Title: New Beginnings

Author: Something Like Human

Rating: PG

Warnings: YAOI (2x5x2), slight spoilers to GW, EW, and EpiZero

Disclaimer: Human doesn't own Gundam.

A/N: Again, I have really only read the manga. Although, my artificial little sister, juu, has acquired the DVD of Endless Waltz and we have drooled over that a few times. But regardless, my knowledge of the series is vastly different than one that has watched the entire anime.

I seemed to have surprised Maxwell because the rest of our meal was relatively quiet. I was too lost in thought to say much more than I had at the time. There were too many questions that I was afraid to ask but nonetheless I knew that I would have to. I just ghosted around for the rest of the evening going about doing the dishes and other chores. It was not until I could not find anything else to keep myself busy that I allowed my partner to pull me down on the couch with him.

"Are you going to contact your mother?" He implored looking into my eyes.

I took a deep breath. That was one of those questions that I was avoiding asking myself. I wanted nothing more than to run back to my mother like I was a child again. To be seated at her feet listening to her read from one of the classics for hours on end. I wanted to return to the time when the most I had to worry about was when I would be returning to boarding school in the fall, or what my mother was making for dinner, or whether my brother would figure out who put cricket in his room that was keeping him awake at night. But I knew that it was no longer possible. That time was before my marriage, before both wars, before I had seen the world outside of my parents' colonial home.

"I…" I started. "I don't know."

"I can't believe that. Why not, Fei?"
I looked away from him. I did not know how to put into words what exactly I was thinking. I felt his hand under my chin and turning my head to face him again. He gave me a small smile of encouragement before he spoke again.

"You have a chance that I couldn't even dream of. You can be with your family again even after you thought you lost everything in that damn war. Fei, if that was me, I'd have just run after them on the street and not let go of them."

I sighed. Sometimes I wish I had his enthusiasm for things and his impulsivity. "It's not that simple."

"Why not?"

"It's been four years…a lot has changed since I saw my family…"

"You're afraid of what they will think of you now, aren't you?" He asked as he smoothed a wayward strand of my hair back. "You don't have to worry about that. I'm sure they will see what an amazing person you have become. Then again, my opinion of you is biased."

I chuckle and lean back into his arms. "You're right, your opinion is very biased. But the truth of the matter is, I am so different now than what my family had wanted me to become that…that…"

"That you're afraid you'll disappoint them?" Maxwell finished. "I know you were a student and expect to be a scholar but you are so much more than that now. They can't help but see and be proud of who you are."

"It's not just who I am but what I have done. Max, they don't know about my being a gundam pilot."

"Oh," he said.

"Yeah, oh."

"And here I was worried about what they would think of you and I," he muttered as he tightened his arms around me. I had not thought of that and he had a point. The last my family saw me, I was married to Long Meilan and taken into one of the most powerful and traditional families on L5. Now I was with an American with no family and was also male.

"That thought hadn't even crossed my mind," I admitted. I was not ashamed of Maxwell, nor he of I, but we just choose not to make our private life a public issue.

"Isn't this a plot to some old melodrama made for tv movie?" He joked. Then he slipped into a really exaggerated surfer-punk or something voice. "Yo, Mom! Long time no see…this is my hot American lover. We were in the war together blowing shit up!"

I chuckle at his antics. Somehow he can make me laugh at myself even when I can't find anything funny. "I don't think so Maxwell. I don't know what I'll tell them but I don't think dropping all that on my family's lap as soon as they see me would be the wisest course of action. And besides, I don't even know where to find them."

"Well, we can remedy that easily," he replied jumping up from the couch. I followed him into our little library to the computer we had in there. "What are your mother's and brother's names…besides the obvious 'Chang'."

"My brother's name is Chang Seung. Most likely, he'll be the easiest to find."

After a quick search, we had a screen full of information on my older brother. It seemed he did not live to far from our Preventers office. I did not read any further on the screen. Everything was a little too surreal for me. Somehow through years and thousands of miles on land and in space, I had wound up living in the same city as my family.

"I didn't know you were the little brother, Fei!" Maxwell teased. "I always pictured you the big brother, protector type."

Again, he has made me laugh. "No, I was the bratty little brother who was always getting in trouble for pulling pranks on my big brother and trying to sneak around to do the things he was doing. I did play the big brother to our baby sister and tried to protect her when I was home. Jai Li was only four when I left home."

"Somehow I can a little WuFei getting scolded for something or other," my partner laughed. He sobered for a minute. "Why haven't you talked about your family before?"

"I thought they were all dead," I shrugged. "And even now, the only one we know for sure is alive is Seung."

Maxwell stood up and hugged me tightly. "But that's a miracle in itself. You have been given a new chance with your family. Anyways, now I don't have to wait for you to tell me all about your childhood, I can just go and asked your brother just what pranks you pulled on him."

"Maxwell…" I warn as I catch the sparkle in his eyes that can only mean that he is plotting some sort of mischief.

"Chang…" He replies. "Anyways, if you would have told me before of your fondness of pranks, we could have really got the other boys good during the war."

"I did not think the war was the time or place for childish pranks, no matter how good they would have been."
He sighs and holds me for a minute. "Wait…it was you who replaced all my candy bars in 'Scythe with granola, wasn't it? I thought it was Heero-I-have-no-sense-of-taste-Yuy who did that."

"That was a good one…it was kind of hard disposing of all that chocolate without getting caught."

"So are you going to call your brother or are you going to pay him a visit?"

I took a moment to think. A reunion with my family was a little too important to do over the phone. "I think we are going to go visit him."

"We?"

"Of course, 'we'. You don't think I'd go into a new situation without my partner to back me up, do you?"

"Leave it to old soldiers to think of everything in terms battle plans."

"Would you rather I have said, 'I want you to go with me to hold my hand so I don't chicken out'?"

"No…but are you sure about me coming? It may make things awkward?"

"It may make things a little strange but if things weren't strange then it wouldn't be our lives, right?"

"You got a point. So we going there after work tomorrow?"

"Eh…I…er…was," I stammered. Somehow actually committing to seeing my family was making me nervous about all the bad things that could happen.

"That settles it!" Maxwell proclaims. "We leave the office at 5 o'clock tomorrow and walk down to pay a little visit to your big brother."

Tbc…