: grins : okay, so, that took awhile!
Many thanks to crazy and miyabi, 'cause they rock, and all sorts of other stuff, too!
so many thanks to crazy and miyabi, 'cause they rock, and a whole buncha other stuff, and...yeah...they just rock
No warnings, other than some sap
and you know, I just can't figure out why everyone seems to think we own these guys..I mean...we /don't/...and we don't even wanna make money off a 'em...
Credibility Ch. IV
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love, n. 1: strong affection
2: warm attachment of the sea
3: attraction based on sexual desire
4: a beloved person
5: unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for others
6: a score of zero in tennis
As I knocked again, I cursed myself for doing this. But I just had to tell her, and, when I'd been sitting there at the kitchen table an hour ago, as I'd realized that I really did want to, of all things, learn to care for her, or even, hell, fall in love with her…I'd also realized that I had to tell her everything, starting with Nataku.
I had my hand raised to knock again when her sleepy voice came from the intercom grill. "Who is it? And this had better be a good one this time if that's you, Whitney."
Whitney—that was her younger sister. "No. It's me." Well, that was informative. But she didn't need anything else.
"Wu Fei?" The locks on the door began to click as she went through them. It only took a few seconds before the door was opened a little to show her sleepily confused blue eyes surrounded by really messy hair. "What are you doing here, Wu Fei?" The use of my name made me think back to the first and last time she'd called me 'Fei. That's all it had taken, one single, simple explanation of my thoughts and feelings on the shortening of my name, and she had listened.
I looked at her, as she stood hesitantly at the door at three-o'clock on a Saturday morning, her loose pajama pants and the dark blue tank-top wrinkled from sleep. "Can I come in?"
She frowned a little, small creases appearing between her eyebrows, and nodded, backing up to give me room to enter. "Sure." Still frowning, I think in bafflement, she locked the door again, and led the way through a mostly darkened house. We came into a kitchen, where she flicked the light switch and went to the table, motioning a chair for me. I ran a quick eye around, since I'd never been in her house.
The kitchen looked like a farm, all green and gold and blue, like the sky, with white and black as accents. The table was solid wood, the appliances all covered with paneling, like the cabinets.
I sat down, putting my helmet down on the floor by my chair, but when she just waited for me to speak, no words would come out. We sat, quiet for several minutes, before she gave a hard sigh and stood back up. "You know, Wu Fei, you really know how to time it, don't you?" She came around to stand by my chair. "It's three o'clock in the morning, and I was really looking forward to sleeping in." There wasn't really any condemnation in her voice, more an amusement for something I didn't understand. "Come on, Wu Fei, we're going back to bed." She tugged at my arm where it rested, slack on the table. Not really comprehending, still focused so intently on my purpose, and my inability to communicate it to her, I stood up and followed her as she kept pulling on me, leading me down a hall, up stairs to the second storey, and into a room, its door open, on the left. The lights were on, shedding a golden glow over a bedroom.
She let go of my arm, turning around to me. "Hold on a minute, I'll get something for you." She was already out the door when words came floating back to me. "Oh, and I need to turn off the lights downstairs." I could hear her steps on the stairs. I looked around the room, my eyes running over the messy bed to the dresser. I also noted the window, large, but no tree in front of it, that was good. There was stuff on the top of the dresser, so I went to get a better look. Mostly they were framed photographs. I think that they were all family, there was a strong resemblance between the majority of people, and the ones who didn't show it were usually in wedding pictures. I didn't touch anything, and set off for the bookcase. The books were a scattering of subjects, from the latest suspense to gardening to heavy tomes of history. I'd barely glanced through them before she came back with clothes in her arms.
"Okay, I think these'll fit close enough, they're Leon's, he's about your size. Sort of." She brought them to me, pushing them into my hands. "The bathroom's through there," she nodded to a door in the far right wall, "go ahead and change."
I went, and did, and verified that the clothes were okay, so long as I didn't have to go out in public. Apparently her brother Leon was tall and rather thin, because the waist of the soft flannel pants fit okay, they were just about three inches too long, trailing down over my socked feet. The t-shirt was fine. I folded my jeans and the sweater neatly and put them on one of the shelves that were behind the door.
