Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Jokers Wild ❯ Epilogue ( Epilogue )

Epilogue

Heero sighed as he moved from the hallway into the meeting room, focusing on Quatre's brown head instantly. Quatre had spent the night in the hospital while they made sure his actions had been in self-defense—though no one, even Gerrange's men, had claimed otherwise. Not only that, though, but he'd messed up an arm muscle and the psychologist had been summoned damned fast.

Quatre looked up, smiling as he saw Heero, then past him.

"Quatre!" Matty proclaimed excitedly, darting forward to hug the brunette.

"Hey," Quatre muttered. "How are you? You okay?"

"I'm not the one who got hurt," Matty retorted.

"No, but you're more apt than me to be upset," Quatre grinned at him.

Matty considered him a moment, sitting down in the chair next to him.

"I'm fine," Quatre offered under his breath. "I'll be fine."

"Quatre!" Blake's cry was just as happy as Matty's had been, and that young man darted down and around Heero to hug the other man.

"Well, Brigadier," Quatre muttered, meeting Heero's eyes.

"Brigadier," Heero retorted, rolling his eyes.

"I figured we should use it a few times more," Quatre supplied, smiling at him. "Before the upgrades take effect. Do you suppose Une is happy? She gave us a month and we took a week and a half."

"And how much of that was us refusing to take the offensive?" Heero shot back. "We could have ended this before it started."

"Not fully," Quatre returned, waving that away. "Where is everyone?"

"Waking up slowly," Heero returned. "I know I've been up for an hour or two...it's kind of...empty...now that all we have to deal with is the legal end."

"I wonder if I still have a job," Blake muttered, tiling his head thoughtfully.

"You're moving in with us anyway," Heero noted as Quatre made a gesture to brush the words away.

"My dad will love that," Blake noted happily.

"He's fine with me as Max Tsuyo," Heero shot back. "I'm no one special as Max."

"Don't bother," Quatre noted dryly. "I'm gonna do the full-on military thing—especially if they decide not to make me a general. I'll earn it the long way if I have to."

"Why?" Heero asked blankly. "Why do you want to do that?"

Quatre shrugged. "It's all I have that's not my family name. I'll be damned if I don't do it right."

"You have more than that," Matty chided.

Quatre smiled at him.

"I need coffee," Duo informed them all seriously as he moved to join them. He stopped, leaning over to kiss Quatre and study his face, then turned to start for the machine.

"What...do we do now?" Matty asked, looking around.

"Go home," Heero returned. "We go home and reassess what we're doing with our lives. I assume you'll go back to school...and I may or may not keep working."

"I figured I'd run the whole espousal thing by Blake again," Trowa noted as he moved into the room. "But I think that's more that it's my first serious relationship in ages, and I have the maturity to pull off a rank tag."

Blake turned to look at him thoughtfully.

"I'm getting divorced," Wufei noted seriously. "Jinli is a horrible husband."

Jinli snickered as he followed.

"Okay there, blue-eyes?" Wufei hazarded. "You get to play doctor at the hospital?"

Quatre snickered, giving him a look.

"No?" Wufei glanced at Duo, who was giving him a look. "Oh, you don't want to say. Alright."

Matty snickered.

Duo flashed him a grin, going back to what he was doing.

"So what are we eating?" Jinli muttered.

"Can't you just get it annulled?" Trowa asked curiously. "Or did you consummate? Is that why you didn't come out of your room last night?"

Jinli and Wufei both gave Trowa patronizing looks, moving toward the counters.

"Well, what's the verdict?" Duo muttered, moving to drop next to his lover again.

"Self-defense," Quatre shrugged. "I'm not off my rocker, either."

"Ooh, yay," Duo bounced. "That means we go home."

Quatre smiled at him, then thought about something. Matty's expression went confused, too. They met eyes, then turned to focus on the door.

Jaden appeared, Qingfu a step behind. Both had sort of blank faces as they stopped, then started slowly forward.

Quatre rose to his feet.

"Hey, you're okay," Jaden muttered with something like false cheer.

