Pilot
"Mama, are we there yet?"
"No sweetie, we're still far. Why don't you go to sleep, hm?"
"Don't wanna! Up!"
Dorothy suppressed a sigh and bent to hoist up her little girl. "How could I forget?" she murmured.
Quatre blinked one eye open from his seat near the back of the shuttle, "Forget what?"
His wife whirled around with a look of surprise which quickly turned into a devious one, "Your enhanced senses never cease to amaze me… because you honestly don't look like a trained spy," she said, to which the Arabian responded by rolling his eye.
"Neither do you…" his eye closed again.
"Mama! Tell me a story! Papa, tell mama to tell me a story!" said Fadilah, while fingering her mother's fair hair. "The one about the princess!"
"Well sweetheart, there are plenty of stories about princesses-"
"No, no! I want the one of the princess and her immortal warrior prince!"
"That sounds curiously familiar," came Quatre's voice from his resting place, and Dorothy innocently averted her gaze when his aquamarine eyes searched hers, "have you been telling Miss Relena's life?" When silence was his wife's response, the ex Gundam pilot smiled but otherwise said as sternly as he could, "Please don't go telling other people's stories as if they were a novel."
Dorothy pouted, making her daughter laugh. Halim then came out from the pilot cabin, utterly excited.
"You know Dad, they have this super awesome console with a hundred different switches and buttons and lots of signals and all that spacey stuff and…Mom?" he leaned into his mother and whispered something.
"Oh no, no, no. Do not involve me. I left that business a long time ago. Better ask your father. Go on." Her free hand waved his off, but the boy stood his ground. "Do not hesitate, sweetheart, that's not what I've taught you, is it?"
"But, Mom…"
"Nu-huh. Can't listen. What do I always tell you, hm?" Dorothy was guiltily delighted with her son's troubled expression, because it resembled greatly that of his father's. Fadilah had by then settled comfortably in her arms and was curiously peering down at her sibling.
"That I should always speak my mind…"
"Because?"
"Because I am a Catalonia."
"Very well child." The blonde woman beamed at the boy and he instantly knew she was on his side. His mother was the best accomplice ever. She rolled her eyes towards her husband and Halim approached his father with a straight back.
Quatre was startled awake by his son's sudden closeness and distinguished air. Those were Dorothy's genes, staring back from Halim's eyes.
"Father, I have a request to make."
"O-ok. W-what is it?" Dorothy, you're everywhere inside our kids.
"I want to try piloting the shuttle. The guys at the controls told me I needed your permission, and I-"
Quatre stopped listening as flashes of a spoiled 13 year old boy steering a mobile suit run rampant through his mind for a minute, making him stand up rather abruptly, startling his boy; and the unintelligible sputtering that came from the man's mouth made his daughter laugh aloud. The ability to rend him stupid was definitely part of his wife's genetics. Wicked sorceress, that she was.
Don't be silly Quatre, he just wants to try. And it's not like he'll ever pilot a MS, they no longer exist. Right? Clear your mind, clear you-
The Duchess soft voice interrupted his inner mantra, "Remember you had your share when young, and those were darker times." He was tempted to raise his voice and tell Dorothy that not a single event of their teenage lives had been a matter of fun, that she was crazy if she thought he was going to agree; but her pale blue eyes were sternly watching him, getting warmer as she hugged their 4 year old daughter tighter. "He has you, Quatre. Why don't you go and teach him personally?"
Motherhood had brought her a new kind of wisdom, different from what she had learned during war times, but not completely unrelated. She knew what her husband had thought, for she had despaired too, if only for a fraction of a second when her son's request had been made quietly to her lone ears. But she had almost immediately known the right answer, and now Quatre apparently knew it too, for he had put one slender hand over their son's shoulder and was walking him towards the piloting cabin. He paused by her side and tenderly brushed her lips with his –Fadilah giggled at this–, before disappearing with the boy through the sliding door.
Fadilah loved when Daddy made Mommy happy, because she loved her Mommy's beautiful smiling face more than anything in the world.
