Elegance

-----part 1-----

The five Gundam Pilots were enjoying a lazy day during a lull in the war. OZ was licking its wounds and the Romfeller Foundation was recovering financially and wondering why there was a sudden increase in the purchase of feminine hygiene products.

"Did we hire a new female employee?" Treize asked himself as he read the report. He turned off the computer and went outside to do a little skeet shooting.

At the Gundam Pilot's safehouse, Quatre was relaxing on the sofa when Trowa walked in. 

"Trowa, I need to talk to you about something."

"I just came to tell you that dinner is almost ready." Trowa explained.

"Thanks," Quatre looked down at the hot water bottle that was covering the blond pilot's stomach, "but I really don't feel up to eating right now."

Trowa went over to Sandrock's pilot and touched his forehead. "You don't seem feverish." he said. "Quatre, if you have a stomach flu, you should..."

Quatre blushed. "It's not a stomach flu."

Trowa frowned at that.

"Oh, don't worry. It's nothing serious." Quatre forced a smile. "Trowa, let's talk. I want to know how you feel about me? Not about pilot 04, but about *me* as a person."

"I ... I love you, Quatre." Trowa confided. "You make me feel safe when I'm near you. I trust you. I haven't been able to trust anyone since..." he let the rest of the sentence die away, not from distrust, but from shame. "I want you to make love to me, to be inside me, sometimes so badly I can taste it. I know you'll be gentle and you'll never do me harm."

"I can't." Quatre cut him off apologetically. "I'm sorry, that's something I just can't do." the blond pilot clutched the hot water bottle, tightly, for a moment.

"Please, tell me what's wrong." Trowa pleaded. "Quatre, let me help you."

"Relax, Trowa," Quatre smiled, "I'll be fine. I just got my period."

"You're...?!" Trowa's eyes widened.

"My father needed an heir," Quatre explained. "I was the last chance, so when I was born, he ordered his servants to act as if I were a boy. I was announced the same way, as a baby boy. If they knew then that I was a girl, my family would've lost everything to a rival corporation. My father had me and my sisters to take care of, so we couldn't afford that."

"Quatre, what's wrong?"

"I can't hide my secret any longer, Trowa." Quatre sighed. "I'm a little bit of a late bloomer, but I am starting to develop and I will be found out soon enough. When that happens, 'goodbye Winner Estate.' "

"What if you got married?" Trowa asked.

"I can't ask you to do that." Quatre protested. "I don't want to marry someone out of necessity."

"How about out of love?" Trowa asked. "I already told you that I love you, Quatre. Marry me for that reason."

"I will." Quatre accepted.

-----part 2-----

Catherine looked up from fixing her shoe as Trowa walked in. "Trowa, where have you been?" she asked. She blinked at the expression on the usually somber boy's face. //My god, is he smiling? What's happened to him? Why's he so happy today? I hope whatever it is will last a long time.// "You seem cheerful." she laughed. "What happen, you get engaged to Quatre?" she meant it as a joke. Everyone at the circus knew that Quatre had managed to get closer to Trowa than anyone else except the lions he worked with.

"How'd you guess?" Trowa asked as he went to put on his clown suit.

Catherine ran after him. "Trowa," she said, through the dressing room door, "are you really going through with it? You know our ringmaster will pitch a fit if he finds out you've even been kissing another boy."

"Don't worry about it." Trowa shrugged. 

"Don't worry?" Catherine frowned "You know how he is about the circus being good and wholesome and stuff."

"Since when is love not..."

"I don't agree with it any more than you do." Catherine told Trowa. "I don't think he does either. Not really. But unfortunately, he has to bow to the wishes of his public."

"Well, he's got absolutely nothing to worry about."

"You're not going through with it?"

"Of course I'm going through with it. I'd never hurt Quatre that way."

"Then..."

Trowa opened the door, now fully dressed in his clown suit. "Quatre's a girl." he explained.

Outside the tent, an OZ soldier walked away, his mind on deflowering the Winner Heir.

-----part 3-----

"There has to be some way of letting the press know about this without giving away Quatre's secret." Trowa mused as he paced back and forth. He and Quatre wanted to tell everyone, but they didn't want whoever might take Quatre's family's money to know about her before they were married and the Estate was safely secured. "How do we let the press know that the she and I are going to get married without giving her away?"

He didn't hear the braided figure slip away from just out side the room.

The next day, in the paper, a headline mysteriously appeared which read:

Pilot To Wed Unnamed Heiress.

Of course, Relena got entirely the wrong idea.

"Oh my god!" she was almost beside herself. "Oh my god! Heero... he wants to marry me. Oh, Heero." 

*****

"Now I wonder how that got there?" Trowa mused, looking over the headline.

"Don't know. But it's perfect. And the story's true. Every word. Though it doesn't give away enough details to identify me."

"Pure but ambiguous honesty... gee... who could possibly be responsible for that?"

Four pairs of eyes fell upon a certain braided pilot who was busy eating a bowl of cereal.

"What the hell do you want?!" Duo suddenly exploded, hurling the bowl and its contents at Heero and then storming out of the room.

Quatre suddenly had the distinct impression she wasn't the only girl around.

-----TBC-----