OMG, Lady Lye is WRITING AGAIN! Yeah, don't expect it to last. This is a way of procrastinating from finals. I have original fiction due at the end of December, afterall.

So, the usually apologies. And be assured this time that I have at least 3 more chapters waiting in my Google Docs. I think there's and end in sight now.

Mwah!

Chapter 11

Wufei could not decide if he was happy that it was at last 3:30pm, or upset. His arrival at HQ had gone largely unnoticed, except for the five people who wanted to heap more work on him or demanded to know what he had been doing for the last three days instead of working. When it became clear that he was drowning Sally offered to pick up Wumei from school. He offered her a quick thank you nod and put his head back down. That had been twenty minutes ago, and at last he sent off the email containing the paperwork that he had been forced to put on hold during his absence.

He tipped back in his chair and reached for his coffee, only to find it cold and undrinkable. Would nothing be simple anymore? With a great, having sigh, he forced himself to his feet and downstairs to the cafeteria. In the elevator he realized the irony of his melodrama over soiled coffee, when he had spent years fighting for his life in the unforgiving vacuum of space. The relief of being able to laugh at himself put him in a good enough mood to think of getting drinks for Wumei and Sally as well, and he got them back to his desk shortly before both women arrived.

Sally, always kind, spied the cups sitting on his desk. "Wufei! Are you planning to drink all three of those yourself?" Behind her, Wumei suspiciously eyed everything and everyone around her.

"Onna, I got them for you. Don't be stupid. Everyone knows your brain stops functioning without it. We should get you an IV drip," he snapped.

"Wufei, you shouldn't have," Sally grinned an apology and took the coffee for herself, handing the tea to Wumei. "There should be sugar and milk in the kitchen," she told her. "Help yourself. It's just down the passageway." With the faintest roll of the eyes, Wumei disappeared beyond their cubicle. Sally instantly sobered. "What are you going to do with her today?"

The performance irritated him more than if it had been genuine. "How should I know?"

"You said you needed to get a DNA test done. So, take the rest of the day off and go. You look exhausted. Just explain to Une that it's a family emergency. She'll understand. No one's going to miss you for one more evening. And then it'll be the weekend and you can sort everything out then."

He hated it when she was so practical. It was those damned womanly instincts of hers, always gravitating towards the most levelheaded course of action. Really, he doubted than anyone ourside of his immediate workgroup at HQ was even aware that he was back. …and he could use that to his advantage. Standing, he grabbed his coat and a short stack of folders concerning their progress on various cases. "I'll let you know what's happening."

"Take her coat-" Sally said quickly, grabbing the bundle Wumei had dropped on the filing cabinet. It was Wufei's Preventor jacket. "And see if you can't get her a new one while you're out. She'll freeze in this weather without one."

Wufei grabbed it from her and marched down the hallway, knocking on the doorframe of the kitchen before sticking his head in. "We're going."

"Where?" Wumei frowned, sipping her tea experimentally, several packets of artificial sugar open on the table in front of her.

Without replying, he tossed the jacket to her. "You can bring the tea with you, just don't spill it in the car. If we get there early, we can finish sooner and maybe I can get you your own jacket so I can have mine back."

Her ears pricked up at the idea of shopping, and she hurried after him to the elevator. He didn't alter his pace, and she had to skip to keep up, juggling her tea in one hand and pulling on one arm of the jacket with the other. Heads turned as they crossed the office, but Wufei ignored them. After a moment, she followed his lead, and just looked forward. She didn't like the questions she saw in their eyes.

In the elevator, she watched his face in the reflective metal paneling. He didn't return her look until the very last possible moment before the doors opened, and then he was striding out into the lobby. Wumei didn't bother to look around herself there- she had had plenty of time to stare the night before when Wufei got her clearance to go upstairs. She trotted after him outside to his car, a compact, low-riding black car with very respectable horsepower. She slipped into the passenger side without complaint, and kept quiet until they had left the parking lot and were on the road.

"Where are we going?"

"According to the Beijing database, your only legal guardian was Mao Genji. Your parents are listed as deceased. I want to see if you have any living relatives," he said, eyes still on the road.

His bland tone of voice immediately made her suspicious. "They're all dead. Like my parents," she said carefully.

"You don't want to go back to Mao Genji, right?"

"No…"

"Then we're going to do this."

I hadn't the faintest clue what he was getting at, but I figured it was best to keep my mouth shut. A decent night's sleep had restored some of my "audacity" as Genji Ma had called it. If he was taking me somewhere boring, stupid, or dangerous, I was quite confident I could just kick him in the nuts and make my escape. I didn't look quite so pitiful today, although I had had to borrow some of Sally's makeup to make myself look fully human. I decided not to pester him for the rest of the trip, and instead observed where we were going.

The first thing I noticed was the 'sky.' It was literally made entirely of metal paneling, with various ducts, vents, pipes, and lights every so often. Directly up were a multitude of lights meant to replicate the sun, and I had to look away quickly. Something gave the upper reaches a bluish color, but there were no clouds. I didn't think I liked the boxed-in feeling very much. It created a feeling of being half outside and half in a gigantic oven. Nevertheless, trees grew, small birds flew, and lawns were being mowed. I stared openly at the live greenery, and for the first time I realized that every thing had had to be imported from Earth. I was in mankind's greatest artificial life support experiment, ever.

The massive skyscrapers of 'downtown' gave way to slightly shorter ones, and Wufei took us into a parking garage- necessarily above ground. I followed him into another elevator, and up to a floor marked with the international symbol of the Red Cross, despite its disbanding several decades before. I wasn't familiar with the complex words on the label beside it, but I amused myself with sounding them out. We got off in what to all intents and purposes looked like a very small hospital. I blinked, taken aback. Everything was sterile and clean, with nurses in pink and white peppermint stripes and tennis shoes maintaining order. Now I really didn't know what to expect, and I just followed Wufei past the main desk to a closed door, its sign beginning with an "F." Fo-ren-sic. What the hell was that?

