As requested, Ryoko-onee, I have posted my next chapter quite promptly. Hope you enjoy!
Chapter Three
Kaori returned from the shower more quickly than Hayden had expected. She was wrapped in a towel, so Hayden politely turned around in his seated position on her bed to face the wall, in order to give her privacy to dress.
"Thanks," she said, noting his change. Kaori got dressed quickly and sat beside him on the bed, causing him to look over when he felt the pressure on the mattress change. "Help me?" she asked, handing him her brush.
Hayden nodded and started brushing out her wet hair. It seemed black when it was wet. He knew that hair was heavy and hard to tame when it was wet, so he didn't object at all to the intimate gesture of brushing her hair. Not that he minded the intimacy either. When finished, he was surprised to see a pair of scissors in Kaori's hand. She gave them to him and stood up, letting her hair fall all the way down to her knees.
"What do you want me to do with these?" he asked, holding the scissors up.
"Cut it off."
"What?! All this beautiful hair and you want me to cut it? No way."
She turned around and looked up at him. "Please Hayden. I have wanted to cut it for a while now. I'm tired of such cumbersome hair." Kaori smiled a little and reached up to brush the bangs out of his face. Her hand trailed back and touched the braid behind his neck. "Besides, you have enough hair for the both of us."
Submitting to his poorer judgment and the pull of his hormones, Hayden took the opportunity of a girl's hand around his neck to lean down and kiss her tentatively. He didn't know what to expect, feeling his lips press lightly against hers. He almost expected her to slap him across the face when he stood back up. But she smiled shyly instead, averting her eyes and looking down at the ground.
"I'm sorry," he stated, looking thoroughly embarrassed. "I shouldn't have…"
"It's alright," she said softly, turning around and facing away from him. "Are you going to cut my hair now?"
Hayden cleared his throat and took a handful of her hair in his hand. "You're sure about this?" She nodded.
"Ok then. I'll cut some of it."
In fact, he cut over half of it off. When Hayden was done, her hair no longer fell down to her knees, but stopped abruptly about six inches below the top of her shoulders.
"Do you like it?" he asked, scared as she looked at herself in the mirror for the first time. She twirled in a circle, letting her hair fan out around her as she spun.
"It's perfect," she answered, settling down and brushing it out. She quickly pulled her hair up into a bun, with her short bangs falling down over her eyes. Hayden smiled as she frowned at her unruly bangs. He set the scissors down on the nearby desk. "We should go and see how Mei is doing with your brother," she said as she gave up trying to push the last few wisps of hair into place.
"If I know my brother," Hayden said as they left the room, "Mei has already killed him for being annoying by now."
Mei had not killed Luke by the time they arrived upstairs at Sally's office. The two were still inside and chatting merrily with Mei's mother about the classes offered at the Academy for doctors. All of a sudden, Luke was avidly interested in pursuing a career in the medical field. Mei joining the ranks of the Academy to become a doctor had nothing to do with his sudden interest in medicine.
"Hello dear Kaori," Sally said with a smile when they walked into the office. "I see you've met the Maxwell boys. I was just discussing with Luke here the possibility of becoming a doctor through the Academy, like Trowa and I have. Have you talked to them about being in the Academy yet, Kaori?"
"No ma'am," Kaori answered softly with her head bowed. "Wufei doesn't think I'm the one to speak to on such matters."
"Oh, Kaori," Sally said in her best nurturing mother voice. "Don't pay any attention to him. Just because of … because of the little … mishap that happened? There's no reason to be ashamed of that anymore. It's in the past. No one even remembers, I promise. Why else would they let you back in the Academy if it wasn't perfectly alright with General Noin?"
Kaori rolled her eyes a little and glared at Sally. "Do you know who my parents are?" she asked with an icy tone of voice. "They know how to get what they want."
No one had noticed Wufei's entrance until he spoke, "And they want you to be happy, child. That is all they want." He put a hand on either of her shoulders from behind. She tensed under his hands.
