Tears of Despair

Chapter 1: Web of Deceit and Despair

By Liewe

Standard disclaimers apply, please don’t sue me…

“…Amen,” the Priest said, his black robes rustling in the wind as Midii’s empty casket was lowered into the cold unforgiving earth. Lillie’s of the purest white blanketed the polished surface. Trowa had to fight the urge to protest the Priest's words, denials still festering in his heart, rebelling to what it heard. In his eyes she had survived the fall, and the bullet wounds and now he could hear her soul crying out for his, crying out for absolution. Absolution he couldn't give her.

“Trowa, she’s gone,” Catherine whispered, tears in her eyes as her gaze landed on the Une brothers, both pale with grief and grimacing in pain. Christof had only just been released from the hospital, and against his doctor’s wishes. The young man couldn’t forgive himself for allowing Midii to die, as he so often put it.

“She’ll never be gone Cathy, never.”

“Oh, Trowa,” Catherine whispered as she watched him walk away from the graveyard his shoulders hunched and shaking with suppressed tears of anguish and despair.

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The pale blue flickering light washed over the young woman’s pale features, highlighting the pure white bandages, which covered her face and body. The machines beeped in constant harmony with one another, as the coverage of the funeral continued.

The young woman that was being commemorated had worked for the Preventers yet she had also been a spy. Her heart rate grew stronger as the camera focused on the young woman’s fiancée, the change barely perceptible.

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Monsieur LeFave looked at the young woman through the glass, no memory, no name, no past. She would be perfect for the job, which he had in mind. A nameless agent, hidden in the corporate world, gathering the information they so desperately needed. None of the others would know and had never known of these agents, they were secret and ignored, no one cared to remember these lost children of the world. Soon the woman on the bed would be another such tool.

Trowa looked at the polished marble, his eyes unseeing as his fingers traced the newly engraved name, and the words, which adorned the headstone.

Midii Une, A.C. 180, to A.C. 199. Together forever, one and the same, two body’s, one heart, one soul.

His fiancée for all eternity. There was a void in his heart, a cold pit that would forever remain.  He missed her so much, he could still hear her laugh and see her smile.  He couldn’t believe that she; the strongest person he had ever known was dead. It couldn’t be true!

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The young woman walked through the shadows, her long platinum hair a beacon in the dark as she moved through the maze of cubicles like a long forgotten ghost.

For three years she had worked as a secretary to a corporate giant Mr. Pratt. She would hide in her office during the day, where no one saw her where her life was an endless parade of phone calls and secret rendezvous.

Golden waterfalls of silky hair hid the scar that marred half of the once perfect ivory skin of her face.  Her name was Ariane Rougier.

She lived in her own world, were only pain and despair existed, where her identity didn’t matter because to everyone else even herself, she was a nobody. Nearly as nameless as the soldiers she saw.

She would watch the news and see the pain wracked faces of those soldiers who had fought for the freedom of the nation, the war for independence.  She pitied them, yet she admired them, to her they had made the ultimate sacrifice for peace, especially the Gundam pilots.  Heero Yuy, Wufei Chang, Duo Maxwell, Quatre Winner, and Trowa Barton because of their pain and their spilled blood they had been given the same peace. But out of those four young men, Trowa Barton had yet to find happiness.

She could recite his story from memory word for word; it had cemented itself into her heart so well.  Once a nameless soldier on a snow covered battlefield fighting without purpose, and now a broken man. He was the same as he was when a child, but now he was with a name.  He was a decorated Preventer, his humanity long gone.  It had disappeared with his fiancées death and her murder.

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“It’s been three years, three years since she died Trowa. Are you ever going to move on with your life?” Quatre asked softly as he looked with sad eyes towards his closest friend.

“I can feel it in my heart, the soft pulsing of her’s while she wanders through life, she is alive out there. I can’t explain it, but I know she’s not dead.”

“Just give it up, you’re destroying yourself, this endless hope, this bottomless well. We all see the pain that this brings you, you’re a shell, an automaton, you aren’t alive! Do you think that Midii would want this for you? Do you?” Quatre asked, his voice soft but strong.

