True North
Chapter 2
Pairing: 2x1
Category: AU
Warnings: OC child
Disclaimers: Gundam Wing is copyright Bandai, Sunrise and Sotsu
Agency. "The Eternal Rhapsody" is copyright Midori Saiha/Ringo Zaidan.
Beta read by the lovely Diamroyal.

"Can I get out of the wheelchair now?"

Duo groaned. "We haven't even reached the parking lot. Are
you sure you don't want to wait until we get to the car?"

Heero shook his head. "No, I want to try walking by myself."
Today, he was finally leaving the hospital and going home. He still
had to go back in a few days for another IV treatment, and there were
at least three bottles of pills that he had to take daily, but he was
going home, and that was the important part.

"All right." Duo stopped the wheelchair and came around,
holding his arms out. "Take my hands." When Heero didn't move, Duo
thrust them further out. "C'mon. You can walk, but at least let me
help you out."

Heero reluctantly took both of Duo's wrists, and hoisted
himself up. The first few steps were uncertain; he tottered and
nearly fell into Duo's chest, but soon, he got it and was walking by
himself, if slowly. The gene therapy had been taxing, as Duo had
warned, and he didn't have the strength to walk around the hospital
floors while trailing the stupid IV pole behind him.

At least the hard part was over; he still felt under the weather, but
it was much better than hunkering over the toilet at least three
times a day, vomiting whatever he'd managed to eat. One invaluable
lesson he'd learned; hospital food was a lot nastier going up than
it was the normal way. The delirium hadn't been at all welcome, first
the crazy energy surges followed by extreme sleepiness, and the
particularly vivid hallucinations. He'd woken up from one episode
only to find a frightened, wide-eyed Moira peering out from behind
Duo while clutching tightly to his lab coat.

No, Heero wasn't going to miss the hallucinations very much.

The first thing he'd have to do once he had more strength was to get
some clothes that fit him. Right now, he was borrowing an old gray
sweatshirt and black track pants from Duo. The sneakers he had on
were a size too large and they made an annoying shuffling sound
whenever he moved. Duo's clothes were also too big; they'd had to
roll up the sleeves and pant legs before they left the hospital room
at least five times before there wasn't any risk of Heero tripping
over himself. But they'd do for now, at least until Moira's
graduation ceremony. Then he'd have to find a good button-down shirt
and dress pants.

The car wasn't parked very far; Duo had been lucky today, apparently,
and soon they were both inside, driving back home, the white blocky
hospital growing smaller and smaller in the side mirror.

"You hungry?" Duo asked, flipping on his turn signal.

"No. Why?"

"It's almost dinnertime, and if you want, I can ask Moira to set
another place at the table. She's been home since noon because today
was her last exam."

"I see," Heero said. "No, don't bother, my appetite still isn't
there."

Duo made an understanding noise. "All right. I'll ask Moira to set
something aside for you anyway. I'd like you to get something down
tonight, okay? You're not vomiting anymore, are you?"

"No."

"Good. No nausea?"

"Duo, I'm fine!" Heero snapped. "Stop fussing, will you? I'll eat
when I feel like it."

Duo sighed. "Look," he said, "you need to get some nutrients in
there. You'll recover faster that way. I know your appetite isn't
much, but try to eat something, or you'll die of starvation before
you even recover."

"Fine," Heero snorted, turning his head to stare out the window. They
drove the rest of the way home quietly.

The tomatoes slid out of the can, red pulpy things whose skins came
off when Moira prodded them with her spoon at the bottom of the pot.
Today she was cooking pasta; they hadn't had it for a long time, and
she figured it was about time she fixed that.

"...'cause I'm best known for failure, best known for giving up,
there's nothing that I can say that could matter..." she sang along
with the music coming out of the Seashell in her right ear. Since it
was the very last day of school before her graduation, she felt like
it was a punk' day, and New Found Glory always got her moving. Who
cared if they were ancient? Most of today's music was a crapfest
anyway, with the exception of The Shippers, Sara Campbell, and Nick
Watanabe Harris.

She poured some cream into the waiting pot on the stove, stirred it
until it all mixed well and then pressed the "LOW/WARM" setting on
the LCD panel. While the sauce cooked, she filled a larger pot with
water, threw in some salt and put it on the burner next to the sauce,
pressing "HIGH". It'd take a while for the water to boil, so until
she could add the pasta, she danced along the kitchen floor,
pretending to be the lead singer with the wooden spoon as a
microphone.