"But…Yes, Uncle Wu," Kaori started to protest and then resigned. She closed her eyes tight.
Wufei patted her head and gave her a half-hug with one arm.
Duo burst through the doorway. "Wu-man! You gotta come see…" He looked around the room and grinned sheepishly. "Oops," he said backing out slowly. "Hi boys. I'll just…show you some other time when you're not so busy."
"What is it now, Maxwell?" Wufei asked, releasing his hold of Kaori and facing Duo.
Duo grinned maniacally before answering, "You know there's a machine shed down by the lake that has all those old broken training modules stored in there?"
"Yes…"
"Well, not anymore!" Duo grinned again before turning his head and looking down the hallway. They could hear someone screaming in the distance. That someone sounded very angry. "Noin's pissed," he explained. "You don't know where I am." Duo took off running down the hall.
Everyone stood around, looking confused for a moment. Noin then appeared in the doorway. "Have you seen Maxwell?" she asked. Her hair was mussed and her face glowed an unhealthy shade of angry red.
"We don't know where he is," Mei answered.
Noin took off stomping down the hallway ranting, "I'll kill him. I'll choke him with that Goddamned braid!"
Sally let out a sigh. "Just like old times," she said shaking her head as she sat back down at her desk.
"And it gets better," Wufei said as he headed toward the office door. "Now instead of one, there're three Maxwells running around here."
The kids took their leave of Sally's office and made their way back to the elevators.
"I've never seen father act like that," Luke said with awe in his voice.
"He used to get into trouble all the time, Heero says," Mei offered.
"Why didn't they get rid of him?" Hayden asked.
Kaori took the opportunity to tell what she knew. "Colonel Maxwell was essential to uphold the moral of the Gundam pilots. He made them all laugh and kept them all friends when they were ready to kill each other. Especially my father. And on more than one occasion, he single-handedly saved the lives of the pilots, including my parent's lives several times."
"Really?" Luke asked, wonderment creeping into his voice as he heard about his father's accomplishments as a soldier. "He saved your parent's lives?"
The elevator dinged and they all got in. Mei pushed the button for level 6, intending to go home. Kaori continued telling her story.
"That's how your father met both of my parents. He helped my father escape from a being a prisoner in a military hospital. Of course, he was also the one to shoot my father and send him to the hospital. Their relationship got off to a rocky start, but they became the best of friends." They reached level 6 and filed off the elevator. "Colonel Maxwell met my mother when he and my father went to save her from an OZ prison, after my mother had put herself in the prison cell in order to save your father. That one gets a little confusing," she admitted as they walked down the hallway to their apartments.
"Of course it's confusing," a voice piped up from an open doorway. Duo soon stuck his cheerful head into the hallway and motioned for them to enter his apartment. "Jinx cut her hair and dressed like a me in order to replace me in the jail cell. I escaped with Sally, never knowing I had a Mimic. When we found out, after Jinx had been severely tortured, Heero and I went to break her out of the OZ prison."
"How come you never told us this stuff, Dad?" Luke asked.
"It didn't seem important before. I didn't want you kids growing up thinking that a soldier's life is the only one to choose. Hilde and I both wanted you to have normal childhoods, not influenced by your parent's war-hero stories," he explained. "Then we blew up an artillery base," Duo continued with his earlier story, "and nearly froze to death in the Arctic tundra. Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei were able to find us before we became permanent ice cubes." The kids sat around the kitchen table, intrigued by Duo's short recap of squashing the last OZ uprising from 20 years ago. Duo smiled to himself. "Heero thought that Jinx liked me and not him. It was a funny little misunderstanding. And then of course, Relena's palace blew up, Heero and Jinx were both inside. We fished them out of the wreckage and patched them back together. After that, we infiltrated the OZ base, Heero became prisoner, Jinx had her own problems with interrogation chips implanted on her, and somehow we all escaped, killed the bad guys, and saved the world."1 He smiled broadly at the awestruck kids.
