Aishiteru
Chapter Nine
New Arrivals
9:55 AM Local Time, Winner Mansion, L4-A01
Duo grinned maniacally as Ezra rushed out of the car ahead of Hilde at a dead run. He began to open his arms, only to watch his adoring son pounce the man next to him instead.
"Uncle Quatre! Did you get my present?" Duo raised his brows while Quatre only laughed, lifting the boy up against his chest.
"Of course. I told you I'd take care of it, didn't I? It's all ready for Christmas." That answer caused a flutter of dread in his stomach. Bad enough Ezra was hitting his 'rich uncle' up for gifts, but it seemed Quatre was going along with it. He had a horrible feeling that if Ezra had thought to ask Quatre for it, he might end up having to build an addition on the house to store the damn thing. He was suddenly a little angry with Quatre for not consulting him about whatever 'present' he was planning to spoil him with. He repressed the urge to smack his friend upside the head while he was holding his son. Instead, he turned his attention to his last resort for affection. Hilde was making her way daintily out of the backseat of the limousine, and she flashed him a smile so overly exuberant it planted a new seed of worry in his mind. When Hilde got that look, God only knew what she'd set her mind on.
"OK, Mister 'Everybody-loves-me.' Give me back my son. If anyone's going to buy his love it'll be me." Ezra squealed as he was pried out of Quatre's arms and found himself staring down the length of his father's braid after being flung over one shoulder. His view of the world became jarred as Duo began walking, and he giggled, grabbing hold of the braid in one hand and waving to Quatre with the other.
*
"Miss Darlian?" Relena looked up from her somewhat futile attempt to clean the syrup spots off of Hope's shirt to the girl in the doorway.
"Yes?"
"There's a call for you, Ma'am. I don't think it's business; it's on Master Quatre's private line. Would you like to take it in his study?"
"Thank you, that would be fine." She smiled, standing, and dropped the washrag in the sink. "Nadey, you may go downstairs and play, but don't wander around too far. When Ezra arrives, be nice, and stay out of trouble, alright? I'll be down soon." Hope nodded, glad to be free of being cleaned, and skipped out before Relena could change her mind. Relena nodded slightly at Quatre's servant and then followed her back to the site of the previous evening's fallout. "Thank you, I can open the call myself." The girl looked uncertain for a moment, but then bowed a little and left the room.
With a weary sigh, Relena dropped into Quatre's leather desk chair and simply sat for a moment before tapping the vidphone. She was met by the visage of a well groomed woman in her late thirties looking grimly into the screen.
"Lady Khadija, thank you for contacting me so quickly."
"It is not often that I am called on by the Vice Foreign Minister. However, considering where you requested I should direct my call, I can assume that this has little to do with me, and something to do with my brother."
"Yes, I'm afraid so. As the matriarch of the Winner family, you seemed the only appropriate person to call."
"Is it true then? What the tabloids are printing up?"
"No, it has nothing to do with that. I wanted to ask you about Quatrine." Relena watched the composed woman's eyes widen a bit.
"About ... Quatrine?"
"Yes, Quatrine. As well as my own mother. Surely you remember what happened."
"Does Quatre know about this?"
"We were both harshly informed of the scenario last night, but we do not know the specifics. Quatre was particularly shaken, as you can imagine. I don't know why this was kept a secret from him, but it is your duty as the head of the family to tell him the truth."
"You don't know what you're asking. Father had us all swear we would never burden him with Mother's memory."
"But he is already burdened. Do you honestly believe it could be in his best interest for him not to have the closure of knowing who his mother was? Why was he never told?"
"Our father was a compassionate man, Miss Darlian. He did not want to indulge a gap by singling Quatre out as different from the rest of us. He wished to maintain equality between his children. Nonetheless, Quatre was an angry child, resentful of his place in the world. While I know a few of my sisters discussed telling him, it was the general consensus that it might well hurt him even more to know, as he would be inclined to embrace the guilt of causing her death."
"But you must agree that circumstances have changed since then."
"Very well, Ms. Darlian. I will see about making arrangements to meet with my brother."
*
"Hey! Lookit this one. It's not all numbery." Ezra surveyed the disc Hope was displaying. He couldn't read it; the words were too big, but they were hand written and not the official type of security records. And she was right; there were no numerical sequences denoting its significance.
"That's a good one, put it in."
"You think Quatre'll be mad...?"
"Nah. I've never seen him get mad at anything. And they aren't secure files or anything, or they wouldn't be in the parlor." Hope nodded her acquiescence and rose up off her knees to slip the disc into the television hookup. They were instantly met by a view of the room they were sitting in, full of people they mostly recognized, accompanied by familiar voices. Hope suddenly burst out laughing and pointing at the screen.