When I opened the door she wasn't in the room, but I'd only been standing there a second or two when I heard her footsteps out in the hall. She came through the doorway with a cat in her arms, and looked at me with a frown. "He was behind the banana tree. You scared him with all that pounding." The cat, which was white and blue, just yawned as it rolled around in her arms. She put him down on the ground and he darted for under the bed as she closed the door to the hallway. She gave a sigh, more motion than any sound, and started for the bed as I stood there, just outside the bathroom. She was rearranging the blankets, straightening the different layers and getting rid of the twists when she looked up at me.
"Come on, Wu Fei. Bed. Sleep. We'll talk in the morning." She waved a hand at me, making motions at the bed, and I, uncertainly, began to move forward.
I'd shared beds with the others during the war, but I knew this was different. But maybe she was right. Maybe if I could sleep—I didn't think I would, but—it would be easier to say in the morning. No, maybe she'd listen better if she got more sleep, and the sun was shining. Duo told me once that everything seems better in the light of day, that secrets are heavier in the dark. He'd been sad when he'd said it, and I hadn't really understood exactly what he meant at the time, but I think I did as I stood by that bed. Maybe it would be easier in the morning.
So I climbed into the bed across from Samantha, and pulled the heavy covers around, and rearranged pillows…I did all of it, until I couldn't really justify it anymore.
But I didn't sleep, not as she turned the light off, or even after. I had my hands clasped over the covers on my chest, feeling the rise and fall of my breathing, and stared, unseeing, straight ahead. When my eyes adjusted, and I was able to see fairly well, I stared at the ceiling. And I thought. I thought about the different things I'd done in my just-shy-of-twenty years; I thought of all the different choices I'd made up until now. And I thought of Meilan, as I seemed to be doing so much lately.
I think she would have liked Sam. They were both determined about their places in the world, but I think they were different enough about it to actually get along. Then again, I think that Sam was sort of like Duo. Nearly everyone liked Duo, he seemed to radiate charisma the way Heero radiated danger. Sam, once she let you close enough to know her, was like that. There was something that drew you in, and it wasn't just me. Look at how Duo was to her.
The thought of Duo led me off into the secrets he kept piled up in that head of his. He was…what was the term? A pack-rat, holding onto all the various strings, keeping a wealth of information on the tips of his fingers, like he were worried that—Sam interrupted my thoughts, her voice clear but muffled.
"Wu Fei, if you don't stop thinking so hard, your brains are going to go to mush and leak out your ears." There was a pause as she let that sink in. "Go. To. Sleep." Her voice pulled my attention firmly to her, sharing this bed and I rolled over to look at her. It made me smile.
She was on her stomach, and her head was under the set of pillows. The end of her pony-tail stuck out from the bottom of the stack, and I had to hold back the hand that wanted to touch it where it lay against the smooth skin revealed by the fairly low back of her shirt. I felt a smile curve my lips as I watched the breath go in and out, slow and steady. I could see the exact moment when she slipped under sleep's thrall as her breathing changed and the slight tension that seems to follow everyone through their days gave way to the lassitude of sleep. I think that I was still smiling, still watching her, and that it was the calming thoughts that flitted, half-formed, around my head, that sent me into my own sleep.
I woke up in much the same place, but even before I opened my eyes I knew she was closer than she'd been. And she was also already awake, her breathing wasn't even enough, and I could feel a hand ghosting across my face. I waited a minute as it withdrew before I "woke up" and opened my eyes to see hers, staring back at me from about a foot away. This close, I could see the various shades of blue that wrapped around her iris. She smiled, and her eyes scrunched just a little.
"Good morning." Her eyes widened, the smile dropped, and her hand shot up to cover her mouth. "Sorry."
I could feel my confusion spread across my face. "For what?" She giggled, and her eyes crinkled a little more, so I knew that behind her hand she was smiling again. She shook her head though, and scrambled backwards over the bed, coming to her feet on the other side, and picking up a pair of glasses off the nightstand. I hadn't known she wore glasses. She shot me a smile, and went to the bathroom, closing the door behind her.
