Chapter 2

A month had passed since the attack, and basically everything had gone well. They had carried out the mission successfully, with one minor change, not Heero but he, Quatre, had shot the minister.

That fact bothered him more than he admitted. With others he always pretended not to bother him too much, but in truth he bothered a lot. It was something else than defending yourself with Sandrock. They only destroyed military bases, so the young Arab could live with that. The soldiers who died in the process were also to be regretted, but this risk was inherent in their job.

Sighing, Quatre saw on his arm that he had done it again and that two more cuts had been added to the already existing ones. Scars would remain on them too, he knew that, but he didn't care. For now, at least, he felt better after "doing it". But he also knew that very soon he would feel bad again for that very reason.It was a vicious circle, he was now afraid of himself, but he did it again and again, it was like an inner compulsion. Sometimes he felt ashamed, but then he blamed the mission from a month ago again. But deep down he knew it wasn't her fault ...

Since then they had had two more missions, which, however, consisted only of destroying an ammunition factory and a military facility with the Gundams.

But he had made several cuts on himself during those days, so that he must have had around 20 now, and in contrast to the small scratches at the beginning, these cuts did not go away, they left scars.

Quatre rubbed the existing scars with a cream he'd bought at the pharmacy. It should let the scars fade a little over time.

Finally he pushed his shirt sleeve back down. He slipped the nail scissors into the nail case, then set off to eat.***** Flashback: *****

Quatre had assumed all along that the others hadn't noticed anything, but it wasn't. Since his friends were worried about him, the council of war was meeting in Duo's room. Quatre, on the other hand, had no inkling of the worries he was causing his friends, because the four didn’t show anything.

"Something is wrong with Quatre!" Duo stated firmly, Trowa, Heero and Wufei nodded. "He's changed lately, somehow ..." Trowa said calmly, Heero nodded in agreement, none of them could say how much Quatre had changed, but it was.

"We should watch him closely in the near future, maybe we'll find out what's wrong with him. He doesn't seem to want to tell us on his own," suggested Duo. "Do you think that's right?" objected Trowa, "I mean, shouldn't we wait until he tells it by himself?" "Maybe he's waiting for us to notice," countered Duo and shook his head at the same time: "We don't want to monitor him, but ... we are his friends and we should help him! "Heero nodded: "Besides, he endangers our missions, sometimes he's not really involved". "You're only interested in one thing, right?" Duo hissed angrily, Heero shrugged his shoulders: "Think what you want, but he is also endangering himself!" Duo was silent, the young Japanese was right, apparently he wasn't as emotionless as he always did. 'However, he would deny it anyway,' thought Duo and couldn't help but smile.

***** flashback end *****

Quatre shook his head as he went to his room. For a few days he had felt somehow observed. He couldn't explain why, but it felt like he was being watched every step of the way. He dismissed it as his imagination, after all it was nonsense. Nobody was watching him, for what reason should anyone be?

But when he came into the living room, all of his friends were sitting together with serious faces and that made Quatre a bit scared.'Take it easy, you can't have noticed!' he reassured himself.

"We have to talk to you", Duo began, Quatre's heart skipped a little: 'He knows, he knows! You all know! 'Panic seized him, he wanted to run away immediately, but he forced himself to sit still and smile innocently.

"So? What is it about?" asked he. "About you," was Heero's brief answer, which only increased Quatre's panic.

'You know, we wanted to ask you if you would let Hilde stay in your room for a few days. You could of course sleep with one of us, "said Duo and grinned a bit embarrassed." It's bad for me now ... ", he cast an angry look around." They all think I would who knows what you do! "" With you one never knows ... "Wufei replied dryly, with a slightly devious blink in his eyes. Heero abstained from comment, he limited himself to throwing Duo a clear look.Trowa said nothing, but the corners of his mouth twitched.

Quatre laughed in relief: "Of course Duo! Where should I sleep?" he was glad that he had driven himself so crazy for nothing. "With me," said Duo cheerfully. "You can choose it," Heero clarified, with a clear look at Duo who said "Don't overdo it!". "You don't have to sleep with our nonsense aunt," added Wufei with a grin, which earned him an insulted look from Duo.

Quatre smiled: "I like to sleep with you Duo". Duo was literally beaming and so Quatre moved into Duo's room the next day.

Only then did he realize what situation he had gotten himself into. The risk of someone seeing his scars was much greater now.
But he definitely didn't want to go back. Firstly, he liked Hilde, and he also feared that his friends would ask "why".