Chapter Twenty-One
The Return
Relena sat nervously tapping her fingers on the slightly padded armrest of the chair in the airport. People walked quickly by her, hurrying to their destinations. She had her tied back in a kerchief and thick non-prescription glasses and overalls with a red and black plaid shirt. No one would notice her nor associate her with Relena Darlian.
He'd be here any minute, aaaaaaany minute now... Pensively, she tapped her fingers deliberately slowly, but in double forte.
A warm hand closed over the top of her jittery ones and held them tightly, effectively stopping her nervous movements. She looked up him, the obvious question unasked.
"You're making me nervous," he said simply.
Then he took his hand away. She wished he'd put it back—she missed the comforting warmth and steadiness.
The station rattled a little telling her that another plane had just landed. She checked her watch—10:18. Milliardo would be here soon. Too soon.
For the millionth time, she silently cursed her brother for insisting on meeting instead of picking her up. Not only that, but was it really necessary to meet in a place with more security cameras than Lady Une's office? It wasn't like she was leaving the country.
She snuck a peek at the man beside her. Tai was looking straight ahead with an almost bored expression, as usual.
"Tai, is this going to be another goodbye like all the others?" she asked, finally voicing her concerns. Sure he'd said there wouldn't be anymore goodbyes like before, but they hadn't discussed keeping in touch at all. It'd been bothering her since Milliardo called to say that she needed to come back. Because now that she got along fine with using crutches only occasionally she could come back.
At first her companion didn't say anything. His face was turned away from hers so she couldn't be sure of his expression.
"How can it be?" His emphasis on the word "can" effectively conveyed his incredulity.
Relena bit her lip and linked an arm through one of his. "So you'll email me and call me?"
He nodded. "Naturally. And if you're ever in this area, you'll contact me?" He was still carefully not looking at her.
Fighting the urge to grab his face and make him look at her, she swallowed visibly, the lump in her throat moving up and down slightly.
"He's here." Relena jumped at Tai's words and looked over to see her brother walking quickly towards them. He had his old dark glasses on, casual street-clothes, and his hair tied back and stuffed down the back of his jacket, a hat on backwards to cover it up. Relena sighed and didn't laugh. He looked so silly. Sending someone to retrieve her was out of the question, naturally, but she did wish he'd just cut that hair, then he could blend in more easily.
"Tai," he acknowledged curtly. He reached out a hand and shook one of Tai's. Relena blinked twice at that—she could have sworn there was now something in Milliardo's hand, small, square, and dark... "Are you ready?" he asked, turning to Relena.
Glancing at Tai, the back of her throat suddenly stuck together, and peanut butter had nothing to do with it. But she nodded. They started to walk away but it just felt all wrong. This was not a way to say goodbye. She couldn't just walk away from Tai like this. No way.
Limping back to him, he caught her in his arms. "Bye," she said weakly, her arms tightly around his neck.
He grinned at her and patted her on the top of her head. "Bye. You look like a little puppy."
She smiled too, but was grateful for it. It helped to cover up her tears. She hugged him to the best of her ability considering her position and health. "Bye," she said again and kissed him very quickly and chastely on the cheek, her brother was watching after all.
He let her go and smiled again. "Have fun guys!" and he turned and walked away.
Inwardly Relena envied him. She knew he cared for her, yet he could force himself to act otherwise and walk away when needed. That was just so hard for her, and every fiber within her being was screaming, "THIS ISN'T RIGHT!"
Milliardo's hand on her shoulder woke her from her reverie. Time to work, and now, watching Tai's retreating back, she just might have the courage to keep going.
WMWMWMWM
Tai pulled off his gloves. He's just helped to deliver a baby, his first one ever. It was the strangest thing he'd ever seen. It always baffled him to think of it, how a fully formed child could come from a human body. And even though there was pain, screaming, terror, a beautiful thing came out of the entire ordeal—a perfect child who would be going home. But there the sad tale picked up again. The woman, no child, would be going home alone carrying her baby in a newspaper to her government housing downtown to meet her parents, most likely drunk or drugged up, etc. The father would never see his baby girl. He didn't care enough. And another sixteen year old girl would have to scrape her way through the world dragging her daughter with her. Maybe she'd fight for something better for her daughter, or maybe she'd succumb to loneliness, depression, and alcohol.
He wiggled some life back into his fingers. The gloves had to be fairly tight or else they didn't do their job properly. But that made your hands all sweaty and gross. He made a face as he washed them, rubbing his fingers, trying to remember the women who did come in with their husbands and walked out arm in arm, laughing and smiling with their new family member. It did no good to dwell on these young unsupported mothers.
Then he headed down to the cafeteria with a text book. After getting his tray, he looked unsuccessfully for an empty table. Finally he settle on a somewhat empty table in the corner and sat down, pulled out his book and let himself fall into it, mentally of course. He had found himself thinking far too often about a certain blond. The apartment had seemed oddly lonely and empty without her these past few days. She had emailed him yesterday—she was still in town, catching up on word in the office. That was the worst part. She was so close to him, yet he couldn't see her, partly because he had not time to and vice versa, and partly because of all the trouble it could cause publicly, politically....
