Disclaimer: Same as Chapter One!
Chapter Seventeen
"Unexpected Visitors"
By Magic
"You can't wallow in self pity all day long, you know!" Samantha called to her counterpart from the girls' bathroom. The blonde glanced back at her reflection with a scowl on her face. Her hair, which was currently trying to escape two pig tails that resided on both sides of the top of her head, wasn't cooperating. She growled a threat under her breath to chop it off at the next available moment, rolled the hair into tight balls around the elastic hair bands, and declared that it was as good as it was going to get.
"I'm not wallowing," the brunette answered from under her blanket where she was attempting to evade the suns rays. She swore that the sun had some sort of revenge it was trying to accomplish against her and if she ever heard the song "Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun" she was going to beat in the singers face with Hannah's change sock.
Sam had just finished rinsing her face off and was toweling herself dry as she inquired, "If you're not wallowing, then what are you doing?"
Trinity tried to think of a good word, something long, impressive, and that she couldn't spell, but nothing was coming. It was far too early for thoughts; it hadn't hit the P.M. hours yet. "I can't think of what it is, but it isn't a wallow, that's for sure." She sighed. "I'm not an accomplished wallower just yet."
"Oh, I see, young Grasshopper." Samantha chucked the towel into the hamper. "We're still learning the art of the wallow. Well, I could instruct you, but I'd rather beat you out of the bed. It could be fun! Nothing like a good arm exercise before breakfast, I always said. I do believe that my change sock arm is getting a little flabby." She ripped the covers off of her hiding friend and pocked her right bicep. "See?"
A bead of sweat dripped down Trinity's forehead and onto her nose as she realized there was no escape but actually getting up. "Alright, you win. I don't want to be the cause for toning your arm muscles. We'll leave that up to Wufei." She quickly flung herself from bed and into the bathroom.
"So were you wallowing or not?" Sam asked once more as she lay back on her bed. Her hand instinctively reached for the mug of cappuccino (they were out of mocha) that sat on the bed stand next to her. She took a sip before adding, "Because I'm thinking I would wallow just a bit, not much, but I must admit a bit after finding out what you did last night."
Trinity pondered. It was very hard at that time in the morning, and so as she thought, her eyebrows furrowed close together, her tongue stuck out at an odd angle out of her mouth, and several lines appeared on her forehead. Not to mention she almost fell over out of overwork, but eventually she worked out what she was feeling. "No. Not wallowing this morning." She unscrewed her face and turned to the mirror so she comb out her hair. "Besides, Duo explained everything to me last night."
"Ah, so, the almighty convo with the Village Idiot."
"That would be the one."
"So, everything's good then? Between you and the guys that is," Sam began twirling the empty coffee mug around her index finger by the handle as she waited for the reply.
"Well," Trinity flung on a clean shirt and then emerged from the bathroom, "besides the fact that I haven't been able to get them anything for Christmas, or you for that matter - don't reach for the change sock! - I think we're, uh, okay."
Samantha nodded, and at that moment the twirling coffee mug took off through the air. It had leapt from her finger and shattered against the wall nearest to Trinity's head. The brunette screamed "Duck and cover!" and did so as the glass rained down upon her head. When she figured that no more pieces of the coffee cup were going to attack her and the coast was clear, she removed her hands from her head.
"That's the fourth one this week."
"And the second today."
Trinity eyed her friend wearily as she plucked shards of glass from her hair and brushed them onto the floor. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were aiming at my head."
"You obviously know better, Trin," Samantha commented as a smirk played across her lips. "You also know that if I had been aiming, I would have hit you. You see, it's all in the wrist, and it's the release that gets you when you're going for accuracy because -"
Samantha's lecture on the art of flinging mugs at bystanders heads was cut short as Quatre's light-hearted voice called to them from the foot of the stairs and informed them that breakfast was ready. The two girls shot out of their room, had a short (but brutal) battle about who got to slide down the banister first, and arrived with a crash in the kitchen as Samantha slide through the door and Trinity came careening into her friend across the slippery tiles.
"Hungry?" Quatre inquired of the two with a smile as he helped them both to their feet and gestured to the table, which was covered in mountains of pancakes and green jell-o. "I sure hope so because Trowa has made us a whole box of pancakes for Christmas Eve breakfast."
