Warnings: if you've made it this far, I don't really need to warn you. Too bad someone didn't warn them...

Pedophobic--means to be afraid of kids.

Idiot mittens: those mittens with the strings that go through the sleeves so you don't loose them. Yes, that is actually what Encarta calls them. Fitting, don't you think?

Chapter 6

Eighteen Kids and Counting

Just like that, Operation 'See Santa' was put into action.

If Duo had thought his day couldn't get any worse, he was sadly mistaken. The mission parameters for their latest mission seemed simple enough-- working as a team, he, Heero and Trowa were to transport three van loads of children to the local mall to rendezvous with the poor sod coerced into playing Santa.

Casualties were not acceptable in regards to the children. Santa was on his own.

Duo's 'big' problem (because we cannot stoop to calling Duo's manhood 'little') had been solved as he tried to buckle child number one into his car seat. Child number one did not particularly like being crammed into a car seat, and let his disgust become evident by giving Duo a swift kick to the groin. That gained the toddler a brief upper hand in the duel as Duo was too busy gaping like a guppy as his manhood began throbbing with a whole new type of pain. However, you must remember that he'd been picked to be a Gundam pilot for a reason, and although dealing with blunt castration had not been part of the job description, he managed to plow on through it. The wrestling match continued for several minutes as Duo tried to force buckles around the child, and the child tried his best to rearrange Duo's face and rip out his hair, with neither making any headway over the other.

Trowa was the one who pointed out the problem, that Duo was essentially trying to strap the three year old toddler in to a car seat meant for a child half his size. Honestly, why didn't they write these things on a big label, not in some fine print on the back of the damn seat that required superhuman vision, a flashlight, and the ability to be double jointed, was beyond him.

It was a bittersweet victory when he finally manage to chain the blasted toddler in the car seat—which had more straps, buckles and safety tethers then your average mobile suit-- because as he turned around, only then did he realize that he had to do it five more times. And that was only to get to the mall.

Fifteen minutes later, when all six kids were in their car seats, he climbed into the driver's seat nursing several bruises and cuts.

From far in the back row a pitiful little voice said, "I gotta pee-pee!"

The former pilots were all used to fighting loosing battles, with the odds of winning horribly stacked against them. Being outnumbered was a regular occurrence, where some of their mobile suit battles had them at fifty-to-one odds.

But of course, that was during a war, and odds meant very little when

It was an entirely different thing when you were in a shopping mall—unfamiliar territory-- with kids outnumbering the chaperones six -to-one

They hadn't even made it in the front door before they lost two children, one of Duo's charges and one of Trowa's. It was a tense three minutes of searching before they found the two escapees, peeing on a car tire.

Trowa was too relieved to get too mad, Duo was giggling too hard—not that he thought it was funny but because it was better then giving the kid a black eye. After all, the boy had given him a fair warning back in the car before they'd left that he 'had to go'. At least he didn't "pee-pee" in his pants.

The second escape happened just inside the mall doors when little Stephan wasn't fast enough stepping out of the revolving doors and was stuck going round and round in circles as fast as his little legs could carry him until Heero freed him. It wasn't actually an escape, but he was missing long enough to give Duo a few more gray hairs.

By the time the third escape happened, Duo was starting to believe that for some reason, somewhere, Someone really hated him. He tried to steady himself by swearing fluently under his breath to the tune of Jingle Bells, but only managed to calm himself down enough so that he pulled the children out of the water fountain rather then hold them under.

That, and there were way too many witnesses present.

The real flaw in their mission, however, wasn't pointed out until they made it to Satan's air. Excuse me, Santa's lair.

And the children in their brood disappeared among all the other children.

The hundreds and hundreds of children that all looked the same.

"Oh, God..." Trowa trailed off.

"Oh fuck," Duo amended, horror stricken, looking over the sea of heads.

"Split up," Heero ordered, quickly taking charge. "Trowa and I'll take the perimeter and make sure none escape, Duo, you mingle in the crowd. We can't blow this even before we start."

"Too late for that," Duo muttered, but there was no one there to hear it.

Duo pushed through the crowd as fast as he was able, while still holding on to the hand of the one child who he'd managed to retain. He spotted another one of his charges almost immediately, a two year old girl who had found a shiny coin on the ground and was chasing it around the slippery floor in attempts to pick it up with her mittened hands. A third child was spotted sitting up on a large toy reindeer. How he'd managed to get up there—and how he'd managed to loose both his boots in the short time he'd been missing was beyond Duo-- but those were small matters with the current dilemma he was facing, which was how to hang on to all three children when he only had two hands.

Childs' numbered four and five were found by complete accident as he clotheslined them with the leash he'd fashioned out of the children's scarves to hold on the the first three of his findings. Four and Five were promptly added to the line up. Five down, thirteen to go-- not a good track record but it was better than returning to the Winner Manor with no children at all.

Child number six was found, promptly lost, and then found again as some how he managed to slip out of his scarf. Child seven was eating a lolly pop (something Duo was certain he hadn't had upon entering the mall) and was engrossed with watching something that only he could see up in the air. Child number eight was the last one Duo was able to snag, now that his speed and stealth were severely hampered with towing seven other children behind him. Child eight was splashing in the puddles created by the melted snow from people's boots—Duo didn't think she could get any wetter by jumping in the bath tub.

Satisfied that he'd found as many children as he was going to in the crowd, Duo and his bizarre train of kids snaked their way through the crowd of people, occasionally tripping up unsuspecting parents. Duo's kids did not seem to grasp the concept that they were tied together, and that meant they had to go the same way around any obstacles.

