Disclaimer: No own. Not even in wildest dreams.
Author's Note's: I'm back, I'm back!! This chapter is dedicated to Priscilla, whose last chapter totally inspired me to get off my butt and write something. After all, I couldn't fall behind, could I? I wrote this entire thing in four hours in one night (actually, just now and I wrote the first paragraph about four months ago then got stalled). I really am super busy right now but I couldn't leave you all hanging. I think this is my longest chapter ever! Oh well, I didn't really need to study for that test tomorrow. I would have written more but I have class from 8:30am-7:00 at night tomorrow. Thanks to all my reviewers, you know who you are. Both new and old you are the best…you keep me writing. If you didn't review, I'd have probably killed this story a long time ago.
Brothers and Sisters
Chapter 10
Getting to Know You
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"I think we need to talk."
Rei stared at the hand on her arm, reluctant to meet Heero's gaze. She didn't want to see what she saw from so many when they learned about her powers. She couldn't deal with it if there was fear, pity or disgust reflected there. Unbidden tears began to well up in her eyes, though she desperately tried to keep them from coming. Who was Heero to wreak such havoc on her emotions?
"Look at me Rei," Heero said in a tone far more gentle than his initial demand.
Slowly Rei raised her head to look Heero in the eyes. All that she could see in them was concern and curiosity.
"What did you see?" he asked softly, "I could feel you…inside my head…even though it felt like I was inside yours."
Rei looked troubled, her eyes taking on a misty quality that made Heero's heart tighten. Am I causing her pain with my own? he wondered.
Finally, she replied, "I saw you…you were hurting and no one was doing anything to stop it…you were so alone. Except at the end, when you accepted help from Trowa…the loneliness started to ebb."
"Did…are my memories…are they hurting you?" Heero said suddenly pulling his hand away from her armed, worried that the contact might be transferring his pain to her.
Rei looked surprised at his remark, now missing the warmth of his hand. It's funny, she thought to herself, for someone who's supposed to be so cold, his touch feels so warm, like a soft flame.
Shaking herself free of her surprise and private musings, she reassured him by taking the hand that he drew away into her own. "Your memories aren't hurting me Heero. You aren't hurting me. In fact, I think just by being here, you're helping. I know what you saw from me. Sometimes... we just need to let go of old pain. That doesn't mean we should forget about it…it just means that we need to learn from it and move on. The past is the past; we can't change that. But, we can change our futures." We're only alone if we isolate ourselves from the world.
Heero's eyes widened imperceptibly as a thought strayed across his mind, We're only alone if we isolate ourselves from the world. He was pretty sure that it hadn't been his, but Rei didn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary. Using the comfortable silence the seemed to lapse into, he studied her, intrigued. There was definitely more to her than any other person he had met to date. She seemed to radiate with an inner flame, the light of it reflecting in her eyes. But the light of the flame wasn't the only thing that he could see in her eyes. He could also see a pain that ran so deep all he wanted to do was stay with her and find a way to banish it so that only the flame remained. Startled by the direction his thoughts seemed to be taking, he looked down, his gaze resting on their joined hands when their quiet moment was disrupted. Jerking his hand free from hers, he looked up to see Wufei storm back into the room, muttering angrily to himself. As he passed them without a glance, Heero was able to catch some of his words. "Baka Maxwell…when I get my hands on him…"
Turning back to Rei, he saw that she had a particularly smug smirk on her face and found that he couldn't help replying with his own.
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Hotaru smiled at Duo as she led them through the house. Thanks to his quick actions and her knowledge of the mansion's layout, they had almost immediately been able to ditch the irate Wufei and continue the tour in peace. It wasn't that she didn't want to spend time with her brother; it was just that he was acting oddly and Duo was so much fun to be around. He made her forget a lot of the despair that she had experienced in her youth with his energy and love of life. He was fun without being overbearing and seemed to know what she could and couldn't handle with his teasing. Blushing, she led him around the corner to the final room on the tour. "And this is the training room, " she announced with a flourish, opening the wide double doors so that they could enter.
