Heero's Pride, Everyone's Shock

It was the seventh day of Hotaru arrival, and the first day Hotaru would be taken to the Preventers' HQ. He dressed her in a little red dress and put the newly brought military dogtags around her neck. Making sure he packed all three of her stuff cats (he didn't want Hotaru throwing any of her dolls at people if she got cranky), some baby food and other supplies before heading out the door. Now that dealing with Hotaru's welfare was done with Heero had to worry about the next problem. Someone was bound to notice that Hotaru grew quite fast, which left him with the problem, what was he going to tell Lady Une? He could just tell the truth, saying he got Hotaru from a colleague of Dr. J's, but that would mean Hotaru would be taken away. Getting into the car he shrugged, well he would just tell Lady Une a bit, leave out the rest and if all else failed he would threaten to destroy who ever tried to take the baby. With that plan worked out Heero set off to work with an interested Hotaru in the back.

Nothing ever fazed Heero (well, except for Hotaru) so it was no surprise that even with everyone staring openly at him Heero didn't batter an eyelash. He acted like this was perfectly normal, while to everyone else. Put it nicely, seeing Heero carrying a baby and a bag full of baby supplies, it looked like Hell frozen over. There Hotaru was, one little hand clutching Heero's shirt and the other reaching out whatever caught her interest.

As Heero pasted the front desk, the secretary just glanced up for a moment saying, "Morning Mr. Yuy."

"Hn."

She blinked, when she realized that Mr. Yuy was carrying a baby. Quickly she stood up, leaned over her desk and looked down at the direction that Heero was walking. Sure enough, waving over Heero's shoulder was a dark-haired baby girl. Had Heero looked over his shoulder he would have see the secretary's jaw drop about a mile.

"Ya! Na da!" Hotaru squealed in delight.

Heero nodded absently, it was time to visit Lady Une.

Lady Une was finishing, signing some papers. It would seem that the Preventers would always be a busy place. Her secretary walked in as she set aside one stack of forms.

"Excuse me, but Mr. Yuy is here to see you," the secretary looked slightly shell shocked.

Lady Une absently replied, "Send him in," she looked up from her papers, "Heero can you please tell me… Is that a baby with you?" she asked in complete shock.

Heero nodded, "Yes."

"Haaaa!" the little baby girl squealed happily before taking the dogtags around her neck and stuffing them in her mouth.

Heero looked down at Hotaru, gently tugging them out of her mouth, "Hotaru, don't do that. Come on."

"Pffft!" she splat out the dogtags.

Lady Une stared, it was one thing for Heero to get carrying around a baby, but it was a completely other thing when Heero started acting fatherly. She was always told that when you worked closely with someone you would learn more about them and see things others don't but this was taking it just a bit far.

Lady Une tried to gather her scattered wits, "Heero, who is she?"

Heero calmly went over to the door, and closed it, not before giving some Ensigns the deathglare to scare them off. Then he turned and set Hotaru down on the table. He took out a stuff toy cat, letting the baby play with it and his hand. In a monotone voice, Heero explained about Dr. J, the mysterious colleague, Hotaru and about her unusual growing ability. When he was done Lady Une leaned back in her chair.

"Heero, you do realize that Dr. J and this colleague if found would be triad for inhumane acts and that Hotaru would have to be taken into custody," Lady Une said slowly, "I know you follow orders Heero but this child…"

Heero nodded, "I'm aware of that, but I don't even know who this colleague is."

Lady Une thought for a minute, "We need to take her into custody."

"We won't find this colleague then," Heero answered back.

"Are you saying you're willing to keep her until he or she comes?" Lady Une figured this wouldn't make life a lot easier if he did.

"No one is taking her, not Dr. J, not this colleague and not you," Heero stated.

If Lady Une thought she knew Heero, then this is really did change everything she knew then. She studied him carefully and noticed that Heero's arm was too close to his gun for comfort. Heero was giving her a challenging look. Hotaru looked at Lady Une with big, innocent dark purple eyes and then looked at Heero.

Hotaru blinked, "Da da?"

That pretty much decided things, "So Heero, what's her name and what should I put in your and her file?" Lady Une asked, "The Insurance and what we can put you on is going to be different now that…"

Heero answered, "Hotaru Yuy, her guardians will be the other pilots and Relena."

"Does Milliardo know about this?" Lady Une asked.

Heero gave her a look, "Do you think this building would be in one piece if he did?"

"Good point," Lady Une wrote out a memo to update Heero's profile.

