Title: Life's Preamble
Author: Karina
Rating: PG
Pairing: Milliardo + OC
Notes: Challenge 228. Baby Series 4 #142. Takes place following Jamie.
Spoilers: None
Warnings:
Many thanks to ShenLong Deb for her work betaing this set of fics.
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the Characters from the series but the baby is mine.
Title: Life's Preamble
"So how do you know what is best?"
"I don't."
That obviously rattled the boy and he thought it over for a few minutes. Patient, Milliardo pulled the preamble from the next batch of documents and began to read it. After a moment he produced a pen and made a notation in the margin.
"What are you doing?"
"This is a preamble, a cover letter. It is a brief synapses of what the other documents with it relate to. I read this and make a few notes on what I have to look out for, because something is missing from the letter. I look carefully through the documents to make sure I don't miss what someone hopes I will miss."
"So how do you know it's not right?"
"Training and very intense schooling. And, unfortunately, a lot of experience in being deceived by people who should know better. Life is full of deceptions, Jamie. Full of lies and hurts. But it is also full of the most wonderful things you could imagine, and more that you could never think of yourself. We learn by what we face every day. We can only be taught so much in schools, then we go out into the world and we really begin to learn. Sometimes we get hurt and sometimes it can be incredibly good. But whatever comes our way, it inevitably teaches us. School is like this document, the preamble to life. It gives us an overview of what life contains, but reading it we can't know everything. We have to step into life, like I have to read these documents, to learn it."
"I... don't go to school. Neither does Jess. Does that mean..."
When the boy fell silent Milliardo set aside pen and paper and lightly caressed the red hair. "It means nothing, because life is going on all around us. Life changes from one moment to the next and it is up to us to live it. We don't read cover letters and think we know it all. We have to live life to the full. Sometimes when bad things happen they can surprise us by actually proving to be good things."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, this storm is certainly not a good thing, is it? Because of it I have met you and your friend, Jessica. Would you have met me if not for the storm?"
"No."
"Unexpected things happen all the time and they can change our lives. Would you like a home, Jamie? A home and to go to school? To eat food in front of a warm fire and know that a warm bed is waiting for you at the end of the day? That, above all, you are safe while you sleep?"
He could see the pain, the tiredness, in the boy's face and he lightly caressed the freckled cheek.
"You and Jessica are safe here from the storm, and anything else that might have worried you. Would you consider staying here?"
End
Karina Robertson 2014