Disclaimer: Don't own Gundam Wing or The Parent Trap.

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The Maxwell Trap

by Dorothy Winner

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'That was nothing short of a complete disaster,' Heidi thought as she left the garage. At this rate, her dad would be able to figure out her real identity in less than a week. Why did working in the garage have to be so hard?

Heidi walked toward Howard's house. Compared to finding him the right wrench, finding him another shirt would be easy; all she had to do was look for the closet with all the Hawaiian shirts, right? His house had better not be as messy as her dad's, though, or Howard would simply have to get another shirt himself…

As she walked up the steps to the front door, she noticed a top-of-the-line, silver Mercedes coupe parked in the driveway to her dad's house. Impressed, Heidi went to take a closer look. Was her dad getting a new car? Nah, this wasn't his style; somebody important must be at the house…

A lighthearted peal of laughter rang through the air. Curious, Heidi went to see where it had come from. No one seemed to be inside the house (why would they? there were still clothes everywhere) so she went around to the patio.

Duo Maxwell was sitting on the picnic bench beside a beautiful blonde woman, looking at her with a goofy smile on his face. They were sitting rather close—too close, Heidi thought.

Duo turned around and saw Heidi. "Oh, hey Syd! Come on over here for a moment; there's someone I'd like you to meet."

"Okay." Heidi hesitantly walked out onto the patio. She usually wasn't shy about meeting new people, but there was something about this woman that seemed like…

"Sydney," said Duo, "I'd like to introduce you to Melanie Prescott. Melanie, this is my daughter, Sydney."

Heidi studied Melanie carefully. She was a picture perfect femme fatale, tall and slim, with perfectly styled shoulder-length hair and brown eyes. She was wearing a chic, undoubtedly designer, sleeveless navy blue dress that emphasized her generous curves and showed off her long, slender legs, one of which she had been rubbing against Duo's in a not-so-innocent way.

"It's so nice to finally meet you," said Melanie, shaking Heidi's hand. "Duo's just told me so much about you. It's always been 'Sydney this, Sydney that.' I can't wait to get to know you better."

'Get to know me better? What for?' thought Heidi. "It's very nice to meet you, Miss Prescott," she said with a little unease.

"Oh please, call me Melanie," she said. "You have such a lovely daughter, Duo-dear. From the way you've talked about her I expected to meet a little girl, but Sydney's so grown-up."

"I just turned eleven in April," said Heidi.

"Eleven years old? How wonderful," said Melanie. "Why, when I was your age, I already had my first beau…"

Duo coughed. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that for a few more years…"

"Oh, of course," said Melanie. "Tomboys need time to blossom, anyway…"

'Have I just been insulted?' wondered Heidi.

Melanie turned to Heidi again. "So, your father tells me you've been away at camp all summer. How was it?"

Heidi tried not to look at the way Melanie had started playing with Duo's braid and how he seemed to be enjoying it. "Um… I made a lot of new friends. This one girl in particular. It was as if we were twins."

"Oh, that's nice," Melanie said vaguely, sounding like she hadn't been paying any attention to her at all.

Just then, Howard approached them from the garage, still with engine oil all down his front. "Hey Duo, there's a call here about a big scrap shipment from L1. I think you'd better handle it."

"Sure thing. I'll be right back, okay Mel-babe?" said Duo, getting up.

Heidi tried not to make a face in disgust. 'Mel-babe?'

"Actually, I've got to be going too," said Melanie, standing up also. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay hon?" she said, giving Duo a quick kiss on the lips.

"Hey," said Duo, putting his arm around her, "why don't I walk you to your car…"

'Ugh, if I keep watching this I'm gonna be sick,' thought Heidi. She turned to Howard. "Oh my goodness, I completely forgot about your shirt!" she exclaimed in dismay.

"Oh, don't worry about it," said Howard, "it always looks like this by the end of the day."

"Nonsense, Howard, let's go get you a new shirt," she said, going over to the side door and trying to open it. "Um, Howard…" said Heidi, giving the door another shove, "your side door seems to be stuck…"

"Pull, Sydney."

"Oh… right," said Heidi. "Well, come on, can't let that oil become a stain, now can we?"

The two of them walked inside. "Howard," said Heidi, "what does this Melanie person want with my dad?"

"First off," began Howard, "it's none of my business if your dad wants to make a fool out of himself, do you understand? I mean, he's a grown man now; he can make decisions on his own. They're not always good ones, but hey, that's your dad for you. There's a reason why Heero Yuy called him a braided baka…"

'I sense some pent-up frustration here,' Heidi thought. "Okay, Howard, but what is Melanie after and why is she flirting with my dad?"

"Flirting? You don't know the half of it, kid," said Howard as he began rummaging through his closet. "It started up just about after you left. Ever hear of the Prescott Corporation?"