"Let's get down to business now, I'm saving myself the trouble in the
end..." she shouted, jumping up and down to the beat of the guitar
riffs. She almost had this song down, just some more practicing and
she'd have it cold.

Singing and dancing in front of the stove started when she was
thirteen, when she'd gotten the Seashell that was worn on only one
ear instead of two, along with a copy of the latest Bambi Bouquet mp3
stick. While Moira hated Bambi with the passion of a million fiery
white-hot suns, she would have surgically bolted the Seashell to her
ear if it was at all possible.

Her favorite part was coming up, and she took a deep breath,
squeezing the wooden spoon so hard splinters were about to dig into
her palms.

"I'm! The! One! To! Blame! For! It! Yes! I'm! The one! To blaaame!"
she yelled, in a voice so loud she felt her vocal cords rupturing.

"To blame for what?"

Moira whirled around, seeing Dad standing in the doorway with his
hands on his hips, trying unsuccessfully to suppress a grin. She
screamed.

"W-when did you get back!?" she stammered. "H-how much did you see?"

Dad held an invisible spoon in his hands, pretending to sing while
swinging his hips from to side to side. "I saw that," he
said. "Anyway, not too loud. I just drove Papa here and he's going
upstairs to rest."

Moira retied her apron strings. "Um, okay, got that. And I do not
swivel my hips like that," she muttered.

"Yes you do," Dad said. "The first boy you take home gets to see a
picture of you dancing with a sheep apron over your capri pants," he
said slyly, "right after the embarrassing fairy video."

She growled. "You wouldn't." Dad shrugged his shoulders.

"There's something boiling on the stove. Better check it," he said.
Moira shrieked, running over. The pot for the pasta was about to
bubble over the edge, and she hurriedly poured in some extra water,
allowing herself a small "phew!" as the foam subsided.

"Should I cook some for Papa?" she asked. Dad nodded.

"He's not gonna eat now, but I'll make sure he does tonight. After I
show him the school photo where you tried to cut a heart into your
bangs."

"Get out of the kitchen!" Moira yelled, swinging a bare foot at Dad's
retreating leg. Assuming the sauce didn't burn while she dumped in
the pasta and stirred it, dinner would be ready within fifteen
minutes.

The keypad beeped softly as Duo punched in the code for the shower:
hot water, full strength, from the shower head only. Hopefully this
time he didn't accidentally pick up Moira's shampoo; when he did
that, Professor G had made some comments about how he'd thought there
was a cheerleader in the room until Duo sat next to him at a meeting.
Personally, he didn't think lavender jasmine shampoo was all that
strong, and at least Moira didn't have that godawful stuff with
glitter.

As the water poured down on him, Duo realized that he'd need to take
some time to guide Heero around the house. In Heero's time, they
didn't have controls for the shower nor the laundry machines. The
sinks and toilets still worked the same way, with sensors, and were
really only more streamlined.

And that was just the plumbing.

The computers, for example, were now thinner, probably no thicker
than a few sheets of paper. The newest laptops now could be folded
down, then over twice until they were the size of a deck of cards.
Moira was getting one for a graduation present. It made sense, since
she'd use it for years, and she was pretty damn good with doing
upgrades on her own.

He picked up the shampoo (the right one this time, he could tell by
the gold label) and lathered it up in his hands. One advantage of
having shorter hair was that it took less shampoo to clean. Duo had
cut his hair after going back to his own time with the baby in tow,
because the braid had reminded him too much of Heero. He'd always
liked Duo's hair, though he'd been hard-pressed to admit it,
especially when the damn braid had knocked over a beaker. Now, Duo
didn't know whether or not to start braiding his hair again, but he'd
gotten used to the ponytail, and it was a lot easier, though he could
pick up braiding easily if he wanted to.

After all, he taught Moira to braid her own hair as soon as it got
long enough. That hadn't been too long ago, maybe when she was eight
or nine.

There was a knock on the door when he was rinsing off the
conditioner.

"Dad, time to eat," Moira said from behind the bathroom door.

"Wow, didn't know you were that quick, kiddo. Look, I'll be down in
about five, let me get some clothes on. Oh, and Moira?" he asked,
stepping out of the shower.