While I could hear her moving around, I ran my hand over the sheets where she'd slept, feeling the warmth, and realized that there was a slight fragrance over everything around me. It reminded me of Duo, so I thought that it might be her shampoo or conditioner, something like that. I liked it, whatever it was. The cat had moved from under the bed to the top of the pillows she'd fallen asleep under, and as I looked at him, he opened an eye to send me a glaring cat look, and yawned, settling more deeply into the soft pillows with a stretch.
I heard the water running, and turned from my cat watching to see the door to the bathroom. It wasn't very long before it opened to show Sam, still the same, smiling as she looked up to see me looking at her.
"Go ahead and use whatever you need to. I found another toothbrush, it's sitting on the counter." She came closer. "I'm going to go make coffee." As she got to the door, her hand on the knob, her face was partially visible where she was looking over her shoulder. "Unless you'd rather have something else?"
I could feel my loosened hair pulling out of the tie as I shook my head. "Coffee's fine." She gave a nod and opened the door, leaving it like that as she went down the stairs. After she was gone, I stayed a moment where I was, then pushed the covers down and went to use the bathroom. I brushed my teeth, and, after reminding myself that she'd said use whatever I needed, used the hairbrush on the counter to pull my hair back into its usual ponytail. I wondered if I should get dressed in my own clothes again, but she hadn't gotten out of her sleep-wear, and she might be more comfortable if we were on more even footing. Quatre had pointed that out to me once when he'd dressed casually to meet with some of his construction crews. So I stayed in my borrowed pajamas and came out of the bathroom.
The bedroom was cheery in the sunlight shining in the windows, casting a warm spot over the furniture. The cat was still on the pillows. I went to the door to the hallway, and could smell coffee below me. I hadn't had coffee ever before the war, but quickly found it addictive when it had been introduced to me. I followed the smell and the dark map I'd made last night, ending up back in the now light-filled kitchen. Standing in the doorway, I knew she didn't know I was there as she went around, putting various things down on the table, like milk, and sugar, and spoons and cups. When she did see me, she jumped, just a little.
"You could have said something." I came in and stood by the table while she waited by the coffee pot, two cups in front of her. She'd expected me to sit down, because after a minute of silence, she looked over at me with a slightly exasperated expression on her face. "Sit down already!" So I pulled out a chair and sat, followed moments later by Sam, who set one of the cups down in front of me while she pulled the sugar to her and put just a little in, followed by just a little milk.
I watched her slender hands, and then her face as she brought the finished coffee to it and took a deep breath, her eyes closed, the gold, wire-rimmed glasses giving her a younger appearance. She opened them and her smile widened as she lowered the cup and looked at me, the sun glinting off the lenses in her glasses. "I love the smell of fresh coffee."
I nodded and took a sip of the hot coffee in my cup. "I didn't know you wore glasses." Well, that was brilliant. But she just gave a little self-conscious laugh and pulled them off, turning them to face her before she slid them back on.
"Yeah, I'm actually blind as a bat. I wear contacts most of the time."
"Oh." Another careful sip of coffee. "Well, you've seen my reading glasses."
"You too?" Her face was creased in a frown. "I didn't know that."
"That just goes to show how much attention you were paying in the lectures, I wore them on the first day, though I don't think I wore them after that."
"Hey, you can't hold that against me!" She pouted a little into her cup. "Besides, that doesn't change the fact that I didn't know."
I let out a sigh as the memory of what else she didn't know surfaced, and I put my cup down. Trying to work up the nerve, I looked up at her, watching her face as she drew a finger through the coffee ring from her cup on the table. The sunlight gilded her, making her skin golden as her hair, which was shining like a golden flame. I don't know it if helped, really. I can't remember ever being that nervous as I tried to find words.
