Disclaimer- I think I'd have more than twenty dollars to my name if I owned Gundam Wing

A Maxwell Family Reunion

By: Alicia Maxwell Winner

"You seem nervous Licia," Duo noted.  "You okay?"

"Duo you've seen the chaos that unfolds at these things."

"Oh come on.  Just because the last two reunions were utter chaos doesn't mean this one will be."

"I hope you're right," I bit my lip.

"Of course the last two reunions we didn't bring Hildie Quatre and the others so this one might be even more disastrous."

"Gee! So nice of you to ease my nerves bro!" I yelled sarcastically.

"Don't mention it.  Wake me when we get there," Duo reclined his seat.

Family reunion- those two words put more fear in me than any others and with good reason too.  My father was a scientist who lived as a shut-in to maximize his working time.  My mother was a martial artist who raised us with her belief in Darwinism- the strong live; the weak die.  Then there were my cousins my uncle and my aunt.  My aunt had a knack for making things explode and my cousins… well….  Akira, my oldest cousin, was pretty normal other than his short attention span and extremely hyper attitude.  Angelina was a rude fashion-obsessed drama queen and Sarah was strong and smart but she and I had been on bad terms since she fell in love with that weird guy who I forget the name of.  The man thought he was an elf!  How could you fall in love with a man who was one hundred percent sure that he was an elf?!  And all these people would be gathered together at dinner that night….  I understood the phrase "God help me" on a whole new level at that moment.

"Hey Alicia are we almost there?" Trowa asked.

"A few more miles.  Are you ready for tonight?"

"I don't think anyone can ever truly be ready for a Maxwell family reunion," he replied.

"Kami help us," I chuckled weakly.

"Alicia- we're Irish Catholics.  I believe you mean to say 'God help us'."

"No. The last thing we need is to drag our parents' god into this.  We're much better off dragging someone else's god into it.  So 'Kami help us' stays."

"Whatever you say."

"Now all we've gotta do is get fate to agree with you and we're all set for tonight."

"Hey Alicia I think you should pull over.  You're starting to talk crazy and the last thing we need is you and your rattled nerves driving down the interstate."

"Exactly what I was thinking," I pulled up and switched seats with Trowa.  Oh well so Trowa's license was revoked two weeks ago for that stunt he pulled with the Honda… it was still better than me being behind the wheel at the moment.  Besides, just by looking at him you couldn't tell he'd just run a totaled car into a ditch in flames a few weeks back right? 

"You going to keep your mouth shut about elf boy at dinner?" Trowa asked as we started off again.

"Only if Sarah keeps her mouth shut about Quatre."

"Playing the dozens with your own flesh and blood isn't such a good idea."

"You only play the dozens when you insult family and that insane idiot isn't a part of her family."

"He may be someday," Trowa reminded me.

"I'll slit his throat before he can be."

"I just hope you remember that this is a family togetherness thing tonight not some gore fest."

"It won't be if he isn't there," I replied.

"Well there is here," Trowa said pulling into the driveway.

"Here already?" I asked peering out the window.

Same stupid run-down white duplex with colonial blue shudders, the same Christmas lights in the widows though it was already mid-March- yep, this was home.  487 Red Rock Drive.  Maybe I would've loathed it more if I had actually grown up in this place.

Uncle Mark was sitting out on the porch.  I thanked my lucky stars that it was the sane one out there.  If it had been anyone else sitting out there I would've taken off down the road.  But I didn't.  I got out of the car and went up to the porch… well, after giving Duo a painful smack of a wakeup call.

"Ohayo kids," Uncle Mark waved.  "How you been?"

"Alright," I replied flopping down on the front steps, "and you?"

"Fine.  I can't believe you guys actually showed up."

"Why not?" Trowa asked.

"'Why not'?  Don't play innocent when you're clearly not.  You know what I mean.  Last time you three showed up you ended up in the ER."

"Not my fault mom's cooking is bad and Aunt Jess accidentally filled the turkey with plastic explosives," I laughed weakly.  Remembering that night in the ER made my stomach hurt.

"Ah but it was your fault that Sarah went trigger-happy," Uncle Mark replied.