He barely knocked before going in, and I followed. Inside was more like a university research lab than a hospital. Again I stared, quite sure that my life had become a science fiction novel. The similarity to the medical visits of my early years made goosebumps rise under my hideous sweater.

A man stood over a desk in the back, typing quickly onto a computer while an open notebook sat beside him. He glanced up at our approach and waved. "Wufei. What brings you here?"

"Hello, John," replied my Lord And Master Chang, offering his hand in the Western way. They shook. "This is Wumei."

"Oh. Hello, Wumei," he said, offering his hand to me. I took it; it was clammy. "What's the deal today?" Wufei took his elbow and steered him away from me, and I lost the thread of their conversation. My English wasn't good enough to follow science jargon. I glanced at the desk and grimaced. If someone ever told me to read a book with print that tiny, I would kick them. I'd rather spend a year with Wufei than have to read that.

Speak of the devil, he turned and beckoned me over to a set of chairs. "Take off your jacket," he said in Chinese. I scowled, certain he thought I was too dumb to understand English. I'd followed everything else he'd said, hadn't I? Eyeing him and his companion, I did, taking a seat. Surprisingly, he also sat, and rolled up the sleeve of his sweater. My eyes bulged. Where had the man hidden that sort of muscle?! Who had he trained under? When? Those were more than just casual 'I go to the gym twice a week,' arms.

The man called John bent over my arm, tying a rubber strap around my bicep. I frowned- I had been a small child the last time someone did that. I shot a glare at Wufei. "What's he doing?"

"He needs a blood sample."

"Why does he need that?" I objected, jerking my arm away as John turned it over, pressing my inner wrist and elbow for veins. "I don't have any diseases."

Wufei looked thoughtful, and switched to English. "Can you do a general health diagnostic on her, too? She was in… questionable company for a while."

"Questi- What is your issue, Chang?" I demanded in Chinese. "What business is it of yours what's in my blood?" A cold swab wiped my wrist clean and I couldn't help shivering. Was I going to let him do this to me? Take my blood from my body and run who knew what sort of tests on it?

"Wumei, look at me," Wufei said evenly. Like a fool, I did. And then I cried out as a stab of fire injected itself under my skin. I GLARED at John, who grinned sheepishly.

"That's not fair," I ground out in English so even he could understand.

"Sorry," John replied, and he really did sound sorry.

"Wumei," Wufei sighed, "Just let him do his job."

I opened my mouth to tell him where he could shove his long-suffering attitude, but then I caught sight of the tube filling with my blood, and I became transfixed. Up the tube it slid, into the chamber. Like a 'flu shot gone backwards. It flowed upward, defying gravity, as though it had a life of its own, and suddenly I didn't want John to stop. When he reached to remove the tube, I actually felt a pang of sorrow- I wouldn't be able to watch my life propel a liquid anymore, but to my joy he inserted a new barrel to the needle in my skin, and that one filled too.

When he finally did take it out, I watched him intently, my head following him as he took the tubes of blood away. Then I saw Wufei looking at me with the most infuriatingly amused smirk on his face, and I whipped my face away. A bandaid with cotton under it was fixed over the tiny dot of blood that marked where the needle had been, and I dutifully sat with my fingers pressed against it while the process was repeated with Wufei. He grit his teeth as the needle went in, but otherwise did not flinch. I felt somehow superior for that.

He pressed against his own bandage for a moment. "Thank you, John."

"Hey, no problem. It should be about two weeks for all the results to come in."

We both blanched, me because Wufei did. "But… the crucial one. That'll be ready sooner, right?"

"No…" said John carefully, looking him in the eye. "That could take the longest. It's not an easy test, Wufei. It takes a while. There's not much to hurry it, especially since I'm not the one who'll study the results. And before you say anything, it will be anonymous."

Wufei snapped his mouth shut and nodded. He stood, nodding at me to do so too. I shrugged into the jacket, careful not to dislodge the bandage. "Good bye, John."

"Bye. Nice to meet you, Wuf- Wumei, right?" he corrected himself sheepishly. I nodded, and waved as we left.

"That's going to be a problem," Wufei mused, as we made a path back to the elevator.

"What will?" I asked suspiciously. I was already preparing to hammer him until I got the real reason for this little detour. The fascination had worn off and the practical fears were back.

"That our names are so similar." He jabbed a finger at the elevator's down button, pleased as it immediately opened for us. "Do you have a nickname?"

I followed him in, eyeing him warily. "No. Do you?"

"No. Which I suppose leaves us at a standstill. Except that everyone here knows me, and you're the new girl. So, what are we going to call you?"

"I have a name," I huffed. "It isn't my fault that it sounds just like yours. It's not written same- it's these dumb Westerners who-"

"Mei."

I scowled. He wanted to play that game, did he? "Fei."

His eyes narrowed. "Mei," he said warningly.

"Fei," I said, tilting my head defiantly.

"Wumei."

"Now you have it."

"Mei."

"No. My name is Wumei."

He was starting to turn red, beginning at his hairline. "People are going to confuse us. Do you want to be called Wufei again?"

That decided it. "Fine. But you can't call me Mei. You can introduce me as Mei, but you can't call me Mei," I declared. We were quiet a moment, as the elevator pinged closer to our floor of the parking garage.

"Alright. Wumei."

"Thank you. Officer Chang."

He shook his head as the doors opened. "Don't call me that," he said, and left the elevator. "It makes me feel old."