A/N: I didn't forget about this fic…just got a bit sidetracked is all. *koff koff* Had to work out some things for the plot and all. Namely going through all the ol' notebooks I had and seeing what would and wouldn't work. And since that's been all resolved…away I go!!
Chapter Three - Quick Step
Raven looked at Mercedes' door with a worried expression before she tried the doorknob once more; it was still locked. She shook her head as she walked downstairs and plopped herself down on the couch, watching the TV with a somewhat blank expression. She glanced over at Duo as he waved a hand in front of her face before she looked back at the TV once more.
"Raven, what's up?" Duo asked as he peered at her. "She's been in her room for the past two days now. Don't ya think she should come out now?"
"She should. But she locked the door. I don't what the hell upset her so much." she rubbed her face briskly with her hands. "I was half tempted to break down the door and see what was going on in there."
Duo paused. "Well, you know her best, I guess." he shrugged as he leaned back in the seat. "She may thank you, or just punch you. One of the two."
"Punch me? I'm usually the one punching her for something!" Raven said as she started to chew on her lip. "Hey, where are the others? Still asleep or something?"
"Probably. I only got up to watch cartoons. It is a Saturday morning after all."
"Me too. Got anything good and sugary to eat?" Raven looked at him hopefully. She smiled as Duo tossed her one of the boxes. "Thanks."
"Just make sure you eat it before Quatre comes down; he doesn't like it when we eat this kind of stuff."
Raven just nodded her head, mouth too full to answer. The living room was filled with the loud explosions from the television, as well as quiet chewing. When she heard the quiet shuffle of feet, she looked up hopefully; maybe it was Mercedes.
"Oh. Morning Trowa." she said before she held out the box of cereal. "Want some?"
He shook his head, heading for the kitchen."
"There's Cheerios if you don't want Fruit Loops!" she called after him.
"Trowa doesn't really eat this kind of stuff." Duo whispered as he leaned closer to her. "He's gonna have a cup of tea."
Raven made a face. "Tea? Ick. Speaking of which, I could go for some coffee ." she placed the box down as she ate the last few bits of cereal in her hand and headed for the kitchen, looking through the cupboards until she found the things she needed. She quickly dumped the instant coffee mix into the mug, inhaling the scent of mocha from the can. She smiled faintly before she poured the water in and gave it a stir. She walked over to the table, the sugar bowl securely held in her fingers. She winced slightly as the chair scraped against the floor before she seated herself. Immediately, she dumped in three spoons of sugar and drank, a wide smile coming to her face as she swallowed the warm liquid.
"Ah; much better."
"Better than Fruit Loops?"
She looked up at Trowa's quizzical expression. "Even better than Fruit Loops; it's Mocha Frothy. Coffee is my only other vice after sugar."
Trowa regarded her for a moment before he went back to his cup of tea. "Too much caffeine." he said.
Raven didn't say anything as she contemplated his words; they were just there, not a rebuttal or a condemnation; it was just there, out there in the air between them. She shrugged slightly to herself as she continued to drink; sure it may have had too much caffeine, but with the way her life was some days, she needed the jolt to simply wake up and function like a normal human being.
"Hey," she gazed up at the floorboards as she heard a rustling. "Did you hear that?"
Trowa nodded. "Sounds like she's up."
Raven didn't say anything more as she hurriedly fixed a cup of hot chocolate and hurried up the stairs. She paused outside of Mercedes' door, unsure, before she knocked against it with her knee. "I've got hot chocolate. " she winced, feeling like she had to bribe her best friend to open the door for her.
No response came for a moment until the door creaked open slowly a few minutes later, the shadowed room revealed. Raven walked in, looking for the nearest table to rest the mug on. When the door slammed shut suddenly, she jumped slightly; she felt the tiniest bit worried and freaked out. She turned around to see Mercedes standing against the door, staring down at her bare feet.
- Is that for me? - she looked at Raven for a split second, her eyes red-rimmed.
"Yeah." she held it out, watching as Mercedes took it, her hand shaking slightly. "Do you want to talk about it whatever it is?"
Mercedes shook her head before she took a long drink, her stomach growling noisily.
"That's what you get for not eating properly. I guess by now, you can eat at least some solid food. How about some eggs and bacon for breakfast?"
- That sounds good. - Mercedes motioned as she opened the door and headed out.
Raven bit back her involuntary gasp of surprise as Mercedes stepped out into the light in the hallway; she looked horrible, as if she had gone through some sort of emotional train wreck. Red eyes with huge bags underneath them and a general haggardness around her shoulders. Raven didn't say anything, placing an arm around her friend's shoulders as they made their way down to the kitchen.
