Warning: this particular chapter has a teensy-tiny limish part somewhere in the middle. Don't worry, it's all rather mild, and you'll see it coming from a mile away. If it bugs you, please feel free to skip those couple of paragraphs... the plot won't be seriously affected.
Chapter 5: What About My New Skates?!!With the diaper crisis now resolved, and little Victoria Merquise convinced that he was indeed an alien visiting from some faraway planet, Milliardo Peacecraft heaved a sigh of relief. He certainly wasn't feeling anywhere near proud of himself, for having so blatantly lied to a child, making her the unwitting accomplice to his dubious set of circumstances. However, he had managed to buy himself enough time to justify his presence within the Merquise family, at least until the Powers that Be decided to return him to his rightful reality. Which, if his hunch was correct, could be any time now...
He had, after all, learned a good deal of things... What else could the glimpse possibly show him?
As he was thus stuffing his face with pancakes, Noin entered the kitchen,
fully dressed, as though ready to go out. Taking a look at her husband and
kids, still very much un-showered and in their pajamas, she rolled her eyes, and
proceeded to flop down on one of the chairs.
"Aw, man... Zechs, are we gonna be able to get going some time today?"
she asked expectantly.
"Go where?" he managed to mumble, caught by surprise in between a
particularly large mouthful. Victoria quickly came to the rescue, slapping
her forehead quite theatrically.
"Holy cow! We totally forgot about the Boxing Day sale thingy! Right,
dad?"
"Oh, yeah!" he nodded, making quick work of the rest of his plate, and
heading for the dishwasher to clean up after himself.
****
Boxing Day sale? He couldn't help a shudder at the thought. The crowds, the pushing and shoving, the lineups at the checkouts, all just to get a good deal on something that didn't quite sell before Christmas... As he rushed in and out of the shower, and hastily threw some clothes back on, he simply could not believe that fate would be so ironically sadistic to him. As if the whole diaper-changing business hadn't been enough trauma for one day...
By the time he rushed down the stairs, Noin already had the kids dressed and
ready to go.
"Catch," she called playfully as she tossed him the keys to the SUV.
Just then did it occur to him that he hadn't the slightest clue where the mall
was.
"Mom, can we take Buggles instead?" Vicki pleaded, once again
anticipating the situation, "It's easier to park.... Betcha the mall will
be a zoo today..." Damn, that kid was smart... Milliardo watched
Lucrezia shrug and grab the keys to the Beetle then, without a second thought,
head for the driver's seat.
"She never lets anyone drive her Bug," Vicki whispered in his ear,
"Not even dad..."
***
He had always had a hunch that Noin didn't have much patience for shopping, even as a teenager. But watching her make her way amidst the crowd now was downright scary. There she was, braving the department store mob, expertly steering the stroller left and right, wiggling herself into every little passageway that the dizzying crowd opened. He tried not to lose sight of her as she made quick work of getting from A to B with methodic, almost Mobile Doll-like determination. He, for his part, kept lagging behind, muttering sheepish excuses left, right and centre, as he stepped on countless toes in the effort to keep up. He had no idea just how many people were living on Mars now, but he was pretty certain that they must all be squeezed into the mall right that moment...
Seeing as how she kept losing him, Noin finally grabbed his hand, as though
he too had been one of her children. Finding a relatively quiet corner to
sneak into, she proceeded to again pin her eyes on him, that familiar worried
expression clouding their otherwise remarkably clear sapphire hue.
"Zechs, is everything alright? You look like a deer caught in the
headlights..."
"I'm fine. It's just..." he began, trying to think of something that would
distract her from his weird behaviour, "Do we really have to be here?
I mean, look at this place, it's insane..."
"I know," she sighed sympathetically as she affectionately brushed
some stray locks out of his hair, "I promise, we'll just get Vicki's new
skates, and then get the heck out. Forget about the rice cooker... It's almost
worth paying full price next week."
"Alright," he swallowed hard, "Where do we need to
go?" He felt his courage quickly dissolve as she proceeded to point
to the jam-packed escalator.
"Fifth floor up," she specified, "kids' department."
She must have seen the colour drain from his cheeks, because she soon had another
idea.
"Tell you what... You take this escalator down to the men's
department... It's usually pretty safe, in there. Go to the expensive
suits section or something... Won't find too many people there. I'll go up
with the kids, get the skates, then I'll come find you. Sounds good?"