"Yeah?"

Duo grabbed a towel and started drying his hair. "Would you mind
showing Papa around the house sometime this week? You know, getting
him familiar with the appliances and all that?" She and Heero hadn't
gotten off to a good start, he thought, and now that Heero was
recovering more from the gene therapy, hopefully they could start
over again.

There was a long pause, and then, a hesitant "okay," from Moira
before he heard her walking down the stairs.

"Thanks, sweetie," he called out.

Everything in this house was new. New furniture in the dining
and living rooms, new light fixtures that were built into the house
so that there were no lamps at all, and the plants outside in the
garden—the ones that Heero recognized, at least—had grown taller and
thicker.

The carpeting was the same beige color he'd seen last time, but it
was softer, even though Duo said that they'd have to actually try
if they wanted to stain it. Moira had happily demonstrated this
earlier by taking a glass of juice and dumping it on the stairs.
After she'd wiped it up, it was like she'd never spilled anything in
the first place.

The mop, he didn't like so much. Moira had yanked him out of the way
before this shin-high machine rolled in, spraying water within a half
a meter's radius before proceeding to cover the area with a thick
layer of foam. Then it mopped everything up in a widening circle, and
smoothly rolled back out.

Now, Moira bent over the dishwasher, pulling out a plate. "Here,
check this out," she said, passing it to Heero. The white china was
now spotless, gleaming in the sunlight.

"That's all sonic waves at work there," she continued. "No water, no
soap. I've never used those to clean dishes before, but Nana says
that they're not as effective anyway."

"How long does it take to clean?" Heero asked. "An hour?"

Moira snorted, taking the dish and putting it in the cupboard. "Not
even. Fifteen minutes. Put the dishes in, press the button, and
that's it. Come on, I'll show you how the TV works," she said,
walking briskly to the living room. The TV itself hung on the wall
like a painting—that was nothing new—but when Heero was about to ask
where the remote control was, Moira shook her head, smirking, and
snapped her fingers.

The TV switched on automatically.

"It's keyed to our movements," Moira explained smoothly, ignoring his
surprised expression. "Snapping your fingers turns it on. Snapping
twice turns it off. Now, this is how you change channels."

She turned to face the screen. For a few seconds, she didn't look
like she was doing anything except blinking randomly. But then the
current channel, a news program, changed to a kids' show where
brightly colored things danced about in the grass.

"You blink if you want to change the channel. It works like a remote
control in that you don't blink fifty-six times to get, oh, channel
fifty-six. What you do is you blink five times," she demonstrated
this, closing and opening her eyes deliberately, "then you pause for
a second, and then blink six times. That's five-six."

"It's different if you want to scan or change the volume," she
continued. "For scanning channels, you look from side to side. To go
up, you move your eyes to the right, like this. And then, to go down,
you move to the left. Volume is the same way, except you move your
eyes up and down." She cocked her head at Heero, a few strands of
loose hair falling over one side of her face. "You think you can try
it now?"

He nodded, moving to stand in front of the screen. Assuming the
channels hadn't changed on him, forty-two should work. It was a
documentary station, one that Duo had dismissed as dry and boring as
all hell. That hadn't stopped him from plopping down on the couch
whenever Heero had been watching it.

He blinked rapidly four times, paused, and then blinked twice. The
brightly colored dancing things disappeared, only to be replaced with
loud moans and a naked woman writhing on a bed.

"Yes, yes, yesss...keep doing that, keep doing that, don't stop," she
panted. "I can't believe it feels so good, don't stop..."

Heero heard a strangled giggle to his right, and he glanced over.
Moira was bent over double, holding a hand over her mouth, shaking
with laughter.

"What? This isn't funny!" he said.

She shook her head, snapping her fingers twice. The screen went
black, and she straightened up, smoothing her T-shirt over her
stomach.

"Show me how you blinked at the TV," she said, still giggling. He
blinked the channel at her, and she clucked her tongue.

"You blinked too fast," she said, now without laughing. "It has
to be a complete movement for it to read properly. Guess the TV
didn't pick up some of those blinks, because normally forty-two's
Documentary Central. Dad loves it to death."

"He does?"

"Oh, totally. If it's not CNN, it's that. C'mon," Moira said, walking
briskly ahead, "there's the bathroom stuff to show you too."