“I know this wouldn’t be what she wanted Quatre, but she was my heart, my soul, without her I am nothing! All I am is a soldier, a nameless soldier in the battlefield of life! Whether I live or die doesn’t really matter, without her I am Nanashi. I can’t stop hoping, because hope is all I have left.”

“Trowa, you have your family,” came the wispy voice of Catherine as she walked into the room, her shirt stretching over her extended belly as proof of her pregnancy. “We’re here for you, we’ll always be here for you.”

“It’s not the same, we are family, yes… but for most of my life, I have been alone, and I have worn a mask to the world. Midii has been the only person to ever fully see past that mask, see the real me, and still love me. You don’t have any idea of the horrors I have committed and hopefully you never will because you won’t see me the same anymore.” Trowa whispered, turning his back to his sister, his forest green eyes filled with the dark emotions that ran rampant beneath his skin.

“Trowa you are alone because you push everyone away, ever since Midii’s death, you only venture out of the house when it has become absolutely necessary!” Catherine said to him, her lavender eyes filled with disappointment.

“You don’t understand and you never will!”

“I would if you let me, we would if you let us,” Quatre said softly coming to stand behind his wife and offer her his support.

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Alone, she thought, always alone, even in a crowd of people I am alone and isolated. My limited knowledge of my past keeps me alone in the world, forever alone. A part of my heart is missing, severed from mine, I am only half a person and someone who knew me before is my other half. He is alone as well, isolated, desolate and full of despair. Oh how I wish to be with him, but I have to fulfill my duty.

“Ariane?”

“…” She turned to face the voice to find only darkness, where a person should have been standing; there was only the plain white wall.

“Ariane… my little spy,” the voice cooed once more, and instincts honed through a forgotten lifetime kicked in. Her hand struck out before she thought, and next thing she knew she was in a crouch her back facing the corner as her dove-gray eyes scanned the room.

“Who are you? What do you want?” She gritted out through clenched teeth, as she rose from the crouch, a small delicate hand reaching up to brush a wayward strand of spun gold from her face.

“Your benefactor dear child, your benefactor.” The voice boomed as Monsieur LeFave stepped from the shadows to stand before her. “We need to know whether you are completing your end of the bargain, my dear Ariane. Are you collecting the information we need, or do you need to be re-educated in your duty to the cause. We all work for the same goal Ariane you are unimportant in the long run,” he whispered, his breath stirring her hair as he leaned closer to her.

“I have gathered the requested information sir,” Ariane spat, her eyes flashing silver fire as his hands moved to caress her face, his fingers tracing the outline of the scar which ran along her cheek.

“Now, now,” LeFave, said as the sound of flesh meeting flesh reverberated through the room. “You will obey.”

“Only until I have fulfilled my time of servitude, but after that Monsieur, you will have to watch your back, because then I shall have no qualms about ending your pitiful excuse for an existence.”

“I can kill you Ariane, and I will, I promise you that. I am not someone to be crossed, my memory is long, and I intend to live for a long time. I will always be your shadow, Mi…Ariane,” LeFave said his words tumbling together as he tried to hide his mistake.

He knows something of my past, Ariane thought, as she watched him meld back into the shadows. I will learn of my past, and what’s so terrible about it, I promise you that, she whispered to the dark. One hand moved to gingerly touch the forming bruise on her cheek; she was most definitely going to make him scream for touching her.

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Damien stared out over the ocean, his hands crossed in front of him. He missed her, and he missed the close-knit bond of family, which they had begun to cultivate. Christof was always so silent now, brooding, and isolated. Midii had been the glue to hold their family together, without her they were only ties by blood, nothing else, nothing common.

Andre had returned to the hill country of France, his mind returning to the state of utter despair in which it had resided all through the years when he had lost his being, his family. Christof, stayed by his brothers side, but his mind was elsewhere, reliving that night over and over again. She had to still be alive, she had to, without her, the bounds of family would dissipate, it had happened with Lady and Andre, it would happen with them.

-To Be Continued…