"Want me to look after Ben?" he offered, unsure as to how to repay her
for letting him bail out.
"Nah... you go ahead. If it's not too crazy, up there, I might get
him some new OshKosh..." With that, she gave him a quick peck on the
cheek and, before he knew it, she was again expertly wiggling her way through
the crowd towards the escalator.
***
Noin had been right, he observed as he leisurely strolled into the
almost-deserted designer suits section of the otherwise ant- farm-busy
department store. He began to casually walk around the displays, feeling
the fabrics and making assessments on their quality. He came to a stop
right before a mannequin that was sporting a very distinguished-looking charcoal
suit.
"Armani..." he nodded appreciatively, seeing the price tag dangle from
one of the buttons, "I didn't know you could get that on Mars..."
"Would you care to try it on in your size?" a female voice startled
him out of his musings. He turned around to see a rather attractive,
elegantly dressed twenty-something smiling back at him. In one split
second, he decided that, since Noin was probably going to be a while, he may as
well keep himself entertained until then.
"I'd love to," he replied with an equally charming smile, and
proceeded to give the sales associate his measurements.
He truly felt like a new man as he came out of the dressing room. More to the point, he felt like his old self again. Confident, successful, charismatic Milliardo Peacecraft, looking and dressing the part for his responsibilities of diplomat... Yes, he definitely felt like a better man already, just by ditching the jeans and casual sweater...
"Oh-my-GOD!" he heard the young sales associate squeal in delight, "Sir, that suit was made for you! It's... it's... quite simply perfect," she remarked as she stepped closer and gave each sleeve a gentle tug. He felt his lips open up in an involuntary grin to mirror hers. Yes, he definitely felt a lot better now than he did at the start of the day...
"I don't think there's a single thing that needs adjusting," she cheerfully noted as she knelt to straighten out the pant cuffs, "It's as if Giorgio had designed this with you in mind..." Never mind that Giorgio Armani had been dead since the 21st Century AD... Was this girl for real, or was she just blatantly flirting with him? He found the thought quite amusing...
He received confirmation to his suspicions as she proceeded to rather
suggestively run her hands down his thighs, with the excuse of smoothing out
some wrinkles.
"Stephanie, right?" he read off her name tag, "How long have you
been on Mars for? You don't strike me as a colonist..." Just as the girl
jumped to her feet and proceeded to recount the history of her life, he felt a
most unexpected pang in the well of his stomach. Almost of... guilt?
"Come on, Milliardo, you know damn well you're not really married to Noin..."
he reminded himself as he squashed down that most unsettling gut feeling.
Strangely, tough, rather than receiving comfort from it, as he could quite
freely go ahead and flirt back, something in the back of his mind kept teasing
and poking at him,
"What makes you think she'd want to be married to you anyway? You're clearly
not the same man she fell in love with at the Academy..."
***
He was quite amiably chatting with Stephanie about the less touristy spots in
Vienna, and she was very intent in adjusting the gazillionth tie on him when
Noin and the kids made their appearance.
"Wow... don't you look handsome," she greeted cheerfully, a grin of
utter pride all over her face as she proceeded to announce that she had managed
to not only get the skates, but also Ben's new overalls and... "Ta-daaaaa!
Rice cooker! Was on sale for 50% off... Now I don't have to rush here after
class next week!"
She then proceeded to recognize the young sales
attendant, who had purposely been ignoring her.
"Oh, hi, Steffi... Didn't realize it was you," she greeted politely,
"I heard you did really well in Flight Theory last semester..."
"Eeep... Noin-sensei?!" the girl yelped in surprise, almost wanting to
apologize for not having the slightest clue that she had been flirting with her
instructor's husband for the past half-hour.
"Ready to start piloting for real?" Noin encouraged, as Zechs
overlooked the scene in disbelief, feeling more than a little foolish.
"Oh, totally, Ma'am... I look forward to being in your class!"
Stephanie gushed, her eyes aglow with expectation, "No offence to my
employer, but I'd rather be flying Suits than selling them..."
Noin let out an amused chuckle at her student's pun, and once again Milliardo felt like the piece of the puzzle that didn't fit anywhere...
