An Orphan's Life

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing… Well, that was easy. ^_^;

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Shane and Elysia had long left the sleazy bar behind them, and were walking around the colony. The whole time they were together, they talked. Not cheap, small talk, but the deep, philosophical kind.

Elysia had never felt as close to someone as she did to Shane that night. She found herself telling him things she had never thought she would tell someone. All her fears and traumatizing moments at the orphanage, she was telling him all of these things.

She felt like Shane was someone she would see again. He felt almost like a brother to her.

She was surprised that she opened herself up so much to a complete stranger. But, then again, he wasn't much of stranger at that point.

Shane paused in his walking and looked at his watch. "Well, I have to get going right now." He looked down to her, being that she was considerably shorter than him, and raised an eyebrow. "Do you have a place to stay tonight?"

Elysia was about to shake her head, when she remembered the paper with Wufei's address on it. She took it out and looked at it slowly.

It was pretty late to go to somebody's house, especially somebody she didn't know. But it was better than going back to the hotel…

She handed it to Shane, unsure if she should even show it to him.

Shane looked at the paper in his hand and the address scrawled in Caterina's sloppy cursive. "What's this?"

Elysia cleared her throat and shrugged a little. "The man who lives there can help me find another guy who knows where my father is."

Shane nodded as he took this in slowly. "Sounds complicated… Want me to join ya'?"

Elysia thought this over. After what happened at the restaurant, she was pretty sure she wasn't going near Theo and Caterina any time soon. It was best to keep her distance. For now, anyways.

She looked up at Shane and gave a slight nod. "Could you, um, actually take me there. I'm new to the colony, so I don't really know where anything is."

Shane nodded. "Oh, sure. Just follow me." He took off his jacket and wrapped it around Elysia, who then realized she was shivering, and offered his arm to her.

Elysia smiled and took his arm as they walked off.

Caterina stumbled drunkenly into the hotel room and put her stuff down on the floor. "Theo? You still here?"

She frowned and walked over to his room. She made a face when she saw his bed made up. "Now, where did he go?"

She sighed and turned back to her side of the room. She sat down on her bed and rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Let's see… Theo's not here… Elysia isn't here…" She shrugged and laid down. "Well, if they're taking off this late together, who am I to judge?" She closed her eyes, ready to go to sleep.

She opened her eyes when her cell phone began to ring. "Damn it. I told daddy not to call me this late." She sighed and sat up.

She reached down to the floor and felt around on the floor for her phone. She picked it up and answered the phone, somewhat annoyed. "Yeah, who is it?"

"Uh… Caterina?"

Caterina frowned at the voice that was obviously not her father's and sat up. She looked at her watch, and grimaced at how early it really was. Who the heck got her number and called this early, or late, on her schedule?

She rubbed her forehead and tried to figure out whom she was talking to. "Um, yeah, it's me…"

"Oh, good. You sounded a little… weird… Almost like your mom. Which kind of freaked me out. I thought your dad made a mistake when he gave me your number."

Caterina frowned some more. This voice was very familiar. "Um… Okay…" Finally, she couldn't take it anymore. She had to know. "Okay, just who the hell is this? Because I am seriously having a memory lapse right now." She mentally cursed herself for drinking so much tonight.

"Oh, sorry about that! I kind of forgot we haven't talked on the phone in a long time. It's me, Jennifer."

Caterina frowned at that. "Jennifer?" Then she remembered. Jennifer Groff at the mall. "Oh! Jennifer!" She blinked. "Why are you calling me?" She narrowed her eyes. "And this lat- er, early."

"Well, I kind of wanted to do something right away, and you're the only one who can help me… Sorry 'bout waking you up."

Caterina closed her eyes. "No, no. That's okay. I wasn't really asleep, yet." She gave a yawn and brushed her hair away from her face. "What'd you want me for?"

"Oh, um… That girl that was with you. I wanted to, um, do something for her."

Caterina frowned. "Elysia?"

"Yeah… I guess this a good time to tell you something about my family… I was adopted."

Caterina's eyes widened slightly at this. She had noticed long ago that Jennifer never really looked like her parents, but she had never thought about why. She stared at the phone for a second, then put it back to her ear. "Okay…" Then it clicked.

