Disclaimer: AU SM/GW. No characters are mine. The title "Kin Za Za" is not original—it is a band.
AN: A change in the title. Enjoy.
Kin Za Za
AzureChan
: I :
It was, again, midnight. Not any normal midnight, though. It was that hopeless midnight, that frustrating midnight. The midnight that all college students hated because it marked the starting point of a fruitless night of frenetic studying. The midnight that young parents dreaded because their newborn felt a sense of urgency to test out its new, highly advanced vocal chords and the patience of its new keepers. It was the midnight that spoke of last-resort decisions and gloomy foreshadows. Yes, it was that midnight.
She found herself scribbling furiously upon paper, and then erasing one word, two, and finally, all. It was beginning to seem tedious, this process of writing and then removing. But, whatever it took, she would finish this letter, and it would be perfect. It would explain everything she had been hiding from him, everything she had wanted to say but could not. It would prove their daughter's point and leave him with a choice to make or break her future. She began to write again.
"Dear Darling…"
No.
She scratched lines through the two words, then, harried, shoved her eraser on the paper and dragged it back and forth quickly to erase all traces of lead. Darling was an endearing word, but it was one she only used when she wanted something. This was not going to start out an alarming letter; she didn't want him automatically thinking that she needed something. She was independent.
"I can do this," she told herself softly, whispering so as not to wake the other members of her household. Under the desk lamp, the paper she wrote on looked almost golden because of the light's glow. She thought it rather pretty. It was an ethereal glow, a soothing glow. A glow that spoke of promise and success.
Her head throbbed.
"Focus," she chastised. "There's no way around this…"
And she began to write again.
"Love,
I'm sure you're wondering why I've written you a letter instead of speaking to you directly, but my thoughts are so misplaced that I couldn't possibly speak aloud one word at a time. It would all come out as gibberish. I've devised this letter to explain to you the reasoning's behind my actions as of late.
But I would first like you to know how much I love you. I truly do. I would not have offered my life to you, through better or worse, if I didn't love you with all of my heart. Please keep this love I have for you in the back of your mind as you read my letter. There are so many things that need to be said, and it is very hard for me to tell you all of this.
I suppose I'll start three months ago…"
X.X.X.X
Three months ago.
If she'd only seen it coming, she would have stopped it.
July had been such a pestering month, what with the many heat waves in the morning and the sheet rains in the afternoon. At first, she hadn't known how she was going to deal with not only the mismatched weather, but the fact that Lex was out of school for the summer and scheduled for an appointment with her Pediatrician at three, while she was stuck in traffic on I-75, downtown, and it was already one-thirty.
She sighed, leaning forward over her steering wheel to see if traffic had lightened any. It hadn't. Stupid Higgins', she cursed mentally. Always trying to exceed their time limits. Her job was a trying one, and her office building was located right in the heart of Atlanta's bustling city. She was a marriage counselor, and in one full day, she took five appointments from five different couples with five different problems. Her regulars included the Higgins', the Smith's, the Grant's, and the Chang's—this couple she favored, as they were friends of the family. Of course, Mary and Alan Higgins thought it fair that since she had been scheduled to leave early for the day and they'd been scheduled as her last appointment, their time could run over no matter much she tried to cut the session.
And now, she was paying for her soft side by being stuck in heavy traffic on a sweltering day. She'd opted for the air conditioning, but then the gas level caught her eye and she noticed her tank was less-than-half full. Miserably, she had lowered all the windows in the car and made a violent promise to thwart Quatre when he got home from work later that night.
"Hon, make sure you put extra gas in my car if you're going to use it," she always told him.
"Mhmm. Love you," he always replied.
He hadn't put any extra gas in her car. On a normal day with little traffic, it took about half-an-hour to get home from her job. It would take at least an hour, maybe more, with this traffic.