The ride home was quite silent and uneventful. Ben had promptly fallen asleep in the baby seat, and Vicki was quite taken with the snow that had started to fall. Noin appeared content to just be leaving the mall behind, never even aware that Milliardo had seriously considered buying the suit. Zechs Merquise, for one thing, seemed to have no need whatsoever for such elegance. For all Milliardo knew, his Preventer job was such that his family actually had use for Boxing Day sales and other such penny-pinching nonsense. To Noin, the proposition of sinking a couple of grands on a designer suit must surely sound absurd to say the least... Thus Milliardo began wondering how much longer he'd have to keep up his frustrating charade before being sent home to his life.
***
"I'm going to buy the suit," Milliardo announced out of the blue as
Noin began to get dinner ready. He wasn't quite sure what the point of
that statement was, other than pure shock value. Instead, to his utter
dismay, his wife simply replied with a rather anticlimactic,
"Will you pass me some ginger, please?"
He did so, more than slightly annoyed at not being taken seriously, and
insisted,
"Did you hear what I just said?"
"Yup," was the monosyllabic reply as Noin began to peel and mince the
root, together with some garlic and lemongrass.
"And? What do you think?" he prodded, hoping to stir al least
some reaction.
"I'm a bit surprised as to why now, after years of refusing to own one" she explained matter-of-factly,
"do we have a wedding to go to or something?"
"No," he countered in an almost patronizing tone, "but suppose I
want to take you out for a nice dinner... What would we wear, our
uniforms?"
"Usually, yeah," she replied absent-mindedly as she ducked to retrieve
more vegetables from the fridge, then corrected herself right away, "Well,
I have my black dress, and you'd normally go in your high uniform... Not that
there are a lot of fancy-schmancy places on Mars..."
"You mean the black dress you wore at the Maxwells' wedding, back in
198?" he inquired sarcastically.
"Yup," she confirmed, much to his surprise. Admittedly, it was a
fairly all-purpose evening dress, one of those classics that never went out of
style... but were their finances so tight that she hadn't bought herself
anything nice since then? Their cozy house and idyllic neighbourhood seemed to
tell a different story...
"What? You don't think I can still fit in it?" she
challenged, and Milliardo felt like he had just stirred up a real hornet's nest.
"That's not what I meant at all," he countered nervously, his mind
shouting, "Back up, back up, dig yourself out of it!"
"Fair enough... I'll be right back," she instructed, and thus disappeared out of the
kitchen, leaving Milliardo wondering just how badly in trouble he was...
She poked her head back inside, a mere five minutes later, hair pinned back by a delicate rhinestone headband, her lips sensuously red with lipstick. As she walked in, revealing that she was indeed wearing the infamous black dress, Milliardo wasn't quite sure if all of a sudden the suffocating heat was due to the wok that he was manning over the stove, or to the vision in front of him. Either way, she was certainly more worthy of his attention than the silly wok... True, it had been ages since he had seen her in it. In fact, it had been ages since he had seen her at all. But he hadn't quite remembered the dress to be clinging to all the rights spots the way it seemed to do just that very moment. Or the plunging backline, that only she could have pulled off with such grace... or the simple, almost demure cleavage, and the delicate teardrop-shaped pendent, that seemed to lead the eye just where he had previously resolved that his imagination should not venture.
He loosened up his collar as she approached, and noted the feline glint in her dark eyes. Oh, this was not good... Didn't she know he wasn't made of ice? Didn't she know every man had his breaking point, and that he had reached his that very morning with that peek at her in the shower?
Without so much as a single word, she had grabbed his arm, and
pulled him into the walk-in pantry. Closing the door behind them, she leaned on
it as if to prevent escape, her hands beginning to sneak under his shirt,
cool fingers tingly against his overexcited skin.
"See? It still fits just fine," she purred into his ear, her
breath on his neck sending a shiver up and down his spine.
"Ahem... yes, you... uh... make a very valid point," he debated,
trying to keep his cool by forcing his mind to concentrate on anything he could
see in there that wasn't her. Oatmeal, breakfast cereal, jars of baby food
(ewww, strained broccoli?!), canned tomatoes...
"But don't you ever get tired of seeing me wearing uniforms all the
time?" he continued, once his normal breathing had resumed.
"Honestly?" she smiled, "Nope... I love it when you wear
your high uniform for me. It gets me all worked up..." She
uttered that last part as a barely audible whisper in his ear, following it up
with a soft bite to his ear lobe.
Oh, dear Lord, how was he supposed to keep himself off this woman now?