"Oh, you know us, Quat," Samantha quipped as she sat down next to Heero who was already working through his third cake (they had boughten blueberry syrup the night before and it was his only weakness - even the "Perfect soldier" has to have some downfall). Trinity's shining eyes spoke for her as she took a seat across the table from Heero and next to Trowa. Wufei was left at the end of the table with two empty chairs on either side of him as Quatre sat down on the other end.
"Where's Tina?" Trinity asked with surprisingly clear enunciation for having a mouth full of pancake. "And Duo? Has he ever missed a meal?"
"No. I believe his breakfast attendance is nearly as good as yours," Trowa informed her as-a-matter-a-fact like as he cut off a piece of pancake for himself.
"The woman is upstairs finishing up cleaning before her family arrives," Wufei said, getting tired of being ignored completely by the whole table, "and I believe Maxwell is feeling the effects of his indulgence last night." A evil grin that said 'serves him right' slunk across the pilot's face.
With that, the table was immersed in the noises of chewing, forks scraping plates, and Trinity guzzling down a whole quart of chocolate milk, until everyone's stomach was satisfactorily filled. Trinity leaned back in her chair, a look of pure bliss flowing over her face as Sam let out a long, loud burp of which surprised them all.
"Excellent. I give it an 8," Trinity declared as she took another long swig of her chocolate milk.
Samantha smiled. "Why thank you."
"Much obliged. I know artwork when I see it....or rather hear it."
Suddenly Heero let out his own ear shattering belch from next to the blonde that just about startled her out of her seat. The tiniest of grins spread across his face as he commented, "I'd give that a 10 myself."
"Yep, defiantly a 10," Trinity said as she nodded in agreement, her brown eyes wide.
Trowa finished off the very last bit of his pancake. "Maybe even an 11, depending on the scale you are using."
Sam met Trinity's eyes, which looked just as bewildered as hers did. "It's kinda creepy when the guys get into the Christmas spirit." Nod, nod went Trinity's head; she was afraid that if she said anything, she would start giggling hysterically.
The group began cleaning off the table with the exception of Wufei, who had slunk off towards the television. Trinity was the first to alert everyone to his escape. "What? Wufei too good to clean off the table?"
"That's a woman's job," Wufei commented over his shoulder as the girls' scowled at his back, "and besides, I did the dishes last night."
"We forced you into it as punishment," Sam pointed out to him as she smiled viciously at the memory.
"The apron wasn't necessary," he shot back.
"Oh. Yes. Yes, it was. And so were the pictures that I took." The blonde brandished a couple of square prints from her jean pocket and handed them over to Trinity. "I was going to give these to you as an impromptu Christmas present, but now is a much better time for you to see the softer side of Wufei." Trinity's eyes bulged from her head.
"He should go into modeling. The Martha Stewart of AC197."
"I think pink is rather becoming on him, don't you, Trinity?"
"It looks wonderful with his skin tones, which is odd because I think he's more of a winter color than a summer," she held the prints under the kitchen table lights, so that she could see them to the full effect.
By this time, Wufei had bounded over the couch and was now standing next to Trinity, trying to wrench the pictures out of her grasp, but she had the death grip on them. "If you don't," Wufei panted as he gabbed aimlessly at the pictures that she waved around in front of his face, "give me those back..."
"Why, is that a threat, Wu-wu?" The brunette asked as she held the blackmail behind her back.
"Yes."
"What are you gonna do about it?" Trinity dared him as Samantha shook her head in dismay from next to her friend. It wasn't that the blonde had anything against making Wufei's life a living hell and then some, but after what had happened last night, she would think that her friend would have learned not to bait him continuously. Well, by now she figured that the whole "learn from past mistakes" was overlooked by Trinity in certain instances. She sat back to watch the fun unroll.
"Simply this," Wufei's leg shot out and entangled with Trinity's; the girl barely managed to maintain her balance and hold onto the pictures as she stepped back, only to have Wufei's arm reach out and grasp hers above the elbow. He whirled her around and pinned her against the table as he pried the evidence of his feminine side from her hands. "Say 'uncle'," he mocked.