She watched she he walked out of the office. Hotaru leaned over his shoulder, waving goodbye to Lady Une. She really shouldn't but Lady Une just had to wave back. This little girl was really going to shake up the Gundam pilots' lives. Leaning back, Lady Une thought about this. Heero Yuy, a father. If he did keep her pass the age of twelve it would certainly be worth watching.

Somewhere else in the Preventers Headquarters, Chang Wufei had just come back from his last mission. Now he was stuck with the hardest part of all, the paperwork. He was busy, typing away at his computer only to stop every once in awhile to take a sip of coffee. It was about late afternoon now, and he wanted to finish up in time to catch a ride home with Heero. His partner, Sally came walked and sat down beside him. Only after minutes had passed did Wufei stop his typing to notice that Sally looked slightly dazed.

"What's the matter with you woman?" Wufei asked gruffly.

Sally turned to look at him, "Have you heard the rumors going around lately?"

Wufei blinked, Sally didn't even chew him out for calling her woman. When something like that happens, he knew that something Sally heard must have really shocked her.

Wufei shook his head, "No, why?"

"Well," Sally looked at him strangely, "People keep asking me, if you told me about the baby Heero's carrying around."

"What?" Wufei exclaimed.

Sally shrugged, "Well, rumor has it that Heero was been seen around Preventers carrying a baby girl in his arms," she paused before adding, "and a bag full of baby stuff."

Wufei stared before snorting, "Doubt it, Yuy would hang himself before taking care of a baby. Are you sure some Ensign didn't just pull one over on everyone?"

"Considering a lot of Preventers claim the same thing?" Sally asked.

Wufei got up from his seat, "Sally, you are an even-headed woman. Think about it, this is Heero we're talking about."

"Good point," Sally mused, "But everyone seemed so sure…"

"I'll check this out myself," Wufei answered, "Yuy is here today so I'll ask him myself. If he goes off and tries to shoot anyone then I know it's a lie. Ensign!"

A young man with messy red hair and freckles came bounding in. He was holding tons of paper and mail.

"Yes sir?"

Wufei gave him a measuring glance, "What have you heard about this rumor?"

"The one about the baby?"

"Yes," Wufei gave him a light glare.

"Uh… I heard that some saw him in the cafeteria feeding chopped up bananas to the baby he was said to be carrying around."

Wufei glanced at Sally and Sally shrugged, "Carry on."

"Yes sir!"

"Yuy will kill whoever made that rumor," Wufei muttered as he left to investigate.

Sally tilled back her chair as she watch Wufei leave, "Should I have told him there were rumors that the baby was Heero's daughter?"

Near the offices were people such as Heero Yuy worked Ms. Shoemaker the secretary was bouncing a baby girl on her lap. Mr. Yuy came by earlier saying that he was needed to read over some reports and that he couldn't watch Hotaru while doing so and asked for her to look after the baby while he worked. She was happy to; after all, the baby was so cute. Ms. Shoemaker, in all the time she was secretary never knew that Mr. Yuy had to heart to look after a child. As she was playing cats with the baby the phone rang.

She put Hotaru down, "Now you stay there," picking up the phone she answered, "Preventers HQ how may I help you?"

Hotaru made a face, as she didn't like to be ignored for any length of time unless she was busy. While the secretary was busy trying to help the caller find the person he was looking for, Hotaru took off and half walked and half crawled away. The hallway was empty with a lot of room to crawl around in. She happily putted about until she rammed into something. The little girl looked up to see a man with black hair and dark eyes looking back down at her.

Wufei was heading down to Heero's office when he saw girl about one years of age happily walking and falling around in the hallway. She had this bright smile on her face as stumbled down the hallway. That was until she rammed into his legs that is. The girl sat there, staring at his feet for a few seconds before slowly looking up. Wufei looked down, not knowing what to expect.

"Na… KAAAAAA!!!!" the little girl squealed on top of her lungs.

Wufei winced as he bent down, "Stop that!" he growled.

She just clapped happily.

He shook his head, she was a baby, what did he expect she do? Start saluting him and blabbering sorry like the ensigns he ran into? The clink of metal brought him out of his thoughts. There were dogtags around her neck. Carefully he took them and read the inscription. It read:

Hotaru; If found, return to room 478

The Chinese pilot couldn't help but blink at that. Room 478, wasn't that Heero's office number? Why would there be dogtags telling the person to return her to Heero's office? Wufei just shook his head; it had to be a fluke. It was probably for another building of sorts. He would take the child to the secretary down the hall and she would return the baby to her mother. As he picked up the child, Wufei's head was reeling with possibilities. The baby squealed with delight as she started to play with Wufei's ponytail by swatting it, after a while she was just as happy to tug at it, but gently. He frowned; Wufei was always told that if a child got a hold of your hair when they tugged, it hurt. This child on the other hand was just tugging lightly though.