The weather outside was fantastic. It was currently seventy-five
degrees out, with miles of pure blue sky. Moira checked the clock on
her cell phone. She had about twenty minutes before Amy came to pick
her up to get their graduation robes.

Hanging out on the roof seemed like a perfect way to kill
time. Besides, she could say hi to Amy before she rang the doorbell.
She pushed the window in her room open, grabbing her sneakers in her
other hand. The shingles could be hot, and she didn't want to burn
her feet. Then she climbed outside.

She pulled on her sneakers, tying double knots in the laces
so that they wouldn't come undone, because tripping on this roof and
falling down was not her idea of fun.

"Wow," she murmured in awe, standing up. The leaves on the
trees had long unfurled, so now below the sky was a lacy canopy of
green. It wasn't really good as seeing it from the school roof, which
was taller, but it was still pretty neat. She'd been up here for
years and still felt thrilled about seeing everything from a higher
place. It looked so different.

Different. Like how things were now.

One, Moira had a summer to look forward to. The last time
she had summer was when she was eleven. Just thinking about it made
her so giddy and bouncy that Audrey had to punch her in the shoulder
during class to stop. But it was so exciting to think about getting
to sleep in late and have nothing to do for a month and a half! It
meant more hanging out with Amy, Audrey and Gwen on things that
weren't related to studying, more time to take pictures with the
digital camera she got from Nana for Christmas, and more time to
putter around on the roof, from just doing stuff on the laptop to
taking out the guitar and playing until she felt like her fingers
were falling off.

This was good because once she started going to Blair
Institute, she didn't think she'd be really able to do all of those
things. Maybe the guitar, because it was a good excuse to unwind
between studying, but the camera would have to sit for a while. Hell,
she needed to spend more time with Amy and Gwen, because they'd be
going to different schools this fall—both in the colonies—and they'd
only be able to see each other online.

Moira wasn't that scared of going to college. At least this
time she looked more like an adult—when she'd gotten into high
school, anyone could tell she was a kid, which sucked. Hopefully this
time she could blend in age-wise.

Another thing she could do this summer was try and get to
know Papa. She walked further on the rooftop quietly and peeked into
Dad's window. The bed looked empty, so either Papa conked out on the
couch after she'd shown him around or he was somewhere else in the
house.

Hope he's not too upset over the TV, she thought. She really didn't mean to laugh when he got the porn, but she couldn't help it. Still, just thinking about his expression had her giggling again. The whole thing with him wasn't going too smoothly, and she needed to fix that. But he was so hard to get used to; the expectations she'd had didn't fit whatsoever.

She'd asked Nana and Dad two questions when she was little:
one, if Papa would know what she looked like, and two, if Papa loved
her. The answers were always yes and yes, no matter how many times
she asked. Finally, Dad had told her that Papa loved her very much,
which put the whole thing to rest. So when Papa came here, at least
he knew what she looked like, though he said that she'd looked
retarded when she gaped, but she didn't think he liked her. Granted,
he'd been loopy thanks to coming out of what amounted to six decades
of sleep, but he'd been home for about a week and she thought he'd
have shown some signs of interest in what his kid had been up to.

Dad told her to be patient, that Papa was still adjusting to
being sixty-four to sixty-five years down from his own time, and that
things would fall into place sooner or later. All Moira could tell
was that he didn't really try to know her, and there were a few times
where he seemed all out irritated with her.

It was beginning to frustrate her tremendously. She was
willing, in fact, she wanted to know everything about him, now that
he was here and not in the picture on her desk, and there wasn't much
on the other end.

Unfortunately, she couldn't do much about it right now. Not only was
Papa recovering from his illness, there was the graduation ceremony
to worry about. This year, they'd decided to let the students have
charge of part of the commencement, so what happened was that they'd
elected her, along with Steve Barlow, to speak at the beginning. She
had a vague outline of the speech written down, but there were only a
few days left; today was Thursday, and the graduation ceremony was
the following Tuesday.

The window to her left whisked open, making her jump.

"What are you doing up there?" Papa asked. Moira gulped; he didn't
look happy.

"Uh...just chillin' on the roof. I do it all the time," she said,
trying to sound as casual as possible. "It's a lot of fun. You can
see a ton of stuff from up—"

Papa cut her off. "Get down. Now."