Text book, text book....the femoral artery branches at....
A tray slammed down next to him, jerking him from his mental block and down to physically collide with his book. Then he did a double take. "Siduri?"
"Hi," she said angrily.
"What's wrong?"
She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Oh? You don't know? Here, naive little me, I thought you were a nice truthful guy but you're just full of lies like all the others." She attacked her grilled cheese sandwich with a ferocity that made Tai nervous. It reminded him of hamsters eating their own young, far worse, in his opinion, than the hunting lion. Then before he could contemplate, yet again, how disturbing his internal monologues could be, he asked, "Um...this might be a stupid question, but just what did I lie about?"
"You told me you weren't interested in dating ANYONE, not just me. You know, if you aren't attracted to me, you should just be honest and say so. But I can't believe you'd choose that HAG over me! I must be a right awful terror." She fixed him with an icy glare. Well, here was someone not afraid to show their true emotions, he thought dryly.
Tai looked down at his book with confusion. This could mean only one thing because there was only one girl he'd spent any amount of time with at all, but she was most certainly NOT a hag. "Is this girl I'm supposedly seeing blond with blue eyes?"
"I don't know so much about her eyes but she was blond, with hideous glasses," she added viciously.
Tai nodded. "Sorry about that...it's kind of complicated."
"Sorry? Complicated? You didn't make it sound so complicated all those months ago!"
"Listen, she and I have been friends since we were fifteen. It's different."
"Oh, so you've had a girlfriend the whole time, even better!" she said sarcastically. "Some night when you're all lonely for her, why don't you give me a call because I'm obviously stupid enough to fall for it," she snapped. "You are so selfish. Just-get-over-yourself!" She punctuated every other word with a banging of her fork on the tray.
Tai rolled his eyes and grit his teeth in frustration. "Listen, I haven't been dating anyone and I haven't been interested in dating anyone. She's a long time friend that I've grown interested in but we aren't exactly together."
"Then what are you? You looked pretty friendly to me." She was beginning to resemble a rabid hyena—not quite foaming at the mouth but very nearly.
Tai could feel he was on dangerous ground. She sounded ready to jump on anything and everything he could say. He was fighting a losing battle--not that he wasn't familiar with losing battles. "I honestly don't know. But I know we aren't together in the full sense of the word. Please just chill, okay? Don't take this so personally," Tai pleaded. People were starting to stare at them and it made him uncomfortable. He felt much better when he blended in with people, unless it had to do with something he was more confident in, such as physical fights. He hated the emotional battles.
"How can I take it any way but personally?" And she got up and stalked away.
Tai rubbed his forehead ferociously. It was easier being a soldier sometimes.
MWMWMWMWWM
"Hello!" a tall, lean man in a grey jumpsuit of a mechanic called out, his fingers laced through chain-link as he rattled the fence. "Oi! Over there!"
A disgruntled looking man sauntered over, greasy hair flattened to his face, wearing a grubby t-shirt and ripped jeans. "What do you want?"
"Someone called for me. They wanted me to look at something down here they said."
"Name?"
"Jenkins."
"Oh, right. I remember someone saying something about you. Come on." The man unlocked the gate and let the other come inside. "Follow me."
Jenkins shifted the heavy bag on his shoulder to the other one and walked in, tools clinking loudly. "What is it exactly that I'm supposed to be looking at? You got trouble with a truck down here? Anyway, ain't this a delivery station? What you got it locked down for?"
"We heard you used to be a mechanic for the White Fang," the man said ignoring his questions.
"That's right." Jenkins was looking around with obvious curiosity as they walked across the concrete to a warehouse in the corner. There were large gas tankers parked in a monstrous garage.
"So what do you think about the new government?" The man turned to face him as they climbed into a dark little elevator. It smelled of sweat and dust.
A dark look passed over Jenkins face, but he forced it away. "I don't really like it."
The man laughed. "Right...then we got a job for you and you'll be paid good if you keep your mouth shut. And let's just say that if you don't....well, we might have to detain you for a while then, a long while."
Jenkins looked startled. "Hey man...what're you pulling?" He backed up against the wall, looking nervous.
The man grinned as the elevator opened. "Did you or did you not tell Nanashi that you always hated that they'd outlawed mobile suits? That you missed working on them?"
Jenkins's jaw dropped as he looked down into a monstrous room at the ten mobile suits below. People were running around on dark platforms, bursts of lights illuminated welders dotting the room.
"Yah..." he said, almost reverently, his hand reaching down to his bag. There was a small click but the man wasn't looking at Jenkins and there was way too much noise for the click to be heard. As they walked around the room, Jenkins started to grin from ear to ear.
"Beauties, ain't they?" the man said, misunderstanding Jenkins grin.
"Yah, real beauties..."
MWMWMWMWMWM
When Zechs walked into the main engineers' office, Quatre jumped up. "I need to talk to you," Quatre said simply.