"Um, I've heard the name somewhere," said Heidi.

"Well, it's a powerful conglomerate that specializes in high-tech vehicles and machinery. Right up there with Winner. The company's lookin' to expand into the colonies; big market there ya know. Anyways, Melanie's the daughter of the CEO, Jim Prescott. She first started off as just another client, but from the moment I first met her I knew she had an ulterior motive. And wouldn't you know it, soon she was scheduling more 'meetings'—not just your normal ones, but nice restaurants for dinner, horseback riding, dancing, test driving new shuttle prototypes; heck, I think she even invited him to her beach house in Grand Cayman once. Instead of going with us on the Sweeping mission like he was supposed to, he completely forgot about it. Who did most of the stuff? We did. While we were sweeping up space junk, he was sweeping her off her feet. Now she's got Duo wrapped around her manicured little finger and he doesn't even know it."

Heidi paled. "But why would she want to do that?"

Howard went into the bathroom to change. "Your dad may not realize it, mainly 'cause he was never any good at computing numbers or figures or anything, but this salvage company's turned up a pretty big profit over the years. Just ask Jeff; he'll show 'em to ya. Maxwell's Scrapyard and Repair is the most profitable business in the L2 cluster."

Howard came back out, wearing a screaming green shirt with pineapples and coconuts. It was quite as ugly as the other one. "And what could be a better way to do business with the colonies than to marrying into one of its most powerful companies? C'mon, if they have a kid, the merger's sealed. I mean, Duo's always been a chick magnet, but this one knows exactly what she's doing and how she's gonna do it. Melanie's got millions of reasons to marry Duo Maxwell and they're all sitting in the L2 bank."

Heidi looked at him with dismay. "But that's horrible! She's just taking advantage of him! She's—she's nothing but a gold digger!"

"Exactly. I'm just hoping Duo comes to his senses before he ties the knot," said Howard. "It's not my place to get involved, but maybe you'll be able to get through to him. Talk some sense into him or something."

'Damn right I will!'

"Anyways, I gotta get back to the garage," said Howard. "Don't tell your dad I've been telling you this, okay?"

"Telling me what?" Heidi said mock-innocently.

"Exactly. See ya, kiddo," said Howard, heading back to the garage. Heidi went back to her house and sat down on her dad's La-Z-Boy, pondering what to do.

'I'm gonna need backup on this one…'

~*~

Sydney was sitting at the kitchen table, stuffing forkfuls of blueberry pancakes into her mouth while Hilde was upstairs getting ready for work, running a little late after the two of them watched movie after movie into the early morning.

The vidphone began to beep. "Could you get that, dear?" said Hilde. "If it's Une, tell her I apologize for being late…"

"I got it, Mom," said Sydney. Wiping maple syrup off her chin, Sydney pressed the 'on' button. Heidi's face popped up on the screen. "Geez! Heidi!" Sydney quickly pressed the button for audio. "What're you doing calling at a time like this?"

"Hasn't Mom already left for work?"

"Shhhhh, not so loud!" said Sydney. "No, she hasn't, she's running late this morning. I can't believe how awesome she is; I keep pinching myself to make sure it's real! I absolutely love her! She's just so beautiful and perfect and an excellent cook and amazing with computers; she fixed the whole network yesterday after it crashed and then we went home and she told me all about how she met Dad and their first date and then she made this delicious stir fry for dinner and then we watched movies until one in the morning and that's why she's late and—"

"That's great, Sydney, but we have a serious problem here," Heidi interrupted. "Dad's in love with someone."

Sydney laughed. "Whaddaya mean 'in love?' Dad never falls in love. I mean, sure, he's a huge flirt, but—"

"He's serious about this one though. They're always laughing and kissing and doing stuff together… it's absolutely disgusting. What makes it worse is that Melanie—that's her name—only wants him for his money, and he doesn't even have a clue. There's only one thing that can make him break up with her. You've got to bring Mom over here."

"What? Already? No way, I've barely even been with her for twenty-four hours—"

"You don't understand, this is really serious—"

"Sabotage her. Get her into the junkyard and knock something down on her. Do whatever you have to. I want to spend more time with Mom."

"Look, Sydney, once we get them back together, you can spend as much time with Mom as you want. But we've got to stop this now before it gets too serious; I need your help—"

"Heidi, I can't help you right now—" Sydney cast a panicked look up the stairs. "Mom's coming—gotta go—"

And she pressed the button to disconnect.

Hilde came down the stairs in her Preventers uniform. "Who was that, dear?"

Sydney grinned sheepishly. "Just a courtesy call."

~*~

Sitting in the dark, Heidi stared at her blank vidphone screen. "Thanks a lot, Syd."

It looked like this was going to be harder to do than she thought…

~*~

TBC…