"It's not dangerous or anything," she explained. "Unless you walk up
to the edge on purpose, it's pretty safe up here. C'mon, I'll show
you," she said, reaching out to him.

"No. Get down," he said, this time beginning to sound really pissed
off. Moira put her hands on her hips, and opened her mouth to tell
him that he didn't have the slightest idea of what he was talking
about when she heard Amy pull up onto their driveway and honk twice.

"Well, I'm getting down now, happy?" she grumbled. Papa snorted and
turned away from the window. Moira crawled into her room and headed
downstairs and out, where Amy was waiting.

"Hey," Amy said, checking her rearview mirror, "on the roof again,
huh?"

"Yeah." Moira slid in, buckling her seat belt. "God, I hope getting
our robes doesn't take too long."

Amy shook her head, making her blonde hair swing from side to
side. "Shouldn't. Check the back for me, will you? I'm about to pull
out." When Moira didn't say anything, Amy turned to her. "You okay?
You're real quiet."

"Uh...yeah. Just a little argument with the folks," she replied
absently. "Someone's a little upset about me being up on the roof."

Amy guffawed. "Jeez, you've been doing that since forever. Kinda
late for your dad to be doing that now."

"Eh, not Dad, but I hope it blows over." Moira stared out the window,
trying to forget the last few minutes ever happened. After all, she
had that speech to work on, and she didn't want it to sound
pissy.

Dinner that night was not too comfortable for anyone. It had started
out fine, but when Moira brought up getting her graduation robes for
the ceremony, that was when Heero put down his fork and asked Duo
about their daughter spending her time up on the roof.

"Well, I never had a problem with it," Duo said, pausing to take a
bite of salad. "It's not like she's tried to walk off the edge on
purpose."

"That's still not safe. What if she slips?" Heero asked. Moira rolled
her eyes, sipping her water and shoving a forkful of fish into her
mouth.

"The shingles are rough. Besides, they have labs in summer where they
go out at night to hang out on the school roof. There's no point in
freaking out over her staying on the roof here when she spends time
on one that's two stories higher." Duo shrugged, mopping up the sauce
on his plate with bread.

Moira exhaled loudly after swallowing her fish. "So I got my
graduation robes today, and I tried them on, and they're so long.
Like, really long. They reach the floor on me and I think I could
trip. But the cap fits okay and the tassel's all perky and cute and I
even got a special ribbon to wear around my neck because I'm speaking
at the ceremony and of course I got the special silver cord because
I got good grades and—"

"Don't change the subject." Heero's words were sharp and abrupt,
accompanied by a nasty glare aimed at the younger girl.

"Fine," Moira snapped. "Don't talk about me like I'm not here, then.
Especially when I can see and hear you perfectly." Her lip was
curling into a sneer and Duo could see one of her eyebrows slightly
twitching.

But before he could warn her to cut the smartass act, she got up from
her seat, picking up her fork and knife and putting them on her empty
plate.

"I'd like to be excused," she said. "I need to work more on my
speech. If you want, I'll be back down to do the dishes." She left
the table before Duo could say yes, her hair trailing behind her as
she walked.

He waited for Heero to finish eating before leaning back in his chair
and saying, "Looks like you're hitting some rough spots with each
other."
Heero stood up and starting clearing the table. "She shouldn't be on
the roof," he insisted. "I was in the bathroom and then I saw her
walking up there, and she acted nonchalant about it. Like I was
making a big fuss over nothing." He reached for Duo's plate. "I don't
know. She's so...different."

"She's not a baby anymore. When they put you in coldsleep, she was
only six or seven months old, remember?" Duo got up and circled his
arms around Heero's shoulders and burrowing his chin into the dark,
silky hair. "Give it time," he whispered. "I can talk to her, but
you've got to be patient. She adores you, okay? I'm not lying here."

He felt Heero nod, after a moment's hesitation. Duo smiled,
tightening his arms around the other man briefly.

"It'll all work out. You'll see." He kissed the top of Heero's head
and then released him. "/I'll/ take the dishes. You go and rest."

Moira groaned; even with shoes on, the purple graduation robe still
dragged on the floor. Everyone else's hung at least six inches above
the ground. This wasn't fair; even Ella over there was just as tall
as she was and hers wasn't dragging. But then again, Ella had huge
boobs.