Duo whistled at the set-up the girls had. It was good, maybe even better than the one at Quatre's mansion. The floor was hardwood with a dark black mat covering most of it. Off to one side, there was more hardwood that remained uncovered next to mirrored wall with a wooden bar parallel to the floor attached to it. There were various pieces of gymnastics equipment and extra mats stored at another end of the large space. Two heavy looking sandbags stood in opposite corners. "This is incredible," he said, "Which one of you is the fitness buff?"
"Actually," Hotaru replied, "We all use this room on a pretty regular basis. The gymnastics equipment is mainly for Rei and Mina though. They enjoy acrobatics. Mako mainly uses it to keep her martial arts in top form. Ami uses a lot of the gymnastics equipment too, but she spends most of her free time in the pool, the gymnastics are just to help keep her in shape for swimming (AN. Actually, I have no idea if this does this but oh well.). We all use the barre though, Rei's been teaching us a little ballet, it was the course offered instead of gym at her school (AN. I'm making this up because the girls need a plausible reason to have a training room. After all, they can't just say 'It's to train so we can go fight evil monsters in mini-skirts')."
"Ballet, huh?" Duo mused, his thoughts fixating on a mental image, "I always thought those little skirts ballet dancers wore were pretty hot."
He was rewarded for this comment by a smack on the arm from Hotaru. "Ecchi," she said, grinning to show that she wasn't too mad at him. If Haruka-papa had heard that comment… She let the thought trail off there.
"Come on," she sighed, "Let's go rejoin the others before Onii-chan gets angrier and tries to disembowel you with his katana."
"I'd like to see him try," Duo answered, giving her the most charming smile he could muster. "Besides, you'd protect me from the wrath of the Wu-man, wouldn't you?"
Hotaru could only shake her head as she led the way back to the living room.
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After seeing that Ami, being the most reasonable of the senshi, followed Wufei to calm him down, Minako got down to the business at hand. On her own, she had decided that divide and conquer would be the best route to discovering what these boys were hiding. Following that logic, she had "subtly" nudged Makoto into taking Trowa on a tour of the house while she "handled" Quatre.
She led him around the house, keeping her sense alert for any unusual habits or mannerisms that he might display. Others might call this staring, but not Minako…this was surveillance. In a tiny corner of her mind though, she noted how his nose crinkled when he smiled and how looked directly into her eyes when he spoke to her rather than at her other…attributes which had gotten much attention from males in the past. She also wondered idly if it was too warm in the house, since he had taken on a rather rosy flush since the beginning of the tour that didn't seem to go away.
"Are you all right Quatre-san?" she asked leaning a little closer to him to get a better look, "You seem a little flushed."
Quatre's face darkened to a deep crimson at the attention. Oh no, she noticed me blushing, he thought to himself, Now she's going to think I was ogling her or something…Allah, she's beautiful though. That expression of curiosity is just so cute. Out loud he stuttered, "I…I'm fine Miss Minako…it's…it's just a little warm, that's all." Yeah right, she's going to see right through that. Some 'Desert Prince' I am. Duo would be laughing his ass off. Smooth Quatre, very smooth.
Minako's face took on it's own reddish hue when she realized exactly how close she had been standing to Quatre. Something she seemed to be doing very often on this little tour. "Maybe we should head back and check on the ETA of our dinner."
Grabbing at the moment to end the awkwardness that had seeped into their conversation, Quatre offered her his arm and replied, "That sound like an excellent idea Miss Minako."
"Please, just Minako, or even Mina-chan if you prefer."
"Then you must drop the -san."
"Deal Quatre-kun?"
"Deal Minako-chan."