But she looked up and met my gaze, and I knew, like I'd known the night before, that I had to tell her, now, so that she really knew me, all of me, not just what I let the world see, because by facing the hidden fears I had of exposure and censure, it would help me, both here, and when I would need it more, later. So…
"I have to tell you something." She nodded, not breaking eye contact, and if she wouldn't, I could do no less. But I did clear my suddenly closed throat. "I," a pause as she looked down at the table, freeing me from her serious eyes. I began again, and knew then how to approach it. "I know that many people wondered why I was given such a high position in Preventers." She nodded a yes, eyes still on the puddle of coffee. "Well, it's because of the war, and the—" a pause again, this time as I faced the shame that always rose when I thought of my position in the next part. "And the Mariemaia Incident." Another nod, this time with a flash of blue as she glanced up at me where I sat across from her.
"What about it?" Her voice was low.
Still watching her, I took a deep breath before I continued. "I piloted Nataku." Now she did look up, but it wasn't really in surprise, more as if she wanted to see my face, because she ran her eyes over me, a careful examination. But it wasn't in surprise.
"You knew." She shook her head, eyes dropping once more.
"No. But I did guess." Well, that sort of simplified matters. But there was more than that.
"How long ago did you 'guess'?" I suppose I was almost proud that she had figured it out
A wry smile went across her face before she drank some coffee, hiding it. "I think I started to wonder after that second class." Her smile broadened as she looked up at me. "There were several things that struck me, that's all."
I frowned, thinking back. It'd been years since I'd really thought about "hiding" it all, it'd become second nature, automated, like driving, or getting ready for bed at night. "Like what?"
She got up with her cup, refilling it, then sat back down to fix it. I wondered what her coffee tasted like. I'd always had mine black, never tried it any other way.
"Well, why'd they have you give those lectures? I mean, you obviously knew the systems but why did you?" I could see the logic in that. Why would a "pencil pusher" in Preventers know "dead" systems that well? "But really, you could have studied them, so that wasn't enough. But when I pulled up the diagrams I saw the signatures." And I remembered signing them. She looked at me through the hair that was always around her face, from the way it was cut. "They're all signed in the same format: a number, then four letters." They were indeed. "Nataku's were all signed 05NACW." Again, true. "And there were the two versions, one labeled as 'Nataku', one 'Altron', so that's the first two letters, right?"
I nodded, though there was more to it than that in those names.
"Which just left CW—Chang Wufei." She paused, then went on. "It's the same for DeathScythe—02DSDM, DeathScythe, Duo Maxwell." I cleared my throat.
"The final thing was how you and Duo talked about those motorcycles. You knew everything about the engine and the different parts, and how to do it, but you didn't talk about it like Nicky and his friends do." When I raised eyebrows at her, she explained. "They're always going on about the brands, and they always use another bike as a reference. Neither of you did. It was like you didn't need it, you weren't going to base it on anything but what you wanted it to be. Though Duo was the one I thought must design the most."
It made me smile, just everything about it. Yes, Duo was like that. He just seemed to instinctively know which parts would be best, create the best overall effect. "He's always been like that, for as long as I've known him."
We let the silence sit while we each sipped our coffee, and the sun warmed the house around us. Eventually, though, I knew I had to tell her the rest.
I finished off my cup, and set it down decisively, making her look up at me again.
"There's more I have to tell you."
She put her own, nearly empty, cup down, and I saw the words on it finally, "Coffee is my friend. I like my friend very, very much." It was…cute. And it suited her. She hadn't given me a mug with anything on it.
"Okay. What else is there?" She was still not very upset looking, as if it didn't matter, whatever it was. I cringed inside. It was time to tell her about Meilan.
"Uh. Well, before the war, I wasn't going to be the pilot for Nataku—I mean, it was Shenlong, then. I was just going to be a scholar." I let my eyes see my home as it had been. It was gone, now. I continued with a sigh. "My clan had made an agreement, and it had been decided, after I was born, that they would seal it by marriage. So they arranged my marriage to a girl I didn't know yet, and we were married when I turned fourteen." Well, it got a reaction. She was staring at me, her eyes wide and her body still. "Meilan was the one chosen to pilot Shenlong." I sighed again. "We didn't get along very well. We were both stubborn, and both of us thought that we knew everything." I could feel the sadness on my face, but I had to finish it all. "Before Shenlong was finished, the Alliance tried to force a search of our colony. Meilan decided to fight in the battle in a prototype suit we had, but I refused to fight."