He closed his eyes and inhaled sharply, in hopes of regaining at least some
smidgen of control over himself. Instead, all he managed to take in was
the maddening, enticing scent of French vanilla from her hair. His
fingertips grazed at her bare back, all the way
to her shoulders, slowly pulling on the thin spaghetti straps. He heard
her gasp softly as he pushed himself closer, until the door was effectively
ensuring that every inch of her body was pressed against his.
"That's it, I'm a goner," was his last conscious thought before his
lips found their way onto hers.
***
He was well past holding himself responsible for his actions, his hands, eyes
and mouth more than a little busy making up for 10 years' worth of lost time. The dress, well out of the way, was now lying discarded on the
baby food shelf. His pants were about to follow suit very shortly, if she had
any say in it. And his shirt... well, he couldn't think of a single good
reason why it was still on, being as it was completely unbuttoned, and dangling
half-way off his shoulders.
"Zechs..." her voice came out sounding hoarse, almost breathless as he
explored her skin in the half-darkness. He did not hear her at first.
"Zechs," she called again, this time slightly more agitated. He looked
up at her face, eyes glazed over from the same confused feeling of waking up from
the strangest dream.
"The doorbell," she specified.
"What? Doorbell?" he repeated in a daze, just as she rushed to
slip her dress back on, then made to start buttoning up his shirt.
"The guys are here to pick you up. I totally forgot about the
game..." she muttered.
"Game? What game?" he inquired, by now resurfacing to reality.
"The hockey game," she explained as she dashed out of the walk-in
pantry and bolted for the stairs, "Remember? Preventer Hounds versus Hell's
Accountants... You guys are gonna whip some CGA butt tonight!"
"Hell's Accountants?!" he wondered out loud, picturing an amateur
team of pot-bellied, balding forty-somethings, "Oh, yeah... that's
right," he lied. Of course, he didn't know anything about this...
Hell, he, playing in a hockey team? He had only played a couple of times
that he remembered of, when he was a teenager, and he hadn't liked the game one
bit. Too rough, way too physical and irrational to somebody who was used
to fencing, martial arts, and chess, where it's all a matter of strategy...
Nevertheless, how bad could it be, if their adversaries were indeed a bunch of
accountants?
"Hold that thought," he called to her from below the stairs as he
tucked his shirt back into his pants, "I'm guessing this game won't
take too long..."
"Aw, don't say that," she scolded instead, reappearing from the top of the stairs in the clothes that she had been wearing before, "The past is past, and you guys got a hell of a lot better since the last couple of times they beat you."
What? Did he hear correctly? The Hell's Accountants actually had a history
of beating them? A bunch of number-crunching geeks, beating a team of physically
fit Preventers, several times over?
"They can be Canadian all they want," Noin continued as she sauntered
down the stairs, "but you guys have practiced hard, you've got your team work
in place... This time, you're gonna beat them, I know it."
With that, she swung the door open, and proceeded to greet a tall, dark-haired guy, whom she referred to as Adrian. Milliardo couldn't help but note how, for all intents and purposes, the young Preventer looked like he could have been the younger brother of one of his soldiers and friends from the war, a young man named Otto, who laid down his life for him. Lucrezia politely declined his offer to come cheer for them, on accounts of having to prepare a presentation for the college's board of trustees. Before he knew it, Milliardo was clutching his bag of smelly hockey gear, packed in a minivan full of other Preventer agents with equally smelly bags, all laughing and mocking the other team and singing rowdy songs as they sped towards the ice arena. Oh, he had a real bad feeling about this one...
***
By the end of the game, Milliardo could add another precious lesson to his list: hockey was painful. Of course, that may have something to do with the Hell's Accountants being tough little buggers... He figured that, during the course of the two periods, he had managed to get himself tripped, shoved, elbowed, whacked with the stick, hit by the puck, and body-checked at least once every three to five minutes. Not to mention that his long hair was beginning to be a real inconvenience. When dashing for the net, his ponytail seemed to be the first thing that adversaries grabbed on to in their efforts to stop him. He figured next time, if there ever was one, he'd have to tie it in a samurai-style bun and tuck it under the helmet or something... Overall, not a very pleasant experience, as his bleeding nose and split lip bore witness to.