Actually, considering the bruising across Quatre's face, and the swelling, Jaden was probably just making conversation.

"I'm sorry," Quatre said instantly, moving forward. "I know he was your friend."

Jaden stared at him.

"I didn't mean for it to happen," Quatre went on instantly. "I...I'm sorry."

"You did, what you had to do," Jaden said, his voice sounding tight as he looked away. "And he...wasn't really my friend...anymore."

Quatre rested his hand on the man's shoulder, studying his face a long moment. Instead of moving away, though, he moved around the man and pulled Qingfu into a hug.

"Oh, you're back," Lu muttered, moving in to hug Quatre as well. "Are you guys okay?" she added to the others.

"We're...having a wake tonight," Qingfu told her, not looking at her. "You should come. You were his friend...before."

Lu sighed, then nodded. "Of course I'll come."

"I decided...to wear a white top," Qingfu met her eyes, studying them.

"I'll see what I have," she agreed, grabbing his hand briefly. "Are you okay?"

"I'm a little preoccupied," he admitted with a smile. "The closure...I..."

Quatre looked away briefly, then turned back for the main table. "So...what should we eat?"

- -

The evening was mellow as Lucretzia moved through their quarters in a pair of wide-legged black trousers. She had a white top on over that, and a red oriental-style coat on top. She stopped near them, smiling slightly as she looked them all over, then turned with a package of something in her hands.

"It's weird to think that I'm not going," Zechs noted as he sat down with the rest of them, meeting eyes.

"But you weren't his friend in any way," Heero noted with a grin.

"So," Jinli added, signing something. He slid the folder over to Wufei. "You're a horrible husband and I never want to marry you again."

Wufei laughed, flipping the thing open to read down the list. "At least until the next huge ordeal that pulls us out of our mundane life and into the line of fire," he signed.

"Well, okay," Jinli agreed hesitantly. "Maybe."

Zechs grinned at them. "You two are stupid. Marriage is supposed to last."

"Thank god we're only espoused, then," Wufei shot back, shoving the thing toward the man. "Witness."

Zechs sighed, grabbing up the pen.

"If you were serious about the espousal thing," Blake noted seriously to Trowa, "we need to do it before we get home."

Trowa blinked at him, then shrugged and nodded.

"You understand or we will?" Blake's ire had risen a bit.

"Yes?" Trowa offered, giving him a look.

Matty snickered.

"You still have to pay my taxes," Jin noted, tilting his head. "We were espoused long enough for that—and a year of support."

They all looked at him.

He snickered, showing them a smaller packet of papers, then stopped and look at Wufei.

"I don't want to talk about it," Wufei informed him instantly.

"You told me we would."

"When you were my husband and I wanted you to stop bitching," he took the folder from Zechs and showed him the witness signature. "We're not married now."

Jinli shoved his hand so the packet of papers smacked his face.

"Abuse!" Wufei proclaimed, hopping up off the floor to look at them all. "You saw it! Abuse!"

Jin's amusement, though, had been brief. He settled back where he sat, glowering at the other man.

Wufei sighed, dropping onto the couch, then sliding back to his spot at the little table. "I know I said we would, but now it's here and I don't want to."

"You promised," Jinli noted seriously. "You also were about to buy us tickets like, twenty times."

"To shut you up," Wufei shot back.

"That's not the sort of honesty you should practice," Duo muttered dryly.

They all grinned at him.

Wufei sighed again, looking across the room. "Get the names and addresses," he said. "We can figure out a game-plan for it."

"Thank you," Jinli muttered, climbing up from his spot.

"I'm gonna go make some calls," Trowa noted, climbing up himself. "I want to tell Tim, Cathy, and Lifon what's up here."

"I called my dad last night," Matty noted, looking up.

"But Li is my friend," Trowa smiled at him, running a hand through his hair as he started away.

"Matty?" Heero muttered.

"Hm?" Matty looked around to him.

"You wanna go somewhere, just me and you?"

"Like...the room? Or the kitchen?" Matty retorted.

"Eww," Quatre protested, giving him a look.