As soon as she seated Mercedes at the table opposite Trowa, she went to work, breaking out ingredients and pans, creating a general mess. Every once in awhile, she would look back, seeing Mercedes stroking something in the palm of her hand, blocked from view by her fingers. The barely veiled look of anguish and searing pain made her own heart constrict with empathy; all Mercedes had was her parents and her. And the news reports had said there had been no survivors from the attack, placing Mercedes' parents at home when they died.
She barely looked up from her meal preparations as Duo bounced into the kitchen whom only quieted down once he saw Mercedes. The same thing happened as Quatre entered the kitchen; a somewhat relieved look crossed his face as he spied her cooking but then it vanished to be replaced by a rather sober expression. Even when Wufei came down, grumbling about something, it quickly subsided as the sombre air in the kitchen dampened whatever spirits anyone may have had.
Raven quickly dumped the food onto plates and stuck it in front of everyone, hoping that eating would detract from the depressing air. 'Heero's the only one who isn't here.' She rolled her eyes as she heard faint steps coming down the stairs. 'Speak of the devil.' She quickly put together a plate for him at the last place at the table, looking at him as he entered the kitchen, printouts in his hand. He looked at her for a moment before shaking his head. Raven bristled slightly.
"I cooked it. The least you could do is eat it! I'm not about to let food go to waste." she said as she pointed imperiously to the empty chair.
"Then you eat it." he said.
"I don't eat breakfast. I made breakfast for the five of you. And five people are going to sit here and eat, damn it." she shot him a look that dared him to press the matter further.
A somewhat anxious aspect came to the atmosphere in the kitchen as everyone else looked at Heero, waiting to see what he would do. After a few moments, Heero seated himself and started to eat with a somewhat disturbing, and clinical, manner. Raven paused, watching him for a moment. Either he couldn't be bothered to press the issue further with her and simply ate to shut her up or he was really hungry and didn't admit it; either way the food was being eaten and she couldn't complain.
"What's this Heero?" Raven asked, looking at the papers he rested on the table beside his plate.
"New mission orders." he replied before he took another bite of bacon.
Raven paused, feeling slightly bothered by Heero's manner of eating. Heero had to be the only person she knew who ate with efficiency; with his own infamous efficiency no less. Everyone else took some sort of pleasure in eating, no matter how small, even Wufei. Shaking it off, she placed her fingers on it, looking at Heero with a questioning look before he nodded.
"Ah." she nodded to herself as she riffed through the papers, glancing at the two people in question before she looked it over once; it wasn't her eyes playing a trick on her. "Ok, these are the new orders. Heero, Duo and Quatre have to head off to Africa and eliminate all the weapons factories in Zimbabwe, Kenya and Nigeria; that's fifteen in total. Wufei and Mercedes," she glanced at them as Wufei looked horrified and Mercedes simply stared at the object in her palm, stroking it. "You two have to head to the Polynesian Islands and confirm if the rumors of new missile developments are true. Trowa and I, we're heading to Brazil to do some basic reconnaissance on some Oz elites."
"Aw," Duo groaned. "I wanted to go to the Polynesian Islands!"
That comment seemed to lighten the mood as Quatre and Trowa chuckled. "Duo, maybe you'll have better luck next time." Quatre said as he finished off the rest of his eggs.
"Hey, wanna switch?" he asked looking at Mercedes.
"Yes!" Wufei said quickly.
Mercedes shook her head slowly, eyes still glued to the palm of her hand.
"You are more than free to take my spot Maxwell." Wufei said.
Duo looked at him, a bit surprised by the earnest tone in his voice. "Uh, think I'll stick to Africa, thanks though Wu-man." he got up and dumped his plate in the sink before ambling out of the kitchen. "Now he's bargaining. He must really be desperate."
Raven snickered at that thought before she straightened her face as Wufei scowled darkly at her. "What?" she asked, trying to look innocent. "I can't help it if I find there to be some truth in what he says."
Wufei started muttering something about women as he stalked out of the kitchen. Raven took the empty chair that Duo had occupied beside Mercedes, waiting until Quatre and Trowa were done. She hadn't even noticed when Heero had finished eating and left. She seated herself with the remnants of her coffee, taking small sips. As soon as Trowa and Quatre vacated the kitchen she turned to her friend.
"Mercedes?" she bent in close, trying to see her friend's expression. "You sure you gonna be OK?"
Mercedes didn't say anything for a few moments. - I'll be fine. Don't worry about me; worry about Wufei if he pisses me off enough. -
Raven chuckled slightly at her words. "Yeah, I thought I was seeing things when I read the sheet too. If you can't tolerate being around him, you know I'll switch with you."
