Well, here it is--it's finally over! I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it--this was really a blast! And I've actually finished a series! Woo!
So please, let me know what you thought!
Ashura
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Long Lost
Disclaimer: I still don't own GW or any of its characters. I tried, but Evilnmalice outbid me. (Fortunately it didn't pay up, so it doesn't own them either.)
Warnings: None
Pairings: 3x4, 1xC, 5xS, 6x9, HxOC (if it matters)
Archive: Desolation Angels. Parts 1-10 can be found at http://www.dreamwater.net/ashura/LongLost.html
(11-15 will be there too as soon as I have access again!)
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Epilogue: The Heart Laid to Rest
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Two years later:
"I thought family reunions were usually reserved for...well, family," Duo Maxwell remarked, braid swinging as he ushered Hilde Schbeiker and her toddler son Will into the Merquise family's expansive garden. "And half the people here, including us, don't qualify."
Hilde laughed, deftly catching Will in time to prevent him from tumbling face-first onto the cobblestone walkway. "Family's more than ties of blood. You especially, 'Uncle Duo,' ought to know that!"
"Well, yeah..." the former God of Death caught his adopted nephew and swung him into the air, evoking a chorus of ecstatic squeals. "That's true I guess. C'mon, let's go find Heero and make him feel guilty for ditching us!"
"Heathen," Hilde chuckled. "Don't you think we should find our hosts first and say hello?"
"Well, if you want to be all /polite/ about it and stuff," Duo grumbled, but changed his course for the tall form of Zechs Merquise standing in a solemn face-off with a barbecue. "Zechs looks like he could use a hand anyway."
"Don't offer," suggested a dry, lilting voice as Dorothy Catalonia appeared at his elbow. "He's been glaring at it like that since noon, and it's still not working. I think it's frustrating him." She grinned impishly. "You'd think that a party full of ex-Gundam pilots could at least get a hamburger to cook all the way, but no such luck."
"Let me guess," Hilde inserted smoothly. "You tried to help?"
Dorothy wrinkled her nose in the direction of the platinum-haired host. "Yeah. Like I said...don't."
"We'll just go say hello and nothing else," Duo promised. "Hey," he protested at her I-don't-trust-you look, "you know if anything that I have a healthy respect for my own hide. C'mon, Will. Coming Hilde?"
"Duo! Hilde! Glad you could make it! Goodness, Will, you're getting tall!" Lucrezia Merquise took her turn at swinging the toddler around in a wide circle, to his utter delight. "I want one," she confessed under her breath as she set the boy down.
"Want mine?" Hilde offered, the very picture of generosity.
Lucrezia considered. "Hmm...he's already out of the really messy stage...."
Not far away, Heero was glaring up at Trowa, one arm looped comfortably around Catherine's waist. "Hmph. You're just upset 'cause you're not needed anymore. I can stand still and not look scared just as well as you can."
Trowa did an admirable, if not completely successful, job of stifling a chuckle. "It's all /right/, Heero, you can have my job. There are plenty of other things I can do /besides/ being a living target." He winked at Catherine, who looked like she might spit up her beer with laughing any second.
"Don't get too worried," she said dryly, leaning up to plant a kiss on Heero's temple. "As long as Trowa's been enjoying what was supposed to be a /short/ vacation with Quatre, I don't think he's in any hurry to come back anyway."
"I hope not," Quatre chimed sunnily, approaching the trio from where he'd been socialising with Lady Une in some other part of the yard. "I rather like having him with me, I don't want to give him up yet."
Before another word could be spoken, a loud yell erupted from the garden door.
"KISAMA!!!!!!!!!!"
All eyes turned, all bodies spun, but the expected crisis proved to be nothing more than Wufei Chang, leaning casually against the motorcycle he'd drug in with him, wearing faded jeans and a shit-eating grin.
"Just wanted to remind you all how much you missed me," he said, nonchalant, abandoning the motorcycle to join Zechs at the barbecue. "Sally should be on her way...say, do you want a hand with that?"
"And I thought I liked to make an entrance," Trowa grumbled good-naturedly under his breath.
"He's loosened up a bit," Catherine remarked. "Then again, I guess all of you have."
"It's your fault," Trowa and Heero said at once. "Well--and yours," Trowa added to Quatre, who pretended to be quite offended until Trowa agreed to get him another wine cooler from the icebox.
Relena managed to escape the conversational clutches of a pair of admiring Preventers agents to join them. "I'm hungry," she admitted, with a glare toward her brother's fight with Wufei and the barbecue. "Wish they'd hurry up and get that thing going before we all starve."
"Eat chips," Catherine suggested, jerking a finger toward a table spread with all the things that would, eventually, be used on the hamburgers, as well as an extensive variety of snacks. "Lots of chips. They could be at it for a while."
"Good idea!" Relena laughed. "I'll go get some--want me to grab you something? Anybody?"
"Me," Quatre said firmly, just as his stomach growled loud enough to prompt a laugh from Trowa. "I'll go with you."
They made a beeline for the table, intent on finding enough food to tide themselves over til either Zechs or Wufei successfully killed the other, or brought in a more efficient means of lighting the barbecue. "So how you doing?" Quatre asked her when they were out of earshot.
Relena shrugged. "Behind a bit on the gossip. I heard Trowa was staying you finally, but that's about it. Catch me up?"
"Well," Quatre began, sorting through a vegetable tray in search of radishes, "you might have missed out on the part where your brother and Miss Noin got married...."
One of said radishes thumped against his nose. "Actually," Relena commented, trying to look innocent, "I was there for that one. Make yourself useful and tell me something I don't know."
Quatre shrugged, grinning. "All right, all right. Trowa moved in with me, because Heero was suddenly around to take his place. He moved to L3 about a year ago." He shot a conspiratorial glance over his shoulder toward the trio they'd so recently abandoned. "And let's just say there's a reason she's eating all those snacks."
Relena's eyes widened. "Is she--really?"
Quatre winked. "Would I lie to you?" He paused to pop an olive into his mouth before continuing. "Let's see...Hilde was pregnant when Duo and Heero got back to L2, but the guy didn't stick around. That's where the rather precocious little person our sister-in-law is holding comes from. Wufei is engaged to Sally Po, but we all saw that coming ages ago. And you see more of Dorothy than I do, so I won't hazard a guess as to what she's been up to. That help?"
Relena chuckled. "Immensely. I'm sorry I'm so behind on it all."
Quatre hugged her impulsively, almost capsizing the plate of edibles she'd spent the past several minutes stacking. "Don't worry about it. We love you anyway."
Relena wrinkled her nose. "A lot of good that does me...we're related, remember? Besides, Trowa'd kill me."
Quatre quelled a rather horrified expression and pocketed the remainder of the radishes. "Very witty. Come on, let's get back to the party."
And a burst of flame alerted them that the barbecue had finally been started successfully.
"I see Nataku has more domestic uses after all," a voice suspiciously like Zechs' said calmly.
"Nataku," another voice--Wufei--said solemnly, "can be the goddess of hamburgers if she wants to be."
~Owari~