At one point, he had been whacked hard enough to actually pass out briefly. He had woken up in a matter of seconds, finding himself lying on the ice, surrounded by his team, as a rather attractive young redhead flashed a penlight in his eyes and painfully clamped his nose to stop the bleeding. Before he could stand up on his own, the guys had carried him off to the infirmary, leaving him in the capable care of the woman, whom they referred to as Sophie. Despite being in pain, he had been rather relieved with the whole situation, as he at least had an excuse to bail out of the game. It was pretty clear to everyone that, on that particular game, he was the team's weakest link. Not that he had any reason to expect much better of himself, being as he was a complete hockey newbie, haphazardly thrown in the middle of a heated game between two semi-advanced arch-rival teams...
The much-needed break had come to an abrupt stop the moment Sophie began to say and do things to make him feel very uncomfortable, such as coming extremely close to medicate his bleeding lip. Or bending over in such a way that afforded him a spectacularly detailed view of her push-up bra underneath her button-down shirt. Or, even more disturbingly, feeling his arms, legs, and chest (no doubt to detect fractures, he had told himself at first), then casually offering to kiss it better whenever he indicated that a particular part of his body hurt. He was actually rather thankful that Adrian had showed up when he did, magically dispelling the awkwardness with his mere presence. Sophie, on the other hand, had seemed rather annoyed with the interruption. It wasn't long until she had deemed Milliardo all patched up and ready to hit the bench for the rest of the game, and rather politely kicked both men out of the infirmary.
Some time during the ride home, when all but the two of them had been dropped off,
Adrian finally made a very self-explanatory comment,
"Boy, Soph' was on you like a hawk tonight, buddy..."
"Yeah, tell me about it," Milliardo muttered uncomfortably,
"Thanks for the rescue, by the way..."
"Any time... You know, it's too bad, she's such a bright young woman, you'd figure she woulda
gotten the message a long time ago..." Adrian continued emphatically,
"I mean, come on, there's plenty of other unmarried fish in the
sea..."
So this was definitely a well-known issue, Milliardo noted.
Sophie had a history of blatantly hitting on Zechs Merquise...
"Adrian... How exactly do I know her?" he finally asked, wanting to
know whether their relationship had ever gone past her unrequited flirtations.
"I dunno, I can't remember which one was first, whether she started
teaching your daughter figure-skating, or whether she came onboard as the team's
paramedic..." Either way, Milliardo decided it all sounded rather
innocent, and heaved a sigh of relief. Surely, if there had been more going on, Adrian would
have known about it, and would have mentioned it at some point during their
conversation. The guy certainly acted as a close friend of sorts...
"Look, man, don't feel bad about it, I'm not even sure I still have a
crush on her," Adrian finally blurted out, as if on cue, "I mean,
yeah, it'd be nice if she looked at me that way too, but hey, that's life...
Otherwise, hell, half the original Terra team woulda hated your guts by
now..."
Milliardo cringed. What was he implying, that he had crossed the line with
Sophie at some point? Or rather, that fool Zechs Merquise had?
"What do you mean by that?" He prompted, no longer quite sure whether he
wanted to find out the answer.
"Nothing, man!" Adrian shrugged, "Just that you and Lu have been here
since the beginning. I mean, people don't forget that... We all
pretty much knew you two were an item, but still, I don't think there was a single
guy in Terraformer that wouldn't have given his left nut to be with Instructor
Noin, in your place. And I'm
not telling you this to make you jealous or anything, that's just the way things
were."
Why, as a matter of fact, Milliardo did feel rather jealous at that point! Wait... Zechs should have been jealous, not him...
"Then you go off and marry her, and we're all like, whoa, right on, man, good
for you..."
"But... what did I do, Adrian?" he prodded further, "What did I
do to blow it?"
"Nothing, and that's exactly the point! Hotties hit on you all the
time, and you brush them off like horse flies. Sophie pretty much drools
all over your pants, and you're like, sorry, man... gotta go home to my prettier,
sexier, more intelligent wife. I mean, how in the hell do you do
that, Merquise? You're a bona fide chick magnet, yet you act like it's a
curse or something... You gonna teach us poor
struggling buggers some time, so that we can start picking up what you keep
dissing?"
Unsure as to how exactly he was supposed to react, Milliardo stared back at Adrian, looking more than just a little puzzled. That was when Adrian decided to drop the act, and began to unabashedly laugh his head off, just as he pulled into the Merquises' driveway.