"No, I mean like Tokyo or Paris," Heero shot back.

Matty's expression changed instantly to interested.

"Let's go on a ro..." Blake started to turn to Trowa, then stopped as he realized the guy wasn't there. "...mantic..."

Quatre grinned at him.

"Let him call," Duo gestured. "He'll take you wherever you wanna go."

Blake smiled almost shyly at him.

"I'm gonna go figure this out with Jin," Wufei sighed, climbing up again. "You guys okay?"

Quatre nodded, moving around to lean into Duo tiredly.

"You sure you're okay?" Heero muttered, pushing himself up.

Quatre nodded again with a sigh. "I just want to be with him. I'll be fine."

"We're gonna go tourist searching," Heero muttered with a smile, heading for the room he and Matty shared.

"I'll go take this down to processing," Zechs noted, grabbing up the divorce papers and looking pointedly to Blake.

"Oh fine," Blake sighed, then grinned at Quatre. "I'll go curl up with Trowa and debate if I want to be his espoused or not."

"It's a mixed road," Duo agreed in amusement. "You'll have more rank than your dad, but you'll have more threats to your person, too."

"Yeah, so we'll talk," Blake agreed, thinking as he wandered off.

Zechs stopped, looking between Duo and Quatre a moment before smiling at Duo. "I'm glad you found someone—I don't have those qualms about leaving Lu with you anymore."

Duo smiled at him, watching him go.

"We should go in our room," Duo muttered, kissing Quatre's temple. "Come on."

Quatre nodded, and slowly followed the other from the room.

Things had gotten chaotic for a while, and their little comfortable hole of a life had gotten turned upside down. He'd never meant to kill again, but Gerrange hadn't given him that option.

It was like a game of cards, and he'd drawn the wild-card. Everything the game was had been suspended for that one moment...and that had changed it all.

He allowed Duo to pull him into his arms, pressing his face into the other's throat.

At least he hadn't had all his chips on the table...

"Quatre?" Duo muttered quietly.

"Yeah?"

"You wanna go somewhere? Get away from the rest a while and just be me and you?"

"For a little while," Quatre conceded. "Not long, though."

"No...I think we should all go somewhere new and apart...like before, but a lot less hard-core."

Quatre smiled at that.

"I want a puppy."

"What?" Quatre demanded, pushing himself up a bit to look at Duo in disbelief.

"I want a puppy," Duo repeated. "Nothing big...or tiny. Just a dog."

Quatre stared at him a long moment, then rolled his eyes and dropped back down. "Whatever."

"You don't care?"

"It will be your dog, that means you clean its messes—and seriously," he added. "We live in an apartment. Is that fair?"

"I can totally knock out a wall on accident with Deathscythe before I put it away. Then we can, you know, have a veranda."

Quatre started laughing weakly, then groaned, pressing his face into Duo's chest...and started to cry.

"We'll be okay," Duo said quietly, holding him tightly. "Come on, sync with me...we'll be okay."

- -

"And, in conclusion, with the consideration of the council and other military leaders," Une looked everyone over. "I'd like to announce the promotion of the Brigadier Generals Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell, Chang Wufei, and Trowa Barton."

Quatre turned his head very slightly.

There was a light applause at that.

"As they would prefer," she added, "they will be awarded quietly for their duties," she turned and moved to stand in front of Heero as everyone in the room jumped to their feet. "Major General Heero Yuy, please take this as a token of our appreciation..."

Heero nodded his head as she pinned the second star to his lapel. She smiled briefly at Quatre as she pinned his star on—which was slightly odd since she hadn't announced him...or forgotten him.

She stopped at the end of the line to exchange a salute, which they returned, then to the crowd, which applauded.

"Now," Une turned back to the gathering. "Some of you may have noticed two things. First, I neglected to mention Quatre Winner, and second that he has the second pin like the rest."

They were all watching her.

"The thing is, while I know none of them prefer a large ceremony, a rank change of more than one step should be noted...and it has been decided that...Major General Quatre Winner will be raised to General, Chief of Staff."