"You did all that, Dad?" Luke asked, disbelieving the whole story. His father a war hero? It was just too weird for him to believe. Blowing up bases, fishing people out of bomb wreckage, saving the world?
"Of course he did," Heero said with a smile. He was leaning on the doorway, listening to Duo's rendition of the events. "But as I remember, I carried Jinx out of the OZ prison, I infiltrated the OZ base with Jinx, and she was the one to blow up the base and help me escape."
"Minor details," Duo said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "We still saved the world. Again. For about the third time. Bad guys never take a rest, do they buddy?"
"They have for about the last twenty years," Heero corrected.
"Minor details," Duo said again.
Heero crossed the room towards Duo menacingly. "Speaking of details," he said with a playful growl in his voice. "What's with adding the little tidbit of me thinking Jin liked you and not me?"
Duo smiled evilly. "I just thought it was funny. You were always too insecure to just accept the fact that a beautiful woman loved you. You always got all disheartened when you saw her smile at Wufei or dance with me or hold hands with Trowa…"
"Of course I would," Heero countered. "She slept in your and Trowa's beds for nearly five months before we got married." He poked a finger hard into Duo's chest.
"Ouch," Duo whined, rubbing the center of his chest. "And she came to us, man. We didn't ask her to leave your room and stay with us."
"I know," Heero said with a small smile and a faraway look in his eyes. "Duo, you bring back all these memories that I hadn't thought of in years. You even had me calling her Jinx a couple times back there."
Duo smiled. "I noticed that."
"Jinx, Uncle Heero?" Mei asked, wanting clarification.
Heero smiled down at his "niece" and said, "That was her name when we met her. She got that when she entered the OZ military ranks."
"OZ military ranks?" Luke asked.
"Yes, she worked for the enemy when she was younger. In fact, she was an OZ Special. But she changed sides after OZ was defeated and disbanded during the Eve wars. She joined the Preventors and became friends with Sally then," Heero explained. "Speaking of your mother," he said, turning to Kaori. "I was going to find you when I heard Duo telling his story. I'm glad you're in here and close by." He smiled at her warmly. Kaori tensed and her eyes turned a little colder as she watched him. She knew what he was about to say, and she hated hearing it. "Your mother's accepted another mission and won't be back for a couple of days…"
"I knew it," she hissed, interrupting her father.
"Kaori," he started with a warning tone in his voice. He hoped she wouldn't get into another fight. Not here in front of Duo and his kids. Not now after they'd all shared a story together.
"Don't you try to sush me!" Kaori said louder, standing up quickly and bracing her hands on top of the table. Her chair fell over when she stood up so abruptly.
"Kaori, sit down!" Heero said, raising his voice and becoming a commanding soldier.
"And don't tell me what to do!" she screamed. Kaori started stalking around the table and out of the corner where she had been sitting. "You let her go off like that, Dad. You just let her go off and maybe never come back!"
"It's not my place to decide for her…" Heero said, his voice soft with defeat. He'd had many arguments with Jin about her continued active service in the Preventors. He had always lost those arguments.
"Then it's not your place to decide for me, either!" Kaori insisted.
"That's different," he insisted, his voice growing harder.
"How so? You let your own wife go off on more suicide missions than you can count. You let her leave knowing full well that we may never see her again. How is it different?"
"She's old enough to make her own decisions…"
"You were FIFTEEN when you fought in the Eve wars. FIFTEEN when you first self-destructed. I'm nineteen years old, Father. Don't give me any bullshit about old enough…"
"This is your mother's decision."
"Just as it is my decision…"
"You don't understand!"
"What don't I understand?"
Heero lost his temper. "Your mother is a soldier, Kaori! She lives to serve the greater good! And if she can do that by dying in her service, then so be it."
Kaori ran out of the room and down the hall.
[1] This all refers to the story "Jinx" I wrote that details how they met Jinx/Jin and squashed the last uprising of OZ.