He met up with Trowa on the edge of the crowd—Trowa had his own ragtag group of children held hostage by using the strings on the idiot mittens as a leash. Between the two of them it looked like they'd managed to round up all the kids. Miracles did happen.

"Is that all?" Duo panted.

Trowa did a quick head count, something made especially difficult as the kids didn't want to stay still long enough to be counted only once.

"How many did we come with?" Trowa asked.

"Eighteen."

"I thought so," Trowa groaned, beginning his count again.

"Are we missing one?" Duo asked worriedly, starting a count of his own.

"No...I think we've gained two."

It wasn't long until the first bonus child was reclaimed by a slightly irate parent. Using their highly trained powers of observation, the second bonus child was weeded out of the herd purely on the premises that neither Trowa nor Duo could remember Quatre having an Asian niece.

It was only then that they realized that they had regained all the children, but lost Heero in the process.

"I can go lo--"

"I'm not going to fall for that, so don't even try," Trowa cut Duo off, "You are not leaving me here to look after eighteen kids."

Duo opened his mouth to argue when Heero reappeared, with another child in tow. Trowa and Duo looked down at the newest child, who gave them a toothless grin and promptly fell over, unable to stand up in her snowsuit. Trowa began counting heads again, with the foreboding feeling that if he survived to the end of the week, he would become obsessive compulsive, pedophobic or both.

Heero was to busy rummaging in shopping bag to notice the reactions that his return had elicited. He finally found what he was looking for in the bottom of the bag, and pulled out a large spool of string and a green aerosol can with a witch's face on the front.

"Spray on hair dye," he explained proudly, mistaking Duo's shocked expression for one of confusion.

"What are you planning to do with that?" Trowa asked, worried enough to interrupt his fourth head count.

Heero looked down at the can, then over to the group of children, giving them a look that meant it should be obvious what he'd intended to do.

"You're gonna mark 'em like a herd of cows or something?" Duo choked. "You can't do that to a bunch of kids, Quatre will kill you!"

"Just watch me," Heero replied grimly.

Quatre Winner returned home from doing some last minute grocery shopping feeling refreshed and rejuvenated at last. It should say something, that he found shopping during the Christmas rush more relaxing than being in his home. But something was definitely odd...

The first thing that caught his eye as he walked through the front door, was a child running through the hallway. Not the fact that a child was present, but the fact that he appeared to have a large number thirteen sprayed into his hair in a rather vivacious color of green.

He shook it off, and continued on towards the kitchen. He must have been seeing things.

That was until he came upon the next Odd Thing. A litter of children's jackets decorated the hallway, all which appeared to be tied together with several long strands of string. Now Quatre was starting to get suspicious. Still, he chose to ignore it for the time being. No one had realized he was home yet, and that meant a few more blessed minutes of peace and quiet.

That was until he entered the kitchen.

It was Heero's glare made him drop his shopping bags.

"Hi guys," he squeaked nervously. "How was Santa?"

Wordlessly, Trowa handed him the photograph. The proof that they had completed their mission.

Quatre took it, and studied it curiously. Santa was in the center of the picture, big fluffy beard and red suit very prominent even amidst the fluorescent green hair color of all the children. Santa looked slightly dazed, and Quatre noticed that Chloe had a generous helping of his beard clenched tightly in her little fist. Josh and child number seven, who's name escaped him, were fighting over a toy truck. The truck was charting a colision course with Josh's head. Heero had one child tucked under his arm like a foot ball, obviously not realizing that the child's butt was facing the camera instead of his face. Sara was standing only in a diaper, with her hair dripping wet. It didn't seem to bother her as she was was too busy playing with her toes to look at the camera. Duo held David and Stephan by the collars of their winter jackets—judging by how tall they appeared, Duo was also holding both of them six inches off the ground all though that couldn't be proven as there were too many kids standing in front of them. Amelia was in the very front of the group, laying like a stuck turtle on her back and unable to flip over due to her bulky snow suit.

"If you're wondering why they're green, blame Heero," Duo began moodily. "If you're wondering why they're tied together, you're a bigger idiot then I thought, and also, blame Heero. If you're wondering why Santa looks slightly intoxicated, it's because Sam kicked him--and me-- in the balls and then Josh nailed him over the head with the toy truck. He was also made to listen to David's entire wish list consisting of one hundred and fifty two items—"

"Fifty-three," Heero corrected automatically.

"One hundred and fifty-three items," Duo amended, "and then sit through Chloe singing him every Christmas carol she knows, and then sit through no less than seventeen photos as we tried to get everyone in the shot. In case you're wondering, that was the best shot they got, and you owe us thirty-nine ninety-nine plus taxes, and I'm thinking a very, very large tip. And finally," Duo paused long enough to take a deep breath, "if you're wondering about making us go with another group tomorrow, you can think again because Heero, Trowa and myself are all banned from that mall for supposedly abusing Santa."

Trowa looked seriously at Quatre, a wink betraying him. "And you, love, owe me a very big favor later on."

Quatre gulped.

A/N: Well, better late then never, I suppose, in posting this. I believe there are only going to be two more chapters until the end, so hopefully by New Year's Eve this will be finished. Next chapter--Heero wraps some Christmas presents.

The good thing about writing this after Christmas, is my own family Christmas has given me some beautiful scenarios to incorperate. ^_^ Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and thanks to everyone who reviewed.