Challenge 253 shelter
Title: Mama Bear
Author: ingvild
Word count: 601
Characters: Catherine, Trowa
Rating/warnings: All-ages, no warnings
Summary: After finding him in a sorry state on colony, Catherine decides to take care of Trowa
He left with a madman after trying to blow himself up, and came back a shivering wreck.
Catherine looks at the young man lying in her bed. After he left the circus the first time they sold his trailer, so she has given up her own bed for the couch and lets him stay with her. It is probably for the best, because the man who cannot even remember that he once told her that Trowa was his name shivers in his sleep, whispering “no, no, don’t!”, and he cries out in fear and Catherine has to spend moments, minutes, almost an hour trying to soothe him until he groans exhaustedly and flops back on the bed, going back to sleep.
And all Catherine can do is bite her own fist to keep from screaming, and swear that she will never let anything, anyone, take him away and hurt him again.
He sleeps most of the day away, and she leaves him with regret, because she has work to do. The other circus people look at her wearily. They all remember Trowa, but they also remember how he brought out a giant death machine and attacked an OZ base, and they all know that even here in the colonies, it is impossible to escape OZ. Especially now, when the political balance of the Earth Sphere has shifted even more into Earth’s favour, from something that subtly favoured Earth over the colonies, to something that openly oppresses the colonies. They also know that without OZ and Romefeller permission, and if there was not a governor who greatly enjoys circus acts here on the colony, they would never be here.
Catherine, however, will not hear it. Any whispering is met with her stone-hard glare, and any attempt at opening the subject is met with bare fury. Her colleagues give up and resign themselves to having this dangerous stranger among them, because he could not possibly be a bigger threat than Catherine right now - her daggers are not the only lethal weapons in her arsenal.
Trowa wakes up fully sometime near the middle of the day. He walks out of Catherine’s trailer with a dazed look on his face, and the other circus workers avoid his gaze. He does not notice, he only searches until his eyes land on Catherine, and a flash of recognition goes through them. He walks resolutely over to her, and Catherine allows herself a small hope that maybe he remembers her from before he left that time.
That hope, however, is crushed when he opens his mouth and speaks, and it becomes clear that he only remembers her from when she found him in the rain (and which idiot was it who decided that it should rain on colony? Then what is the point of a controlled atmosphere?). Even worse, the only reason he knows his name is because she told him.
Trowa wants to know who he is, and how she knows him. He wants to know what has happened to him. Catherine almost says that she does not know, that only he can answer that, but she remembers when she asked him the evening before, and he broke down in terror. She has to come up with something that will offer him some stability, that will let her protect him...
She remembers a little brother from a long time ago.
“I’m your older sister. This is your home, you live and work here with me. You had to go away for a longer errand, but now you’ve returned to us. You don’t have to go anywhere again.”
Author: ingvild
Word count: 601
Characters: Catherine, Trowa
Rating/warnings: All-ages, no warnings
Summary: After finding him in a sorry state on colony, Catherine decides to take care of Trowa
He left with a madman after trying to blow himself up, and came back a shivering wreck.
Catherine looks at the young man lying in her bed. After he left the circus the first time they sold his trailer, so she has given up her own bed for the couch and lets him stay with her. It is probably for the best, because the man who cannot even remember that he once told her that Trowa was his name shivers in his sleep, whispering “no, no, don’t!”, and he cries out in fear and Catherine has to spend moments, minutes, almost an hour trying to soothe him until he groans exhaustedly and flops back on the bed, going back to sleep.
And all Catherine can do is bite her own fist to keep from screaming, and swear that she will never let anything, anyone, take him away and hurt him again.
He sleeps most of the day away, and she leaves him with regret, because she has work to do. The other circus people look at her wearily. They all remember Trowa, but they also remember how he brought out a giant death machine and attacked an OZ base, and they all know that even here in the colonies, it is impossible to escape OZ. Especially now, when the political balance of the Earth Sphere has shifted even more into Earth’s favour, from something that subtly favoured Earth over the colonies, to something that openly oppresses the colonies. They also know that without OZ and Romefeller permission, and if there was not a governor who greatly enjoys circus acts here on the colony, they would never be here.
Catherine, however, will not hear it. Any whispering is met with her stone-hard glare, and any attempt at opening the subject is met with bare fury. Her colleagues give up and resign themselves to having this dangerous stranger among them, because he could not possibly be a bigger threat than Catherine right now - her daggers are not the only lethal weapons in her arsenal.
Trowa wakes up fully sometime near the middle of the day. He walks out of Catherine’s trailer with a dazed look on his face, and the other circus workers avoid his gaze. He does not notice, he only searches until his eyes land on Catherine, and a flash of recognition goes through them. He walks resolutely over to her, and Catherine allows herself a small hope that maybe he remembers her from before he left that time.
That hope, however, is crushed when he opens his mouth and speaks, and it becomes clear that he only remembers her from when she found him in the rain (and which idiot was it who decided that it should rain on colony? Then what is the point of a controlled atmosphere?). Even worse, the only reason he knows his name is because she told him.
Trowa wants to know who he is, and how she knows him. He wants to know what has happened to him. Catherine almost says that she does not know, that only he can answer that, but she remembers when she asked him the evening before, and he broke down in terror. She has to come up with something that will offer him some stability, that will let her protect him...
She remembers a little brother from a long time ago.
“I’m your older sister. This is your home, you live and work here with me. You had to go away for a longer errand, but now you’ve returned to us. You don’t have to go anywhere again.”