Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Devil's Due ❯ - 52 - ( Chapter 52 )

— 52 —

March 11, A.C. 205. Base. 12 pm

The remaining week passed quietly as Trowa and Wufei packed up their apartment. Aside from training with Wufei in the mornings, Xane would take Duane around the base in the afternoons.

Things were quiet, relaxed…smooth.

“Lieutenant Generals,” the ambassador of Tanzania muttered, moving into Jordan’s office. “Good afternoon, good afternoon…”

“Hello,” Chance returned, grinning at the guy.

“Can I help you?” Jordan asked curiously.

“Actually, I was looking for General Yuy here,” he indicated the man. “You’re on lunch now, right?”

Chance nodded.

“Wonderful,” the man returned, moving to sit next to him in the second chair. “I just wanted to let you know that my government approved the help mission you were asking me about. They said that they’d gladly accept your assistance…but to caution your men that the area is disturbed.”

“Of course,” Chance agreed, sitting up straighter. “Wonderful…thank you for letting me know.”

“I was excited, truth be told,” the man muttered, looking to Jor with interest a moment before focusing back on Chance. “Have you thought more about my suggestion? Will you send men in to look around?”

Jordan guffawed internally, though he didn’t allow anything to show on his face.

“I can see that working to both our benefits,” Chance agreed quietly. “I have a man in mind, his second,” he indicated his friend. “Would you like to meet him?”

“He’s on lunch,” Jor refuted. “I’m not calling him back in right now because he’s heading out to his parents’ place.”

“Ah,” the ambassador looked slightly let down.

“There’s always a chance for death,” Jor informed the man. “I let my men see their families before I send them on missions. I wasn’t sure they’d be needed, but I thought I’d act while I had the chance.”

That, and Xane, Judas, and Riley were going no matter what the governments said.

The ambassador nodded.

“And they’ve recently come back from other missions,” he added, looking to his friend again. “I figured they probably missed their families.”

Chance nodded.

“So Featihl will be leaving this afternoon,” Jor added, looking back to the ambassador.

“Featihl,” the ambassador mused, thinking. “Isn’t he the man who was grabbed last year? The man used as a hostage?”

“Yes,” Jordan agreed darkly, then looked away. Much like his second, he also preferred not to think about that particular incident.

“I’ll get the forms to you,” the ambassador added to Chance, “so your friend can fill it out. How is Mrs. Maxwell?” he added, looking back to Jordan.

“She’s fine,” Jordan reassured him with a slight smile. “She’s starting to get bored now, though, so I suggested she put her nose in other people’s business.”

The man laughed a little at that, looking to Chance. “And Mrs. Yuy?”

“Breathtaking,” Chance returned promptly.

The ambassador smiled at that. “I meant how she was doing…”

Chance grinned at that and nodded. “She’s well…expecting me any minute now, actually,” he added, looking to his watch.

“My apologies,” the ambassador muttered, rising to his feet and offering his hand to the guy. “Thank you for your time.”

“I’m glad to help,” Chance reassured him, rising to his feet. Jordan had risen to his feet as well, and the pair of them exchanged greetings before the ambassador turned to leave.

“Let’s go,” Jordan suggested, grabbing his car keys and heading toward the door. “I need to meet Mouthy for lunch before he goes…Judas and Rile already left.”

“Now that we have the okay,” Chance noted, “we just have to figure out how long Riley will take to get the feel of the area, huh?”

“It should take her two days,” Jor noted, waiting in the hall for his friend to follow him out before making sure the door was locked and closing it behind them. “I didn’t think it’d really be that easy to get those governments to cooperate.”

“It suggests to me that they’re out of their elements,” Chance noted. “Let’s hope and pray that Xane and Judas aren’t out of their element…or at the very least that Riley isn’t.”

“I think they should be all right,” Jor returned. “You’ve got some of your guys to go, right?”

“I did,” Chance agreed. “Mario and a few others…so they’ll have reliable people with them.”

“Wufei’s got a couple of his guys in the group too…on top of the actual help group. As long as the guys can coordinate, we’ll have a good background network for Riley to work out of…”

“And you?” Chance asked, studying his friend. “I know you’ve been plotting something.”

Jordan sighed as they started down the stairs. “I get to go to Chile, it seems like.”

“Really?” Chance was taken aback.

“You wanna come with me?” Jor asked, stopping to meet his eyes. “That will make Chai feel better, and with the guys across the street from them and Quatre in my place…”

Chance considered it a moment, then shrugged. “What’s our aim?”

“I’m going to find Turell’s mother,” Jordan noted. “I’m going to see if she is his mother, and I’m going to see if she has any idea where he’s at now.”

“I guess we have to start somewhere,” Chance agreed dryly.

“Hey, man, we’re gonna be old buddies of his who lost contact and were in the area,” Jor noted. “I’ll get you the notes I’ll need you to memorize before it’s too late.”

“What if he sold them?” Chance asked quietly. “If he sold them off and has no idea where they are now?”

Jordan shrugged, looking away as they started across the lobby. “We have to start somewhere.”

