Disclaimer: Someone else's sandbox. I just play here because its fun.

Author's Note: Much to my astonishment this fic won a few awards in the 'What A Character' Awards, so partly in celebration and thanks to all who voted for it, and partly because Dagmar threatened me with a 2x4 and I don't ignore threats from Dagmar, I present Trini's side of things. This is, in some ways, darker than Rocky's part. So you've been warned.

- + - + - + - + - + -

She's not usually like this.

She should tell him that, she thinks. Standing here in nothing but his old, worn AGHS t-shirt, staring at herself in the dirty full-length mirror that pulls her figure slightly out of shape, like a gentler version of those at funhouses, she knows she should tell him that this isn't really her.

But then that's all part of the allure, isn't it?

That's what draws her back here time after time. Why after every late night exit, every afternoon of scrambling out of bed to fix her makeup and catch a cab, every Monday morning of swearing this week will be different, this week she'll reclaim her life, she still finds herself donning a threadbare t-shirt and starring into this mirror, trying to meet the woman who stares back.

She's a different person with him, with the echo of his fingers against her flesh, the smell of him—cheap scotch and wood-dust—clinging to her hair. She likes this Trini more. She's sexier, more mysterious, more . . . alive, than the real Trini Kwan has ever been. She could believe that this Trini once saved the world, something previously relegated to an adolescent dream, an almost semi-delusional fantasy life, which shouldn't be brought up in polite company.

Years have been dedicated to boxing her up, the Trini who took risks, who wore yellow and could walk a tight-rope if necessary, who never would have gotten trapped in this prison of successful safety.

She wears neutrals now, chic blacks and navys cut in expensive, don't-fuck-with-me suits, and although her downtown loft is on the thirty-third floor, it's been years since she's been more than three feet off the ground without a pane of glass between her and the outside world. So that other Trini had to be the delusion, the fantasy, had to be buried, dead and gone. After all, it had been easy to believe, to almost convince herself that she'd never powered robots or fought aliens, when it had been years since she'd talked to anyone who shared her delusions.

So very easy, until a month ago, with the other Trini was already clawing at her coffin, propelling her into that bar, hoping to obliterate the cries . . .

His eyes had been those of a fellow inmate. Perhaps his prison was not the luxurious padded cell variety, but in the end trapped is trapped, and she had recognized the look—the helpless self-loathing of someone who can't quite figure out how they've lived down from their potential so spectacularly. A stranger couldn't intrude on that, couldn't commiserate, but a comrade could. So in one reckless instant, in one flash of recognition, she'd been compelled to dig the other Trini up, to find that anonymous spot where she thought she'd buried her, and bring her back to life. But just like Frankenstein's monster, she'd come back wrong, a little more reckless and a little less shiny.

Trini knows deep inside, in some dark place, that she won't ever be buried again, that this is the bargain she's made, her pound of flesh. But it only bothers her at work or looking out onto the city from her loft, when newly resurrected parts scream for escape, and she steps a little closer to the glass, willing it away. Here, all that concern melts into nothingness, evaporated by the heat of him.

He views her as some kind of gift, first prize in life's capricious lottery, but the joke's on him, because she has nothing left to give. All she knows how to do anymore is take.

And take she does. He fills some need in her. With his one room apartment in the wrong part of the city, his all too clichéd motorcycle, and completely unexpected collection of handmade quilts from his abuela, he's sex and drugs, good jazz and martinis, homemade apple pie and warm milk. He keys her up, makes her blood race, and her mind go a little blank with excitement in a way that's only ever been matched by . . .

Morphing.

She blinks. It's been a damn long time since she's permitted herself to think that word, that other Trini's word.

Unconsciously, her eyes slide over to meet his in the mirror, to watch him watching her with raw, hungry appreciation. Does he know he's getting a fraud, a patchwork replica of someone who no longer exists? Does it bother him to be fucking a woman who is in essence a walking corpse, long dead inside, or is that perhaps his kink?

It occurs to her to ask, just come flat out with it. Are you fucking me or sleeping with her? Or is it having both that really does it? But he'd probably answer her, and she's not sure she wants to know, because down at her very core she thinks the answer is 'neither,' he just likes women and no one turns down a free one.

So in the end she doesn't say anything; doesn't say anything because she can't run the risk of the truth. She needs this to be about something more than sex for him, not love, not even affection, but something deeper, harder to fill. She needs him to need this just as much as she does. The thought almost makes her laugh, the memory of her husband's last desperate plea flitting across her mind —'Why can't you ever let yourself need anything from anyone?' Oh, if he could only see her now.