Why Elysia got upset at the mall. Why Elysia was out of it the whole night.

"You two were at the orphanage together," Caterina said as it came to her.

Jennifer's voice came softly. "Yeah… She was there way before I was, but we were there together for three years… She was the only one who was nice to me when I was there… I felt … guilty, because I got to leave before she did, and she deserved to be out of that hell hole a long time ago, before me."

Caterina closed her eyes as she took this in. When she heard Elysia speak about the orphanage, she had assumed the bad treatment was reserved for her only. Now, hearing Jennifer say it, she began to fully understand the harsh reality of the place. How could adults treat children so coldly? Especially children who had already lost their families and probably everything they had?

Caterina forced herself to speak. "So, what did you want to do?"

"I wanted to find a living relative of hers. Someone she could go to."

Caterina frowned. "Well, she's kind of in the process of finding her dad."

Jennifer seemed taken aback and disappointed. "Really? Aw, damn it!"

Caterina held back a laugh as she began to think of something. "But I think we can find someone else for her."

"We can? Who?" She sounded hopeful.

Caterina smiled, knowing that what she was about to suggest would probably be a bad idea. In fact, she knew it was a bad idea. But she had to know. She needed to know. It wasn't fair to Elysia.

"I think we should locate her uncle."

Jennifer, not knowing the extremity of doing such a thing, grew happy. "Oh, good! That sounds like a good idea!"

Caterina smiled some more, liking the way things were looking up. Now, all she had to do, was figure out what to do about Theo and Elysia's relationship problem. She was going to have an interesting week.

Theo looked up as the artificial snow began to fall. He shook his head, liking the natural elements of earth better. More reasons why he hated space.

He sighed, knowing he should head back to the hotel. He had walked around for a good two hours, and he was getting sleepy again. He managed to not think about anything important or emotional. He was glad to do at least that much.

But now he had to figure out what to do.

He couldn't stay with Elysia and Caterina that much was for sure. But he didn't really want to head back home. Gabriel was definitely going to say something. And he knew his dad was going to ask him what happened.

He sighed again, knowing that that was the only option he had anyways. He didn't have anywhere else to go.

He walked towards the hotel slowly, knowing that he would have to explain to Caterina why he was going. He really did not look forward to that.

Hopefully, Elysia was asleep and wouldn't hear him leave.

He paused in his steps at the thought of Elysia, then started again. He was not going to think about her. No. Not at all.

He walked faster.

"This is it," Shane said, stopping in front of a wide one-story house. He looked down at Elysia. "Want me to stay with you?"

Elysia stared at the house in awe and shook her head. "No, you've done enough. Thank you. She went to take his jacket off, but he held up his hand and shook his head.

"Keep it." He smiled. "Maybe as a reminder."

Elysia smiled back. "Thanks." She waved to him and walked up to the house. "I hope to see you again."

Shane gave a slight wave back as he watched her." Don't worry. You will." He thrust his hands into his pockets and walked away, whistling happily.

Elysia smiled as he left, wondering how someone could be as happy and carefree as he was, with no jacket on and the snow coming down on him.

She sighed and turned her attention to the door. This was it. The reason she had come to this colony.

She knocked on the door, mentally going over what she was going to say, hoping that someone was still up.

To her surprise, someone did answer the door.

"Who are you?" a young Chinese girl asked, opening the door a little. She looked at Elysia questioningly, her blue eyes shining.

Elysia smiled at the girl. "Um… Is Wufei here?"

The girl's eyes widened slightly. She looked Elysia over, probably trying to see if she was a threat or not.

Before she or Elysia could say anything, an older girl came to the door. "Who is it, Crystal?" She pushed aside the younger girl and looked out to Elysia. "Yes, what do you want?"

Crystal glared at the older girl and crossed her arms. "She wants daddy, Jade."

The older girl looked down at Crystal. "Oh, she does?" She opened the door all the way and stepped aside for Elysia to walk in. "Come on in. He's just sitting down to read and drink his tea."

Elysia frowned at Jade's hospitality as she walked in, wondering if the suspicious Crystal was even related to her.

"What is it that you want to see him for?" Jade asked, closing the door.