"Like hell I will," Trinity growled over her shoulder as pilot 05 twisted her arm just a little more. A jolt of pain ran through her shoulder, but she only responded with sticking her tongue out at the black haired on and giving him a raspberry.
Wufei wrenched her arm even more out of any natural position. "Sat 'uncle. Come on. It's not that long of a word."
"No. I can even spell it," Trinity clamped her mouth down as she realized she was digging herself a hole of stupidity. "Hey, Sam! Wanna give me a hand over here!! He's going to take your pictures!!"
"I have the negatives stashed upstairs," the blonde replied as she handed Trowa a dirty dish. "And my change sock is upstairs, otherwise I would come to your rescue. But right now that would mean that whole moving thing."
"You're right. Moving as a general rule is a bad thing. Especially in the morning."
"Glad you understand. You'll make a good martyr," the blonde patted Trinity on the head as she walked by. "Don't worry. We'll get him back at a more opportune time."
"That we will," Trinity declared through clenched teeth.
Wufei, who was getting tired of their idle prattle, yanked Trinity's arm sharply in the wrong direction. The brunette responded with a whole string of colorful words referring to Wufei, his family, his manliness, and his hair, of which 'uncle' was mixed somewhere in there. Pilot 05 counted that as good enough; he released her and began ripping apart the pictures.
But Samantha had spoken, and the 'more opportune time' came just minutes later as she smashed the last, and only, undevoured pancake into Wufei's unsuspecting face. "Syrup?" Trinity inquired from behind Wufei as she poured some down his clean, white pants and quickly shot out of the kitchen after Sam to higher, safer ground.
***
After a few hours of taking lip from Samantha about being so weak as to have been pinned by Wufei, though the brunette was sure her blonde counterpart would have been in the same position (she didn't mention this as she feared the wrath that would come with the remark), Trinity had decided to dare to venture from the room, if only for a second.
"Hey, Quat," Trinity approached the blonde who was staring out the window at something. The blonde glanced out to see what her friend was gazing at so intensely, but she only saw a black car drive off down the street. "Uh..." 'Maybe he's bird watching,' she thought, even though she didn't see any birds. 'Or maybe...mailbox watching. You never know with these pilots. First pancakes, then burping scales, ...Hannah and I are beginning to look saner and saner.'
Quatre seemed to snap out of it and his blue eyes met hers. "What is it, Trinity?"
"I was wondering when we're leaving. Sam and I wanted to start getting our stuff together and we were wondering when exactly we're going to be taking off and how long we're staying," Trinity explained as she eyed her friend with a bit of concern.
"We'll be leaving in an hour or so, once the sun sets," Quatre informed her as he glanced out of the window, worry written plainly across his face.
Trinity looked out again and just saw the normal street; nobody was even walking down the sidewalk (and there were defiantly no birds, though there was not a sparse supply of mailboxes). "Do you feel okay?"
"Yes, I feel fine," he responded with a forced smile.
"If you say so. When are we coming back?"
"Christmas night, right after Tina gives us the signal that all is clear."
"Oooo! I like sneaky signals! What is it?"
"Simply, we call her cell phone and no one picks up. She's got caller ID so she'll know when we're calling, and she wont pick up. That way, no one can trace the signal," Quatre explained.
Trinity pondered. "But what if the coast isn't clear, and she has to pick up, and then someone traces the signal, and then comes and stalks us and beats us all senseless, then shaves off Duo's hair, steals Wufei's "man hood", shoots Heero, drives you mad, and then sells Sam, Trowa, and me off to the circus?! We're doomed! You and your damn secret signals!! I've always hated them!!!"
"Have you had any coffee today?" Quatre asked as he patted her gently on the shoulder.
"Well, Sam did hand me about one - two- three- four- eight cups or so, but I didn't finish the last one, and I only used up half of the sugar bowl in the process," Trinity explained. "Why?"
"No reason."
"Didn't think so!!!!" Trinity flew up towards the girls room to inform Samantha that they should begin their packing. Quatre watched her back recede into the depths of the door before he turned back to the window. Moments later, he jumped out of surprise as a hand rested on his shoulder.
"What is it?" Heero grunted from behind him as pilot 01 removed his hand and stepped next to his comrade.