"Just kidding, man," the dark-haired fellow explained between gasps, seeing as how his friend didn't look any less confused, "Alright, so we did wonder how the hell a grouch like you managed to snag Noin-sensei... But you two are real good together... Don't forget that, 'cuz there's a lot of people on this planet who don't have your luck. Get some rest, Chief... you look like hell."
***
As he came through the door, Milliardo had to remind himself that all the things Adrian had said actually applied to his look-alike, Zechs Merquise, rather than him. He noted how his confusion was becoming a rather frequent occurrence, the more time he spent on Mars, whereas on the first day of the 'glimpse' he had been acutely aware of the distinct separation between one alter-ego and the other.
He was greeted with the heavenly aroma of Thai food. Not the kind that he would take out from time to time in Sanq. No, this was the real home-cooked stuff... His mouth watered and his stomach grumbled, as he remembered fondly his earlier days on Terraformer. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing quite like a steaming bowl of green curry, or Thai basil stir-fry, for that matter, to come home to when one was sore and exhausted. And, not for want of looking, he had yet to find any one person or establishment capable of holding a candle to Noin's very own version of either.
By then quite ravenous, he looked around for the rest of the household, so
that they may all sit down and eat. He only found his daughter,
curled up on the living room couch, quite engrossed in a Harry Potter book.
"Hey, Vickers... had dinner yet?" he inquired casually.
"Oh, hi... 'dad'. Got your butts whipped again, huh?" the little
girl commented. Now, how did she know that? Were they broadcast live
or something?
"Didn't hear you guys honk all the way down," she explained, lowering
her voice, "Dad's team gets really loud every time they win... Mom's upstairs in the
office. We were waiting for you to get back to have dinner." Then, with a
rather sympathetic look, she proceeded to inquire the inevitable, "So, how bad
was it?"
"They gave us 2 to 1," he grumbled, quite mortified as he made his way
up the stairs.
"Against the Hell's Accountants," Vicki remarked, "I'd say that's
not too shabby..."
He found Noin not in her home office, but rather in Ben's room, attempting to give the toddler a diaper change as she continued her phone conversation. Seeing her neck bent in a pretty uncomfortable position to hold the portable to her ear, Milliardo quickly took over at the changing table, so that she may continue her conversation undistracted. He received one of her bright smiles as a thank you, followed by a rather alarmed glance as she took notice of his bruised face and swollen lower lip.
***
Dinner was just as he had remembered it, if only a rather quick affair, Noin having held her thoughts to their previous frolicking in the pantry. Vicki back to her Harry Potter addiction, and Ben safely tucked in his crib, Noin had promptly whisked her husband off to the bedroom, with the excuse of taking a closer look at those nasty bruises...
"Boy, they roughed you up pretty good," she commented as she observed his face, her fingertips barely touching his cheeks, "Poor Sophie must have had a heart attack..."
He swallowed hard.
"You know about Sophie?" he inquired tentatively.
"Um... does anyone not know that she has the humongouest crush on
you?" she replied, as though stating the obvious, "I think even Vicki
gives her a hard time with that..." He felt himself blush to a nice
crimson colour. Yes, this was an interesting predicament indeed, his wife
teasing him over a younger woman having a crush on him, rather than being even
remotely jealous...
"So it doesn't bother you..." he repeated. He had always known
that Noin didn't have much patience for possessive people, but this one seemed
rather odd nonetheless.
"Do I feel bad for her? Absolutely," she replied as she applied
Polysporin to his swollen lip, "it's pretty obvious that it's not easy on
her. Does that make me stop trusting you? Not in the least. I figure I've
been able to trust you with far more important things than not to diddle on me,
and I've yet to regret it... Otherwise, I probably wouldn't even have made it
out of the war alive..."
He realized that she still very much regarded him as the truest friend she would ever have.
"You must
have been diving for all the pucks you could get," she then commented
briefly, returning the tube to the medicine cabinet.
"Yeah, right," he growled, feeling once again rather annoyed with his
poor performance, "I sucked..."
She looked over her shoulder with a frown.
"I don't believe that for one second," she argued. For whatever
reason, Milliardo felt an irresistible urge to contradict her, by enumerating
just how many times he had screwed things up and made a complete fool of himself
since landing into this 'glimpse'. Instead, another revelation surfaced to
his lips, even before being fully processed by his brain. Removing himself
from under her gaze, he proceeded to turn his back on her and calmly, ever so
coldly, drop the bombshell.
"Look, Noin, this is not working..." he began.
