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Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing, nor any characters, places or references. I'm making this for fun only, so no beheadings please.
Notes: I can't really think of any big notes for this chapter. For the story in general I do have an announcement. The times between updates will be substantially lengthening, possibly even doubling. I'm starting college on the fourth, on top of running around as a peasant for the Ren fair and getting all I need done for that, uh, done. I'll write whenever I have time and fully intend on finishing, but I just thought you all might want a warning.
Chapter Eight
(Baby Yells and Jingle Bells)
Caltha was quite sure that nobody had ever experienced anything so painful. She fled down the halls to the library, tears streaking down her face as she ran. Pushing open the giant door with a grunt she proceeded to lose herself in the halls of data chips. The long racks glowed white on either side and seemed to go on forever, leading into darkness in front and behind. She slowed to a walk and then stopped altogether. She sunk to the floor with a sob and cried her heart out, letting the hot tears run down her stinging cheeks.
Odin lifted his head from the data pad of puzzles he was… improving, and listened carefully. The sound of crying echoed through the library lengthening the sound and bouncing it off the walls. That sounded like Caltha. He dropped the data pad into his armchair and set out through the glowing halls of information. He backtracked his movements twice due to the echoes before he found her.
"Caltha?" he asked softly. She didn't stop her sobbing as she looked up from her place on the floor. Seeing it was Odin she scrambled to her feet and flung herself at him. She clamped herself onto his leg and buried her face in his jean-covered thigh. Odin gently tried to pull her off but she was like a limpet and stuck to him securely. Failing that Odin took her chin and pulled her head up to look at him. He growled when he saw his first glance (before she permanently attached to his leg) confirmed. Her right cheek was red and carried four long scratches. They looked like nail scratches. Caltha's lower lip was trembling with whimpers and her tears left tracks down her dirty cheeks. Odin released her chin and walked out of the library dragging Caltha with him. It looked rather funny to passersby, and if he had been someone else they might have laughed. Odin walked with a great limp, dragging her and the leg she was attached to.
He strode through the building looking for a bathroom that was not currently in use, a nearly impossible task on its own. However when he finally found one he still had to peal the Limpet off his leg. After much careful and delicate work he managed to unlace her fingers, only to have her lock her ankles behind his heel. He heaved an all suffering sigh and holding her wrists with one hand so she couldn't latch on again, he started on her ankles with the other. Eventually she was detached and before she could fling herself at him yet again he picked her up and plopped her on the toilet seat.
"Stay," he said, pointing to the seat. He kept one eye on her while he slid back the wall mirror to reach the medicine cabinet. Caltha slumped on the seat and began kicking her feet sulkily. Odin cleaned her face and rubbed disinfectant on the scratches. Caltha squirmed as much as possible during the process and complained a good deal about the disinfectant. "What happened?" he demanded. Caltha sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve.
"They haaaate me," she whined. With that she spilled out the whole story. Of how she tried to join a game that the other little girls were playing. How they had agreed, but things turned nasty when she said she wanted to be a dog instead of a horse and couldn't they meet up with a big pink dragon and have a tea party. Odin found this part confusing but didn't ask. She told how the girl in red had gotten mad and raked her face with her nails.
Odin was outraged and at the same time confused. How could children, who were supposed to be the innocents of the world, be so cruel to each other? Odin took Caltha's hand and headed for the playground outside. Caltha stumbled from trying to keep up with his fast pace and Odin bent down and swung her up with out breaking stride. Caltha hung on to her protector with one arm and stuck her thumb in her mouth with the other. Odin's feet sunk into the new snow when he stepped outside and he regretted not bringing a jacket.
"Which one?" he asked the little body clinging to his torso. She took her thumb out of her mouth long enough to point to a little girl with dark hair and red overalls by the swings. Many of the kids made themselves scarce when they saw him coming. Things were serious now that a big person had been called in. Only Caltha knew how much trouble they were really in. She smiled around her thumb anticipating Red getting what she deserved.