Zechs nodded and they walked out together down the hall, Quatre pulling out a pile of folders from his desk drawer before leaving. "Let's go to my office." He nodded to his secretary as they passed. His official office was much nicer than the makeshift one in the secret base with its solid bookshelves and cherry wood desk and, most importantly, large squishy chairs.
Once they were seated in the familiar room, Quatre began. "I just got news back from one of my guys."
"And..." Zechs let his sentence hang, trailing off. He crossed his legs impatiently.
"Those colonies on Venus side you wanted checked out...they're empty. I got a guy to break in and..." Quatre pulled out one of his folders, peeked in, pulled out another, then seeming satisfied, he handed it to Zechs.
Zechs' eyebrows knit together in confusion.
Quatre continued to explain. "Apparently those areas were rumored to house gang headquarters, and with all the graffiti it's easy to believe. But once we actually got a guy in, there was nothing."
Zechs' face was difficult to read. His hard blue eyes were staring hard at the pictures in his hand, but Quatre knew he wasn't really seeing them. He was thinking.
"That means they must be concentrating their forces in one area. And the only confirmed area we have is Mars side. I was starting to doubt their intelligence, spreading out their forces like that. I guess I'll have to take it all back. Move your guys Mars side. We're going to have to be more...stealthy about this. Good thing the shuttles are almost finished." Zechs leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.
"Speaking of stealth, I was just thinking. We're going to have issues with Relena. We need to keep her far enough away that she won't find out what's going on and stop it. She supports the Preventors almost more than anyone else does but she won't like this and you know her. I hate tricking her, but I'm afraid we're going to have to." Quatre shifted in his chair.
"Don't worry about it. I'm already working on that."
"So you know what you're going to do?"
Zechs sighed. "I'm working on it."
They both jumped when there was a firm knock on the door. "Come in," Zechs called firmly.
Relena strode in dressed very properly in a navy pant suit, she even had her coat on still, but not with her usual ease. Her leg dragged behind her slightly. Quatre heard Zechs mutter, "Speak of the devil" before standing up and hugging his sister.
"I wasn't expecting you till later," he told her in his usual nondescript voice.
She nodded to Quatre before carrying on her conversation with her brother. "I just wanted to find out how everything's going with that rebel group you told me about. I didn't get a whole lot of news while incapacitated."
"You didn't get my emails?" Zechs asked politely.
"I did, but they were a bit too vague for my tastes. I want to know all the details." She was acting very professional, getting right to the point.
Zechs sighed and settle down further into his chair. "But there isn't a heck of a lot that I could tell you besides what I've already said."
"What about that retracting of my bill!"
"Which one?" he asked politely, chin rested delicately on his interlaced fingers.
"The one outlawing beam weaponry," Relena said crossly, folding her arms.
"Well, the Earth Sphere Representative decided that perhaps they could be useful after all, construction in space. They can be very precise cutters and there is so little that can be used in space."
"Are you actually supporting this?" Relena's jaw dropped. "Milliardo, how can you? It will just lead to mobile suits again! Everyone knows those two naturally go together! If you have weapons that big, you need something to handle them. Oh and then what, mobile suits will just be mindless robots used for construction. It can all be used for construction. There has to be a boundary somewhere!" she was almost pleading.
"I'm not a politician, Relena. I couldn't do much about it; you were gone and many of your supporters were not notified of the meeting so they were not able to come and voice their opinions. And the senators are tired and sick of arguing. They went with what was easiest." Zechs watched his sister carefully through his piercing blue eyes.
She closed her eyes and sighed, then unconsciously rubbed her side where she'd been shot. "I don't believe this. How can they be so blind!" she cried in exasperation.
There was a light tap on the door and Quatre began to think the entire base would waltz through that door.
"Come in," Zechs greeted the person with the exact same voice he'd used before. He didn't sound perturbed in the least, in fact, he seemed almost amused.
Juliano meekly poked her head in.
"I said come in," Zechs beckoned to her.
She walked in with her head held down and handed Zechs a file across the desk. "The report you requested, sir."
"Kiki?" Relena asked suddenly from behind girl. Zechs eyes narrowed slightly and Quatre jumped slightly.
The darker haired girl whirled around and looked at Relena with her jaw dropped. "Deirdre?" Then her shocked meek demeanor disappeared. "Wait a second...you lied to me! You lied to all of us! How could you have not told us who you are! You didn't even call us up after 'Ms. Darlian' came back! How could you!!" she berated fiercely, her fists clenched at her sides, knuckles white. "You of all people. DON'T YOU HAVE ANY CONSIDERATION AT ALL YOU TWO-TIMING LITTLE HYPOCRITICAL SPAWN OF CYBERNETIC ORGANISIMS!"
"Well, I..." Relena was looking uncomfortable. "I was kind of doing that, going to college and all, to hide away. That would have ruined it all to tell everyone who I was, now wouldn't it." She looked down at her thumbs, carefully pushing them together then taping them.
"Typical," Kiki rolled her eyes and huffed. "Typical spoiled little girl logic."
"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you're going to get all mad about it for too long! I just can't believe you're here! How are you? I thought you were going to graduate school!"