"What is not working?" She asked confusedly, noting how he had started
calling her by her maiden name again.
"Me... here, on Mars. Being a Preventer. I know this
is the kind of life that you've always wanted, but... as far as I'm concerned,
I'm just getting by."
"What exactly are you saying, Zechs?" Noin inquired, still rather
shell-shocked, " That you want out?"
"I want out of Mars," he confirmed, "I want out of Preventer.
Hell, I want to do something with my life, for a change..." A very
disturbing kind of anger kept mounting, and he began feeling quite agitated.
"You... you've got the house with the white picket fence, the kids...
the experience of Terraformer, and you've got your very own college of space
engineering. Noin, you got to do exactly what you planned to do with your
life. You got to live your dreams... Me, I feel like every little
thing on this blasted planet has to do with just how great you are, and how much
far behind I'm lagging, compared to you. Everybody knows you... Noin-sensei
here, Noin-sensei there, Instructor Noin's the greatest... And I'm just some
grouchy, underpaid Preventer loser who can't even shoot a puck straight..."
"What do you mean, some Preventer loser?" she argued back, by then
having regained herself, "Zechs, you're the friggin' Chief of all Martian
operations, for Pete's sake... I can't honestly think of something more crucial
to be... Since when is that not good enough? Since
when is that any less than being a college instructor?"
"Since I put my life on hold to let you have all this!" he exploded, his hands trembling beyond control, "Noin, I could have been so much more than this... I could have been responsible for really making a difference in the world, for maintaining peace, not just on some remote and rather insignificant colony, but where things really count. When do I get my damn new skates, huh? Does it ever get to be my turn, or is it always duty of some sort?"
Silence followed for a while, as each processed what had just been said.
"Alright..." Noin began, steadying her voice, "You got me, I
really didn't see this one coming..." Understatement was her middle name, he
remarked to himself as he waited for her to give him some semblance of a real
reaction.
"You want to go back to Sanq and get back into politics, am I
correct?" she repeated, so infuriatingly calm, "Fair enough... so where does that leave
us? Do you..." she stalled, turning her face away from him an
inhaling sharply, if only
for a brief second, "Is it a separation, that you want?"
He looked back at her. Her face betrayed no anger, as though her previous words had been a mere statement of fact, rather than a life-changing question. Only then did it dawn on him that it was not in his place to make such a decision. He wasn't the one married to her! He wasn't the one who had made a family with her on Mars for the past 10 years, and had worked as a Preventer while she struggled to get Mars College up and running... It wasn't his life he was messing with! He was messing with Zechs Merquise's life, and he had no right to do that. Pretty soon, he'd be sent back to his comfortably predictable, if only lonesome life, and the poor bastard would be wondering why, all of a sudden, his marriage was falling apart. When, really, judging from his past two days, family must have been just about the only thing that kept Zechs Merquise's life interesting... He had no right to destroy that! This wasn't even covered under self-sabotage...
"No!" he protested out loud, wondering how he could backtrack and
erase Noin's memory of such a stupid argument, "God, Lu... I don't want a
separation. I just... Damn it, I haven't the slightest clue what the hell I want
out of life, and that's never been anybody's fault but my own..." For
a moment he was utterly confused as to whether he was still trying to put himself
in Zechs Merquise's shoes, or whether the concept applied just as truthfully to
his own life.
"All I know is, if I lose you and the kids... then I'm really
screwed."
He felt her arms sneak around his waist from behind, and before he could think straight, he had her clasped in a desperately tight embrace, as though if he happened to let go now, his very sanity would be at stake. He couldn't understand why he just couldn't distance himself from the 'glimpse', why the distinction between Zechs Merquise and Milliardo Peacecraft was so blurry at times, that he no longer seemed to be able to tell which was his life, and which was not. That very moment, for one thing, felt as though he was truly, honest-to-God scared of losing everything that was ever important in his life. When he knew full well that Lucrezia Noin wasn't his to begin with...
"Look... I'm just being a moron," he apologized dryly, still
reluctant to let go just yet. She looked up from his embrace, eyes mysteriously red, though no
other evidence of tears existed,
"No, I think I deserve the weenie award this time,"
she joked as she offered a peace-making smile, "All these years, and I
never once realized that you had come back to Mars just for me... Just to
satisfy my selfish need to create something."
He laughed. Noin didn't have a selfish bone in her if they looked for it
with X-rays...
