HEARTTHROB
"You're the apple of my eye, you're the apple of my heart"
- Badfinger
~~~
She had forgotten the beginning. If you asked her the exact date or year that she started to - well, she couldn't tell you anyways. On occasion she was this way; her selective memory accumulated what she chose to keep but she was more of a present-day woman, it was what she was good at.
"Catherine."
The knife dancer turned around on the vanity chair, brown curls surrounded her face while a hair tie dangled from the thumb and index finger of her left hand. She squinted from the glare of the mirror lights and asked the ringleader what he wanted from her.
He replied that one of the trapeze artists spotted an outsider wandering around the circus trailers and apprehended him from going any further onto the grounds. The intruder claimed to be looking for a friend of a friend, one of their knife throwers.
"Emphasis on skinny."
She didn't know whether to be insulted or not, she just had an exceptionally high metabolism.
"We asked Andrew if he knew the guy but he said no. Figured it must have been you."
"Where are they?" The older man jogged, well more of a half-paced speed-walking towards one of the tent's main openings and gestured to someone behind the flap. The trapeze artist was wrong, it was a she.
"Dorothy Catalonia?"
"Catherine, darling!" The blonde woman exclaimed and held out her hands in anticipation, striding gaily towards Catherine, and she in turn stood up in puzzlement and left the hair tie on the table. That was an interesting choice of words, she thought. What reason brought her here?
"You look great today, did you do something different with your face? No. Well, whatever it was, I'm telling you to do it more often, it brings out the flush in your cheeks. Come now, we have somewhere to go."
Withouth hesitation, the heiress placed a friendly hand around Catherine's shoulders and led her away from the ringleader who only looked on in awe that one of his employees should be so well acquainted with one of Earth's aristocrats.
Once they stepped onto the dirt grounds the brunette discretly shrugged off the hand and whispered urgently,
"What are you doing here?"
"A favour for someone," she smiled but it gave no comfort to Catherine. "All right, more of a favour for a friend of a friend of mine, understand? Of course you don't, if I don't have all the information how can you possibly know. Anyways, whatever I'm doing now is will almost guarantee that I'll be around for the outcome, it's going to be interesting, Catherine. Bye."
Dorothy stopped speaking and left her alone in the parking lot as she waved to her vintage limosene. The door opened and another blond head emerged.
"Hi, Catherine!" he smiled at her before thanking Dorothy for the ride to the circus. In return he was given a knowing look and a whisper in the ear before Dorothy took his place in the car, her skirt riding up to reveal the thigh-highs she wore. A finger at her driver and the diva was gone.
"She's something, isn't she?" commented Quatre as he stuffed his hands into his pockets when the chilly air hit him, the blush on his pale cheeks more noticable. They quickly shook hands and she noticed they were still warm.
Catherine felt a little sorry for him and his chattering teeth, the weather system on the L4 colony probably maintained a moderate temperature but here on Earth they had full-blown seasons. This winter had a bit more bite than previous years, she thought as she looked down at her own sweater and jeans and wondered if one of the other performers had an extra coat for Quatre. What was his size anyway?
"Trowa's not here right now, he's running some errands," she turned swiftly to the right and he followed her into one of the larger tents, taking notice of her running commentary. She told him the ins and outs of the performances, the hidden doors they used and when appropriate, she pointed out the leaders in charge of various circus events. They crossed one of the training grounds where some constortionists were warming up. Quatre's tour guide had to backtrack several paces when she felt the absence of her companion.
Silently she stood behind him, tilted her head to the same degree and followed his perspective.
"Flexible, aren't they?" she whispered. He jumped a little and turned his body around.
"Do you do that?" In peaked curiosity, he raised one of his eyebrows.
So it was back to the running commentary, he didn't ask many questions then on so Catherine took the silence for a distraction and that his mind was on something else.
"Have you seen Trowa around?" They stopped at the trailer area, their feet made crunching noises on the gravel. "Which one is yours?"
She checked her watch. "Should be back by now and feeding the animals. Want to go?"
"Later," he didn't want to disturb the animals and get in the way. Noting the time of day and the number of people walking about, Quatre inquired why they were all active when a few moments ago, her voice was the only thing he could hear.
"Our day is separated into a schedule, breaktime is over so it's rehearsal now." He wanted to see her practice her dancing while they were waiting for Trowa to get back from the feeding.
She took him outside in one of the larger clearings that was seldom used for archery, but first she ran into her trailer to retrieve her props - and minimize the time Quatre had to wait outside in the cold. He put on the jacket and thanked her for all the hospitality that she'd shown him.
"Thank Trowa, it's his."
Instead of sitting down on the bales of hay that lay around the area, Catherine could feel his gaze upon her as she prepared herself for some target practice, he hadn't seen anything like this before. Rolling up the sleeves of her sweater, she rotated her wrists and flexed her fingers to get them adjusted to the cold. After several practice throws she turned around with a knife in hand and asked if he would like to learn.
"Should I take off the jacket?"