I looked up at Sam's face. "She was defeated, and she—" I took a deep breath, filling my lungs. "She died in my arms. That's when I chose to fight. I renamed the Gundam 'Nataku' in honor of her, and when it was finished, I went to Earth, to prove to Meilan…I don't even know, really, anymore." There, that was it. I think she knew it was, too.
She nodded at me, sitting back in her chair, and sighed her own sigh, eyes focused once more on the puddle on the table. "Okay, I wasn't expecting that." She looked back at me. "Thank you for telling me, though. Everything." She smiled at me as she said it, but quickly turned her attention down to the middle space between us, possibly studying the wood grain as she let her mind process what I'd told her. We sat there in silence for a long time, both of us just thinking. When she did look back up at me, I couldn't decipher her emotions, not with the odd look on her face. "An arranged marriage, huh?" She shook her head, clearing the air. "You know what? I don't know if it matters." I looked at her with a question, and seeing it, she went on. "Well, it does matter, because it's part of you, but I don't know if it makes any real difference in how…" She trailed off, looking a little uncertain, and blushing very faintly. I wondered what she'd almost said.
Another shake, sending the blonde hair around her face in an arc. "That's enough serious stuff. It's Saturday, it's sunny out. We need something to do today." She sent me a brilliant smile, and I was only too happy to agree. It felt right to have told her, and I was glad, now that I had. There was more, but those two things were the major parts, everything else was contingent upon them.
Thinking about what she'd said, I couldn't think of anything I really wanted to do, just so long as I was doing it with her. "I don't have any ideas."
She tilted her head in the way she had when she was thinking. "Well, I was going to garden today, but I don't really feel like it, so that's out. Hmmm…it's a problem, it is." She stood up, taking the coffee cups to the empty sink and rinsing them out. When she finished, she spun around to face the room. "I know—it's perfect." She came back to me, pulling on my arm, silently asking me to come with her. I did, but she was just taking me back up the stairs to her bedroom, where I noticed that the cat still was.
When she let go of me to dig around in a dresser drawer, I sat down next to the pile of pillows it was sitting on, and reached out to attempt a pet. You have to be careful with cats. Sometimes they really, really dislike attention. But he seemed fine with it, leaning into my caress, and purring a little. "What's his name?" His tag didn't have it engraved on it, only Sam's and a phone number.
She looked up from her explorations of the dresser. "Oh, that's Aristotle. But I call him Tottles." Yes, I'd imagine he'd have to be pretty laid back as far as cats go to put up with that name.
"Hello, Tottles." He pushed his head against my hand as I scratched him under the chin. I glanced over at Sam, who found whatever she was looking for right then, pulled it out, pushed the drawer in and stood up on the tail end of an "Ahah." She turned around and came back to the bed, seating herself next to me.
"Okay, I've got two mountain bikes in the shed. I know this place, it's about three miles off the road, but it's beautiful. Would you like to take a picnic?"
I was still petting Tottles as I thought about it. The bikes reminded me of that time at Quatre's, when we'd all learned, and I could feel the smile spread across my face. She was looking at me, a soft look went over her own.
"What are you thinking about?" Her voice was soft too, her hands still in her lap.
I focused in on her. "During the war, we were all in between missions, and Quatre thought it would be good for us if we all learned how to ride a bicycle." The smile widened, until it felt like it was splitting my whole expression. "It wasn't quite as easy as any of us thought. Trowa, who already knew how, told us this old idiom he'd heard, about how it's easy to ride a bike. We all learned eventually, but I think we were more scraped up and bruised from that than a lot of the missions we had." Her smile was soft, but a little sad.
"Were you hurt a lot?" Her hand wasn't very far from mine where it was on the bed. The hand on Tottles stilled as I thought about that question.
"No. I was never injured very badly." It made me think about Heero, and the others. "I was lucky." The smile was gone from my face.
"Good. I'm glad you were." She was very matter-of-fact about it, and I met the blue of her eyes. "So, do you want to do the bicycling?"
It didn't really require much thought. It was spending time with her, so therefore was fine with me. "Okay."
