She stared at the mirror hard, the makeup case sitting open and untouched on the bathroom counter. Her own face stared accusingly back at her from the slightly fogged mirror, taunting her with a face she could not show at work.
"I can't do this" She whispered to herself. "It's too late to tell him." And she thought, I should just give up. Just disappear and try to forget.
But the face with her mother's pert nose and her father's high cheekbones stared back at her, the heredity of a family line of warriors.
No, you will not give up. You will stay and watch him and protect his happiness. You will be strong and you will never tell him who you are. You are a warrior!
And she picked up the mascara.
She didn't see WuFei for awhile after that first day. Instead she found herself quite busy trying to get used to being a Preventor and trying to understand her laidback partner. She didn't go out of her way to see the former Gundam pilot-it would have aroused his suspicion if a new recruit began following him around.
That didn't mean she didn't know how he was. Duo Maxwell was constantly popping in and out of everywhere, telling tall tales of all of his friends. Meiran didn't pretend to understand the man who took nothing seriously but she could tell he was a loyal friend, which she admired.
"Hey Mary! Did you see your new assignment?" Ardon interrupted her thoughts. His tone was full of good natured envy.
She turned abruptly, surprised. "No. Why?"
"You must have attracted somebody's attention. You're getting paired with Chang for awhile."
She could feel her skin grow cold but she hoped it didn't show under her makeup or that it would be attributed to nervousness at working with such a legend. "Why?" It came out perhaps a bit more sharply than she'd intended but Ardon didn't catch it anyway.
"Well, of course I don't have all the details but it looks like you two are supposed to be working together on some Chinese stuff. You both have a lot of experience at that."
She frowned at the racial trait she hadn't been able to disguise. She hadn't been able to hide that from WuFei like she had her eye color and her pigtails.
Ardon saw the frown. "What? Aren't you excited?"
"I uh...didn't know he was scholarly inclined." She adlibbed.
"That's where you would be wrong Preventor Chin. It does not do for a Preventor to make assumptions." A stern voice came from behind her.
She refused to let him bother her and turned slowly, not willing to give him the upper hand. "It wasn't an assumption. It was an educated guess. For someone who spent as much time away from home as yourself, the time available for learning about culture and language or other pursuits would be curtailed."
He inclined his head, acceding to her point. "True, but I went away to school before the war."
"It's too bad you had to give that up." And she realized that it was too bad, for he had always loved learning so.
"I do not regard it as a sacrifice." He said gravely and she looked at him in confusion, for she knew that he had been so upset before to give up his studies to return home and marry her.
At her look of puzzlement, he elaborated. "Someone once told me that learning was a waste-that one should be a warrior and, in effect, make history not learn it."
Those words hummed along her skin, leaving her cold. She recognized those prideful words, those childish and immature barbs from a girl who did not want to be constrained any more than he did. If she could have, she would have ripped those words from the pages of history then, destroyed those words that had made him think it was ok to leave behind even a little bit of joy.
"Once I held that to be true." She said softly. "But now I know that the universe also needs people to tell us how to avoid problems made in the past and how to learn from that."
"But that also is making history, not learning it."
"One has to learn history to know how to make it responsibly."
"Doing what you feel is right will lead you to the responsible and right choice." He argued.
"Not if you aren't informed entirely of the situation." She said defiantly, refusing to budge.
"But each new situation has new complications and considerations."
The argument was starting to get a bit heated and Ardon, who had been trying hard to be unobtrusive, stirred. "Umm...so what are you guys working on anyway?"
That effectively broke the tension and WuFei looked over at Ardon, then looked back at Meiran. He had a small enigmatic smile halfway on its way to becoming a smirk. "Stubborn, aren't you?"
His abrupt good nature threw her off balance for a moment. She'd expected him to stay angry like he had when they were younger, staying upset from the argument for a long time. "I do not retreat."
He quirked his eyebrows at this but didn't respond. Instead he looked over at Ardon again. "We'll be taking our leave of you Preventor Kain." His tone was formal again as he said this and turned to the door, expecting Meiran to follow. It was so like him, so imperious and presuming, that she wanted to be mad but couldn't really find anything wrong with it that she could complain about. Instead she just bit the inside of her cheek and followed him out.
Author's Note: Thanks so much for all the reviews! I'm certainly going to have to go back and do some editing since I got so many helpful comments. Please keep reviewing since it makes me so happy and helps me so much!