Quatre shook his head and looked over to Heero. "This is the second day I've seen that man sitting in his car in front of the house. What do you make of this, Heero?"
The brown haired youth shrugged. "It could be any number of people following us." He thought for a second before continuing. "If he had been sent by the war leader, it would be likely that we would already be thrown in jail. It's more likely that it's a bounty hunter attempting to take us by surprise."
"So we're going to have to be extra careful when we leave the house tonight before Tina's family gets here, so that he doesn't follow us and know where the base is," Trowa said as he came up from behind the two.
Quatre glanced back out onto the street which was empty now as the afternoon calm took over the colony. "I don't know. I just have a bad feeling about this."
"You also had a bad feeling about letting Trinity use the blender," Heero pointed out.
Quatre grimaced. "And yet, look at how that turned out." The others' stomachs growled with anger at the past event.
"I see your point."
***
He looked out at her from behind his glasses, his platinum blonde hair shadowing his ice blue eyes slightly as he gave his friend a disbelieving stare. "So, she's really going to go after her on Christmas?" He took a deep gulp of his drink. "I've heard about heartless, psychotic, and sadistic, but don't you think that's going a bit overboard."
"Don't let 'him' hear you say that," his dark haired friend replied as his green eyes motioned to the closed bathroom door meaningfully. "You know how he gets when you talk about her that way."
"Well, she deserves it. I've never met someone more messed up in my life, besides - and this is just a possibility because I think she's got him beat - Nadir." The blonde swept his hair off of his gorgeous, 'pretty boy' face as he pondered that for a moment. "Nope. She's defiantly more messed up than that crack head." He whistled. "Christmas of all days."
"Well, I believe that it's a perfectly fitting day to do it on," the third garcon in the room put in as he started to reconstruct the hand gun he had been cleaning. "Give the little bitch a present, and on the way we can all sample the Christmas treats."
"We?" The blonde inquired, his left eyebrow arching in question.
"Oh," the third snapped the bullet cartridge in place, "hasn't he told you yet? We've been given orders to accompany her. The Big Duck says it would ruin everything if she keeled over before the big battle. Something about 'the long run'. Who knows what that wacko has up his sleeve."
"You should show your commander more respect," the green eyed youth shot back. "What do you think he would do to you if he heard you calling him the 'Big Duck'?" He was immediately ignored.
"Not to mention that 'he' would flip if anything happened to his sweetheart," the blonde returned as he stared absent mindedly at the bathroom where his friend was still primping. Neither of the two bothered to listen to the green-eyed one, who, realizing that they didn't give a damn what he thought, went back to picking up his end of the room.
"I can't believe that anyone would ever call her a sweetheart. She doesn't seem like the type to accept chocolates being as she's been known to blow her soldier's brains out because she was bored."
"Maybe she's great in the sack," the blonde put in, a wondering grin spreading over his face.
"Well, there's only one of us who will ever know, which reminds me - Hey in there!" The third called to the one in the bathroom. "You're taking longer than mister playboy over here, and that's saying something! I need to get in there so I can make supper!!"
"Excuse me," the blonde interrupted. "It doesn't take me very long at all. There's nothing that one to do to make one look better when one is already a vision of perfection." He flashed his amigo a flashy grin.
The two other guys in the room rolled their eyes as the door opened and yet another entered. His eyes, one blue and one green, were narrowed with anger as he stomped into the abode.
"What happened this time?" The green eyed one questioned as he glanced over his shoulder at the new arrival, who flung his long jacket across the room.
"I don't get to go with you all tomorrow. He's ordered for me to be his personal guard tomorrow just so that he can make sure I don't sneak off." The multicolor-eyed one slammed his fist on the table.
"Well, you know what they say. The bigger duck usually gets the last quack," the third one commented from the corner.
The other guys in the room eyed their friend wearily. "We never should have let him take that cooking class. He's never going to stop making allusions to food for as long as we live."
"He's even called the commander the Big Duck."
"It's better than Big Dick."
"You do have a point. At least he hasn't given the war general pet name. She would flip and then probably shoot him between the eyes."