"Your daddy's got hair on his face!" Ezra only scowled at her as she continued to laugh at Duo's big-bad-goatee phase. The fashion statement had sported a brief run before Hilde put an end to it, one way or the other. Eventually, her amusement dwindled as she watched the proceedings. Then she squealed. "Hey! It's you!" Ezra looked and sure enough saw his own short self toddling on screen, clutching his mothers hand.
"Oh honestly, Duo! He's two! What do you expect him to do with Twister?"
"Come on, Babe, he loves watching other people making fools of themselves. And think how much fun we can have with it."
Ezra nudged Hope and she nodded distastefully, skipping ahead on the file.
"Screw you guys! This is the last time I play tag-team Twister with The Acrobat and Yoga-Boy!" Duo flexed painfully, his body arched across the mat, balanced on one arm while the other stretched backwards to press even with his crossed legs. Quatre was very nearly beneath him, legs stretched to opposite ends of the mat and body lying forward, also on one hand, but he seemed perfectly comfortable and more than a little smug.
"It was your idea, Duo." Trowa pointed out calmly. Wu Fei nodded before giving the spinner a bored flick.
"Left hand, red."
"Noooooo!" Quatre and Hilde were laughing as Duo protested. "That isn't humanly possible! Normal people don't bend that way!"
"If it's too much for your manhood to withstand, Duo, why don't you tag Hilde?" Trowa suggested offhandedly.
"What's that supposed to mean, Barton?!"
"Well then move already." Scowling, Duo bent his knees, slowly lowering his hips before attempting to throw his weight forward long enough to reposition his hand. He failed. Quatre yelped as Duo collapsed on top of him, and Trowa smirked slightly as he rose to pull himself out of the tangle of limbs.
"That's funny." Ezra glanced at Hope only to see her scrutinizing the screen. "What?"
"Something's funny."
"I just said it was funny."
"Not that kind of funny. Strange funny. Command: disc repeat play."
*
"Quatre." The blonde looked up from the reports littering his desk to face Heero.
"Out in the daylight? Couldn't Relena discover you? Or do you want-no...are you ready to be discovered?"
"You should leave other people's minds to themselves."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"The last three years of your schedule are dotted with a pattern of two week intervals when your whereabouts are completely unaccounted for."
"What, exactly, does my private life have to do with you?"
"What are you doing, Quatre?"
"Nothing particularly subversive."
"You're a terrible liar."
"But a wonderful actor."
"I've already cross referenced the dates with the Preventer records, Maganac records, and data on your family."
"I'd expect no less of you."
"What do you have to be so evasive about?" Quatre offered a smile of concession and waved his hand to the side of his desk, gesturing for Heero to sit down. He sat back in his own chair a moment, steepling his fingers thoughtfully before speaking.
"The average human uses a maximum of ten percent of their brain, am I correct? What was my measured level in Wing Zero's pilot data?"
"Sandrock averaged you primarily at roughly fourteen percent, before the Zero incident. Just before destroying the colony, your brain activity peaked at thirty-two percent. When the Zero system was implemented in Sandrock, you climbed back to twenty-two. After, you were recorded as going as high as eighteen."
"And the others?"
"Duo peaked at nineteen; Trowa, briefly, at twenty-three in the instant he regained his memories; Wu Fei at seventeen; and myself at twenty-three."
"Have you ever wondered, Heero, what human beings are really capable of? What abilities that unused ninety percent is hiding?"
"Go on."
"Throughout history there have always been people with unusual gifts. Extra sensory perception, telekinesis, telepathy. They've been revered and persecuted: oracles, witches, psychics. Things science couldn't account for. Every human being has the capacity within the unused portion of their brain; the capabilities are all there. I've been learning to use them. Training, if you will. On my own I can now press as high as thirty-seven. I was always ... sensitive. Zero heightened that along with everything else when I succumbed to it; I think that may be why it affected me so much worse than the rest of you. But once those blocks were open, there was nothing to keep me from being able to access my capabilities, and I've learned more and more how to use and control them."
"You're saying you've been made more intelligent?"
"No, intelligence has nothing to do with it. For all my brain activity has risen, my I.Q. hasn't been affected at all. Dorothy and Duo are the only bonafide geniuses. I'm at roughly the same level as you, Trowa and Wu Fei."
"What exactly have you managed to do?"
"Stop, for a moment, thinking of the world as solid. There is no real physical: everything, solid and un-solid, is made up of atoms: tiny, identical particles that form what we perceive by their patterns and weight. This is all that the entire universe is made up of: particles and energy -- matter and antimatter. The human brain is capable of routing energy, thus affecting and manipulating the very elements that make up the universe.
"It's all a rearranging of ions and isotopes," he explained dismissively, waving his hand. "Thoughts and feelings are just electricity as well, and the energy making up the brain can come in contact with it and translate it."