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Makoto sighed. Minako was an excellent leader most times but she had her moments. Her idea of "subtly" dividing the tour into pairs went like this: "Hey Mako (* wink, wink* ), why don't you take Trowa ( * nudge, nudge* ) around while I show Quatre the house?"
Shaking her head at Minako's antics, she had agreed and had dragged Trowa off to the kitchen to order in dinner.
"Am I missing something?" Trowa asked once they were in the kitchen and safely away from Minako.
"No," Makoto replied wearily, "Sometimes when Minako gets an idea into her head, it won't leave, even if you try to drag it out by force. And the idea she has now is that she wants to know everything there is to know about Quatre, even if she won't admit it to herself."
One corner of Trowa's mouth quirked upward. From what he could tell of the girls so far, Minako would be good for his shy friend. Plus, it seemed as though Quatre wouldn't object to getting to know more about Minako.
"What about you?" he asked the brunette as she hung up the phone after placing an order.
"What about me?" she replied, mystified.
"What interests you?" he asked, his one visible eye regarding her intently.
You, she thought, but caught herself before she said it aloud. "I'm not sure," she replied, "Everything here is so different from back home, but at the same time, it's exactly the same. I know I want to learn and experience new things here, but I'm happy with cooking and fighting and being with my friends. It's hard when we're not all together like this."
"You seem very close to the other girls," Trowa said softly.
"They're my family," she murmured, speaking louder she added, "My parents died when I was very young. I was on my own a lot until I met the girls. Before them, I had only one friend but I was shuttled from school to school. I kept getting kicked out for fighting. Everyone was scared of me but them. It was amazing to finally be accepted for me. They didn't see me as the 'karate maniac' or juvenile delinquent. It meant a lot."
She sat against the counter, absorbed in memories for a long moment. Trowa watched her quietly, admiration for her strength and loyalty evident in his eyes. Finally she stood, brushing imaginary dust off her jeans. Flashing him a smile she said, "Come on, I better do my duty or Minako will have my head. Besides, you can tell me all about yourself while I give you the tour."
Trowa raised an eyebrow at her dramatic shift in moods and followed her out of the kitchen, smiling internally.
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Ami had finally tracked Wufei down to the library. She couldn't believe that Minako would make her do this. She would have to find some way later to properly "thank" her bubbly leader for the "privilege". Entering, she spotted him in the far corner, staring at the pages of a thick, leather-bound book with enough ferocity that, had he Rei's abilities, would be ashes by now. Walking silently over to him, she checked the title. He's reading Aristotle? she thought to herself, surprised.
Seeing that he hadn't noticed her yet, she moved behind him and commented, "Now what did Aristotle ever do to you?"
Wufei almost jumped but managed to catch himself. Instead, he turned to glare at the woman behind him. "What's it to you, onna?"
Ami refused to let his crassness get to her this time and managed to keep up her icy façade. "I have a name Chang-san, learn to use it and I might deign to answer any questions you may have. Since this is obviously a waste of my time, I'll be going now."
She turned around and practically glided to the door. Her hand was on the handle when he called out, "Wait!"
Wufei was surprised at himself. He had every intention of sitting here until dinner came where he could properly ream out Duo for daring to fraternize with his little sister. He didn't want company, especially the company of the icy little onna who had tried to asphyxiate him the previous evening. But, when he watched her head to the door, he suddenly called for her to wait without really knowing why. She turned to look at him and he scrambled for something to say. Her sapphire gaze watched him, waiting for him to blunder. Finally, he blurted, "Do you play chess?"
A slow grin spread over Ami's face as her hand came away from the knob.
"On occasion, Chang-san, I've been known to."
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~Wow…I wrote a lot…for me at least…I'm still recovering from my 40-page novel study lesson plan that I made for my English class and I can't believe that I can write coherently. Hopefully, I'll have another chapter up by the end of next week (my students are writing exams so I don't have to student teach! Yay!). Until then, thanks for sticking with me and please review.
Ying Fa