"He'd be off our hands though, and there would be less people SHARING ONE BATHROOM!!" The late arrival hinted to his friend in the shower; why were they given one bathroom between the lot of them? It was ridiculous. Of course, it wouldn't have been that bad, he realized, if three of them weren't so damn vain. He didn't think it was possible to spend over an hour styling one's hair, especially when there was nothing you could do with it besides spike it up. His friends would never cease to amaze him. "So, are you guys excited for the mission tomorrow?" He asked, a little bit of whiny jealousy seeping into his voice. "You finally get to meet the five original Gundam pilots in person."
The blonde shrugged. "We all knew it was going to happen sooner or later. They are only human you know."
"And if they're not," the black eyed one said with a twisted grin, "we'll find out, wont we?" (Insert evil laughter and cracks of thunder and lightening here.)
***
"I'm not walking all of the way there with HIM!" As much as Trinity seemed to scream and rant, it didn't seem as if the others were going to budge on the idea at all.
Heero slipped a gun into one of his jacket pockets as he explained to her once again, "We need to keep Wufei alive. After a thinking about it, we decided that you were the least lethal of the two to go along with him."
"Why can't we trade him for Samantha and then neither of us have to deal with the whiner!?" The blonde nodded in agreement.
"Uh, Trin, look who's whining now," Duo pointed out as he slipped his sunglasses on over his eyes; the sun may have set an hour ago, but with his hangover, even the streetlights seemed to be screaming at him.
"I AM NOT WHINING YOU PUFFY PANTS FREAK!"
Samantha sighed and shook her head, "Not that she doesn't have a point, but that is the last time I am ever giving her anything with even a dash of caffeine in it. Some people can stomach it and," she glanced over to where Trinity had immersed herself with flipping Trowa's hair this way and that, "some people can't."
"Listen, we don't have any time to argue about this. We need to leave now before Tina's family gets here," Quatre pushed the small band of seven towards the doorway as Tina came hurling through the kitchen door.
"Here! Take this," she handed Trinity a bag of random munchies for the road as well as food for Christmas day. Duo, thinking wisely for once, snatched the bag from the girl's hands and handed it over to Trowa.
"If we give it to one of the girls, it'll be gone by the time we get there," he explained to Tina's questioning face.
"If that," Trinity bragged.
"I bet we could do it before the end of the block."
"If the stupid idiots would let us walk together that is," Trinity grumbled as they all flooded out onto the back porch and proceeded on their way to the alley.
"Don't you get it?" Wufei growled as he, Heero, and Trinity set off in the exact opposite direction as the others. "We separated you so that you two wouldn't talk so loudly and get us spotted. We couldn't have women's banter giving off our position, now could we?"
"You'll pay for that," Trinity responded as she crossed her arms in front of her chest. "I don't see why we have to be so cautious about this. No one knows where we are, right?" She turned to Heero for the response so that she wouldn't have to put up with Wufei for the time being.
"We're not sure about that anymore," he informed simply and went silent for the rest of the journey. Try as Trinity did, she couldn't get Heero to say anything else about it and eventually she gave up trying to hold a conversation at all - she wasn't about to start one up with Wufei - and she turned mute. They stayed mainly on the back roads of the colony as they ventured to hell-knows-where (as Trinity would put it) into the middle of the colony.
She wasn't sure whether it was just her imagination or the fact that there were no street lights the farther they got from Tina's house, but the neighborhoods became drearier as they continued on. Soon, there were no longer any houses that looked as if people lived in them. The windows were boarded up and trash clung to the chain linked fences at enclosed some groups of houses.
"Are you sure you know where you're going, Heero?"
He nodded as he lead them towards one of the houses, around the corner, and into the backyard. The trio slunk around the overgrown garden that had overtaken what probably used to be grass and over to what looked like a cellar entrance at the back of the house.
"Ladies first," Wufei said sarcastically as he unlocked the padlock on the two wooden doors and opened them up. The opening lead to a steep, cement, staircase that went down into the darkness, farther than Trintiy's eyes could see without any lighting.
"So that you can push me down on the way there?" She shoved Wufei in front of her. "I don't think so. You go on ahead, sir."
He narrowed his eyes at her, but after the long walk, he didn't have the energy to argue with her anymore. The black haired one began down the stairs with Trinity stepping viciously on his heels after him, and Heero talking up the rear.