Mercedes shook her head. - You don't have to do that. Let's see if he can deal with a mute well. Then we'll see if he can back up any rants he has in him about me. -
"You're going to enjoy this aren't you?" she groaned as Mercedes gave her a faint grin. "I swear, you can be a little sadistic sometimes. Look, about your parents-"
- I know…that they're dead. I spent the last few days struggling with that fact. - Mercedes lapsed into a brief moment of silence. - But the most I can do now is not dwell on it and focus on keeping my skin alive and the missions. I know they are never coming back, and I've accepted that; it still doesn't stop the pain. -
Raven nodded. "I was starting to think I would have to snap you out of some hell of a depression. If you need anything during the mission, just let me know all right?"
- All right. I'm taking my laptop with me anyway; God knows we'll have data to analyze and work with. Oh, the joy of physics. - Mercedes made a face.
"You know it." Raven smirked, knowing the dirty look Mercedes would give her. "Aren't you glad you finally got vectors though?"
The general hustle of people heading to their flights did nothing to calm down Raven as she and Trowa made their way to their gate in the crowded airport. Maybe she should have spoken sooner, said something, taken a bloody boat instead of this. Boats she could handle; hell, she could pilot a steam cruiser if she had to. But this was an entirely different story. She looked around uneasily before she saw Trowa a few steps ahead of her, a patient light in his eyes. She murmured something in apology as she picked up her steps; obviously, he didn't like taking such a slow pace in a public place. Not that she disagreed with that; the sooner they left the better.
Raven felt another sort of anxiousness take hold as she waited with Trowa in the line at the gate, noticing a few televisions around the area; if she knew her parents, she would have to duck and cover for a few minutes until they could board their flight.
"Raven. Raven."
"Hm?" she looked at Trowa startled by his quiet, and insistent, voice. "Yes?"
"Our flight has been delayed for fifteen minutes."
The anxiousness sharpened, making her painfully aware of how long fifteen minutes could be. "All right." she said, nodding her head. "I'm just going to have a seat."
She didn't wait to hear Trowa's response, if he even had one. She managed to find two empty seats in a relatively inconspicuous corner, sitting down there and grabbing the newspaper that rested on the seat beside her. She opened the newspaper and held it up, obscuring her face from the view of everyone, but she could still see the televisions that were mounted on the ceiling.
"Raven, are you all right?" Trowa asked in a slightly curious voice.
"Yeah, perfectly fine." her eyes were glued to the TV screen. "Just keeping track of what's going on in the world you know." she said in a somewhat distracted voice. 'Please don't let them be looking for me.'
Raven sat there, the uneasiness needling away at her insides as the seconds ticked away into minutes. Her eyes kept shifting to the clock that ticked away in the top left-hand corner of the screen, numbers moving in what seemed to be an infinitely slow manner. Every couple of minutes, she would glance at Trowa and then the gate, where the attendant stood by the door, looking bored. Finally, she breathed an immense sigh of relief when the flight attendant opened the door, the other passengers starting to the door.
"In other related news," the newscaster on the television started. "The affluent Whyteford family is now se-"
"Hey Trowa, they're boarding now." she practically threw the paper down. "Come on."
"I'm watching-"
Raven never gave him a chance to finish, dragging him from his seat and running for the door, forcing him to keep up with her. She slipped past all the other passengers, breathless as she came to an abrupt halt in from of the attendant. With the excuse that this was her first flight, she handed the tickets to the attendant, and took the stubs back, hurrying down the boarding walkway and onto the plane. As soon as she sat down in her seat by the window, she yanked the blind down, sinking down into the seat.
"Can I even ask, what all of that was about?"
Raven sighed and closed her eyes as Trowa settled into the seat beside her. She briefly contemplated telling him the truth; but she had specifically requested that her particulars be kept from the others. There was no way that they would, or could, comprehend why she had chosen to do this. If they knew, they would only see her as someone pretending to be something she was not; an imposter amongst their ranks, sent to spy on them for the enemy.
"Well, for starters, I am not too fond of travelling by plane." she said; at least that much was true. "Bad incident when I was younger. And I thought I saw some plainclothes Oz agents back there in the airport."
Trowa didn't say anything for a few moments before he nodded and relaxed back into his seat. Raven looked thoughtfully at the window blind, feeling a bit guilty for lying to Trowa. She had told him as much of the truth as she dared to. But who was she kidding; there were absolutely no Oz agents in that airport. And here they were heading out on a mission that would require a certain degree of trust between them. She sighed, rubbing her temples; at least she had prevented him from seeing the news report. Similar ones had aired before, but it was a rare occurrence. 'Man; now I have to make sure he doesn't see it at all; I can only hope the others don't. Jesus, I think even Mercedes is having more luck than me at the moment.'