In a kind of cosmic 'up-yours' to a man she's screwed over too many times already, she raises her arms in a lazy stretch that she knows makes the t-shirt rise up just enough, and savors the tingle that runs down her spine and along her legs as Rocky's gaze turns hot and demanding. Thinking she may just be a woman to him, but she's going to make damn sure she's the woman to whom he compares every future conquest, she pulls off the t-shirt, and tosses it at him before sauntering over to the bathroom, where she's left her over night bag, and, in it, the best damn single-malt a non-scotch girl could put her hands on.

She's brought glasses, too, nice crystal tumblers, but after a moments consideration leaves them in their box. This is about shattering expectations, not meeting them.

When she stands silhouetted in the doorway, the bottle dangling from her raised left hand, his quick intake of breath tells her the tableaux is good one. But then, how could it not be?—scotch and skin—like a photo spread for some high class gentleman's magazine.

And in the next moment it's turned cheap and tawdry, because the instant she takes a swig straight from the bottle, he's off the bed, crushing his lips to hers, pressing her back against the doorframe with a ferocity that's sure to bruise. For a second, as his tongue plunders her mouth, seeking out every corner, she thinks it might be more about the alcohol than her. But the bottle slips from her fingers when he pins her wrists above her head, and at the thunk of heavy glass, the slosh of liquid, he doesn't miss a beat, doesn't pause for a moment to mourn the loss.

Maybe being more important than good alcohol isn't exactly an achievement, but at the moment she feels like she's won a damn gold medal.

Three cheers for Trini, hip hip hooray.

It doesn't even occur to her to worry about which Trini he's cheering for.

By the time she's concerned about anything again, darkness has fallen, and a bleary-eyed glance at the clock tells her its two-fourteen in the morning.

"Hey."

Turning a little, she can see him looking down at her, face lit by the pink neon of the "Live Girls!" sign across the street.

Her only response is a contented purr as she wriggles a little closer, planting a kiss on a small scar just above his right pectoral that she likes to think was earned in battle, but is far more likely surgical.

They know so little about each other. She knows he was a Red, like Jason, and then a Blue, like Billy, but she doesn't know why. She's searched for signs, little things that would remind her of the other men, thought at first that perhaps that's what did it for her—she'd been so entangled with them, always on the precipice of something with one or the other, but never able to choose, and here she could have both in a single package. Yet, she's slowly come to the realization that they aren't there, that whatever Rocky might be, he is more than a simple amalgam.

Was he ever wounded in battle? She's seen the small bottle of pills in his almost empty medicine cabinet—right next to the box of condoms and slightly rusted can of shaving cream—fingered the prescription date and counted back the years, but she's never asked the question.

He's never been to her downtown loft and doesn't know her work number. If you asked him her favorite color, he'd only be able to tell you 'Anything but yellow.' She knows he goes to mass on Sunday, but she couldn't tell you whether he really believes. She can't say whether he's ever loved anyone, only that he doesn't love her.

He knows ostensibly why she left, but she can't put her finger on his reason. He knows that, like him, she hasn't spoken to any of the others in over five years, but they've never talked about why.

They don't really talk about anything. Certainly, there are other men who it would be said knew more about her. Hell, she's had more informative conversations with Damien, the night janitor at work. But in the end it doesn't matter because he knows this one thing, holds this one secret in his heart.

And it's that thing that defines her, more than all the other outward trappings of her life. She's reveled in it, run from it, nearly broken at its loss, and in the end reforged herself around the emptiness. It's the reason she couldn't cry at her grandmother's funeral, and she hasn't had a relationship longer than the length of a business conference since her marriage imploded. It's even why she's here with work-roughened hands tracing her curves, bringing her slowly awake, and quickening her blood in a way she seems to need a little more with each passing day.

It's the reason she doesn't protest when he flips her on her stomach and begins to trace patterns on her back with the remnants of the scotch that, she's amused to note, he's retrieved from the floor. It's the reason the sex is rough, and she doesn't care that he can't tell her her daughter's name because he doesn't know she has one.

The fact that she once wore yellow seems to be the reason for everything in her life, and frankly she's getting damn tired of it.

But she doesn't know how to leave it behind.

- + - + - + - + - + -

There you go. Hope you enjoyed, or at least felt something.

Panache (who's going back to work on ICF she swears)