"Okay." She got back up, shaking out a pair of jeans. "Do you have something appropriate to wear? Like a really old pair of jeans?" When I just looked at her in confusion, she laughed, and showed me the bottom of the jeans. On the right leg there were old vertical rips, all of them sort of hap-hazardly sown up. "The bikes are old, and they don't have gear-guards, so you end up with shredded pants, unless you tuck or tie them up, but that's always been annoying to me, so I just keep a pair of bike pants." She shrugged, one shoulder moving up and down. "So do you have anything that'll work?"
I had to think for a moment, but eventually my mind hit on my "work-on-motorcycle" jeans. They were just about dead, half-way black and torn in places from catching on different things. Those would work. I nodded, "Yes, but I'll need to stop at my house." She shrugged, this time both shoulders.
"That's okay." She went back to the dresser, pulling out other clothes; I looked away when her hand came out with undergarments. After she had everything she needed, she went towards the bathroom. "I'm going to take a quick shower, okay? It won't take very long." No response seemed very necessary, but as she closed the door and the water turned on a few seconds later, I didn't know what to do, so I stayed on the second floor, and took some short looks at the other rooms.
Apparently, all of her siblings had their own room, each one different, and obviously rooms that were more personal than just guest bedrooms. I speculated on whether this was the family home, that had been her parents before they died.
Ten minutes later the water shut off, and I went back to her bedroom, sitting on the bed, trying to act as if I hadn't been gone. Yeah, as if I hadn't had enough practice in the past to pull off whatever I needed to, not that I'd ever really cared.
"Ah, that always makes me feel more human." She smiled at me, her eyes shining, and I tried to look intelligent as I kept up on the exercises in normalcy. She didn't notice—or if she did, she didn't show any sign of it—and nodded in the direction of the bathroom. "It's all yours. While you're getting dressed, I'll go pack up a picnic." She padded in socks out the door, towel still in hand. I went to the still steamy bathroom, smelling the fragrance I'd noticed from the bed in the air. Closing the door, I went to the tub to check one of the bottles, to see if it was her shampoo or conditioner. Both of them said they were the same scent, so it was one of them. I closed it back up, put it where it'd been, and reached for my clothes from the previous night. It was a bare minute while I got dressed, and I didn't need to do anything else, so I folded up my borrowed clothes, placed them on the toilet, and went down to the kitchen.
She had a peculiar thing that looked sort of like a lunch box or a small cooler open on the table, and was putting things from the fridge and from various cabinets into it. She looked up at me, and I noticed that she was wearing her contacts again, when I entered to stand, arms folded, against the edge of the counter.
"Looks like we've got chicken salad for sandwiches, and potato salad, and fresh fruit."
"Okay." The towel she'd used on her hair was hanging over the back of a chair. I noticed it when she put the last thing—an ice pack—into the cooler box, and closed it up.
"The bikes are out in the shed, we need to put them into the truck, then we can leave." She went for a door I'd seen last night that led to a small, screened-in porch, then out into the back yard. It seemed to be more garden than yard. There was a large shed set against the back line of privacy fence, and she headed for that. I followed, watching as she swung our lunch in her hand as she walked. On some level I noticed how her jeans fit, but it almost felt forced, as if, because I'd worked so hard to ignore as many of the people around me as possible, I'd forgotten what it was like to be twenty. Unsurprising, that in the end, I'd have messed up my sexuality to the point where I'd have to concentrate to do more than see the potential in someone for harm, have to consciously look for what made a person attractive.
I gave a sigh, and chose to act like I didn't see her shoot a look at me over her shoulder. She used a key from her pocket to unlock the shed door, pushing it open until it stuck against the floor, two-thirds the way in.
"The bikes are over there." She hit the lights, and used her head to point to the far wall. "They're behind that screen-thing." She followed me over to that area, pulling the light screen, which was weathered, obviously having been outside for many summers, out of the way, to reveal two bikes, in good condition, and obviously cared for, but, like she'd said, rather old, and showing it with scraped paint and worn handles. We rolled them out, backing up carefully in the crowded shed, until they were outside. I held on to them both, keeping them up-right, while she re-locked the door. The cooler she slid onto a metal setup on the back of one of the bikes, where it sat securely. She took that one from me. "Alright, let's take these around the house. The truck's in the garage." I was just going to guide the bike, but Sam put her left foot on the right pedal, and pushed off the ground, directing the bike she was half-way on. Not to be left behind, I tried to do it, and found it effective enough. I'd have to show it to Duo the next time we used bikes—which wasn't very often.
