Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Broken Wing Alternates ❯ BWA: Mask ( Chapter 3 )

.Authors Notes: Wheee! I just keep on goin', don't I? Here we are, the third of these odd little intro stories. I got help with my Spanish from someone who knows who they are and knows how much I'm grateful! Enjoy! And everyone I thank knows who they are, so I'm going to put off thankies until the prologue.

Disclaimers: Don't own 'em.

Broken Wing Alternates: Mask

My dearest little brother,

I'm afraid. He gets more violent every day. I don't know what I'm going to do, and I'm beginning to wonder if I should have even told you about this. After all, what can you do? We're in France currently, but the circus moves on in another day. You have no way of getting here, and even if you could, you are no match for Raúl. It will pain you to know that there is nothing you can do, but it is the truth. I think I'm going to leave him soon. I'll try to get away as soon as I can and maybe be home by Christmas. I can't wait to see you. I love you, my dear brother.

Your sister,

Katherine

Triton sighed and lowered the letter dated for August 4, AC 202. Up on his green wall hung a calendar for September, AC 203. He had not received another letter from his sister since that one a year ago. The boy folded that crinkled and worn piece of paper and stuck it back into the folder where it always resided.

"Triton! ¿Dónde estas?"

He sighed, thankful that his sister wrote to him in English. Even most of the other residents of L3 now spoke English, but his mother's family insisted on their old language. Stuffing the folder in his pack Triton left his room in the house he still lived in with his parents, other brothers and sisters, grandparents, and his great-grandmother, Esperanza.

"¡Vengo! ¡Vengo!"

His mother met him in the hallway, hands on her large hips, glaring up at him with angry dark eyes. Triton quailed beneath that gaze, as any intelligent person would do. Certainly his father, who hadn't grown up in a Hispanic household, learned quickly enough that to try to stand up to a Gonzales woman would be pure and utter folly. The woman, short but more than formidable, reached up and tugged the growing bangs she disliked so much roughly.

"¿Vengas sin comer desayuno?"

"Sí, mamá." He moved to shuffle past her, trying to leave before she could stuff something in his hand, which could be anything from a tortilla to a full plate of beans and rice with a few tortillas on the side.

"¿Por qué?"

"Por que, debo ir a la escuela." Triton frowned at her inability to ever let him simply leave. She seemed incapable of understanding that he simply didn't have the time to stop for a traditional breakfast. He checked his watch, groaning when he saw the time to be five until eight am. Even taking the colony bus he wouldn't be able to make the fifteen minute trip in five. "¡Mamá, estoy tardío!"

The stumpy woman heaved a sigh as large as its owner and waved him on with her brown hands. She waddled behind him as he walked to the kitchen and appeased her if only slightly by picking a tortilla from the stack and stuffing a chunk of it in his mouth. The twenty-three year old received another glare from his mother.

"Giving you trouble, again?" his father's laughing voice came from behind an unfolded newspaper, and his reward was a stream of Spanish explatives from his wife. "Lo siento, mi amor." Switching languages, Gerald Bloom lowered his paper, green eyes sparkling with mischieviousness. "¿Esta ella una problema por tu?" Gerald chuckled as Triton nodded, chewing on the soft bread and trying to edge towards the door. "Hasta luego, Triton."

"Hasta luego, Papá y Mamá."

At long last Triton pushed his way out of the door and into the refreshing cool air of the colony outside. He slung his pack over he shoulder, still chewing thoughtfully on his hastily grabbed tortilla. His domineering but well-meaning mother pushed to the back of his mind, the young man wondered what had happened to his sister. Mamá refused to talk about her, as if her oldest child were dead. Certainly she hadn't made the best of choices when she ran away with Raúl and the circus, but surely that couldn't be reason to treat her as one would a pariah.

"Hi, Triton."

He turned slightly, looking over his shoulder to see the young woman who followed him, a bright blush showing through her dark skin. Soft, dark brown hair fell over her bowed face, and Triton felt himself groan inwardly. Angelita Moralés followed him with her hands clenched tightly over the straps of her own bag.

"Hi, Angelita," he replied, turning back, hoping that if he did his best to ignore her, she might goo away. Then again, he clung to that hope every time she found him, and every time it proved false. Silence passed between them as she kept following him and he stuffed the last of the tortilla in his mouth.

"Uh . . . Triton . . ."

Oh no . . .

"Yes?"

"You know, there's that community dance coming up, and I was thinking, well . . ."

His worst nightmare realized. He'd feared such a thing at the announcement of a dance where the women would ask the men. She'd finally found courage and now he would have to let her down. Perhaps roughly, if she determined to remain as clueless as she seemed.

"Angelita, I'm sorry, but I really wouldn't be the best date for you. Why don't you ask someone else?"

"Oh . . . but I really want to go with you." Her voice wavered a bit. It seemed she didn't want to give up so easily. He sighed, not really blaming her, but annoyed that she didn't seem to understand what everyone else picked up immediately. Triton turned, looking down at her as he did most everyone in his family and the colony.

"Really, trust me." He groaned as she opened her mouth to speak again and interrupted her, "I'm hoping someone else will ask me."

"Oh." Her face fell as that information registered. Then he saw the gleam in her eyes that heralded a female working on a plan. "Who is she? I could talk to her, see if she wants to go with you." She would do no such thing, of course.

"He."

"W-What?" Angelita's eyes grew wide.

"It's a he, not a she. I'm hoping Jesús will ask me." Triton couldn't help the wicked grin that crossed his face as she stood there stammering, trying to come up with something, anything that she could use against that, knowing that there was nothing. He lifted a hand and waved at her cheerfully as he walked away. "¡Hasta luego, Angelita!"

End Broken Wing Alternates: Mask.