Kiki's hands stuck to her hips as she glared at Relena. "Well, maybe if I didn't think my friend was a hypocritical liar I would have felt like talking to her, but as it stands...." But Relena looked so mournful, sheepishly digging a toe into the carpet, not looking up, she felt herself give way.
Glancing up at Kiki, there was a gleam in her eyes that Relena did not like. "I'll forgive you on one condition--you and Tai hooked up yet?"
Quatre felt his eyes widening. Zechs looked partly amused, partly angry.
"Er...not really..." Relena was blushing wildly for some reason. "Maybe we can get together and talk about it? Do you think?"
Kiki cocked an eyebrow impossibly high but nodded. "You mean where your big brother's not listening? This better be good," she declared, an obvious warning in her voice. With one last huffy look, Kiki stomped out.
Relena was looking awkwardly at her feet.
"And what was that about?" her brother queried.
"Kiki was my roommate in college. She's had a rough life. I don't think she handles lies very well, even the necessary ones."
"Well, who does?"
"Point taken," Relena muttered meekly.
"Miss Darlian, disobeying common knowledge rules of courtesy for a higher purpose?" Zechs said rhetorically, irony dripping from his voice. "Didn't you tell them who you were after you came back?" Zechs asked, surprised.
"Of course I did! I emailed them all and said I was sorry and they all answered except Kiki. They were very angry at first but then calmed down. I still hear from my other roommates once in a while, all except Kiki. Just get me that report, please," and she got up and left too, her face still flushed.
Zechs grinned at Quatre. "I think we've just found the solution to our problem with Relena...."
MWMWMWMWM
Tai pushed print and sighed to himself. Done. Just then, someone knocked on the door. He jumped up and walked to the door only to have several bags thrust into his arms. "Hi, Kieko," he greeted his sister-in-law.
"Take those down for me? There's a doll...."
Tai rolled his eyes and walked back down the stairs. "Man! That was a raunchy flight! My shoulders are sore!" he brother was complaining, rotating an arm around.
Tai turned to grin at him. "Long time no see."
Huy cackled manically, then walked to his brother with his arms wide open. "Missed ya," he said in his brother's ear, hugging him roughly.
Tai nodded and clapped him on the back.
"Well now, let's see what's on the tube," Huy said letting go of his brother and reaching for the remote.
"Huy Iwasato! Don't you dare! We just got here and we're here to see Tai! Get off that couch right now!!" Kieko lectured.
"Don't worry. I'll have him off his butt soon. We're going to see Duo shortly—Duo, Hilde, and their hoard," Tai reassured him and went to check on his printing job. "How's the thesis going?" he called from his bedroom.
"Eh..." he heard his brother answer. Than meant he hadn't started on is yet and hadn't admitted it to Kieko.
"He's almost done!" Kieko yelled cheerfully. Tai was glad he was in the back room because he snorted obviously. Nearly three years of marriage and she still hadn't figured her husband out yet.
He flipped through the pages and was satisfied. Putting it in a manila folder, he picked up his car keys and jacket and glanced at his watch. "We better get going—"
"Kinda early ain't it?" Huy asked from the couch. Kieko was settled next to him, her head comfortably on his shoulder.
"I need to make a stop and drop off this paper on the way."
Huy nodded and groaned before pushing himself off the couch. Then he turned and took his wife's hands and pulled her up as well.
Tai sat in the driver's seat, Kieko next to him and Huy in the back reaching over to fiddle with the radio.
"Hey! Sit back and put on your seatbelt!" Kieko scolded lightly.
"But I wanna listen..."
"Well you should have sat up front then!"
"But that would have been ungentlemanly."
Kieko bit down on her next retort and growled. "I hate it when he pulls that one on me—no answer for it," she told Tai. "What station do you want?" she sighed.
"Um, I dunno. That's why I was flipping through."
"Must you be so complicated-"
"Well-"
"So right now the trees are really pretty, spring coming and all," Tai cut them off.
Husband and wife stopped and started laughing. "Good to see you haven't changed too much Tai," Huy said, bonking his brother on the head as they turned into parking lot in front of an office building.
They all climbed out. "Small campus," Kieko commented.
"Well, it's a small school." They got on the elevator and Tai punch the number for the fifth floor.
"Oh, we wanted to tell you something," Huy said. Tai could hear barely contained excitement in his voice. "We're pregnant!"
Tai started and stared at his brother. Kieko was busy whapping him on the head. "What's this 'we' thing? I'm the one up-chucking every morning!"
"Yah, but I have to listen to it and smell it!"
"Eww! That's disgusting but no worse than you-"
"So I guess you guys are pretty excited," Tai comment cutting them off again. He wasn't particularly interested in hearing about Kieko's body fluids nor Huy's various disgusting habits. The doors opened as the elevator dinged at them.
"We're ecstatic!" Kieko supplied. Tai noticed Huy was keeping quiet as she said "we" herself, but just barely. They were holding hands now and Kieko was swinging their hands back and forth.