She sighed again, reached for her phone, flipped it open, and pressed the number one on the keypad. Immediately, the phone began dialing the number for her child's pediatrician, Dr. Maxwell. Without failure, a thin, nasal voice greeted her from the other line.
"Good afternoon. Dr. Maxwell's office."
It was Molly, his secretary. She scrunched her nose. Molly wasn't her favorite character, particularly because of her apparent school-girl crush on Dr. Maxwell. It made dealing with matters of the doctor quite difficult.
"Oh, hi Molly. This is Mrs. Winner."
"Hello."
She shifted the phone to her shoulder and placed her hands on the wheel. Traffic had loosened a bit. "I'm calling because I have an appointment at three with Dr. Maxwell?"
There was silence for a moment.
"I'm sorry," Molly said finally. "I don't see you on the book."
"I made the appointment two weeks ago," she replied, glaring at the car in front of her. Traffic had stopped. "I know I'm on that book. Are you sure you don't see me?"
"I don't see you, Mrs. Winner," Molly repeated, her tone the same. "Are you sure you're scheduled for today?"
She almost slapped the steering wheel. She'd definitely made the appointment two weeks ago. She had called Molly herself to make the appointment. If the girl had forgotten to add her in Dr. Maxwell's book… "Molly," she stepped on the petal slightly. Traffic inched forward. "Molly, I made the appointment with you two weeks ago. I called in, remember? I have a three o'clock spot. Lex Winner?"
There was another silence, smaller than the last one.
"Oh," Molly replied absently. "Alexis Winner. You didn't tell me the appointment was under your daughter's name."
I shouldn't have to, she seethed. You're the one who wrote down my damned appointment!
"I'm sorry, Molly," she said. "I need you to relay a message to Dr. Maxwell for me."
"What is it?" her tone changed. It was more attentive, sharp. Almost protective.
Mrs. Winner was annoyed. "I need you to tell him she'll be late for her appointment, please. I'm stuck in traffic and we probably won't get there until around three-thirty or four."
Molly didn't hesitate. "He has other appointments behind you, Mrs. Winner. Dr. Maxwell is a very busy man."
"I know that, Molly," her voice was pinched, words sharp. "I understand how busy he is. All the same, would you please tell Dr. Maxwell that my daughter, Lex, is going to be late?"
On the other end, Molly stiffened.
"I'll see what I can do, Mrs. Winner," she said.
"Thank—" the line clicked and was dead.
X.X.X.X
Quatre got home around eight that evening.
His steps were quick and light, almost like a mouse. He made a beeline toward his office and only stopped to grab the mug of warm tea that she'd left for him on the counter after she finished clearing the dinner dishes. Beside her on the couch, Lex murmured "Daddy's home" while keeping her eyes focused on the television. She didn't even look at her daughter, just stared at Quatre's closed office door.
Lex shifted on the cushions. "Daddy's home," she said again, and turned to tug on her mother. "You said I could have cake when Daddy got home."
"It's too late, now," she replied distantly, then turned to frown at her daughter. "It's way too late," she realized, looking at the VCR's clock. It was flashing eight-fifteen. "It's time for bed, Lex."
The eight-year-old crossed her arms and refused to move. "You said I could have cake when Daddy got home," she whined, eyes focused on the screen. "You liar."
Her frown deepened. "Alexis Monroe Winner." The child sank deeper into the cushions, her face sour. "You go to bed, young lady."
"Fine!" Lex exploded, now glaring heatedly at her mother, tears caught in the corners of her eyes. "I don't even want cake!" With a huff, she pushed herself off of the couch and stomped down the hall to her room. Her door closed with an awkward thud, a failed attempt at a slam.
Flipping the television off, she added "Console Lex" to her list of things to do before hitting the sack. It was a parent's job to send their child off to bed on a good note, not a bad one. Statistics proved that children performed better in school when they had a restful, peaceful sleep.