"We've obviously beaten them here," Heero said in reference to the lack of sound at the end of the tunnel.
Trinity snickered. "I hope Duo didn't get them lost. Men never seem to ask for directions."
The other two took the insult silently, and they continued on their way down. The air became cooler as they descended, and Trinity began to think it smelt ever so slightly of her grandmother's attic but didn't mention it. She was now wondering if they were entering a normal basement as the stairs were continuing into the earth deeper than she deemed necessary for a cellar.
Finally they reached the end (Trinity didn't notice that Wufei had stopped in front of a door and had ran right into him. She mumbled something explicit and about break lights under her breath). Wufei pressed a few buttons on a keypad and a door, high tech and metallic to Trinity's surprise, slid open in front of them to reveal a rather large hanger with ten or fifteen mobile suits, repair equipment, assorted weaponry, and a very starving, sad looking Christmas tree in the corner.
Trinity's brown eyes stared at the sight before her. "What is this place?"
"It's one of the Preventers' bases on L10," Heero explained as he tossed his jean jacket over a sofa which randomly sat in the middle of the room.
"So the Preventers do have a base on this colony," Trinity wondered out loud. "I didn't even know that they bothered with little colonies like this one." She eyed the place for any sign of life. "But where is everyone?"
Heero smiled slightly. "It is Christmas. They've probably all taken off the day for vacation. "Wufei informed Sally of the situation we were in, and she told us it wouldn't be a problem if we stayed here," Quatre explained as the others entered the room via the doorway behind them. Samantha looked as if she had walked into a wonderland.
"I've never seen mobily suit thingys this close before," she whispered, in awe of the bigness and shininess of the suits before her.
"Well, actually, obviously you have but...oh well," Trinity sighed then smiled. Though she had become accustomed to Sam, as she was exactly like Hannah in almost every way, she was hoping that her friend would randomly wake up and have her memories in tact. As she was off wandering around in daydream land, someone had slipped a small box into her hand.
She blinked. "What's this?" She held the small, wrapped box up so she could get a better look at it. It was only as big as the palm of her hand and covered in newspaper as apposed to Christmas wrapping paper. There was a tiny, makeshift paper bow on the top of it with her name scrawled neatly over the top.
Quatre, who had handed it to her, smiled at her and handed Samantha a considerably larger package. "You're going to have to forgive us. It was the best that we could do for gifts given the circumstances." There were random remarks about how they shouldn't have and how they weren't able to get the guys anything at all from the two females, but Quatre just held up his hand to silence them. After that the two girls readily ripped open their packages.
"AHHHHHH!" Samantha began jumping up and down with excitement. "I've always wanted one of these!" She banished a very shiny, box-like object and shoved it in Trinity's face. "Looky, looky!"
Trinity poked her confused face around the square to look at Sam. "It's very shiny...but...what the hell is it?"
Samantha's mouth dropped open, and she gave Trinity the stare she usually reserved for Duo when he said things like 'It's very hot in here' or 'I think your toast is burnt' and other obvious, general knowledge statements. "It's a PASTA MAKER, dolt."
"Pasta?" Trinity asked, her face instantly lighting up.
"Yes, dear. Pasta. We DO know what pasta is, don't we? Say yes, or suffer the consequences."
"Yes."
"Thank the caffeine gods, I thought I was going to have to get after you with the cheese grater," Trinity winced at the thought,"but what did you get?"
Trinity lifted up a silver necklace chain with three tiny, sparkly balls hanging from it. "I got something shiny as well, see?" The two stared mutely at the godly shininess that was their's for a couple of dense moments before Duo brought them back to reality.
"It was my idea, see," he poked the three round charms on the chain in turn, "One, two, three."
"Wow. It can count."
"I was going for 'wow, it can speak', myself."
"Excellent point. I've never seen a ball of hair that could do either of those."
Duo disregarded the both of them as he continued, "It goes with your name."
"My name? My name is not Shiny Balls," the brunette informed dimly.
"Thank god for that," Samantha quipped as she petted her pasta maker; no one was going to get close to her new best friend. She clutched it like a mother hangs onto their young and rocked it back and forth a few times.