He turned down the hall to turn in his paper in his professor's box leaving them to walked slowing down the hall and "ooh and aww!" at the display cases of award winning projects and research of the various professors.
"Tai?" he heard Siduri ask from way behind him—about Kieko and Huy's vicinity. He groaned inwardly. She'd think that he was lying again about the girl stuff. She sure didn't let go. She'd declared her interest months ago!
"Yes?" he heard Huy answer for him.
Quickly he found the right box and dropped his report into it and hurried back to find his guests before Huy got him into too much trouble. Then he heard a loud smack.
"What was that for?"
"You KNOW what that's for!" Siduri was screaming.
She must have been rearing back for another hit because Kieko interrupted angrily just as they came within Tai's sight after turning a corner.
"Don't touch my husband again!" Kieko was shaking with anger, standing in front of Huy.
"HUSBAND!" Siduri was really going at it now.
He quickly called out to them. "Siduri calm down!"
She stopped and blinked at him then back at Huy and pointed dumbly, her mouth moving soundlessly. "You're a twin?" she finally managed just as he arrived next to them.
"Yes. This is my brother Huy and his wife Kieko. Huy likes to play tricks on people like this, even though it's not very nice." Kieko was fuming at Siduri while wrapping a protective arm around his shoulders, on hand on his reddened cheek. Huy, despite the angry red handprint on his face, looked like he was trying to cover a smile.
"Well, you never tell me about any girls so when one comes and calls me Tai, now can I resist trying to find something out?" Huy asked innocently.
"Maybe by remembering that you're holding hands with your wife and that that might get me into trouble. Did you think that maybe the reason you haven't heard about girls from me is because there aren't any?" Tai asked sagely, not without sarcasm. He never used to be sarcastic, but it seemed to be coming out more and more as time passed. Must be Huy's influence, he decided quickly. That was the answer to everything, blame it on the evil twin.
Tai's reasoning seemed to make sense to Huy because he nodded and said quietly, "Good point." But then grinned evilly again. That expression seemed to be a fixture on his face, "So what's up with you two anyway?" he eyed Siduri. "You finally let go of R-"
"Are you guys in the same classes," Kieko interrupted quickly. Tai could have hugged her right then. But Siduri wasn't stupid, she'd gotten into medical school after all.
"So her name begins with an R does is?" she queried. She saw Tai's frustrated look and suddenly grinned. "Chill, why don't you? I'm just teasing you. Nice to meet you guys. See ya 'round Tai." She playfully punched him in the shoulder and walked off, humming. However, Tai wasn't fooled. He knew that she'd scream herself hoarse next time she saw him.
"That was weird," Huy whispered rather loudly. Kieko elbowed him as they went back to the car.
"Why'd you always have to play around like that! You confuse people!" she was lecturing on their way.
"But it's fun!"
"Oh for crying out loud! You get Tai in trouble, and you get slapped, and you get ME mad—and—wait—doesn't Duo live in space?" Kieko stopped mid thought, completely changing topics.
"He's been doing some work for the Preventors and it's been getting a bit extensive to fly back home and he doesn't like leaving his kids and wife for very long periods of time so they all moved down here."
"Oh...so how many kids do they have now?"
"Just four."
"Just...FOUR! How long have they been married? Good grief!"
"Well, first they had the twins, Kayleen and Kyle, then Hans, and finally Connor—he's the baby, only a month old."
"Wow," Kieko muttered, clutching at her own stomach.
They parked on the street in front of a little white house with a chain-link fence around it. "I guess that's to keep the little monsters in—" Huy commented on seeing it. Kieko swatted him as they went up to the door. But then they heard yelling and screaming coming from the back "DADDY! DON'T DANCE ON THE TRASH CAN!" a little voice yelled.
"Well, it sounds like a happy family..."
Tai sighed and prepared himself.
MWMWMWMWM
Wufei's voice hurt. He'd been yelling at the other pilots all day and he was hoarse now. And it friggin hurt! Disgruntled, he walked into the canteen and poured himself a cup of hot water, putting a tea bag in it. Then he went back to his office—AWAY from the project. Hey, he had to at least pretend to have other work going on for show. Lady Une, of course, knew all about the project but he had to keep everyone else in the dark about it. But he still worked on the project at his desk. Zechs trusted him to keep all revealing information hidden away from prying eyes. And the offices were so closed anyway, very little spying could go on. It had to be that way, so many top secret projects were going on at all times around the office. Nevertheless, Wufei always kept his work on a disk that he carried with him, not on the hard drive, and always took any hard copies of anything to do with the project back to headquarters before he'd leave at the end of the day.
He walked into his cubicle and thanked whatever deity was listening that he could get at least a little privacy, albeit a very small amount.
"Geesh, I was wondering when you'd get here!"
Or not....
"Hi Duo," Wufei grunted as he plopped down behind his desk. Then he noticed a new addition to his desk. He picked up the offending object, a dark wooden picture frame. "What's this?"
"Your family," Duo told him happily. He had seated himself on the floor next to the trash can and had a small crocheting project in his hands.
"Funny, this looks an awful lot like Hilde and you and the kids...."