She stood from the couch and swept a hand through her short, choppy hair, then ran the same hand down her shirt to smoothen it. She hadn't changed out of her work clothes, and her work shoes were lying in front of the couch. She ignored them and strode over to Quatre's office, then knocked softly on the door.
"Yes," came the muffled reply.
She opened the door and he looked up at her, patient but expectant. "Hey, honey," she said softly, closing the door behind her to lean on it. "How was work?"
"Oh," he said, and leaned back in his chair to rub his eyes. "Busy. I've been swamped with this new case."
Quatre was a lawyer, and a good one. He was in demand, especially now, when men realized that younger women were more available than ever before and older women responded by surgically becoming younger women. Divorces were on the rise.
"Hm," she replied.
He opened his arms. "Come here. I haven't seen you today," and then he closed his arms when she was seated on his lap. "How about you?"
He was referring to work, and she grimaced. "Alan and Mary ran late today. I almost didn't make Lex's appointment because of them."
"Damn Higgins'," he said, and she chuckled.
"What?"
"Nothing."
He rubbed her back slowly, looking at her searchingly. "You look so tired, Amy," he noted, almost to himself. "So tired."
Amy Winner shook her head, turned it away from him, and forced a smile. "You're trying to say I'm old, aren't you?"
"No. Thirty-five is hardly old." He slid his hands up and down her back. After a silence, he said, "I haven't been around much, have I?"
She shrugged, but it was true. Quatre was usually in his office at work, or in his office at home, working on ways to break up marriages and win his cases. It sounded crude, but it was honest. Because of his current 'project', as he called it sometimes, his visits to home had been short and unromantic. He came from work, he drank his tea, then went back to work in his office. No "hey, honey", no "hey, Lex," no nothing. As a marriage counselor, she knew these signs were red flags to a failing or struggling marriage, but as a wife and mother, she ignored them. My marriage isn't in trouble, she often told herself. Not my marriage. It won't happen to me.
"I know you're busy," she said finally. "I know Hiiro and Serena are taking up your time."
"Allah," he said, shaking his head. "Why in the world did you send those two to me?" He was joking, but in a way, it was true.
Hiiro and Serena Yui had come to her for marriage counseling before they decided on getting a divorce. After only five sessions and no success, they'd called it quits and looked up Quatre.
She smiled sadly. "Figured it'd give you something to do, I guess." And she was surprised when he hugged her tight.
"I promise you, Amy," he said, his voice muffled against her shirt. "I promise that after these two, I'm taking a break from the law. We'll take Lex on a trip. We'll spend some family time together. I promise you, Amy. I promise."
So when Dr. Maxwell phoned her the next morning, after her first couple had left, her shock was mixed with an unquenchable happiness due to Quatre's news.
"Yeah, it's me," he was saying after she'd answered the phone with: "Is that you, Dr. Maxwell?"
Amy sat up straight in her chair, confused. Dr. Maxwell had been married only two years, and she knew this because she'd been invited to his wedding. He was young, right out of graduate school. Him and his new bride were both in their mid-twenties—she'd never asked the specific age—and had, only a year earlier, been talking about baby plans. So his call came as quite a shock.
"Well," she cleared her throat. "Did I miss an appointment, doctor?" she was puzzled, perplexed.
"Oh," he chuckled on the line. "No, you didn't. I was actually calling about more personal matters…"
His voice trailed off, and the revelation was deafening.
"Is there something wrong with your marriage, Dr. Maxwell?"
"Yeah, you could say that," he replied slowly, sadly. "And please, call me Duo."
And then, just like all of her other patients, she was asking him to explain in detail the cause for his call, and after he'd finished, she was setting up an appointment with him. She was booked with regulars, but she found a spot for him at the end of the next week. He'd be her last appointment, at four.
"That's June twentieth, then," she said. "Will your wife be attending the session?"