We both made it successfully to the gate, pausing as she unlocked the gate, passed through, and then pausing again as she stopped to relock it. Then we went around the house, and came to a stop in front of the garage doors. There was a code pad to the left, and she went there, typing in the code quickly, though I still caught it, and waited for the smaller of the two doors to open. As it went up, it progressively revealed a battered old red truck, the paint peeling with dents scattered across any flat surface. She didn't wait for me, but lifted the bike up and over the side of the bed, and it wasn't done too gracefully, showing that she felt the weight. I did the same, shooting a look at her.
"If you'd waited a second, I could have done that." I could hear the petulant tone without anyone pointing it out to me.
She winked at me. "But what would I do if you weren't there?" I could certainly think of a few responses to that, but now it wasn't in my better interests to use those tactics around her, so I kept my mouth shut.
She climbed into the driver's seat, and I, by unspoken agreement, went down the drive to my bike, parked by the curb. She pulled out into the street, the truck backing up carefully while I typed in the start-up code, and waited while I put my helmet on. Through necessity, I was forced to go in front of her to lead the way, but I had to be careful to keep her behind me, which made me go slower than I would have otherwise.
Twenty minutes later we came to a stop in front of my little house, this time me slowly taking the motorcycle up to the garage door while she parked by the curb. The door opened when I got close enough for the automatic opener to operate, and I parked the bike next to the others. She walked up the driveway to where I was settling the bike.
"That's some hobby you've got." I watched as she walked around the seven bikes I'd managed to crowd into the large garage, running her hands over one occasionally. When she'd circled the last one, she looked up at me, smiling. "They're nice."
I raised eyebrows in false indignation. "Nice?" I carefully set the helmet I'd been holding down on the work bench I'd built into one side of the garage. "Do you have any idea how much time I've spent on these?"
She laughed, seeing through my act. Which alone told me how observant she was—I may not have been Duo or Trowa's equal, but I could act pretty damn convincingly when I wanted to. "Okay, so they're a little more than just nice."
I smiled back at her, just a little one. "Thank you." I headed for the door to the house, hitting the garage door opener on the way through, and she followed me. I couldn't help wondering whether or not she was watching how my pants fit as she followed me. And that brought the meditation exercises back into use.
The door let out into the kitchen, and as I went on, towards the bedroom to shower and change, I told her to make herself at home. I didn't hear what she might have said before the bedroom door closed and I quickly did what I needed to, grabbing the right clothes and heading for the shower.
She wasn't in the kitchen, but the living room, when I came back out, jeans on and t-shirt neatly tucked in, my still wet hair pulled back and ignored as it slowly dripped down my back. She stood looking at the line of abstract photographs that hung on the wall. I liked those photos. They'd been a gift from Quatre the Christmas before last, and it surprised me how much I did like them. There were six of them, and each one was in a different style. One was black and white, one was just shades of white. The other four had color, but never the same. Somehow the chaotic mixture of the six of them appealed to me, as if they were representative of something in me that I couldn't put to words. I came up behind her as she closely examined them. She would stand back, and look at them all together, then go forward to look at just one, then back up again.
She didn't hear me as I came up, so I watched her, and stood just where she'd end up the next time when pulled back to look at them. She gave a little screech when she hit my chest, jumping forward only to swing around to glare at me, blue eyes glinting.
I had to laugh a little as she glared. "I think you were concentrating too hard." I nodded toward the photos. "Do you like them?"
She turned back to the pictures, her head turning appraisingly as she planted her hands on her hips. "You know, I think I do. But I can't for the life of me figure out what it is that I like about them." I took the step that would bring me even with her.
I looked them over again as I thought of how to answer. "I've had them now for almost two years, and I haven't been able to do that either." I shook my head. "I don't even know what possessed Quatre to give them to me." She rotated around to face me as I stared at the wall.