"When are we going to go in?" she asked Audrey, who was standing next
to her.

"They said any time now," Audrey replied, "which means not in the
next five minutes. I want to go now and get this over with, man. At
least I'm not you, you're the last one to go in." She grinned down at
Moira.

"Shut up," Moira grumbled. She'd spent last night trying to memorize
her speech so that she didn't have to look at her notes all the time
while she spoke to the audience. Now, where the hell was Steve? They
were supposed to go in together for the ceremony. He said that he was
going to go to the bathroom for a bit, but that was about twenty
minutes ago.

Now that the speech was less than an hour away, she was as nervous as
hell. That was really weird for her; she normally didn't have any
problems talking in front of anybody. But now her stomach was doing
jumping jacks inside.

I guess it would have been different if it was just Dad and Nana,
she thought. Now that Papa was here, she felt like she couldn't screw
this up. If it had been Dad and Nana only, she could have forgotten
everything in her speech, and in the end it would be okay. They'd
laugh, and it'd be fine, once she knew she could live it down. But
Papa didn't look like the type to laugh at all. Right now Moira was
wondering if he even had a sense of humor to begin with. There /had/
to be, if he could smile like that in the picture by her bed.

That was the problem. The thing was that people that /didn't/ have a
sense of humor couldn't smile like that, and at least from what she'd
heard from Nana and Dad, she thought Papa would have found something
funny or at least seemed more amiable. But it seemed like his face
only had two modes: stony or pissed. Granted, he was still gaining
back some strength from his stint in the hospital, but honestly, she
was wondering if that picture she had was just a really rare thing
going on.

Moira heard the strains of "Pomp and Circumstance" beginning, and
looked around furiously, wondering if Steve decided to lock himself
in the bathroom on purpose just to embarrass her.

"Steve isn't here yet?" Audrey asked. "Tough, girl. Good luck on your
speech, maybe he'll show up on time." She gave Moira a quick hug,
taking off her cap and ruffling her hair. "I gotta go get into
alphabetical order with the rest of em. See ya around."

"Great. Terrific." Moira shuffled her notes around, going over her
speech one last time. Her classmates were disappearing quickly into
the auditorium. They had at least two hundred graduating, right? And
Steve /still/ was nowhere to be seen.

"Come on, come on..." She started bouncing up and down, watching the
numbers dwindle to fifty, then thirty, then ten. Their cue was coming
up fast, and now the usher was looking at her, mouthing, "where is
he?"

Moira shrugged helplessly. "Good Lord above, I beg of you, strike me
down where I stand," she whimpered.

"Not today, babe." She whirled around, seeing Steve walking casually
to the entrance.

"What the hell is wrong with you? We just...oh, there goes our
cue. /Terrific/," she said.

"Dude, it wasn't my fault! I got lost on my way to the bathroom and
on the way back."

"Save it, Barlow," Moira snapped, "we're late." She gathered up the
folds of the purple robe in both hands and started running down the
aisle, ignoring Steve's plea to wait.

Get to the podium, get to the podium, get to the podium now, she thought. Her classmates were a huge blur of purple, white, and silver all around. She'd been pretty fast, but at this point, she might just make it before the music ended, with a few seconds to catch her breath.

"Oof!" Moira hit the ground hard, flat on her face. Head spinning,
she slowly rose to her knees. Her palm was stinging, and her ankle
didn't feel too good either. And she was only halfway to the podium.

She felt someone lifting her arm. "Tsk tsk, Maxwell," Steve
said, "Running isn't a good idea for short kids and long robes, don't
ya know." Before she could protest, Moira felt another arm around her
knees, and they were running the rest of the way up to the podium.
The music had already finished.

She didn't want to look up into the audience to see where her family
was. The scenarios she had in her head were bad enough, and she was
swaying from side to side, looking out over a sea of giggling
classmates, and trying to figure out what, exactly, were the closing
remarks of her speech.

"Well, we sure can say these four years have been a trip, eh?" Steve
shouted into the microphone, setting Moira down on her feet like she
was a toddler being shooed out to play.

"I'm going to get you for this," she hissed to Steve. Then she turned
to the audience, straightened her robes, and batted the tassel out of
the way. At least the speech was going to be good.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen..."