Just the Basic Anxieties

"Where's your luggage?"

"Oh? Here," she raised a scarlet handbag, big enough to carry her laptop and documents. "Oh, and my purse is somewhere around…I believe Fadilah was playing with it…better go look for it."

Incredulous, Quatre asked his wife, "That's all? Are you sure?"

"Well yes, I just need my basic necessities."

"Love, I don't know if you recall, after all you got me into this madness but…we're staying for a year."

"Oh I know. I am going shopping once we get to Earth."

"You are?" sigh, "Wouldn't you give the children a better example?"

"I'm their mother, I am the best example they can get. Besides, what's wrong with spending my hard-earned money on things I'll need?"

"You inherited it." He had been trying to make her desist on her intent but as he saw her little evil smile spreading on her deep red lips, he knew he would never –ever– win their debate. So he chose to play dirty.

"Basically the same; I had to stand a bunch of back-stabbers and hypocrites. Not like the ones you're used to my dear, yours can play fair sometimes, -"

"Dorothy!" Her smile grew wider at his indignant expression. Pfft! His half-assed, neophyte malice would never stir her.

"-but mine were really hardcore ones. Spies. Assassins. You name them."

He just stared hard at her and she had the decency to blush. Ah yes, the incomplete truths in her statement...

"Ok, so I am perhaps made of a smaller part of those –was, excuse me-, and you are too. Oh no, don't you stare at me like that, you hypocrite." She dismissed him with a wave of her hand and was turning around when Fadilah came running into the living room and hugged Dorothy's legs, startling her.

"Mama, how do I look?"

Dorothy smiled widely amused, "Perhaps crimson is not your color, darling. Once we get to Earth we'll go shopping and look for something nice. If your father allows it." At her last comment, Quatre prepared his heart for what was next. His little girl turned around with glistening puppy eyes, and her lipstick smeared face just served to make her look cuter. He signaled for his baby to come over, and taking out his handkerchief, he wiped her face. She struggled with his hands.

"Fadilah, stay still."

"No! My make-up!"

Quatre barely resisted the urge to slap himself for what he was about to say, "Once…once we get to Earth…" sigh, "your mother will take you shopping, ok? Now please stand still, the shuttle is arriving any minute now."

"Ok!" beamed his daughter, and her adorable expression made him smile sweetly. He adjusted the white ribbon adorning her golden curls and stood up, "Go tell Halim to hurry up." Immersed as he was watching over his girl, he didn't completely miss Dorothy's triumphant grin.

"I saw you." He said, adjusting his ever present vest, now a sober grey instead of the purple one of his younger days, although he still indulged in wearing pink and purple from time to time. His wife snickered. "I believe you had said you would never touch the Dermail fortune."

"I won't," she said, flipping her beautiful hair behind her, "That money was earned through warfare, and I do not quite idolize war anymore, as much as I loved my late grandfather or enjoyed the leisure of life his wealth brought me. It's been more than 15 years since I last thought about…war."

Quatre knew it to be a lie. Sometimes she wept silent, lonely tears while watching the pitch-black space during their shuttle trips –it was her grandfather's tomb. And every 3rd of November, she went to the only Catholic Church on the L4 main colony, to pray for her parents. Sometimes he accompanied her.

"And it's been a while since I started obtaining my own money," her tone turned livelier and his demeanor relaxed, relieved she had dropped such a dark theme for her, "and it is good money. I work with you too, remember?" She walked towards him and caught him by the hand, lazily doodling on his palm with her index finger.

Alá, did he remember. If the oak desk at his office had a mind, it would also remember several events… The Arabian blushed faintly as a thought flashed through his mind. But of course! That lunch break at his office, right before the L4-T925 Colony Development Board Assembly came to an end, almost…three months ago?

"Dorothy! You can't travel now!" He suddenly said, with such an urgent tone, she even felt alarmed.

"Why in the world not?" came her confused question.

"Because it is not healthy. You miscounted, love, you're not one month pregnant, but three!"

The blonde woman laughed, if a bit unsure. "No, I'm not, Quatre. I'm confident I know my body better than you."

Quatre's mind wandered off and begged to differ, but his deep consternation brought him back to reality rather swiftly. "But I know you better most of the time, and remember things better than you, and…and…"

"Why are you blushing?"

"Because my memory is good."

"Can't see your point, darling." She fluttered her eyelashes, mocking him.

"S-so I…I keep…I keep track of our- my memory is really time-accurate ok?"

Dorothy stared slightly wide eyed at her husband, her open mouth forming a lovely O. And then she giggled. "Oh my, Quatre! That's disturbingly erotic."

"Uh?" his mind just wandered again, "N-no, that's beside the point! The enormous difference of pressure between colonies and Earth, and the space ports, then the pressure cabins and the shuttles… the shuttles!"

"Can you just breathe, dearest?" Finally she was exasperated, "first, I've been traveling this past month and aside from some nausea and my random cravings, I've been fine; second, it's until the sixth month of pregnancy when space traveling turns a bit…ambiguous, and I'm definitely sure I'm not even month and a half; and lastly, why do you keep forgetting I'm an earthling? After two children born naturally, I would have thought you understood I'm not affected by any 'spacial anomaly'…"

Her agitated husband was starting to calm down, when the muffled roar of their private shuttle announced its arrival. The blond man altered again and his wife just rolled her eyes. With loving harshness, if such thing existed, she grabbed him by the arm and started walking toward the boarding aisle.

"Quatre," said the Duchess rather sternly, "stop fretting this instant or you are going to really upset me."

The former gundam pilot ordered himself to count till hundred-and-fifty and when he was visibly calmer, softly reprimanded his offspring for running on the boarding ramp.

"But Dad! Fadilah has my RT5 game and won't give it to me! No! Fadilah, you little evil thing! You erased my score!" The four year old girl ran even faster into the shuttle, her bubbly laughter echoing behind her.

Dorothy was giggling at their children antics and her husband decided that maybe he had been exaggerating…a little. Maybe. Having strapping his son and little girl to their respective seats, he gave rest to his worries and planned to take a short nap. His aquamarine eyes had just shut when he heard his beloved's hushed voice.

"I swear the only thing you should worry is about whether my cravings will stay the same for this two day trip."

Dear Alá, have mercy on me.


I giggled along with my writing. (: Hope you like it!