I took a look at him.  How did he do it?  He raised a hyperactive boy with a short attention span, a drama queen, and a trigger-happy nerd with plenty of muscle not to mention he raised them all with a wife who made things explode left and right.  How did he stay sane?

"How was I supposed to know she'd throw a grenade when I called that idiot boyfriend of hers 'elf boy'?" I finally replied.

"Well I just recommend you don't do it again," he stood up.  "By the way, this time we're having takeout," he smiled.

"Thank Shinigami!  I don't think I could stand another home-cooked meal!" Duo said.  Now where had he come from?  Two seconds previous he was still in the car.

"You didn't really bring the whole gang did you?" Uncle Mark asked.  I had told my mother we were bringing everyone with us.  Ten of us.  No one thought I had been serious about that.

"Of course we did," I grinned.  Uncle Mark grimaced and went inside.

"Tomoe!  Your kids are here!" he announced.

Tomoe- my mad scientist of a father- had been given a strange name by our grandparents.  Probably because they knew he'd be just as insane as they were. 

Now, before I continue, I believe I should explain my family.  First there were the Maxwells- my grandparents on my father's side- and the Aligises- my mother's parents.  Now the Maxwells had two boys- my father Tomoe and my Uncle Mark.  The Aligises had two girls- my mother Angela and my Aunt Jess.  My father married my mother and they had three kids- Duo, Trowa, and myself.  Uncle Mark was then married to my Aunt Jess though I don't think it was their idea.  Anyway, whether they wanted to get hitched or not, Mark and Jess got married and they had three kids- Angelina, Akira, and Sarah.  And that is my family history up until that point.

"Hey Sarah Akira Angelina!  Your cousins are here!"

"Oh no…" I groaned.  Why did he have to tell them that we were there?  Why?

"Hey Alicia!" Akira came running out the front door and hugged me.  Okay so we were close, did he really have to squeeze the living daylights out of me?

"Oi Akira, mind giving me a lil slack?  I can't breathe," I said.  He let go.

"Hey Trowa!  You came too!  After last year I thought you'd sworn off these reunions for good!  And Duo!  Jeez we never thought you'd come back!"

"Hello guys," Angelina appeared in the doorway and looked us all over.  "Still wearing black huh Duo?  Well let me tell you black is so last year.  Besides it makes you look fat.  Trowa… hey tell me something, do jeans get any tighter than that?  And Alicia… Alicia how many times do I have to tell you?  You do not look good in purple.  And where did you get those pants?  The garbage?"

"So what if they're a little torn," I said.

"That," she scoffed pointing to the gap at the knee, "is much more than a little torn."

"Trowa please remind me why the hell we showed up when we all knew we'd just be talked down to?" I whispered.

"Because that- like it or not-," he pointed to Akira and Angelina, "is our family."

"Is that Quatre?" Akira pointed back toward the car where the others were finally starting to realize we had reached the house.

"No that's Heero.  That's Quatre," I pointed out the blonde.

"So that's Quatre.  Fifty bucks says your parents know he's a Winner and murder him by dinner time."

"Is it really that obvious that he's one of them?" I asked nervously.

"Oh yes," Akira replied.  "And if I can tell he's a Winner from this distance, you better hope your parents just suddenly went deaf blind and dumb and they can't smell anymore."

My parents… anti-Winners through and through.  They told me some story about Mister Winner.  They said he refused to give them the slightest bit of aid when our shuttle crashed in L4 when Trowa Duo and I were little more than tots.  His reason according to them- they were fighters, the scum of the earth, and they deserved death.  Well, regardless of whether the story has even the slightest bit of truth to it or not, my parents were more anti-Winner than humanly possible and I was about to be in deep trouble.

"What should I do?" I bit my lip.

"What else can you do?  Hope to God they don't notice."

"If they don't I'll tell them."

"You wouldn't!" I yelled at the unseen person.

"Oh yes I would," Sarah jumped down from the porch roof and readjusted her glasses.

"Yes you would if you and elf boy want to both die slow painful deaths in the hands of my gundam.  I'll squeeze you to death if you tell them you little witch!"