"Well, did you ask him?"
"Yes."
She was a little coyer, rising to the bait of my slight teasing. "And what did he say?"
"He said," here I paused, because I hadn't told her about him yet, "that the soul of space told him they were for me."
Her brows drew together and her lips pursed. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means that he looked at them and felt that he should get them for me." The frown only got deeper.
"That's just about as vague as it's possible to get." A further nod from me.
We looked at the wall for another minute, before she turned to face me again. "Who is Quatre, anyway? I've heard you and Duo use the name before," she drew in breath, "and I know that he's got to be pretty well off, because the name on those photos is an expensive one, not to mention that bike wasn't cheap."
I raised my eyebrows. "I'd have thought you'd have recognized him just from that description."
She shook her head. "No, the only name that matches is just too ridiculous to consider." I looked at her questioningly.
"Why? What about this person makes it so?" I knew who she was considering, and even if she hadn't realized it, she would have to get over any ridiculousness of it before she met him—and she would, as he would be down here as soon as I picked up the phone to him, and he felt the echo of what I did. He'd be arranging the trip on a computer before he was off the phone.
"Well, the only Quatre I can think of ever having heard of, is Quatre Winner, and he's very nearly the richest man alive now, because of what he's done, taking the reins of WEI after his father. So, it must be someone else." She gave a little laugh, and waited for me to give her who it really was.
I felt a smirk cross my face as she stared at me. The smile on her face slowly left as she saw my expression. "You cannot be serious." I stayed silent. "The Quatre who gave you these pictures is Quatre Winner." It was just a confirmation statement, not a question. I nodded. "I need a chair." I took her arm and guided her over to the sofa. She dropped into it, her head further dropping into her hands. As her shoulders started to shake, I thought for a second that she was crying, but I could hear the sound of muffled laughter waft up to me. When her head left her hands, her face was red, her eyes streaming tears of near-hysterical laughter.
"You're really good friends with Quatre R. Winner, the head of WEI." As she looked up at me, all signs of laughter fled her face and the redness became white. "QRW." Her eyes were wide as they stared past me. "Shit." It was the first time I'd heard her swear. Her eyes were still wide when they focused in on my face. "He was a pilot too." I nodded again.
"Yes, he was a pilot." I thought about telling her about Quatre's past a little bit, but decided not to. "Sandrock." She nodded absentmindedly as she thought.
"Yes, Sandrock. The one that had apparently been designed to withstand nearly any abrasive surface according to the schematics—including sand, if it were stirred up into a sand storm. Because he's Arabic, middle-eastern. He'd have support there, because they were resistant throughout the entire war." She squeezed her eyes shut hard, then opened them to look me in the eye. "Any other world celebrities I should know about?"
I had to shake my head. Of course I knew Relena, she was my boss' boss. And none of the other pilots were famous, so it was safe to say no.
"Good. One's enough." She held up a hand to me, and when I took it, used me as leverage to stand up. "Come on, or we'll lose all the daylight."
We went out the front door, with me pulling it closed behind us, locked. I reset the alarm system, which I hadn't had to touch on the way in, and we walked side by side down the front walk to the truck. She surprised me by handing me the keys to the truck before climbing into the passenger side where it met up with the curb. I felt the urge to just look at them stupidly for a moment, but nothing from my past would let me. No, I just grabbed them, and walked around the front end, hiding my surprise, as if there were still soldiers surrounding me, both my own and my enemies', to catch me in any moment I showed weakness. Old defenses, still faithfully standing, although, supposedly, in this new peace, I had no need for them.
The door was unlocked, as the passenger's had been, so I just climbed in, settled myself into the seat, using that bare moment of time to adjust my thoughts to the slight differences noticeable, and, with a shove of the keys, and the flip of a wrist, both feet on the pedals, the car was started, even as I buckled and pulled the emergency brake. Such was the life of a pilot. Sometimes, the only time you had to secure yourself was the time it took to get things going. Wasn't it Duo who said that?
No, not Duo. It was Heero. One of those moments he'd get when his humor would crop up, surprising everyone.
