Tori: FOUND IT! *holds Zip disk in the air and grins triumphantly*
Kegawa: I don't know about everyone else, but I personally am wondering WHY THE HELL IT WAS IN YOUR SHOE!?
Tori: *sweatdrop* It probably fell in there when I put my sneakers in my suitcase! ^__^*
Kegawa: Oh… Well, now that we have the other computer hooked up…
Awa: DIBS! *plops down in chair and starts another Spider Solitaire Marathon*
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Who's next?" Duet frowned as the four remaining former pilots drifted on a listless zephyr above the Atlantic ocean. No one volunteered. "Please…someone volunteer," she groaned and held her forehead. It was getting harder to maintain her façade of self control. There was some reason behind having Treize as her right-hand man. He had enough experience with her to keep her from going stark raving mad at times. She, of course, was one the verge of one of those "times".
"I'll go," Quatre said after a moment. The throbbing at the girl's temples lessened.
"Thanks, Q. To Anaheim it is!"
Although logic stated that Duo and Wu Fei should be dropped off before as their destination was closer, Duet was not the geography buff her job description would have you believe. Besides, neither of those two were all that eager to be left alone on the world below. It wasn't nearly the same as it had been before Heero's fateful dabbling in the culinary arts.
In an attempt to loosen up the tense moments they had left together, Duet attempted something that had been rather popular on the other bank of the Styx; conversation.
"So, uhhh… You guys died in a cooking accident?"
The three boys looked up from the expanse of blue below them. "Yeah…" they replied in unison.
"That's, ummm… Unfortunate."
"Well, we can't all go out in a blaze of emotionally-charged glory," Wu Fei frowned. It took a few moments of silence afterwards before the four burst out laughing.
These were the moments Duet had missed for so long. Hours of nonstop, insane, mindless happiness. No one could make her laugh like her fellow pilots had. She groaned inwardly as the scenery below went from ocean blue to the greens and browns an unsightly blotches or winding gray strips of gray civilization. Estimate time left with Quatre: 4.83 minutes and counting.
Now the conversation was drifting into the 'Remember when…'s and the 'And then…'s. It would have been hard not to smile when Duo independently acted out an argument between Trowa and Wu Fei or when Quatre blushed at the mention of walk-in closets.
They made the mistake of starting to enjoy themselves and consequently found themselves above the Pacific Coast Highway before time had flown too far out of sight. Still, they drifted a bit further north before they were hovering over their destination.
"Disney Land," Duo deadpanned, sliding an accusing glare in Duet's direction under half-shut eyelids.
"Disney Land…?" she repeated, accepting that glare and casting it heavenwards.
"Well, Disney Land is in Anaheim…" Wu Fei shrugged.
"There he is!" Quatre pointed to a dark-skinned man with his arm about the shoulders of a young, grinning red-head. There were a few more college kids in their group that weaved its way through the crowds towards a picnic table.
The blonde looked away from his ward and back at his friends. "I'm going to miss you… We haven't been all separate for more than a day in years." He took Duo's hands in his and bowed, then repeated the process with Wu Fei. Finally, he turned to Duet and hugged her. "And I haven't seen you in years. It's unfair that we should be separated so quickly," he murmured, then turned away and rushed towards his ward before anyone could see him crying.
"He always was the empathy…" Duet mused, choking back some of her own tears as, in a flash of light, Quatre joined young man. His former guardian angel fluttered up, past the three hovering above the scene, and with a quick salute for the un-braided girl he was also gone.
Wu Fei looked between his two remaining friends and allowed a small smile to grace his face. "I'll go next," he announced and they began to drift again, back across the continent, huddled close on the light air current that carried them.
~*~*~*~
Tori: These chapters are DAMN short, but I never know where to end them to keep them from going on and on and on… So I pick chapter points.
Awa: In laymen's terms?
Tori: I end them like paragraphs; at the end of an idea.
Kegawa: You sure do like to babble on about things people don't care about, ne?
Tori: O__O *struck by sudden thought* Do Japanese-Canadians say "aye" or "ne"???
Awa: They say 'oui'!