"Show me." Quatre nodded and looked across his desk. Heero followed his gaze to what seemed to be some sort of paperweight; a metal block with four strips of bent metal balanced in a pinwheel formation over a tall wire. As Quatre's jaw hardened and a line of concentration appeared between his brows, the spokes slowly began to rotate on their pillar.
*
"That's it!"
"What is? I don't see anything any you've been playing it over and over forever!" Ezra lifted his head from where he'd sprawled across the floor in boredom.
"Look at Quatre's face."
"Huh?"
"Lookit!" She tapped the screen. "His face is all tight."
"So? Look at how he's standing, you'd make faces too."
"But he was fine a minute ago, and he was standing the same way. Now watch." She let the disk play a few seconds before pausing it again. "Did you see it?"
"I didn't see anything."
"Watch the spinner." Again she backed up the image, and again she let it play.
"Is it supposed to go that slow?"
"Nope. It's supposed to get slower and stop, but it just got slower and kept going a little."
"Maybe Uncle Wu was holding it on a slant?"
"But it's sitting on the floor. Quatre did it. If it'd stayed on yellow, your daddy could've gotten up, but he kept it moving to red so he'd fall."
"That's impossible, he'd have to use magic."
"So why can't Quatre use magic?"
"Cause he's my uncle! Normal people don't use magic."
"What about Santa?"
"Well he's Santa."
"Maybe Quatre's Santa."
"That's just dumb. He looks nothing like Santa. I know, I've seen him in three malls so far," he rebutted smugly. "He doesn't even believe in Christmas."
"What if it's a cover up! He could be pretending to not believe so that no one'll 'spect him!"
"Why would someone pretend to pray five times a day just so that no one would 'spect him? Why wouldn't he just pretend to be Jewish? It'd be a whole lot easier than pretending to be a Muslim."
"OK...what about an elf?"
"What do elves have to do with people pretending a religion?"
"No! I mean ... what if Quatre is an elf? They have magic too, don't they?"
Ezra stared at her blankly and then narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. "I'm listening."
"Or maybe a fairy!"
He suddenly looked stricken. "Mommy told Daddy not to call him that ever again!"
"Maybe she was afraid you'd find out!"
"So how do we check if he's a fairy?"
"We could ask him...?"
"Don't be stupid."
"Well then, we'll have to make him use his powers."
"You mean play twister?"
"Um ... no. I don't think your daddy'd be willing to play again. He knows about Quatre. You said so."
"That's 'cuz my daddy is really smart," Ezra beamed proudly. "One time when Mommy called him stupid, he said that he had an I.Q. of two hundred and twenty."
"What's an I.Q.?"
"I dunno, but it's more important than getting your tongue stuck in a 'lectric mixer."
*
"Hilde what is this all about?" Duo grumbled from within a darkened bathroom. "You know what they're gonna think we're doing in here!"
"That's never bothered you before."
"Yeah, but we were actually doing it then!" Hilde flipped the switch on the wall behind her, illuminating the small tiled room.
"And here I thought you'd appreciate me giving you an early Christmas present."
His eyes widened. "You mean that thing with the-"
"No. Never again. We've been over that." His face fell like a little boy dragged out of the candy store. "Come on Duo! This is a good thing. Don't ruin it! Again!"
"Hey! I resent that! What 'again'?"
"Well the last time you damn near choked yourself!" Duo went pale.
"Uh ... Hilde?"
"What?"
"You wouldn't happen to be..." he stammered for a moment. "Hungry for sardines or anything wouldjya?"
Hilde's eyes narrowed. "I hate sardines. You know I can't eat anything that stares at me." Duo's shoulders sagged a little. "But if you happened to be using that question as a 'round-about way of asking if I'm pregnant," she smirked, "then yes." Duo stared at her in stunned silence for a few moments, then his face broke into a huge grin and he hooked his arms about her waist and spun her around laughing almost psychotically.
"You mean we...? You're...? Oh my god!" He set her down again and kissed her mouth, her cheek, her neck - anything exposed. "I - I can't believe it! You're sure? You're absolutely certain? You went to a doctor? Oh my god! Hilde, I love you." It was Hilde's turn to giggle as her husband showered her with kisses again. But that nagging at the back of her mind came back, and she put her hand over Duo's mouth to quell his excitement momentarily.
"Duo- Duo we need to really talk about this." Duo calmed down at the serious note in her voice. She smiled reassuringly at the worry in his face, "Before you start thinking up names," she chided with a hint of melancholy, "we need to sit down and seriously decide if I am going to carry this baby full term." The realization finally hit Duo. And with it came the memories of their last ordeal.