Odin set her down on the edge of the playground and crouched down so he was level with the girl in red. She looked at him with wide eyes and backed into the pole at her back that held up the swings. Odin's eyes were dark and narrowed under his hair, which blew wildly in the breeze that had picked up. He growled and showed his teeth. He seemed like some wild dog ready to attack. His whole body language said that he was going to make her hurt. The girl stared at him eyes wide as saucers. Red riding hood had just met the wolf. She squeaked when he grabbed her chin and pressed his fingers into her cheeks.
"I'll be watching you and if you do that again, a little scratch will be nothing to the pain I will put you through." He growled low enough that only she could here. He gave one last hard squeeze on her jaw before he stood and turned away. Odin swung Caltha up onto his shoulders and walked back inside, leaving Red sitting in the snow with tears of her own.
~~~~~
Christmas, though enjoyable on the day, was an amazingly frantic affair to put together for an entire Orphanage. Odin found the whole thing rather odd. Having never had a real Christmas of his own, he'd assumed that shops and stores were having huge sales and that was why everybody went shopping at that time of year. This was one of his earlier theories from when he was young and he knew now it was very flawed. Partly because it didn't explain all the decorations, loud singing in the streets and people with flyers yelling out that this was the time of year to save your soul. He didn't how a flyer was supposed to save your soul. In his experience if a soul was really lost then it was gone forever. There was no getting it back.
Eventually, he had simply attached the name of Holiday to it and decided that a Holiday was a time when people acted very silly. The man he had followed when he was little never celebrated the event, or deigned to explain it. Christmas wasn't important to him. The man had called him Boy and taught him how to shoot a gun, how to quietly avoid a search party and how to live off of grubs when the rations were gone. He'd been to busy training in Mobile Suit piloting with Dr. J to think of asking him, there wasn't time for such frivolities. Though he was sure if he had asked, Dr. J would have answered.
Even so, there was such a rush of excitement when the adults and a few of the bigger kids hauled in a large tree and set it up in the Lounge, that his curiosity got the better of him. Watching them all laugh and argue about whether or not the evergreen was straight or not, he knew that of all his traits, his curiosity would be his downfall. He looked up at Caltha who was sitting on his shoulders and clapping. He was reluctant to ask any of the others what he knew must be an obvious question. He didn't like the looks he got when he asked one of those.
"Caltha, why are they putting a tree in the middle of the room?" he asked, keeping his voice low. Caltha giggled
"So we can make it pretty!" She answered happily. Odin decided not to ask Caltha obvious questions either. He knew they were supposed to decorate it. One could hardly miss all the lighted tree's festooning the city. Or the advertisements flashing in your face each year claiming that they sold ornaments at lower prices then anyone else. What he didn't know was why.
He had little time to ponder though as the kids crowded forward and began to hang lots of shiny ornaments on the branches. Odin made sure to stay well out of the way. Caltha squirmed and he let her down to dash off and help put all the ornaments that could possibly break on the lowest branches. Odin retreated to the entryway. Then to the second floor railing as the flurry of activity spread out from the tree. They hung pictures and threw stuffed snowmen and reindeer into various corners. Somebody put on carol tunes and turned up the volume so it pounded through the walls until an adult responded to the cries of distress and yelled at them to turn it down. The entire first floor was in a frenzy and the decorations seemed to crawl up the walls by themselves. He retreated further when they wound green garlands and lights up the banisters, taking over his spot. He was nearly surrounded. Something soft hit him in the back of the head and he glared over his shoulder into the throng. No one owned up to the thrown object. At a shout from the side Odin quickly ducked into a hall in an attempt to avoid the tinsel war that rushed past.
Finally, heart beating rapidly in his chest, he found an empty hollow under some stairs that seemed relatively safe. Unlike some, he'd never had a problem with hiding. Sometimes it was all you could do. Better to cut your losses and live on to fight another day. After awhile the adrenaline rush drained from his system and the need for some kind of weapon slowly ceased. Later he was joined by Jinx and Neon who brought pillows and candy canes with which to wait out the siege. Neon just got in the way with his leg, and apparently Jinx had been the cause of enough disasters that he wasn't allowed to help anymore.