Duo sighed. "No. Three. Like 'Trinity', which means of three parts." He just shook his head at them, his braid swishing side to side. He had never had to explain anything to either of them before like that; they were obviously very tired.
"Oh!" Trinity's eyes lit up with recognition as she clipped the necklace around her neck. "I never even realized that." She played with the charms a bit before she let out a very long yawn. "Thanks for the necklace, ya'll." Sam nodded her thanks, not wanting to take her eyes off her new prize. The blonde had caught Trinity's yawn and she let out one of her own.
Trowa glanced at the clock on the wall and motioned them all towards a room across the large hanger. "It's late. It would be best if we all got a good nights sleep for once," he hinted as he himself began walking towards the doorway.
"Where do we sleep?" Samantha inquired of Quatre as she placed the pasta maker under her arm and held it safe with the death grip.
Quatre reddened a bit. "Well, actually. This base only has one bedroom, so we're all going to have to stay in there." Looks of horror washed over the girls' faces, so he added quickly,"Don't worry! There are enough beds for everyone. We only have to share a room, not a bed."
The horror lessened a bit, but then Trinity's figured out something. "The same room. With Wufei?"
Samantha's upper lip curled a bit as she thought of the idea. "We're going to have to do something about this." She handed the pasta maker over to Quatre, so that he could take care of it for the time being. She looked at Trinity, who returned the glance, and the two nodded.
"The garland?"
"Yep. My thoughts exactly."
"What color?"
"Let's go with green."
"Sounds good to me."
The two lunged in sync at the Chinese pilot, and it was only a matter of time before they had him wrapped up completely in the garland from the Christmas tree. Wufei squirmed angrily on the floor as Sam and Trinity yanked him towards the doorway; he was evidently screaming, but they had taken the precaution to stuff some tinsel in his mouth and cover it with duct tape so that he wouldn't keep them awake with his complaining.
"You're looking in the holiday spirit, Wufei," Duo chided as the two pulled the black haired pilot through the door and over to the side of an empty bed.
"There. Now he can't do anything to us in our sleep."
"Should we lift him up on the bed?"
"I think he's too heavy actually."
"I agree. Let's just leave 'im there."
"Sounds like a plan to me."
"Merry Christmas, Wufei," Trinity quipped as she and Sam went off to get ready for bed.
Sam smirked evilly. "Make sure you're a good boy, or Santa wont come and give you anything." The sparkling form on the ground growled angrily and squirmed around like an enraged caterpillar for a bit before giving in to his sad fate.
***
Trinity woke up around noon the next day and sat up wondering where in the hell she was. When her brain finally began moving (though slow as it did, given the early hour), she figured out her location and looked over to the beds next to her. Empty
'Where was everyone?' She thought as she slipped out of the bed and walked out of the bedroom and into the hanger. Her nose immediately took control of her body and she floated on her sock covered feet towards her right where she found Sam bent over a large, boiling pot of water.
"What'cha makin'?" The brunette asked as a yawn escaped her.
"I, the goddess of the pasta maker, am making spaghetti," Samantha responded as she handed Trinity a noodle. "Test."
Trinity slurped up the long snack and nodded that they were done. "That's really good. Where are the guys?"
"Of course it's good. They're off in one of the side rooms debating about something." Samantha placed the pot in the middle of a round table. "You're still tired aren't you?"
"How can you tell?"
"Your sentences don't make sense together yet," she informed as she divided the noodles onto two plates. "Though, that usually doesn't happen until around three in the afternoon, does it?"
"Noph," Trinity responded through a mouthful of noodles. She eyed the door the guys were behind and figured that if they weren't coming out for supper that they probably didn't want to be interrupted.
In fact, they did not even emerge after lunch was over, or even around the time the two had pudding for a snack. They wondered how long they could go without eating and decided that they must have a fridge in there since Duo probably couldn't go more than a few hours without something to munch on (but then again, who can't?). Trinity, around the time supper rolled around, deduced that they had to also have a bathroom connected to the room, otherwise things would get very messy.
"Unless of course, they have a bigger bladder than you. Which wouldn't be saying much," the brunette snickered as she poked a lasagna noodle that Samantha had just made.
"Don't bring my bladder into this. It's never done anything to you."