"You wouldn't dare," Sarah smirked.

"Hold up Alicia!" Trowa held me back.  "Don't!  It's not right to have blood shed this early in the reunion!"

"Oh come on Tro.  We all know, if by some miracle, Alicia had the guts to try and strike me she still won't be able to," Sarah attempted to provoke me.  Let me tell you- it worked.

"No!  Alicia!" Duo latched onto me as well.  Together Trowa and Duo mustered up enough power to pull me back a few feet.

"Damn you Sarah!  I'll kill you!" I shouted.

"Alicia don't!  Think!  Murder one- DEATH PENALTY!" Trowa tried to reason with me.

"Then I'll just make it look like an accident," I told him.

"Stupid!" he replies.

"Can't I at least smack her?" I begged.

"Yeah sure just don't hit her too hard," Trowa shrugged.

"She's… gone…" I blinked.

"Oi Alicia-chan!  So good to see you again," a familiar voice said.

"Oi Oba Jess… you aren't still cooking are you?" I asked nervously.

"No, no…" she laughed.  "Not after last year."

I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hey Alicia aren't you going to introduce me to your family?" Quatre tapped my shoulder.

"Oh sure… that's Akira-chan my lil cousin… that's Angelina my youngest cousin… and that's Aunt Jess.  Everyone, meet Quatre," I said.

"He's a Winner isn't he?" Aunt Jess immediately asked.

"Uh well…. Yeah…." I blushed.  I was hoping Akira picking him out was just a fluke.

"Your parents aren't going to be very happy with this Alicia-chan…."

"I know, I know but… me and Q-chan have something special," I replied sheepishly.

"Well Quatre-san it's nice to meet you and it's been nice knowing you.  Do you happen to have a death wish?"

"Huh?" Quatre blinked.

"Quatre…" I pulled him aside.  "I'm not too sure bringing you here was a good idea.  At the rate this is going, you won't get through dinner alive.  Why don't you Yuy and Chang take the car and take Sally and Relena to a restaurant?  I don't think you'll be safe here."

"Nonsense.  How much trouble could there possibly be?"

The three of us walked into the dining room before the others.  Mother was waiting at the table.  She didn't say a word.  She just got up walked over and studied each of us one by one.

"Duo, son, you look like you've lost a lot of weight… you aren't starving yourself now are you?" she asked as she examined Duo.

"No mom of course not," Duo replied.

Mother nodded and moved on to examine Trowa.

"You don't look like you've changed a single bit.  Well, except for the wedding band.  Why the hell wasn't I informed that my son got hitched to some knife-throwing circus chick?" she asked angrily.  I noted that mother had just had one of those random moments of hers in which she gains a cowgirl accent like Aunt Jess'.  "Well evolution kept you alive for a purpose son- that's to create a next generation.  Hope the girl wants children."

I guess I should have mentioned this before but my mother is not only a firm believer in Darwinism but she also believes we were only put on earth to eat drink sleep breathe and breed.  She's a lot like the parents in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which pretty much explains what happened next.

Mother moved on to study me.  She looked me over and seemed confused.

"Nani?"

"Still not carrying children?  You know you won't be able to have children forever."

"Mother!  I'm only twenty years old!  I have plenty of time!" I reasoned.

"Not when you're so angry all the time," she said.

I growled and smacked Duo over the head.

"Ow what was that for!?"

"Give me a break!  You want me to hit my own mother?" I replied sharply.

"Calm down Alicia," Trowa insisted.  "We still haven't seen Dad yet."

That's when dad came in using his typical entrance- the wall.

"Another one of his inventions went berserk on him," I noted as dad flew around the room on some out-of-control machine.

"Oi Tomoe here's the replacement turn-dial you told me to bring!  Tomoe!" Uncle Mark chased my father around the room.

Finally dad's machine was grounded and he, rather shakily, stepped over to us.  He stood silent for a moment then put a hand on my shoulder.

"You're a good girl for putting up with us for so long," he whispered.

You see, my dad may have been equally, if not more so psychotic, than my mother but he realized quite well that he was a psycho and that it was not easy for the three of us to put up with them.  It was good to know that at least he was on his first step to curing his insanity.