"You don't have to, we'll start slow."
He came up beside her and hesitated, wondering what was to come next. She asked which was his dominant hand and he said his right one. So taking his wrist Catherine guided his hand above the knives she set out in front of them, his fingers occassionally twitched at the contact of metal.
"Here, take this one, the hilt should fit into your palm nicely and comfortably - feels like an extension of your hand." He looked into her eyes,
"Would it be better if I used the smaller knives instead of the larger ones?"
"Not really, the smaller they are the more revolutions you have to get in the air - timing is trickier." To prove her point, she picked up one of the miniatures and flung it across the clearing, it cut the air like a brief, soft whistle and he understood.
"It's harder to see if the blade will hit the target or rebound." Catherine sidestepped towards him and held his wrist again, instructing Quatre on an easy stance before the throw.
"Just like that, feet slightly apart - in line with your shoulders - for balance. Later on you'll be standing straight or directly sideways - yes, that's good - face to face with the target - yes, I sometimes turn and twist and throw backwards - show you?"
Her companion moved away to give her more room as Catherine summoned her concentration and performed a little for hiim, throwing this and fling that, even juggling the blades a little before whipping them one after another in rapid succession. He clapped for her.
"What's your favourite?" She tilted her head at the question. Her favourite position to throw?
"Your favourite knife," he corrected her when she came to sit down beside him on the straw bales.
"Oh, I get it." She got up again, searched through the knives, and brought one back for him to see. She was constantly moving around.
"The others gave it to me after my tenth performance with the circus, that was a long time ago." She placed it in his hands and he stood up to receive it, it was small for her now but when you've only had ten shows, you were bound to be young. He said to her,
"Beautiful."
"Isn't it? Made for me by one of the blacksmiths that we know, he still does the shoes for the horses." When he returned the knife to her, he noticed that the colour in her cheeks rose to equal the pride held in her voice.
"Did you ever use it for your act?"
"Sometimes, but not anymore."
"What happened?"
Catherine's eyes flicked up at his briefly before turning back to the blade, "somebody thought it would be easy to imitate me and tried to throw some of my knives after the show." Again her eyes flickered upwards. "Want to see the scar?"
He watched her put the remaining knives away systematically before they headed out into the clearing.
"It hit you?"
"In my right arm." She rolled up her sleeve a little farther and he could see the line where the knotted scar remained on her upper arm. Quatre's eyebrows came together when she urged him to touch it, it must have been painful at that age.
"How long did-"
"Months," she shrugged casually as she pulled at the blades embedded into the target. "Tore the ligaments, struck the bone, this is bothering you, isn't it?"
"A little," he admitted and felt even worse when she smiled at him.
"To think, a former soldier like you would get bothered by a little knife-throwing."
"Doesn't mean I have to like pain." She caught the look in his eyes and stopped teasing him. The wind picked up, Catherine rolled down her sleeves, picked up the knives, and mumbled something about seeing Trowa next so he'll be able to get out of this awful weather.
"It's not that bad you know," he called out to her and tried to catch up to her fast-paced walk back to the warm tents. "I didn't notice it all that much when you were showing me how to do the thing you do." She didn't stop but looked at him quizzingly, the thing she does?
"Throwing dancerous kitchen utensils at poor, unfortunate souls?" Trowa often called her act by that name, it had picked up among the other performers and the title bothered her.
"No, knife dancing." That was one way to look at it.
"Catherine, I know that this circus means a lot to you and that with your family now I don't want to," out to nowhere he picked up this topic and this time, she stopped.
"What's wrong with Trowa?" He denied saying anything about Trowa. "But that's why you're here, isn't it, to see my brother? Is this what your visits to the circus have been about, my brother? I know you're also a busy man, Quatre, and just coming down here from L4 to see a friend-"
It was now her turn to starting worrying and questioning his motives, she wasn't completely naive about his wealth and fortune, he was also a businessman and a former comrade of Trowa's, her only thread remaining of her biological family. She started to get huffy, he's was taking him away again.
"No, I'm taking you away from him," he answered and barred her way to the tents, the icy-grass clearing behind them. "I want you to come with me for a while." In a single, brave gesture, he brushed back the stray brown curls that had been flying about her face for the past hour and behind her ear, enabling him to view her face fully.
"What is it?"
"You look different." He dropped his hand and reached for hers, the one with the scar. Still warm.
"It's the hair, Quatre." He said he knew it was the hair, he just wanted to say it.
"I'm not coming with you," and she added as an afterthought, "there's too much between the three of us." Over his shoulder she saw someone leaning from the tents, the silhouette of a man balanced behind some of the packing crates. She recognized those balloon pants anywhere.
"Quatre," she warned him, "you can't use us-" but there was a seriousness in his eyes that both delighted and silenced her.
"I'm not using anybody," he said, "and I can't make you do anything against your will, Trowa will kill me. But what I will do is try to kiss you - if you'll let me." She looked over his shoulder again and still saw the silhouette there, just waiting -
She closed her eyes too soon.