"No," he said quickly, almost fearfully. "She doesn't even know I'm calling you. It'd be too much of a shock for her to know I'm seeking marriage counseling," his voice sounded sheepish, shy. "You understand…"
And she did. In her line of work, she'd noted how many people often called her without the knowledge of their spouse or life partner. One member of the couple might have wanted a quick, easy divorce, while the other member was still holding onto the marriage and making efforts to save it by calling her. Other people called singularly because they were too ashamed to admit to themselves, nevertheless their spouse, that their marriage was hitting the rocks. Especially at such an early point in the marriage, like Dr. Max—Duo and his new wife.
"Well," she concluded. "I'll see you then, Dr. Maxwell."
"Duo," he replied. "And thanks."
When he hung up, Amy sat back in her chair, scribbling this and that, a few notes, all over the pad in front of her. She did this with all of her appointments. She noted the sound of the patient's voice, the urgency with which the appointment was made, the details surrounding the appointment, etc. She thought a bit more about the reasoning behind Dr. Maxwell's call.
"Duo," she scolded herself. "He said to call him Duo."
From what she could gather, Duo and his new wife, Mina, were a happy couple. At their wedding, they hadn't been able to keep their eyes or hands off of each other, and when Lex, then six, had innocently asked what they were going to do when they got home, someone had yelled "Consummate, consummate, consummate!" and Mina had colored pleasantly while Duo had pecked her cheek.
How had it gone from happy-go-lucky couple, to marriage counseling? In two years? It didn't make sense. Had something gone wrong with either spouse? Infidelity? Maybe the intimate life was low. Most of the couples—the regulars that she saw—had complaints about their intimacy. The wife always wanted something sweet, and the husband was never around to fulfill the desire, or the husband wanted something the wife didn't want to give. Maybe things got mundane; nothing was exciting or new anymore. Had there been a death that would have affected the marriage? Or a birth? Or—
"Amy, you were right. Things got worse before they got better."
She jumped when the door slammed behind her ten-thirty appointments, Rei and Wufei Chang. She'd almost forgotten that they were coming.
Automatically, Rei settled into the chair to the right of Amy's desk, and Wufei to the left. They scooted away from each other a bit, Rei plucking at her hair and Wufei pulling at his shirt. It was obvious they'd argued on the way to her office.
Amy sighed. She had been counseling this couple for at least a year now, and it seemed the more things got better, the quicker they got worse. She wanted to give them both knives, shove them in a room and say "Okay. Now, kill each other," and just be done with it. The thought made her smile guiltily. Rei and Wufei were two fiery tempers living under one two-bedroom apartment, and had been that way for a while. Both were stubborn as ever, but agreed upon smaller living quarters.
"Rei," she smiled, "Wufei. Tell me, what's new?"
"Well," Rei huffed, shooting a pointed glance at her husband, "since you asked. Amy, he keeps throwing away all of the stuff I buy him. It's getting so annoying."
Amy only nodded and scribbled on her pad. Actually, she was just drawling little stick figurines on the paper. She'd heard the same thing over and over from the couple, and whenever they came in, she had a chance to work on her horrid drawing skills. Lex was better at figurines by far.
"Last week," Rei continued, leaning forward in her cushioned seat, "I told him to come to bed because I had a surprise for him, and he turns around and says he has a surprise for me too. I thought, 'well, that's so sweet,' and asked him what it was. Do you know what his surprise was, Amy?"
Amy shook her head, drew importantly.
"He—"
"I told her that I'd thrown away all of her condoms," Wufei interrupted suddenly, openly annoyed. "And I scattered all of the wrappers around the room as a reminder of what I'd done. She didn't even know she was stepping on them because she was too busy squawking and stomping her foot to hear the crunch the papers made on the ground."
Both women stared at him quite critically.
He crossed his arms and sank into his seat. "Oh, hell," he snapped, glaring somewhere off in the room. "I knew I shouldn't have come."
Amy sat back in her seat, itching to rest her feet up on her desk. She'd known this couple personally from her teenaged years, when they first got together in high school. It was one of the reasons she didn't understand the root of their problems. But through their sessions, she'd learned many things about them.
