Dare You To Move

At some point in time, everyone comes to a crossroads. Once Fate dares you to move... you move. This is the path I took. AU 3x4, background 1x2, 5xSP and others. Trowa POV.

Disclaimer: I don't own GW. So don't sue.

AN: Okay, Apathy is pretty much finished for the most part, but I've hit a roadblock with Empathy and Sympathy- the sequels. Don't worry, they will be continued and finished, but just not at the moment. This story kind of grabbed my whole imagination and ran away with it... now I have to chase it to get my imagination back.

ANd another thing... fair is fair, and I think you should know that these chapters are all kind of short... and I have no plot for this. I have no clue where this is going. Therefore... this is likely to go on and on for a while... or else end fairly abruptly. Apathy, just like How to Save A Life, had a pre-set timeline and plot and everything before I ever wrote the first sentence; I knew exactly where I wanted to start, and where I want to end... and most of how I'd get there. It was all planned out... but I'm already three chapters into this and all I know is that... well.... I don't know anything. I have no clue whats going on here, so I'll be as surprised as you all are at whatever happens. And yes... I borrowed the title and theme from a song by Switchfoot, although this isn't a song-fic. If you have no clue as to what this song is about, then just read How To Save A Life, Chapter Eight. It'll give you a feel for the song and the emotion behind it. (And plus, it's a sweet little kiss scene between T&Q, so why not? And Noin's singing... so... please, give it a shot.)

Dare You To Move

Chapter One

At one point in time, everyone comes to a crossroads in their lives. A place where you can go either left or right. You have a choice laid down to you by Fate. It's the choice you make that shapes your life, that changes you for better or worse. There is no going back, no changes, no 'do-overs' once you make that choice. Once Fate dares you to move... you go left, you go right... but you move.

I remember my choice. I remember the crossroads I was presented with. Though I didn't know it then, down one path was perpetual.... nothingness. Safe. Never really happy, but never sad. Not perfect, but far from horrible. Down the other was pain, heartache, love, life. The lows would be low... but the highs would put Mount Everest to shame. For a moment or two, I considered staying. But no, I was never one to stand still- that would be impossible for me. I had to move.

And for a longer moment, I considered the first path, the easy path. The safe path. For a person who risks so much every day, I did not gamble. I felt ill at ease gambling with my life. I may not have known what lay down that second road... but I knew that it would change everything. For better or worse, I did not know. I only knew that that was the path I wanted to take.

Now what, you may ask, was my choice? What crossroad did Fate present me with? What prompted my soul searching answer?

A hand. A hand, held out to me. Take it, and trust in someone else other than me... or leave it and go it alone, as was my usual way.

I was twenty, barely an adult. But I had long since not been a child. Orphaned at a young age, I had spent a few long years among the lowest of the low, living on the streets. Doktor S was an ageing scientist working with the military. He brought me off the street, raised me. Since then, I have grown up in HeavyArms, a French Militant group. They were called mercenaries, though in all fairness, that is not quite what they were.

But my childhood is not what I want to tell you of. The choice I want to relate happens further on in my life.

Zechs Merquise was, for lack of a better term, the leader of HeavyArms. His ideals were great, though they were not my own, per say. War was tearing the world apart. The US against Iraq, France against Germany. There were not any two countries not in hostility with another. Zechs wanted peace. Like me. He wanted war to end. And the only way he thought he could end the war was by fighting.

But years of this had gotten him nowhere. Enter the new plan. The plan that ultimately leads to my choice.

Zayeed Winner, desended from an Arabic Sheik, was head of his family. A multi- billion dollar oil tycoon in Arabia. A very pacifist oil tycoon. Zechs' plan was simple, but complex. Zayeed Winner had a harem of sorts. He had his wife... though her name was kept secret from the public... and he had at least a dozen mistresses. Through these women, he had twenty nine daughters. And through his wife... a single son... heir aparant of a vast empire of businesses. Somehow Zayeed had managed to keep his son's name just as secret as his wife. No one had met them, no one knew their names. It was almost as if they did not exist. Almost as if the seventeen year old heir had never been born.

But he had. Zechs' plan, as I said, was simple and yet complex. Kidnap the heir. Hold him ransom. Everyone loved Zayeed Winner. Nations would unite to save his son. Wars would end as the man mourned. Zechs wanted to unite the world in peace... by giving everyone a common enemy... him.

My job was easy, simple. And yet it was the hardest job of all. I had to kidnap the boy.