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"Maaaan, I am POOPED."
"No wonder. You didn't even try to sleep on the shuttle over here."
Heero led the way to their destination in the urban city as Duo and Wufei fell into another one of their usual bickering sessions behind him. Trowa strolled alongside the arguing couple, his arms folded over his chest as Quatre tried feebly to break them up. Heero looked up at the building in front of him, and crumpled the paper in his hand, stuffing it in his back jeans pocket. The names matched- Washing Inn- the place where Sound was last said to be. He climbed up the steps, leaving the others behind him, and rapped smartly on the door with the back of his knuckles. The arguing behind him quietened and he heard a scuffling coming from behind the door. Another moment and a middle-aged lady opened the door with a wide smile that faded partially at the sight of the uniform he wore. A look into his brown eyes, and she folded her arms under her bosom and kicked one foot up to balance on it's toes, crossing her ankles as she pressed her shoulder against the door frame.
"Something I can do for you officer?" She asked, unable to keep the soft note out of her voice for the youth of the boy in front of her. Heero responded by pulling a picture out of his jacket and handing it to the woman.
"We're looking for this girl. Do you know her?" Heero watched the woman as she flipped the picture and turned it, a flash of recognition shooting through her face.
"Ah, little Sound-chan…" She trailed off, her eyes distant, a smile tugging at her lips, a fond memory. "I remember the first time she turned up here. Even then, she was a flighty little thing." She trailed off again, still smiling fondly at the picture, and my shifting impatiently caught her attention. "Oh! Pardon me, I'm guessing this'll take a while. My name's Jane, come on in, and get your boys to follow too. We have room." She turned and waved for us to follow her, leaving the door open, mildly surprising me. The woman observed more than she let on, and I waved the others to follow me, disappearing through the door, following the woman, and Trowa shut the door.
"Yes, little Sound-chan." The coffee pot boiled and Jane- the mother of the family running the Inn- went and poured some for us. I waved it away politely with a small smile. She smiled back. "She turned up here when she was nearly ten years old, calling herself Sound Bullet. Tiny little thing, she turned up on our doorstep on a night like last night, and the old man nearly stepped on her when he went out to get the mail in the morning. Poor little girl fit into just one of his arms." She set some creamer and sugar on the table, Duo immediately going for the sugar and dumping heaps into his mug while Wufei went for the creamer and Jane leaned back against the counter, looking up at the ceiling with hazy eyes. "She was malnourished and had bruises on her ribcage, she never told us where she got them. She didn't wake up for a day and a half, the doctor said her ribs were broken and that he had removed a bullet in her ankle that nearly severed her hamstring."
Duo whistled, impressed, and Jane smiled crookedly before going on.
"It soon became apparent after she woke up that she didn't have a real name, for she admitted to making up her surname. Seemed like she had been rushed to come up with it, and it fell away pretty quickly once she didn't need it anymore. She insisted on being called Sound though. 'I don't want anyone making names for me', she said back then. 'I make up a name for myself, and other people will have to call me by it." Jane smiled fondly. I felt Trowa's interest in her words. "Child's logic, but she was very smart. Took an interest in tinkering." I had to suppress a smile as I felt Duo's interest perk up suddenly, like a pair of dog ears upon hearing the word 'walk'. "Our sink busted when I was doing the dishes when she was ten. She was there with a rag and duck tape and tools before I could even start fretting. She had said that she heard the pipe break. She ran to the scrap yard and came back with a u-bend before I even really knew what was going on. She made Scott- the old man- a miniature remote-controlled helicopter before she left for the first time, when she was 11- and it still hasn't broken."
"Mei told me before she went to school today that she left last night." I felt a pang of disappointment. I would've loved to meet her. Still, I reassured myself- we'd find her.
"Do you know where she went?" Heero asked, and Jane smiled.
"Where ever the stars took her." I caught my breath in a light hiccup of surprise before letting it go. There was a mystical ring to those words. Heero looked at her quizzically. "No one knows where she goes, I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't know herself. That girl is in love with the sky, and that is the only thing she ever tells us when she gets fidgety like that."
"What do you know about her Gundam?"
"Gundam? She doesn't have one." I grew a little uneasy as I glanced at Heero. He was boring holes into the woman with his eyes, but I could see honesty in Jane's eyes, if a little alarmed.