Duo shrugged noncommittally. "My family is your family. Hey, I came to ask you about that OS."
Wufei hissed a warning at him. But Duo went on as if he hadn't noticed. "Because I'm going to see him tonight and I want to tell him about any changes if need be."
Wufei sipped at his hot tea. "I noticed a little glitch. When a fighter gets too far to the edge of the viewing cameras, it freezes for a few seconds. That needs to be cut down."
"Got it. Anything else? It hasn't induced any strange hallucinations, et cetera?"
Turning on his computer, he stared at the black start-up screen thoughtfully. "No. You're going to have to let me think on this. There was nothing too painfully obvious. Wait! It's sluggish in sending signals from the guns when ammo's gone. And we need some amount of auto-repair for battles."
"Right."
"I'll email you if I think of anything else."
"Okay. By the way, I gotta say, you've got some eye! You couldn't have gotten better pilots unless you'd picked us!"
Wufei smirked. Naturally, he though to himself. "Did you think I'd do anything less?"
"No, but you were so frustrated for a while and couldn't find anyone," Duo shrugged again. "But I just thought I'd say that. Anyway, see ya 'round!" And he hopped up.
Sighing, Wufei turned to his computer and typed in his access code just as the phone rang. He watched it load up as he answered it. "Chang," was all he said.
"I was just calling on behalf of Lt. Noin. She wanted to know if you'd talked to anyone about her project yet," a woman asked him. Probably the secretary.
Wufei mentally berated himself. She was in on the project too but she was handling Relena and keeping her away from it. This was about setting up a very strategically placed conference, keeping Relena as far away from the line of fire as possible. And since they'd singled out the locations of the Rebel bases FINALLY they could really get going on the actual strategy. Five shuttles, small, light, insanely fast yet strong—gundamium to be more specific. Two missiles would be on board. They'd find the central power sources of the bases and blow them to high heaven. Minimal casualties with larger transporters loaded with Preventors to capture all the trouble makers. Simple, right? As if....
"Tell her I'm working on it. I'll talk to Marquis about it later."
"Of course," and the woman hung up.
He turned back to his work when a voice behind him called his name. He growled. "WHAT?" and whipped around.
"Geesh, you don't have to bite my head off! I just came to drop off some blueprints," Juliano snapped back him. "What's your deal anyway?"
"Watch your mouth. I'm your superior," he glared at the insubordinate girl.
"But you aren't MY superior. Marquis is," she said smugly. Too smugly.
"I'm still higher ranked than you-"
"Does that give you the right to be a jerk to innocents?" she quipped.
"If they're weaker than me. But that's invalid because you aren't exactly innocent, now are you?"
Suddenly she grinned evilly and then wiped her face free of emotion. "Whatever. Have fun trying to read that," she indicated to the blueprint condescendingly.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Only that someone with your...exquisite talents might have trouble interpreting it." She was imitating a Jane Austen novel very well. The sophisticated snobbery part, that is.
"I think I'm much more capable than you know."
She just shrugged and walked out. Wufei growled as she walked away. Just a couple months ago she'd been hiding in the infirmary, and now she was giving him lip? He was glad she was gone so she couldn't see his grin. It was kind of fun having someone to argue with again.
MWMWMWMWM
She pulled the brim of her hat further down as she slumped down in the bench with her "book". Zechs had humored her and emailed her more information. And this wasn't the kind of stuff that was on the news either. This was technical legislations on individual colonies that had been getting though the system without her to help stop it. But then again, with the separate governments, what else was to be expected?
Beam weaponry, individual armies—people didn't like there being one large government with everything. But it was so chaotic with all different governments. It was so much more organized this way! But then again, a central government couldn't see what individual areas needed....ARG!
He had better come soon or else she's rip all her hair out before he got here and then he wouldn't recognize her!
She licked her forefinger and flipped a couple pages, but had to hold on tight so that the breeze wouldn't blow them away. A few strands of hair escaped her braid but before she could push them away, she felt a warm hand do it for her.
Jumping three feet in the air, she looked up so see Tai smirking down at her. Then he plopped down on the bench beside her, his backpack at his feet. "Sorry I was a little late."
Relena grinned and began to put her folder away. "That's fine. I wasn't here long."
"What's that?" he asked, indicating to the said object.
"Just some stuff Milliardo gave me." She held it out to him and he flipped through. "Boring stuff, you know, the usual." She noticed him pause on a particular page but then he continued to flip through and handed it back to her.
Standing up, he declared in his "cheerful" voice, "Well, let's do something." He shouldered his pack again and she got up. They walked down the park pathway, ducks lazily squawking as they waddled by, toward the road. Relena let her hand brush against his and felt him hook his pinky around one of her fingers. She grinned ridiculously at the ground as they held onto each others' hands.
Suddenly, she wanted to start skipping.
Good heavens, the world she knew and loved was falling apart and she was giddy over hand holding....
MWMWMWM
Trowa sprinted through the main control room in the surveillance tower and pounded on Zechs' door once before throwing himself into the little makeshift office. "We got trouble."