- -

March 12, A.C. 205. Base. 3 pm

“Here we go,” Wufei added, setting Trowa’s last box on his bed and looking around the front bedroom. “We’ve got our shit moved in.”

“You’re so smart,” Trowa returned, grinning briefly at the guy as he took the box from the bed and moved it onto a pile he had to one side. “You wanna go half and half on furniture?”

“We should just give the girls money and let them do it,” Wufei muttered, looking back to the living area.

The apartment they’d all lived in had been furnished before they’d moved in, so the furniture wasn’t theirs. They’d realized it the previous day, and had enough forethought to go buy new beds…but that was as far as it’d gone. They had their blankets, but no other bedding or even dressers.

Actually, it kind of amused them.

“Let’s just go steal Chance’s SUV,” Tro suggested. “If the women come with the deal we can play completely clueless.”

“I don’t know about you,” Wufei muttered, moving happily from the room, “but I am completely clueless.”

Trowa snorted as Wufei moved from the room. “Don’t I know it.”

“Hey!” Wufei protested.

Trowa started laughing, and turned to get his boots on.

- -

March 16, A.C. 205. Base. 12 pm

“Just be sure to call her or Danielle,” Jordan summed up to everyone as they sat around his living room. “I want you to keep the times of calling the house. I don’t plan to be gone more than a few days, but it could crash hard and fast. Chai and Danielle will keep in touch with Riley on a daily basis, and Chai will call me daily,” he looked them all over. “Tomorrow, I’m sending Riley, and we’ll leave Friday,” he indicated himself and his second. “You lot,” he indicated the guys from Wufei and Chance’s teams, “stay with the mission. Remember, you’re just back-up if it’s necessary. We don’t know what’s going on in these two countries, but there’s something throwing up sparks. We don’t wanna be catching fire,” he looked back to his team. “For the rest of you, I’d love it if you’d check on my wife while I’m gone…”

“How chivalrous,” Chai noted sarcastically to Shin. “Not only do we have Quatre living here, but Trowa and Wufei across the street, and he’s still sending people to check on us.”

That got the guys to grin at her.

“You’d think he’d be setting them on me, the only man I have in the house barely stands to my waist.”

Chai smirked.

“Good point,” Jordan noted, still serious as he pointed at her and looked back to the people. “I want my wife and Shin to be comfortable…but safe. I know we’re on the base and all that jazz, but I get antsy when I’m not there to make sure things are going good. I therefore delegate to you,” he indicated Raul, “to keep the women happy.”

Raul pulled at the collar of his shirt. “That’s a generous…but I’m not sure I can keep up with both…”

…and everyone started laughing as Jordan smacked him with a pillow.

- -

March 18, A.C. 205. Airplane. 10 am

Jordan stretched back in his seat as Chance focused out the window. Neither had been looking forward to their flight, though it was noticeably not as bad as their flights could get. They’d been in the air an hour.

“What’re you thinking?” Chance asked, not looking away from his view.

“I was going to sleep,” Jor retorted.

“You were thinking something.”

“Sure I was, nothing to share with you, though.”

Chance snorted, turning his head briefly in acknowledgement.

“You?”

“Wondering about the state of the world where me and you are going on a mission like new privates.”

“Spare me,” Jor retorted, turning his head to study his companion. “They don’t send new privates on missions.”

Chance flashed him a slight grin, looking back out the window.

“You’ve been all morose,” Jor half chided. “Why are you all morose?”

“I’ve been trying to help two countries figure out why their border has gone to shit without any official capacity. My wife just about fainted when I told her we could go to a concert, your wife had a breakdown about getting pregnant…something has been up with Trowa for the last month or two…and we’re going to Chile.”

“What’s up with Trowa?” Jor asked blankly.

“I don’t know,” Chance noted distantly. “He hates being alone, and with Wufei running around doing the empath stuff, he was alone a lot. Right before I moved out, I could smell vrit in the house…does the smell stick to clothes?”

“No,” Jordan noted, sitting up slightly. “Especially since most clothing now is made to keep smells from sticking anyway.”

Chance nodded, frowning some. “That means he was probably smoking it in the house…and that day you and Chai were first fighting Quatre called us to the canteen so he could mention that and make us all agree to go up to L-4 for Easter…and Tro was asking about breaking addictions.”

“Huh,” Jordan muttered, thinking back. “You remember that day…the first time we met with the ambassador? It was a Saturday…and after it, Doug’d showed up and was all bothered that Tro was there? Quatre was saying something about it.”

“Oh yeah,” Chance muttered. “And then he took off and Tro was all pissy.”

They considered each other a long moment.

“Should we snoop or ask him?” Jor asked, considering it. “I’m not so sure how to deal with him anymore.”

“Hm,” Chance returned quietly. “When you were gone we left each other alone entirely. We fell back into our old patterns and now we’re working out of that, you know how to deal with him just as much as I do.”

“You want me to ask, then?” Jor returned, considering it.