Both were stubborn as mules, but deeply committed to their relationship and earnest in their need of a change. With personalities like theirs, the chance of them ever reconciling or saving their marriage was slim if they hadn't been so bent on keeping it intact. They both had high, strong morals and a monogamous relationship, and both wanted to have children one day.
But Rei had a problem with protection. She wasn't ready for children just yet, and she didn't believe in taking pills. Impurities for the body, she called them. So, of course, the next best thing to use for protection was a condom.
But Wufei had a problem with condoms. He argued that since they were married and safe, they shouldn't use condoms because the rubbers represented a sense of unsafe intercourse. A barrier for the pure, he called them.
Both failed to realize the reasoning behind the other's wants and needs. Rei wanted protection not because she didn't trust Wufei, but because she didn't want children just yet, and pills were out of the question for her. Wufei wanted enforce the strength of their marriage; a way to prove their commitment.
And then there were other deeper problems that she sensed from the undertones, such as the way Rei always plucked and patted at her hair. Amy suspected that maybe Wufei felt resentment toward Rei since she cut it some years ago. Rei's hair had once been long and free, thick and silky, and Wufei had always been openly fond of it. He used to stroke it, run his fingers through it, pet it, adore it. Rei cut it when she went into Real Estate to look more professional, and Amy had never heard him say another word about it since.
Likewise, Amy suspected Rei had a silent, unending complaint about Wufei's choice of clothing. The couple was well off due to Rei's flourishing profession and Wufei's growing enterprise, Chang Arts, a Martial Arts training center, and Rei had adapted to this acquired wealth by changing her look. So, naturally, Amy inferred that Rei expected Wufei to follow suit; he hadn't. Wufei still wore the same kind of gi and hairstyle from back in his grade school days when he was an avid Martial Artist. Amy guessed that his attachment to tradition was conflicting with Rei's detachment to tradition, as she had previously been a temple chief when Wufei had begun to court her in their teenaged years.
"…always does this," Rei was complaining, sweeping her hand quickly through her hair every now and again. "And I don't understand what his problem is. It isn't as if the whole world stops for him!"
Amy nodded empathetically and sketched a crude image of a sea beneath a jagged sun. She frowned at her poor creation.
"What?"
She looked up. "What?"
"You frowned," Rei looked worried. "What did I say?"
Wufei, too, was looking at Amy, less interested but still attentive.
Caught in her act, Amy colored a bit and cleared her throat, then tore the piece of paper she'd been doodling on. She slipped it underneath the pad and spread her hands wide across her desk.
"Well," she said, looking at the couple, "you both seem to have the same problem you always do."
"Yes?" Wufei frowned. "What is it?"
"A lack of communication." The couple looked at each other, back at Amy, and stared disagreeably.
Amy sighed. For two people who couldn't agree, they certainly did act the same. "Look," she said, addressing Wufei. "Rei complains about your habitual nagging of her to get rid of the condoms. In truth, she's not quite ready for children yet, and—"
"Oh, no," Rei waved her hand as if to dismiss Amy's diagnosis. "We're far past that problem, Amy."
Amy raised an eyebrow, interested. "Oh?" she asked. "Then what's the problem?"
Wufei scowled. "Haven't you been listening?" he muttered something about women and leaned forward in his seat. "Don't you notice?"
"Yes," Rei chimed in, surprise evident on her face. "Can't you tell, Amy?"
She looked back and forth between the two, brows furrowed in concentration. "Tell what? What are you talking about?"
"She's—"
"Well," Rei interrupted, smiling brightly and broadly. "It's quite obvious, Amy."
"What is it?"
"The woman is pregnant," Wufei said crossly, eyeing his wife's stomach as he spoke. "And she's acting completely irrational."
Amy's jaw dropped slightly.
"Yes," Rei continued pleasantly, ignoring her husband's comment. "I'm due next spring."