Chapter 3: Travel

"Aiden."

The young man in question turned to the soft voice, and found himself looking into a younger, thinner, brown-eyed version of himself. "Yes Yamashi?" They were just about to leave, and Aiden was getting the younger boy's bags to take down.

Yamashi fidgeted, uncertain, but finally asked. "Is Relena-sama really in love with you, like Duo-san said?"

Aiden sat on the side of his brother's bed and looked at his hands a moment. "As far as I know, it was a silly little crush. We were really young, and she didn't seem to show much prudence about it. But then she started doing things on her own. She grew up and stopped following strangers like me around. I doubt she really can think of it with anything but embarrassment now," he grinned and Yamashi's expression lightened. Aiden ruffled the boy's messy dark hair and grabbed his bags. "Come on, let's go and I'll try to get you in to meet her sometime."

"Really?!" Yamashi's eyes brightened again.

"Yeah," Aiden chuckled. He watched the boy bound downstairs to tell their mother. He loved his family, and anyone who dared touch one of them would have hell to pay.

Outside, Duo waved him over. "This one's good, Heero." Duo picked up a simple gun from the small armory they had in the illegally tinted van. He and Aiden sat in the very back where the weapons were as Aiden's family watched them nervously every now and then from where they were riding in the front.

"Don't touch that, Kia," Aiden warned as he saw his little sister eyeing his handgun. She shot a brown glance his way, then turned back to her Pretty Pink Gundams. Looking at Duo, he replied, "I'd have to try it, but I think I think this one is better," he picked up a slightly longer and more slender model. "Besides, I tried to shoot your gun once and it sucked."

"Hey! I'm a great shot! You know I could hit a fly on a black wall!"

"That's because you're used to bad weapons."

"But Heero . . ." Duo protested, and Aiden snorted. "Are you laughing?"

"And don't even get me started on your choice in explosives."

"All right, all right, forget it." He waved his hand as if to dispel the conversation.

"Kia!" Aiden suddenly shot forward, across Duo, and grabbed his sister's arm as she hastily dropped the pistol she had picked up to examine. Shaking her so that her teeth rattled, he raged, "Don't you ever do that again, you hear me?" The little girl's sweet brown eyes widened in fear, tearing up at the rough treatment from her beloved brother, and Aiden's harshness melted slightly. Kissing her forehead swiftly, he softened his hold and gazed earnestly into her eyes. "You just scared me," he murmured, and she nodded, drops falling down cheeks still slightly chubby from baby fat.

Better hurt than killed, he thought as he sat back, shaken, and made Duo help him pack up the weaponry.

His mother let Kia move up to sit with her father, then turned to the boys just behind her. "You might have been a little kinder," she murmured, and Aiden looked up.

"No mom," he whispered back, his voice slightly hoarse. "I've seen too many dead children already in my life . . . if something happened to Kia . . ." He left the statement hanging and ducked his head to his work. The woman gazed at him another moment before nodding and turning back to the front. You're a good boy, she thought. A very good boy.