~~~~~
On the day of Christmas Odin was woken early by a prodding in his back. Ethan let go as soon as the mop was snatched from him and hopped back to the other wall as quickly as possible. Normally they let Odin wake up on his own. He was always up before they were so it wasn't a problem, but today was special. Plus their room had been drafted to get up before the sun and make sure the kinde-gardeners didn't ravage Santa's bag. There was a sharp crack of breaking plastic and Ethan was very grateful to Jinx for suggesting the mop. They all ducked when half of the broken mop handle flew by and buried itself in the wall where their heads had been. Odin glared death at each of them and pulled on a large, fuzzy sweater and some sweat pants.
"Never, poke me." He growled.
"Better the mop then us," Ethan said as cheerfully as possible.
"Come on, lets go find the little monsters and get something to eat," Jinx mumbled and steered a zombie like Neon out the door. They met a horde of the little creatures in the halls. One of which was Caltha. She made an excited squeal and attached herself to Odin's leg. The other boys made several very unsuccessful attempts to stifle their snorts of laughter and Odin glared. He swung her up on his shoulders.
"Come on, Limpet," he said, and headed downstairs.
The great tree twinkled in the dark. It's tiny multi colored lights hung haphazardly among the branches. More and more people trickled into the immense room as the sun came up. At nine or so the adults finally came down, hugging their coffees and scratching messy hair or beards. Next to the tree were several huge bags filled to the brim with brightly wrapped boxes.
Odin sat on the floor, leaning against a far wall with several pilfered cushions at his back. Well away from everyone crowding around the bags. He crossed his arms on his chest and watched the paper fly. Each child was given at least one wrapped box out of the bags. Some children received more, from friends or relatives. Ethan caught his box in the air along a letter disk thrown by the adult with the moderate stack of mail. Caltha dashed up long enough to stick a star bow to his forehead and was off again. Odin pulled it off and tossed it to the side. The noise and the running were beginning to rattle him. He picked up his pillows and retreated to the farthest corner of the room, silent as a ghost.
He was untangling his feet from sealant and wrapping when Anna called his name. He called 'here' and reached up with his left hand without looking up from his feet and caught the small box that was thrown to him. He looked around, scanning the room of flushed faces. Seeing everyone busily engaged in their own gifts he slid down on his side and carefully unwrapped the box. His nimble fingers gently broke the sealant and pulled off the wrapping. He did not rip it, or crumple it. He opened the box and pulled out a package of cheap data chips.
All presents given by the orphanage were cheap. They received very little money from the Unified Nation. Most of their income came from charity. He didn't mind that it was cheap though. It was gift, for him. That must be why people made such a fuss about Christmas. It was a time to give gifts. He held the package close and turned it over with his fingers, curious. The chips were fiction stories. He'd never read fiction before. He pulled out a chip and read its description. He pulled out the other chips, read them and replaced them in quick succession. There were also one or two Puzzle chips interspersed among the fiction. Unwilling to restrain himself, he leapt up and went searching for a data pad reader. Everyone around him was so excited, laughing, talking and jumping up and down, he couldn't help but feel somewhat excited too.
Much later when most everyone had skipped off to enjoy them selves, Odin still lay on the floor in the farthest corner of the Lounge. Anna sat a ways away from him in one of the large armchairs. She was pretending to read a copy of Tarzan of the Apes. She held her head bent over the data pad, but her eyes slid off the words with out seeing them. She hadn't scrolled down in quite awhile. Her head tilted up and her gaze wandered over to the source of her musing.