Duo took a breath to collect himself and then said with a brief glance at the surrounding decor, "I think this conversation would be better conducted somewhere else." Hilde nodded her acquiescence and the pair slunk out of the hallway bathroom and to their designated suite of rooms.
*
"He's gone."
"Yes, I expected as much." Quatre looked up from his sheet music, quietly pulling the cover shut over the alabaster keys with an air of finality before turning his full attention to Trowa. "He won't make it very far."
"You expect he'll come back."
"I am certain that he'll share Christmas dinner with us. But it's out of our hands now; it's a decision he has to make alone."
"You know where he went."
"I have an inkling."
"And he told you he'd be back?"
"Not in so many words."
"Playing the mental pick-pocket again, are we?"
"Is it too late to run away with the circus?"
"For who?" He allowed a satisfied smirk to flicker across his mouth as Quatre offered him a disapproving glare. "Well," he continued thoughtfully, "We already have a fortune teller. You'd make a half-decent contortionist, but I'm not sure you'd be comfortable in the costume. In front of other people. But what it really all comes down to is that you'd have to take turns cooking."
"Just dash all my dreams, why don't you..."
"You never wanted to run away with the circus."
"That's not true, I was big on running away with the circus. I was big on running away, period. Of course, ideally, I wanted to run away with the Spanish Armada but I realized the impracticality of that when I was seven or so."
"The Spanish Armada?" Trowa raised a brow as he shifted his weight to the other foot.
"Oh, be quiet. At least it wasn't the Russian Ballet." He stood up carefully, stepping away from the piano bench.
"That one crossed your mind?"
"I don't have to answer that. Though I did try to run off with a small theatre troupe when I was eleven. Fancied I could be an actor. Father stopped bringing me backstage to greet performers after that." Trowa watched him a moment, realizing he was serious, and then shook his head slightly.
"You had, hands down, the most bizarre childhood."
"Yes, well, I often had a lot of time on my hands."
"Next thing you know you'll be telling me that you tried to raise a family of squirrels in your closet."
"Who told you about that!?"
"Or that you wanted to be the Scarlet Pimpernel."
"Stop talking to the help."
"Or tried to buy yourself cosmetic surgery-"
"Out!"
*
"So this is what It's down to, huh...abort, artificial womb, or take the chance and ride it out. I guess that brings it down to two, really, cause there's no way in hell I'm gambling your life."
"Well, then, that means there's only one choice, isn't there."
*
Three Hours Later
"He used to work for me," the elder girl confided to her two protégées as Wu Fei spared them a brief nod on his way down the hall.
"Why?" a small male voice piped up behind her.
"What do you mean, 'why?'"
"I mean, why'd Uncle Fei work for you?"
"When I was your age, I had already been chosen to rule the Earth Sphere."
"Then why don't you?" Hope contributed politely. The red-head, a worldly woman of twelve, tossed her head haughtily at their ignorance.
"Because, I made the world better by stepping down. And anyway, I was in the hospital so I would have missed my own coronation."
"Why were you in the hospital?"
"Because I was shot," she finished with a note of pride.
"What's 'shot'?" Hope asked innocently. It had a dramatic effect in breaking down the older girl's majesty.
"What do you mean, 'what's shot'?! Soldiers get shot in a war, it's what happens when people fight for what they believe in. That's why people die in wars and why we don't have them anymore." She huffed superiorly and Ezra's eyes widened as she untucked her blouse and began to undo the lower buttons, displaying her scar. "That," she uttered importantly, "Is where I was shot. I was in a wheelchair for months."
"Oh." Hope whispered meekly. It hadn't really answered her question, but she wasn't overly inspired to set the girl on another tirade.
"My dad got shot at too," Ezra piped up enthusiastically, "But he was so good, no one could ever hit him."
"That's because he was a Gundam pilot. Wu Fei was my Gundam pilot, and they're the greatest warriors that ever lived."
"What's a Gundam?" Hope whispered at Ezra.
"Back when people fought and stuff they used mobile suits, like the ones they use for construction and stuff. And the Gundams were the most powerful ones ever. Daddy had one, and Uncle Wuffie, and Uncle Quatre, and Uncle Trowa, and Uncle Heero too."
"Uncle Hero...?"
"Yeah. I've only met him once or twice though, when I was a baby or something. He's not around a lot. He's always off doing important Preventer stuff."
"Like ... protecting the world. . . ?"
"Yeah, I guess so. That's what the Preventers do, mostly."
"And he fought in the war?"
"Yep. Daddy and all my uncles were like a whole army by themselves. They made the wars stop for good."
"Like ... white knights and stuff?"
"Yes! Just like white knights!" Mariemaia stepped in with enthusiasm. "And Heero was the one who killed me."
"You're not dead, you're right here."
"Metaphorically!" was the exasperated retort.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*