Hotaru… that was a Japanese name wasn't it? Yes… if he remembered correctly, it translated into firefly. Heero was Japanese; he would know that, but nah… They said that Yuy was carrying on child, not that he had a child. It could have been possible that some newly Japanese worker asked Yuy to take care of the baby because he was Japanese and the only person she felt comfortable with, but still… One would not ask Heero to take care of a child.

As he neared the offices Ms. Shoemaker ran up to him with a relieved look on her face.

"Mr. Chang! Thank you so much for finding Hotaru!" she quickly took the baby from his arms, "She wandered off when I was taking a phone call."

Wufei nodded, "You should be more careful, she was stumbling all over the hallway."

"Yes Mr. Chang, I will," she held the baby girl up, "Now Hotaru never do that again you hear?"

"Woman, she's a baby, she doesn't understand a word you're saying," Wufei gruffly told her.

Ms. Shoemaker shook her head, "Mr. Yuy claims she knows perfectly well and he refuses to treat her anything less than a knowing child."

Wufei blinked, "Did you say Mr. Yuy?"

"Why of course," Ms. Shoemaker said innocently, "Mr. Yuy told me to take care of her while he does his paperwork."

"And exactly whose child is Mr. Yuy looking after?" Wufei asked carefully and slowly.

Ms. Shoemaker looked at him in surprise, "You mean you don't know? This is Hotaru Yuy, Mr. Yuy's daughter."

Outside the Preventers' building people passing by both civilian and Preventer stopped at a deafening shout coming from within the building itself. The people working in the building who were at a rank lower than lieutenant ducked for cover.

"YUY!!!!!"

Both of the secretary and the baby stared at Wufei as he yelled his head off.

Heero came up to them, "What is it Wufei? And why are you yelling? That's normally reserved for Duo."

"That woman," Wufei pointed to Ms. Shoemaker, "Is claiming that, that girl," now pointing to Hotaru who was looking at his finger like it was the most interesting thing in the world, "Is your daughter."

"What did Hotaru do now?" Heero asked with a bit of amusement, "Throw her cats at the back of Wufei's head?"

"No sir, she just wandered off and Mr. Chang brought her back."

Wufei just stared at his long time friend. Was Heero Yuy, the Perfect Soldier amused by this? Heero was never amused, not even when one of Duo's pranks backfired on him.

"Yuy, what is going on?" Wufei demanded.

Ms. Shoemaker sighed in impatiently, "I told you Mr. Chang, Hotaru is Mr. Yuy's-"

"Woman, Heero has never had a child. I would know! I live with him!"

"But you've been gone a week sir," Ms. Shoemaker protested, "I mean, of course she's not biologically his daughter but-"

"Hell will freeze over before Yuy adopts," Wufei growled, "I know, one would not give Yuy a baby!"

If it weren't for the fact that it would no doubt give Wufei a heart attack Heero would have been most tempted to laugh. He had never seen his friend in such self-denial about anything, well, unless it involved Sally that was different. Here Wufei was, telling the secretary that she was mistaken and that there was no way Heero could be the father to Hotaru.

"Wufei," Heero said calmly.

Wufei turned to him, "What?"

With the normal stone mask Heero stated, "Hotaru is my daughter. I adopted her a week ago."

It turned deadly quiet in the hallway, without a sound coming from anyone but the squirming of the baby. The secretary wouldn't say anything for she feared what would happen if she did. Heero was waiting for Wufei to say something. Wufei looked like he was hit on the back of the head with a two-by-four.

Finally Wufei croaked, "Does Winner know?"

"No, but I'm sure Quatre wouldn't mind the fact we redecorated one of the rooms to suit Hotaru," Heero shrugged.

"We?"

"Relena has been helping me. You know they won't let a single parent adopt, so Relena has joint custody of Hotaru."

"Relena has joint custody of her?"

"Technically speaking yes."

"How?"

"She's been living with me."

"Does Milliardo know?"

"No."

"Does the others know?"

"No."

"Who else knows?"

"Lady Une."

"Why?"

"Why…"

"Why adopt?"

"I'll explain later."

"Yuy."

"Yes Wufei?"

"This is the last time we're leaving you at home by yourself!"

Author's Note: * rolls on the ground laughing * Now Wufei knows! Man, that had to be a shocker to his system. I don't' even think it's fully sunk in yet. Anyhow that's chapter five! Who should be the next to have a heart at- I mean, find out about Hotaru?