Zechs looked up from what he was reading. "What is it?"
Trowa shut the door sharply behind him. "We just got this in from our guys on one of the target colonies," he handed Zechs a folder.
Trowa was also in charge of keeping track of two of the many spies they had situated near the rebels. One of his charges had sent him pictures.
"They've got mobile suits..."
"Exactly."
"We'd better put beam rifles on those ships."
"You think that will help?"
Zechs paused and looked up at Trowa. He would never show weakness to anyone, but he was confused. Something wasn't adding up.
"Okay. So basically we've got our rebels. They got themselves a few politicians, hence all the strange legislature we've been hearing of in the colonies. They are now firmly located in three colonies—within the core."
"But that's something else my guys seemed to have figured out—"Trowa indicated to a map of the colonies that had been sent to him. "See," he pointed at several areas, "We originally thought that they had spread themselves evenly out. Those little subway bombings we've been having over the past few years, here, here, and here—they were diversions to confuse us. We've checked out all those areas and we found the same thing."
"The rumored gang of—what was it they called themselves? Startroopers?"
"Or something else equally ridiculous."
Zechs continued. "So we found lots of local rumors, lots of graffiti names, and an abandoned warehouse."
Trowa nodded. "But—that guy you had finally found an actual base under a different name—"
"Nanashi—ironic." Zechs leaned back in his chair and glared at the ceiling in concentration.
Shrugging, Trowa continued. "Well, my guys found a base very similar to the ones your guys found. But—"he pointed to the map again, "Notice that they are very close together. Actually, there is only one colony between them. They got two civilian colonies and the one in between is a resource colony. Not one of Quatre's. It's run by another company."
"We'll have to get Quatre to look into that for us. He found this same stuff with the colonies he's been in charge of looking after."
"Quatre found the same thing? Great. But, if they are creating a strong hold...."
"They're directly in the trajectory between Mars and Earth...."
Trowa scratched his head. "I hadn't noticed that one."
"We'd better get Relena far away. And I don't think we can go with the original plan. We better figure out how extensive this grouping in. Stealth will be the better plan now. And we had better check out Mars. If they're planning something bigger than we've imagined then Mars would be the best location for it." Zechs was now leaning on his elbows on his desk staring at the pictures of humanoid mobile suits. This was turning into more of a nightmare every day.
"I'll see what we can do about beam rifles."
MWMWMWMWM
Relena sat down in the diner, and pretended to not notice the three men in dark uniforms that seated themselves in various places around the room.
A teenage waitress handed her a menu and ran off to get her some water while Relena sighed and put her menu down. Her eyes focused vaguely on the door, waiting for her dinner companion to arrive. She switched her crossed legs with a loud sticky noise—gotta love that red vinyl. The whole room was pretty colorful, come to think about it. The booths alternated in bright red, blue, green and yellow vinyl seats with concrete mosaic tables. A TV filled the silence with its tinny rattling.
Relena was drawing Tai's face on the table with a finger when Kiki came in. No longer in her uniform, she looked more relaxed but no less severe.
The huffy girl plopped down in front of Relena and glared at her. "So are you and Tai together or not?"
Relena burst out laughing and Kiki cracked a grin.
-MWM-
Relena and Kiki were sprawled out on the floor in Kiki's apartment, a bowl of popcorn next to them and the TV blaring.
"Oh come on! That's so fake! Cars don't ever do that, hasn't the director heard of gravity? Inertia?" Kiki was growling.
Relena was about to answer when her cell phone went off.
"Want me to pause it?"
"No, it'll only take a second."
"How do you know?" Kiki asked, her eyebrow cocked, as usual. Relena was sure it would get stuck there one day.
"I'll make sure of it myself." And Relena walked back into the only other actual room in the tiny apartment, Kiki's bedroom.
"Hello?"
"Hey Relena? How's everything going?" Marcus asked her.
"Fine. What's wrong? I'm kind of in the middle of something right now."
"Just chill. I was just making sure that you were okay. We had a bit of trouble at the office."
"What kind of trouble?" Relena asked, getting nervous.
"That breaking and entering and attempting burglary kind." Marcus sounded like he was discussing the stats of a golf tournament, not a crime.
"What would someone want to steal from us? A lamp? All our records are duplicates from others and most are published."
"Beats me. I'll let you go now...." He said. She could almost picture him shrugging his broad shoulders.
"Okay...." And Marcus cut his line.
Relena sat down on the edge of Kiki's bed. Something was funny. She could feel it. Marcus was calculated and serious about everything though he could relax at times, but only at scheduled times. He was worried about something and he wasn't telling her. And if he was worried about a tapped line, the least he could have done was hinted that. It wouldn't have been that difficult. It definitely smelled a little off.
But right now she was supposed to be having fun with Kiki, so she got up and went back to join Kiki only to find her friend curled into fetal position, shaking.
"Kiki? KIKI!" Relena screamed running to her friend's side. One of her body guards ran into the room to her side.
"What happened?" the man asked, concerned.
"I don't know!" she exclaimed desperately. "Kiki?" she gently shook her friend's shoulders.