Odin had already gone through the puzzles in the pack of chips and was now reading one of the fiction novels. She had purposefully searched for some of the hardest puzzles she could afford. Granted the selection to choose from hadn't been all that great, but she had at least hoped they would keep him busy for awhile. Apparently not. She had noticed his attraction to puzzles early on, and when a few of the kids had complained to her that someone had messed with a bunch of the library puzzles making them impossible to solve, she'd had some sneaking suspicions as to who was the culprit. The boy had a head for problem solving. She was also suspicious of how he'd managed the feat. Chips were supposed to be protected from tampering. Well, at least he seemed to be enjoying the stories.
Anna ceased even pretending to read her novel and stared straight at the tousled head across from her. On that that thought, she was surprised he was showing enjoyment, or at least interest, at all. He had only been with them for about a month and already he'd shown tremendous progress. For someone as shut off as he was she would have thought it would take months or even a year or two to get to where he had arrived in a matter of weeks.
He was hardly sociable, but he was talking. He didn't dart out the room when someone else walked in anymore. He had stopped subtly threatening them. He had begun to ask an occasional, tentative question now and then. She had even seen him voluntarily approach the other boys in his room, and she had spotted him hiding out with Jinx and Neon when the decorations went up. It was almost as if he wasn't learning these things for the first time, but rather, simply remembering lessons already learned that he had temporarily forgotten.
Anna rested her head on her hand and tapped her temple with her fingers. She was curious what he would do when he didn't have any previous knowledge to draw from and really began to fumble through the dark in earnest. She suspected that if this hadn't happened already then it soon would. Still, she wondered who had taught him those first few, but invaluable lessons.
Odin looked up with lazy steadiness and caught her gaze. She stood quickly and came over to where he was sprawled on his side across the carpet. This served the double purpose getting closer to him so she wouldn't have to raise her voice and breaking eye contact with out making it look like she couldn't look him in the eye. At least she hoped so. Despite the good progress he'd made in interacting with those around him he had yet to show any real facial expression. Those rare times he did make one it was small. Just a slight twitch to hint at a smile or frown. Even then it was more like he was pulling strings to move his mouth then actually smiling. When he glared he glared with his eyes and nothing else, and the same when he was sad. Most of the time he didn't even show that much expression. It often felt creepy at to watch him, moving about like a human with the face of a doll that never moved. It made her very sad when he was like that.
Odin watched her sit down next to him with an 'oof'. He realized with a start that he had not given her anything at all for this holiday. Of course with the information available at the time this was to be expected. He had not been aware of the purpose the holiday. However now that he did, this would have to be corrected. Anna had not said anything so he took the moment of opportunity.
"I don't have a gift for you," he stated. This shook Anna out of gathering her thoughts from the various directions they had wandered in and she looked at him in surprise.
"You don't need to give me anything," she said.
"Isn't that the point of this holiday?" Odin asked. Anna smiled
"It depends on who you ask. Different people celebrate it for different reasons. To me it's a time to celebrate life, and the people you love." She grinned and winked at him "the gift giving is just a perk." Odin nodded and looked down at the data pad on the floor. He did not love anyone, nor had he ever celebrated life. The data chips were interesting, but they were only metal and plastic, an object easily replaceable. Logically there wasn't any reason to give a gift. It was only an object and giving something away did not help a person to survive. In fact it would have the opposite effect. So giving something useless must mean something important for people to continue the tradition. Though he couldn't figure out what. He wondered if he had something to give her if it would even matter since he didn't love her. Odin sat up next to her. He had nothing substantial to give this woman who had taken him in without any obligation to do so.
"Ask me a question," he said. Of course much of the information he held was classified and could not be mentioned, but knowledge was the only thing he had to give. Anna blinked at him, studied her hands and drummed her fingernails. He thought of her asking about parents, family, past and history. Normal questions that any normal person would have answers to. He knew he had just talked himself into a hole, but it was only one question. He could answer one question. What if she asks about the wars? An ominous thought whispered back. What if she asks about how you survived? The people you killed, the things you did or the people you've known. Beneath the clockwork efficiency of his mind a traitorous little thought hissed. What if she asks about your sanity? Still of all the questions he thought and dreaded her asking he never suspected.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?" Odin's brain stopped.
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