Elysia hesitated, not wanting to bore another person with her pathetic story. After a long pause, she shrugged and pulled Shane's jacket tighter around her. "I was told he could help me find somebody."

Jade nodded, not finding anything strange about Elysia's answer. "Follow me. He's over here."

Elysia nodded and followed Jade down a hallway and into a room.

"Father, someone's here for you." Jade looked over at Elysia and nudged her toward a medium- sized Chinese man in a chair.

He looked up at Jade and squinted through the glasses he was wearing. "Your mother?"

Jade made a face and pointed to Elysia. "No, her."

Wufei looked over to Elysia and nearly dropped the newspaper he was reading. He stood up and slowly took a step toward her. "Relena?…" He shook his head quickly and took his glasses off, wiping them with a small cloth. "I apologize. Relena's been dead for a long time now…" He put his glasses back on and studied Elysia. "But you're her daughter, aren't you?"

Elysia nodded slowly.

Wufei took a deep breath and sat back down, motioning for Elysia to sit in a chair by him.

Elysia sat down, not knowing what to think.

Wufei studied her some more and folded his hands. "I suspected those rumors were true."

Elysia frowned. "Rumors?"

Wufei raised an eyebrow." How old are you, exactly?"

"Eighteen."

Wufei nodded. "That would make the time frame about right."

Elysia frowned more, getting confused. "Huh?"

Wufei smiled at her slightly. "About three years before your mother was killed, there were rumors that she had a child. Of course, after she died and no child was shown at the funeral, the rumors went away…" He frowned a little. "I'm guessing you didn't know this."

Elysia nodded. "I just found out a few days ago that my mother was dead."

She hid back her surprise at that statement.

Had it really been four days since she left the orphanage? So much had happened in so little time.

Wufei nodded as she thought that over. "So, I'm assuming you're here to find out where your father is."

Elysia bit her lip. "Yeah, sort of. But Trowa said that you wouldn't know where he would be. He said… I believe it was a Duo… Maxwell would know, but I'd have to ask you where he's at…" She trailed off, realizing how lame everything sounded.

Wufei's eyes widened. "Trowa? You've spoken with Trowa?"

Elysia nodded. "And Quatre."

Wufei stared at her silently as he took that in. "I didn't realize we all had been apart for so long… How exactly did you find them?"

Elysia frowned. "The… I had a list. And when I got to one person, they would give me more names and places to go to and…" She trailed off, remembering her uncle. She looked down and asked quietly, "You wouldn't happen to know where my… uncle is, would you?"

Wufei stared at her, trying to see why she got a bit upset about asking. "No, actually… Did you want to see him?"

Elysia eyes widened. She shook her head quickly. "Not really. I just… I don't know." She looked down.

Wufei watched here silently then looked to Jade. "Jade, are you up for a trip to the Sank Kingdom?"

Jade, whom Elysia had forgotten was there, nodded. "Sure. Where am I going?"

Wufei looked at Elysia. "Duo's house."

Elysia frowned a little. "Oh, that's okay. I can go by myself."

Wufei shook his head. "I don't think it'd be a good idea to go around by yourself."

Elysia frowned at the statement but didn't comment.

Wufei stared at her a couple seconds longer. " You'll leave first thing in the in the morning. Do you have a place to stay the night?"

Elysia thought a second, wondering if she should go back to the hotel. Maybe she shouldn't. She looked up at Wufei and shook her head. "No, not really."

Wufei looked to Jade, who stood up quickly. "I'm on it. Follow me."

Wufei looked at Elysia, who stood up reluctantly. "Have a good rest."

Elysia smiled back slightly and nodded as she walked out.

This search was getting stranger and stranger with every person she met.

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A/N: Do you ever get the feeling when you're watching your favorite shows or reading something really good and your fave characters do things you can't believe they're doing and you just want to jump into whatever it is that they inhabit and just beat the crap out of 'em? I do. All the time. Anywho, that was off the subject. Well, this was number five and the last chapter I could fit on my floppy disk thingamajigger, so you have to stop at this point and either review, read the whole darned story over, or turn the computer off and go to sleep. All of these are optional, of course… Well, see you next time. ~_^