"And look what you did create, in the end," he argued back, frustrated
with her blaming herself for his lack of direction. Somehow,
the skyline of Mars's main settlement with the brightly lit college campus
beckoning from afar, the little eight-year-old girl reading downstairs, and the
baby sleeping just across the hallway seemed to him like more than he could ever
hope to accomplish in an entire lifetime in Sanq.
"We did this... not me," she corrected, "and I want you to have
no doubt in your mind that I value your happiness just as much as my own... Whatever you figure out
that it is. Look, the college is settled, and it's not like it'll all go
to the dogs if I take a sabbatical and we go back to Sanq for a while... The
kids already have friends and family there, too, so I'm sure it'll be
fine. It's not like we'd be moving to Moose Jaw, or Katmandu or anything...
heck, it can't get more 'boonies' than Mars..."
He couldn't resist a smile at her sudden enthusiasm.
"We could travel, you could do diplomatic work again, go back to school,
you name it..." oh, she was really on a roll now.. "Take up anything
that strikes your fancy! Wanna join the circus? I hear Trowa still has all
the right contacts. Take up photography? My mom's intern just went
back to school, and she'll need a new apprentice in the spring. Cooking
school? Gaelic language and literature? Architecture? Underwater basket
weaving?"
He watched her waltz around the room, her faith in their future soon rubbing off on him.
"Underwater basket weaving, huh?" he repeated with an amused chuckle.
"Anything! Anything at all that makes you happy. Look, Zechs, I want
to be there for you, just as you've always been there for me..."
He found her last statement painfully ironic, as it became clear to him that he had been the first to desert her, 10 years earlier. And there he was now, seeing for the first time all that he had missed out on, all that he had walked away from when he decided to say no instead of yes. Here he was, on Mars, with her and the family they would have created together... had he had the guts to be there for her when it really mattered.
He took her hands in his, effectively stopping her from moving away from him.
"Why would you ever want to put up with me, Lu?" he asked, determined
to find out exactly how late was too late, "I mean, it's pretty safe to say
that I'm impossible to live with..."
"I think it's pretty safe to say that you can be... uh... interesting to deal
with," she countered, "and that I love you nonetheless, just the way
you are... and that I wouldn't change a single thing about you... Although you can
be a rather stubborn bugger, and God knows you drive me up the freaking wall at
times..." she looked up, grinning in utter mischief at his
bemused expression.
"But, like I said, I love you, and I choose us, and that's pretty much all
there is to it... Plus you put up with me and my weirdness, so there... we're
even. Overall, that makes you pretty much impossible to live without, at
least in my book..."
He figured that, because she had managed to get through all that with a straight face, it was a pretty good sign that she actually meant at least some of it. Bracing himself and squashing the negative voice in his head that kept berating him, Milliardo smiled, for the first time in years genuinely care-free. And made the conscious decision, for once in his life, to do something that was completely pointless, other than being beautifully, recklessly true to himself. He leaned over, and kissed the living daylights out of Lucrezia Noin.
Author's Note: Ok, guys... a big apology is in order here, for making you wait so long for an update. I know I have a track record up to Wazoo, with my slowpoke writing and stalling of fic series. I'm really trying to get this one finished in reasonable timelines, and I totally appreciate your patience up until here. Goes to show bugging me does motivate me, in some weird and twisted way...
Also (heh... sheepish grin) I hope I haven't offended anyone with my goofy portrayal of the Hell's Accountants hockey team. Though a different kind of geek myself, I fully embrace my own geekiness, and wouldn't dream of making fun of anybody else's. As far as I'm concerned, accountants are actually pretty cool people... Tax time would be a major headache without them, for one thing! Also, cheers to all those readers who happen to live in Moose Jaw or Katmandu. I didn't want to pick on you, I just liked the sound of those two really cool names. (shrugs... told ya I was weird) Couldn't help that one snippet of patriotic gloating, though, especially in light of the Olympics... I hope it didn't bother anyone too much (Sakic for ever!!!)
Also, if you're interested in seeing my pathetic image editing (mucking) skills at work, you can go to this site, and take a peek at how I managed to butcher the movie's original billboard-thingy:
http://www26.brinkster.com/amigirl/images/ZMFamilyMan.jpg
Last but not least, I do not own them. I just like messing with them, for nothing but my own twisted enjoyment. Lawyers-be-gone.