Suddenly Kiki opened her eyes and sat bolt upright. She blinked and stared at the TV and then said, without taking her eyes off of it, "I'm fine. Nothing to worry about."
Relena and the bodyguard exchanged nervous glances but he left, but he was obviously going to be on high alert for a bit.
"Kiki, what happened?" she asked softly.
Kiki buried her face in her hands and Relena put her arms around her friend timidly. "You can't keep me out. I know you too well. What's wrong." But Kiki just pointed to the TV and leaned on Relena's shoulder, but just barely, as if fighting that action very hard.
"So are you going to just let him get away with it? In case you've forgotten that, that, THING raped me!" a girl on the television was screaming to a shell shocked and very pale older man.
Relena gasped and grabbed the remote, clicking it off. "It's okay," she murmured, rubbing Kiki's shoulders. "It's okay."
Suddenly Kiki flung her arms around Relena's waist and sobbed fit to break on Relena's knees. "He kept telling me it was my fault he did it to me, well tried to do it, that I deserved it. That's what Papa always said, so I just believed it. And now, I can't stop believing it....am I such a worthless person?" Kiki said beseechingly, looking up through her tears.
Relena couldn't believe this weeping puddle of a girl was her old roommate, but she pushed her surprise aside. "Kiki, you're a wonderful friend and capable in your work. You are most certainly NOT worthless."
"How would you know about work?" Normally Kiki would sound angry as she asked this, but now she sound needy and very much like she was begging for approval.
"My brother wouldn't have you working with him if he didn't think you were anything less than brilliant and that's saying something if he thinks you're good!" Relena told her cheerfully. "If you don't mind me asking....when did this happen?"
"During specials training," Kiki had buried her face again and was hiccupping intermittently. "One of the guys attacked me in the locker room but before he could get me, he knocked me too hard on the head and conked me out. I guess raping a sleeping girl is no fun." Normally, that kind of statement would cause Kiki to laugh sardonically, but she sobbed even more pitifully.
"Did anyone do anything about it?" Relena asked, aghast. Surely her brother would have done something had he known.
"My commander found me and took me to the infirmary, then beat the living daylights out of that...person...in front of the rest of my squad."
"Good!"
Then, much to Relena's surprise, Kiki rolled over and smiled. "It's funny—for a little guy Chang must have a ferocious right hook. That cretin who attacked me was no pixie."
"Chang Wufei?"
"You know him?" Kiki was still smiling.
"Yah. He's a friend of Tai's, and, I guess, mine."
Kiki sat up at this, apparently distracted from reliving the horror of a few months previous. "Really? Chang actually allows people to befriend him? And Tai? Of all people...I guess cactuses like to hang together." Kiki picked thoughtfully at a spot on her chin.
"Well," Relena shuffled uncomfortably, "It's not exactly what you'd call friendship. More like begrudging respect. They fought together in the war."
Kiki looked pensive. Then Relena realized something.
"You seemed awful cheerful once you were thinking about Wufei...." Relena trailed off suggestively.
Then the old Kiki was back. "Whatever. That arrogant prick? You've got to be kidding me."
MWMWMWMWMWM
Jenkins put down his wrench for a moment to wipe his forehead. It was two in the morning and most of the men were home, asleep. Just like he should be. He glared at the screws in his hands. Screws the size of a 24 ounce paper cup.
He got up and headed towards the bathroom in the back corner and waved to a sleepy guard who was pacing the floor, trying to stay away.
Once in the bathroom, he picked the stall below the air vent. Climbing on the toilet, he pried it open and heaved himself up, closing it loosely behind him. Shimmying down the vents, he paused to get a good look into every room he passed.
Then he found it—Mr. Big Kahuna's office.
Popping the vent open, he lowered himself carefully, so as to not make any noise as he landed. Pulling on some clean gloves, he began to shuffle through the file cabinets that covered one wall.
After ten nerve-wracking minutes he pulled out another folder and nearly dropped it.
MWMWMWMWMWM
A/N
Thanks for all the birthday greetings! I feel so loved! And thanks for all the encouragement, etc!! You guys are awesome!
Also, thanks GM1—I really appreciate the commentary.
Chrikaru—I'm glad that the characters seem right. Sometimes it's so hard to write them all.
NoneOfYouBwax—tell your cousin I said "Woof! Woof!"...hmmm..this might be getting a tad bit silly.... I'm not so sure I would like to be a kid forever—I used to want that but now the I'm almost completely independent, I'm kind of liking it. But I'm glad you enjoy it still!
KatsyKat—beam beam THANKS!! )
Danielle—yah...I am a bit traditional, and with reason, I believe. But the question arises, "Is Relena traditional?"
Wing—I hope I can keep doing that good of a job...these next few chapters are going to be...difficult to write.
Icy Discordia—no review is stupid! This also gives me an idea of how many people are reading my story. Thanks!
Sonic Bloom—I made you cry? YAY!!!! Um...that sounds kind of mean, but hopefully you know what I mean, right?
THANK YOU AGAIN EVERYONE!!!