’s fine this way.”

“For now, sure, but we’d be a lousy troupe if we’d let you stew in a place like this forever.”

She was trying to make him feel welcome and make the transition into this new environment as smooth as possible. He’d pegged her as the type earlier in the day, and he understood; there had been a few people like that with the mercs and in the Barton’s gundam development and maintenance team as well, and she had no reason to believe he was anything but what he pretended to be. But her words hit a nerve, and he felt his patience evaporate in the acidic emotion oozing from the sore.

“Tell you what, why don’t I take you out shopping some time? Even if I don’t know the area, shops are the same wherever you are, so I’m sure I can find some places we can go to to furnish your new trailer.”

“It’s fine this way.” he repeats sharply.

Catherine looks a little hurt. “Trowa...”

‘Trowa’ turns away. That’s not his name. He doesn’t have a name.

‘Do you miss it? You looked kinda nostalgic.’

Hmph. What a joke.

 

AC 195, October

After a couple of days of recuperation in Cathy’s trailer, they’d taken a different trailer, from a large group of similar trailers, and told him it was his. Rightfully his: he’d lived in it during his previous stay at the circus, and Catherine and the Manager had made sure it was kept in the same state as when he left.

Cathy showed him everything the small portable home had to offer, giving him a ‘tour’ through the different rooms, pointing out both obvious and not so obvious storage compartments on the walls and under the bed and couches, showing him the easiest way to get the blinds to close completely, and sharing a special trick with the stove that would keep the shower warm even after the hot-water supply from the boiler ran out.

Her voice was warm and soft and her hand stayed on his shoulder all throughout. He was glad for that, because he couldn’t shake the feeling that without Cathy, he would get lost in that tiny space and never find his way again.

The thought that he should be familiar with people and places he felt like he’d never seen before was disorienting and unsettling. Even worse was the fact that he had apparently left with only a duffel bag worth of personal effects, and the space that had been his home for over four months was completely empty.

He wanted nothing more than to find out who he was, what the person called ‘Trowa’ was supposed to be like, but looking around his trailer - bare, dead, heartless - he almost dreaded the answer.

What kind of person lives like this?

 

AC 196, January

He’s glad to be back at the circus - genuinely glad, like he’d been genuinely glad to be reunited with Quatre, and genuinely torn up about the company at Peacemillion splitting apart. It’s been a long, long time since he’d felt such a lack of indifference and and been in the right state of mind to acknowledge, accept and appreciate it. One some level it’s frightening, alien and unpredictable, but for the most part he is exhilarated by it.

But the trailer still doesn’t feel like it’s his. Everything in it was already there before his arrival, and will still be there after he is gone. Even a completely bare room, forcing him to start from scratch, would have suited him better. But he refuses to be demotivated by the suggestion that nothing had changed with the end of the war.

He’s earned his name by now; he has proven himself to be a true gundam pilot. And gundam pilots make things change.

“Hey, Cathy?”

“Yes Trowa.”

When he looks away from the anonymous interior, she is leaning against the door post with a welcoming smile.

“When I first came here, you said you knew where to go for furnishing.”

Her eyebrows rise even as she nods.

“The troupe I grew up in used to set up tents at every site. If I’m going to stay permanently this time, I could use some help getting adjusted to these trailers.”

Catherine’s smile is knowing and the almost possessive tightness of her hug reassuring.

Luckily, even a gundam pilot doesn’t have to do it all on his own. 

PSAN: Yay for the circus peeps!