The sworded one was about to retort when the door finally opened, and Quatre came out first, then followed by the others. The five looked at the two standing in the kitchen silently for a few seconds before Trinity held up a gigantic, wavy noodle. "Noodle? We've been playing with the pasta maker all day. You wouldn't believe the shapes we came up with. We made one that looked remotely like Wufei, but then we de-limbed it and Sam bit off its head."
"You should feel honored to have made it into my pasta maker," Sam informed pilot 05 with a sadistic grin which just screamed 'let me stick you in a pot and boil you to see if you get squishy'. (Are noodles really 'squishy'? I can't think of a better adjective...they're not really 'squishy' though...it's more of a soft-chewyness...)
"It's time that we head back," Quatre informed the two girls, who looked at the clock in shock.
"Already?" Trinity asked. "It doesn't feel as if we've even been here for an hour...well, besides the fact that we slept here and all, but beyond that..."
"Do you two have everything together?" Quatre asked them; he didn't seem to be his usual smiling self. In fact, his voice was rather muted and his blue eyes glanced nervously at the two girls.
"Yeah. As far as I know," Sam told him. The brunette nodded that her stuff was ready was well. "We can leave whenever you guys want."
"We should get going then. Heero has called Tina, and there was no answer. That's the signal that we're okay to return," he explained to Samantha as he started walking towards the doorway. "You two are coming with me, and the others are following a bit later to make sure that no one is following us. They'll carry all of your belongings with them."
"He's really serious about this," Trinity whispered into Samantha's ear as they started up the steps, leaving the other four guys behind them. "Do you think something happened?"
Her friend just shrugged to show that she didn't have a clue what the guys had been discussing all day long. The duo became silent as they caught up with Quatre and the trio continued on the way home, through the rough neighborhoods, to the alleyways of the ritzier houses. They eventually hit what seemed to be semi-familiar surroundings. This was when Quatre looked across the street to see a form walking down away from them.
'It's him!' He thought, his heart beat racing. He was almost positive that it was the same guy that had been waiting out in the car the day before, and the day before that. The man didn't turn to look at them, but rather continued down the opposite side of the street at a leisurely pace.
"You two go on ahead. I think I dropped something back a couple blocks," he looked down the street and could see Tina's house just a few more down. "Don't stop for anything and get into the house, okay?"
"Uh, alright," Trinity said as she and Sam took off in front of him, eyebrows raised.
"I didn't think he was carrying anything," Sam declared to her friend as the two neared Tina's house. Two more houses. One more house.
Trinity just shrugged and said, "Maybe he wanted to go look at one of those fancy mailboxes we passed on the way here."
"Mailboxes?"
"Don't ask." They had made it to Tina's house and were now standing just at the end of the sidewalk. "The lights are out."
"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Sam mumbled as they headed up the sidewalk and towards the door. " It IS one o'clock in the morning."
***
Quatre raced after the man as quietly as he possibly could, but his feet were making crunching noises on the gravel in the alleyway. "What's this guy doing around here anyway?" Quatre asked himself as he scrambled through the darkness after the stranger.
The man turned the next corner; the blonde followed. The two raced around the neighborhood playing a silent game of tag until the man turned onto the main street. Quatre, not wanting to be seen in the street lights beams, turned onto the open street after giving the man a few seconds head start, but when pilot 04 turned the corner, the man was no where to be seen.
"He couldn't have just disappeared," Quatre said to himself as he looked around worriedly. Then it hit him and his blue eyes widened with fear.
"The girls."
***
"The doors unlocked."
"Yes, yes, YES, Captain Obvious. How else did you expect that she would let us get in? Do you have a key? Neither do I." Samantha pointed out as she flung open the door. She skipped through the threshold, followed immediately by Trinity, and the two stood on the rug for only 0.43 seconds before they both asked each other with their noses cringed:
"What in the world is that smell?"
"It almost smells like Duo's old socks. Only worse," Trinity gasped for clean air as she looked around.
Samantha's head had started to pound. "It's more pungent than YOUR feet. And that's saying something." She walked to the middle of the room when another wave of the odor caught her. "It's almost like...like..." Her eyes became glazed over as she stared straight ahead.
It was then that her vision was blurred by a blinding white flash and a deafening bang filled her ears.