The people in the audience started clapping excitedly, turning to whisper to each other.

Quatre smiled very slightly at that, then looked around to Duo. Duo, who'd been clapping with everyone else, paused to step forward and hug the other briefly.

"We are arranging the proper ceremonies," Une added easily, "and will announce the proceedings as soon as we have them solidified. General," she turned to salute him.

"Thank you, Miss Une," Quatre muttered, moving forward to take her hand and kiss her cheek. He stepped back to return her salute, then lowered his voice. "I'm one star away from you, woman. You worried?"

"More eager," she shot back. "Step up, General, share my power."

Quatre grinned at that, turning to salute the crowd again.

- -

It was strange to move back into the LA airport, watching the people around them. Their flights had been staggering in all day, but since Duo and Quatre's had been the last due, everyone had been content to hang out in their pairs until the meeting time.

"Hey," Duo muttered as Heero moved nearer him and Matty moved in for a hug.

"Hey," Trowa agreed as Blake moved to hug Quatre.

"You alive?" Wufei asked as Jinli...and a handful of Asian men...moved up to join them.

"Collecting ducklings?" Duo asked, giving all the men interested look.

"Oh good lord, Jin," Quatre muttered, staring at them all. "Why in the world did you let him bring them home?"

They started snickering.

"I didn't want to have to potty train a kitty," Wufei noted dryly. "It was either them or a kitten."

"I'll be a good kitten," one muttered, moving up to nearly wind around Quatre. "I'll play with any string..."

That got group groans.

"I think I can deal with that," Duo noted skeptically.

"Wow," Heero noted happily, looking them all over. "And I thought I was bad."

"I decided to start a monastery," Wufei informed them all in a chipper voice. "We were all wondering what to do with the extra space in the old apartment, so we can start an Asian statuary club."

"But I'm putting my puppy in there after I make a veranda," Duo protested.

"You're getting a puppy?" Matty breathed, turning to look to him.

"I am picking it," Duo informed him and Blake pointedly. "So don't give me that nonsense."

"Aw!" Matty turned to dart from the secure area.

"Matty!" Lifon squeaked.

"Li!" Matty returned...and disappeared into the crowd.

Heero looked the group over with a happily skeptical expression, then turned to follow his lover.

Wufei shrugged slightly to Trowa, falling into pace with him as Jinli turned to talk to the others. "They asked," Wufei explained. "I mean...they thought I was dead or had forgotten them. We'll camp in the old apartment for a week and then keep in touch afterwards."

"That works," Trowa noted. "But Duo's serious about that stupid puppy."

"I don't care," Wufei shrugged. "I'm not cleaning up after it, but I don't care."

Trowa shook his head, looking around as Colonel Kiardane stepped from the crowd.

"Dad!" Blake shouted, and darted to him.

Trowa watched the group until he spotted Tim, then smirked slightly as he moved forward to exchange a hug, blinking down as a small form wormed her way up between them.

"Hi, Lifon," he muttered, kissing the top of her head. "Did you miss me?"

She smirked up at him, then batted her eyelashes.

"You are so incredibly special," Tim noted, moving to exchange a brief hug with Heero. "You know that, right?"

"Of course," Trowa agreed happily. "My imaginary friends teach me bad habits."

End

E/N: For those of you who were with me at the start of this story, thank you for following through, even with that damned month or whatever of nothing. I hate writer's block, it depresses me and makes me feel stiffled. I hate writer's block even more when I've been doing a serious sort of arc like Chance or Circumstance. It breaks up the flow and makes things more stacatto than I prefer. I'm not sure if that is actually in evidence here or not, though, so if you notice it—blame the writer's block. Initilaly, I'd planned CoC to be...5 stories long, at the most? But things kept cropping up and skewing the time-line, and I wasn't able to correct that like I should have, so overall there are a few bits and pieces here that bug me. As a set, though, I think CoC is sort of fun. I hope you all enjoyed the highs and weren't brought down by the lows. Look ahead and not behind, huh? Tomorrow's a new day, waiting for a new start. -Kye