“Yeah,” Chance agreed. “I don’t want to say anything to Wufei because he’s just oblivious to this sort of thing and Quatre has other things going on…and if I do it, it’ll be too much an accusation. It’s evened out now, but there was a long time when I was just dominant…I’m not sure how I got more rank than them, but it is what it is.”

“Because I wasn’t there to deflate your ego,” Jor noted, grinning slightly. “They just listen to you because we used to go at it like dogs and that’d carry to them…you’d attack them just as fast as you’d attack me for a while. You had to be handled with kid gloves back then, remember? I think it’s probably just their reaction.”

“You can be damn offensive sometimes, do you know that?”

“What? Saying we fight like dogs? You remember shoving me and me punching you? How many times has that happened between us? Shit, I saw a bruise on my second’s face and attacked you without knowing if you did it or not.”

“I meant more that I’ve cowed them,” Chance retorted.

“And didn’t you?” Jor tilted his head slightly at the other. “You only outrank me now because I ran off for five years. If I hadn’t done that, you wouldn’t be able to give me orders and expect me to listen.”

“I don’t expect you to listen to my orders,” Chance seemed amused by that.

“You do, and I do it.”

Chance flashed him a brief smirk, looking back out the window.

“I hope this doesn’t take too long,” Jor added, settling back again. “I don’t think I’m going to do this job much longer, it sets my jaw…I’m gonna run out of molar if I have another week of my guys being out.”

“What else would you do?” Chance asked him blankly, shifting more toward the window to see the ground better.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Jor protested at him, giving him a mildly disgusted look. “Why do you stare out it like that?”

“I miss flying,” Chance explained with a sigh, looking out to the blue skies. “I miss being able to just…go.”

“It was nice to just fly off,” Jordan agreed, thinking back to the day they’d all been piloting Trowa’s machines. “I really miss finding some secluded bit of jungle or forest to hunker down in and camp out…having to watch my own back, you know?”

“I prefer having you lot to rely on,” Chance denied. “I don’t like what I was back then.”

“I liked what you were,” Jor teased, grinning slightly at the other. “You were so strange…it was interesting.”

“Haha,” Chance retorted, giving him an arch look.

“You know you don’t want me to change,” Jordan accused. “Don’t even play at that.”

“I think the jury’s out on that one,” Chance gave him a look.

Jordan flashed him a grin.

“Is it weird to you that you’re back on base and married?” the other asked curiously, thinking about it. “I think it’s weird that I have a son…and I’m married in my own place. Does it seem strange to you?”

“No,” Jordan returned, looking to the buttons above his head. “I lived with her for years, so the only real difference now is that we’re having sex and we have money.”

“I still don’t get how you two weren’t sleeping together before,” Chance noted, considering the first morning he’d been with the pair. Jordan had been heading to work and kissing the woman like she was his girl.

“It was…easy…and the hardest thing I’ve ever done…it wasn’t like I didn’t bring girls home or she didn’t bring guys home…though she did stop after a while.”

“She wanted to be with you.”

“She didn’t have any contraceptives,” Jordan denied. “It’s easy enough to say she loved me and wanted to be with me, and it wouldn’t have really been a lie, but she only stopped sleeping around because she didn’t want to get pregnant.”

The thought made him sigh, because she still didn’t want to get pregnant.

“She’s just scared,” Chance reassured him, understanding that as he looked back out the window. “Shin explained to me that Chip had been normal for an Angels girl in all ways but me being there. My paying her bills made her life easier on some levels and harder on others.”

“Yeah,” Jordan agreed, considering the matter a moment. “Are you two planning on having another?”

“Yeah,” Chance agreed. “I probably shouldn’t just up and tell you that, though.”

Jor snorted.

“If she turns up pregnant in the next week or two we’re going to do a paternity test before she decides to carry it though.”

“You are so weird,” Jordan noted, turning his head to look at the man. “Did you two honestly go into the back room?”

Chance flashed him a wicked grin and shook his head.

“No what?” Jor retorted.

“We’re not talking about that,” Chance explained, gesturing between them as he focused back out the window. “It’s none of your business…and honestly, I went and saw her and left you at the bar for a couple hours…seriously.”

Jordan shook his head, not understanding how that one worked. He might entertain ideas of other ladies briefly, just for a lark…but, he had no interest sleeping with any other woman, let alone any man.

“You’d have to be there, I think,” Chance noted, turning his head to focus on his friend briefly. “You won’t understand it from the outside looking in.”

“I have no real urge to understand it,” Jordan retorted. “Don’t even get any ideas up in that fucked up head of yours.”

Chance laughed at that and elbowed him.

Jordan grinned, then settled back in his seat again. “So…what do we talk about now? I think we covered our gambit of serious shit.”

“Oh, I’m sure we could go into fine details on any of it,” Chance noted with a sigh. “But this conversation was more than enough of a downer for one plane ride. We should steal a shuttle on the way back.”

Jordan turned to look at him in disbelief.

“What?” Chance asked curiously, blinking at him as if his comment was perfectly mundane.

“You are beyond special,” Jordan informed him, studying his face. “Way beyond special.”