"You said she tinkered. It's a possibility that she made herself a gundam."
"Where would she have gotten the gundanium?" No answer. "She made herself a car once, and that's as far as she's gone in terms of building things." She paused. "Unless she's been doing things without my knowing… but she would never hurt anyone." She said severely. "The one day she went to school with Mei and got bullied with her, she didn't even touch them. She just made them so dizzy they fell over and got sick on their own. I don't know about Mei, but… Sound never did anything to harm anyone." I sighed slightly and looked at Heero. He was slowly coming to the same conclusion as I had, and I smiled as he straightened up, and I followed suit, getting up.
"Thank you for your help, Mrs. Wash. Thanks for the coffee." Jane smiled half-heartedly, and watched as we filed out the way we came in, Wufei dragging Duo by the ear. Sound wasn't here.
We didn't find another trail for a week. Someone had reported seeing Sound in Yokohama, Japan, in a junk shop, buying spare parts. Gundanium spare parts. Heero didn't show it, but I could tell he was feeling a tad smug, knowing he was right. Duo was one of the most eager to hunt her down, obviously impressed with that not only did she tinker around with things- like he did- but that she had built herself a gundam from scratch as well. We all found that impressive, but Duo did more so than the rest of us. Trowa was curious about her, and that was all that I could feel from him; a faint curiosity. Wufei was detached and just wanted to get the job done, and Heero thought of this as only a job as well, but liked the challenge finding Sound presented.
Our first glimpse of her was at the docks, brown hair cropped short at the back, differing from the picture of her in her file, slightly hunching over at the very edge of the dock as if she was holding something and rummaging around in it. It was Heero who caught her attention, but it was my eyes she held. Her eyes were blue, and I blinked, zoning out, or more like- my focus was entirely drawn to her and her curious gaze, so my awareness of my surroundings seemingly faded into black. I didn't say a word, yet I looked at her curiously, nearly losing myself several times in her blue eyes as she turned to face me, curiously dropping her hands to the side and studying me in the same way I was studying her. She blinked, looked into my eyes, found something, and smiled a soft, crooked grin, genuine in honesty and hesitation.
'You're like me, aren't you?' I jumped, startled, and she smiled happily. Her lips didn't even move with the words. Her happiness glowed in her eyes. 'Oh you are like me! You are!' She said again without saying anything, and I blinked, feeling a childish joy coming from her, and wondered, attempting to speak to her the way she was speaking to me, noticing the paper bag she held tightly in one hand.
'Am I really something to get that excited about?'
'Yes.' I blinked again, conviction flowing from her thoughts and emotions as her excitedness suddenly died away, and I looked at her, waiting for an explanation. 'You are an empath, stranger's emotions are like an open book to you, and you feel your friend's emotions much more sharply and strongly. You've got room to improve as well. I'm… I don't know what I am exactly, but I've at least been telepathic for as long as I can remember, and I could know anybody's secrets.' Her words stunned me, and I looked at her with wide eyes, as she stood there, quietly smiling at me. 'Your friend-' She flashed a mental picture of Duo at me. '-has an innate danger sense which levels on instinctual, which puts it in the same area as our gifts.' She paused in her thoughts, and became more somber, her smile slipping away, eyes dropping to the dock. 'You and your friend are more widely accepted, for you're not seen as strange, like I am. Your talents are useful and un-invasive. You're useful, and people don't see you as a threat.' I absent-mindedly brought a hand up to lightly touch my chest as I felt her heart sadden and sink, growing colder. She looked up sharply at people I couldn't see, and I felt her clamming up, as if to protect herself. 'You are a rare find, because rarely are people as open and kind as you, and that is what allows your talent to grow.' She turned, facing the water, and my eyes widened as I unconsciously reached out in alarm.
'Where are you going?' She turned and gave me a cheeky smile over her shoulder, and I felt an intoxicating, bubbly feeling of excitement- the feeling of adventure- start to swell in my chest, and I dropped my hand lower, watching her.
'No where and everywhere.' She said. 'Where ever the stars take me, but I won't be going far.' –and then she stepped over the side of the dock, and she was gone. I was at the edge of the dock before I realized what I was doing, looking down at the water, and there was barely a ripple to show that she had been there. I looked up into the sky, wondering at her, and just barely noticed the brief splash of water that could've been an unnatural wave. That girl certainly was a mystery.