By now all the others had arrived in the dining room, even Sarah who kept her distance from me.  We sat down and mother laid out dinner.

"Mmm… Boston Market!  Real non-explosive food at my parents' house!  I don't believe it!" I thought to myself.

"Oh drinks!" Aunt Jess jumped up from the table.  "What's everyone want to drink?"

To shorten the next few events of the night, I'll be brief.  The "drinks" Aunt Jess served Akira and Uncle Mark were nitroglycerine.  So dad had to run downstairs to his lab and find something that would neutralize the nitro before we were all blown sky high.  He found the solution and brought it upstairs.  Akira and Uncle Mark drank it down and we were all safe again, for a while….

Michael, my Cousin Sarah's elf boy, was quick to become the subject of our discussion.  That's when Heero mentioned something that I had said about the elf boy and Heero quickly discovered he wasn't the fastest shooter in the world.

"Dammit Sarah!  That could've hit me!" I yelled staring at the bullet hole through the back of the chair I'd been sitting in.  I moved to sit down again and I noticed my mother watching Quatre.  It made me nervous.

"So that's Quatre?" she asked.

"Y-yes," I replied.

"Alicia what the hell where you thinking when you married him?  He's nothing more than one of those worthless spawn of that bastard Winner," her gaze shifted to me.

"Mother!"

"What?  Isn't he one of them?  Isn't he a Winner?  The son of that man who told us to go off and die when we got stranded in L4?"

"Nani?" Heero perked up.  For some reason he had developed an interest in dark family secrets.  Probably because he'd heard they were sometimes worth cash and Heero was flat broke.

"You heard me right.  That bastard Winner told me to 'go to hell where fighters like you belong' when I asked him for some financial help after our shuttle crashed in L4 eighteen years ago," she said.  "I suppose the bastard got what he deserved though.  Right Alicia?  You saw the whole thing first hand… they shot him right out of space."

"How dare you talk about Quatre's father like that!  I don't care if every single word of your story is true!  You don't have the right to talk about him!  He may have treated us poorly but I'm damn sure he did some good for someone somewhere!  Come on Quatre, let's get out of here," I got up and walked over to where Quatre was sitting.  I grabbed his arm and dragged him along, out to the front porch.

"Alicia, are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah I'm fine.  Why?"

"Because I've never heard you defend my father with such fervor.  Heck, I don't think I've ever heard you defend him at all."

"She had no right."

"It's okay Alicia.  I realize my dad made some bad mistakes.  Let's go back inside."

"No.  I'm not going back just to hear that woman slander your father."

"That woman's your mother Alicia.  And, while what she says does hurt me, she's a part of your family and, since you've accepted my family, I think the least I could do is except yours."

"Oh Quatre…."

"Come on… let's go back inside now," he insisted.

"All right," I nodded.  The two of us went in and spent the rest of the night there as planned.  Some more crazy things happened involving explosives, guns, and technology but I'm glad we stayed.  Because it's like Trowa told me, "Like it or not, that's our family."

It was around midnight went we finally left.  Before we all piled into the car, we played Rock Paper Scissors to decide who would drive.  Quatre lost and I promised to stay awake and keep him company as we drove home.  After that, we started packing the ten of us into the van.1

"Oh Heero?" Quatre tapped him on the shoulder.

"What is it?" Heero turned around.

"I'd like you to keep that story you heard tonight under raps okay?" Quatre handed him a few hundreds.

"What story?" Heero laughed, stuffing the money into his pocket of his jeans.  Then Heero got into the van and closed the door behind him.

"Why'd you pay him?  Nobody other than us would believe that story anyhow," I told him.

"I know but Heero's starving to death and he doesn't except charity so I figured I'd let him think he has one up on me," Quatre replied.

"Good idea," I chuckled.  The two of us got into the van as well.

And so that was our Saint Patrick's Day.  Guess the "luck of the Irish" really does exist because that night really wasn't so bad.  Not to mention Quatre wasn't killed.

From the bottom of my heart to all of you out there- Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

THE END



1 Since when does a van seat ten?  I really don't know.