Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Past Meets Present ❯ Chapter 12 ( Chapter 12 )

“So, what do you think?” Hilde asked her new friend, holding up a pair of jeans. “Good, practical, reliable?”

“Completely,” Meiran answered. The German nodded in agreement. She looked at the tag though and her face fell. “Guess not,” the Chinese woman heard her say.

Meiran frowned and asked Hilde why. “Too small, can you believe that?” Hilde Schbeiker replied.

“I should try looking for something for my daughter;” Meiran sighed a little bit later.

“You have a daughter?” Hilde asked, surprised. Meiran nodded and replied, “Yeah, Xin Xin. She’s six, almost seven.”

Hilde blinked for a moment. “Wow, you must have been young when you had her,” she finally said.

“I was fourteen,” admitted Meiran. That got a strange look from Hilde. “And her father?”

“My husband,” Meiran replied, picking up a shirt and holding it up. “You’re married,” Hilde said skeptically. This caused Meiran to look at her friend.

“Yes, I have been since I was thirteen.” Seeing the look on Hilde’s face, she tried to explain. “It was an arranged marriage.”

“Oh.” And they were silent for a few more moments. Finally, Hilde spoke up with a question. “So, how are you related to Wufei? You never said.”

“The bastard is my husband,” Meiran replied, saying it jokingly.

“You say that like it’s a good thing,” Hilde teased. Meiran looked at her new friend for a moment and started to laugh. Hilde joined her and the two walked out of the store. Not having anything better to do, they went back to the house.

Meiran watched as Hilde paced, getting more and more nervous as time went on and Duo didn’t appear. After an hour of waiting, Meiran began to worry as well. “Where are they?” She heard Hilde mutter.

Just then, the front door opened. Trowa walked into the room and looked.

“Where’s the others?” He asked. Meiran filled him in. As she talked, he went into the kitchen and got something to drink. Bringing the beverage back with him, he turned on the news.

The next few moments were among the worst in his life.

“Why are you doing this?” Quatre asked the man who held a gun. Their captor frowned and spat on the Arabian’s shoe.

“Scum,” he muttered, turning to face the unconscious bodies of Millardo Peacecraft, Lucrezia Noin, and Duo Maxwell. Their captor looked at the young girl who was crying quietly, hugging the Arabian’s arm. A glint entered the man’s eyes, Quatre noticed as he watched the man. Following the other man’s line of vision, he found the man looking at Xin Xin.

The Arabian ex-Gundam pilot put a protective arm around her. He knew what that glint was saying and there was no way Quatre would allow that to happen. Not as long as he was alive.

“Ah,” he let out, feeling a sharp, stinging pain sear through his shoulder. “Ah!” Quatre screamed, feeling an even worse pain in his chest. He felt searing hot metal enter his body. Even as he fell backwards, Quatre knew things would only be getting worse.

“Quatre!” Xin Xin cried out. She could see the blood from his two wounds. “You’re a bad man!” She yelled out their captor, kicking him in the knee. She ran away after that. The little girl wasn’t sure where she was going, she just knew she needed to get there fast. She could hear the bad man’s feet chasing her and that scared her.

And then, she ran into the Gundams. She stopped and looked at the one in front of her. Nataku. Her father’s.

“Bang-zhu, help,” she asked the metal creation. The footsteps were getting closer now. “Help,” she said a final time, voice weak as she leaned behind it.

“We have a hostage situation at the museum behind me. Right now, it is reported there is only one person holding the twenty or so people left inside hostage. Also, we have received word that several of the people have been shot.”

The young man had turned on the news again.

“What the? Oh my, it seems that the man holding the others hostage is being brought out by a young man.”

“Yuy.”

“A small Chinese child is with him. And now, stretchers are being sent in.”

“Xin Xin,” he said, sitting up. He sighed, “So, she made it out. Good.”

“The stretchers are being brought out. Oh my, it’s Quatre Winner and he’s been shot. And it looks like Millardo Peacecraft is on another stretcher. There are two more people on the stretchers, a young woman and a young man.”

“Noin, and Maxwell.”

“Sir, it’s time to take your medication,” a nurse said, interrupting him.

“Do you have a phone anywhere around here?” The young man asked. She nodded. “Yes, there’s one in the nurse’s station.”

“Can I use it?” He wanted to know. “No, it’s for faculty only,” she told him. “Now, take your medication.”

“Then, I want to call this number and tell whoever answers it to come here. Tell the person it’s Dragon,” he ordered. The nurse smiled. “Okay, now take your medicine.”

“Is it fatal?” A blonde woman was asking a nurse, talking about the four people who had been shot. It was Relena Peacecraft, wanting to know about her brother.

She was about to get an answer when the doors opened and closed. Glancing, she saw Trowa Barton, Hilde, and a Chinese woman heading their way.

The nurse answered her question and Relena sighed in relief. Relena walked over to the three and greeted her two friends. And then she turned towards the new girl. “You look familiar. Have we met before?”

“Possibly,” Meiran answered. “My name is Mei.”

Relena frowned for a moment. “Oh, you’re that waitress from the Chinese restaurant.”

Before Meiran could reply, the doors opened and Heero walked out. Beside him was Xin Xin.

“Niáng!” She yelled, racing over to her mother. “Oh, my baby,” the woman muttered, holding her child tight.

“Is this your daughter?” Hilde’s voice interrupted. Meiran nodded. “Xin Xin, this is Hilde. Hilde, this is my daughter, Xin Xin.”

“You know kid, you look a lot like your father,” Hilde replied after a moment. “You know him?” Xin Xin asked, eyes wide. Hilde nodded. “Yeah, I’ve met him a few different times.”

“Neato!” Xin Xin’s voice rang as she squirmed away from her mother. She looked at Trowa and made her way over.

“Quatre said to tell you he’s okay,” the young girl told the tall clown. He looked down at her and smiled. “Thank you,” Trowa replied.

“What about the others?” Hilde asked. Heero answered her. “Noin and Millardo are both resting at the moment. Duo is in surgery, getting the bullet pulled out and Quatre’s getting ready for it.”

“So, they’re all going to be fine?” Trowa summed it up. Heero nodded. Each adult sighed in relief. He sat down in a chair. Trowa sat next to his friend, Xin Xin settled between the two, leaning against Trowa. She kept yawning, obviously the day’s events having worn her out. Hilde had wandered off to find something to eat with Relena Peacecraft. Not wanting to stand, Meiran sat down next to Heero.

“What happened?” She asked him, her daughter now asleep. Trowa shifted to both hear better and to make it more comfortable for both him and Xin Xin.

“I heard shots while at the place and reacted accordingly,” was all they got out of him.

“So, do you remember the way back?” Hilde turned and asked Relena. The two were now lost in the hospitals halls.

“Um, I think that the elevators are that way,” Relena answered, pointing to the hallway on her left. The other woman shrugged and they began to walk that way. As she was walking by the rooms, doors open, Hilde stopped.

Turning around, she backtracked to the room the two had just passed. “Wufei?” She asked, shocked.

He turned to look at her. “Schbeiker?”

“It is you. This is amazing,” Hilde told herself. “I’ll be back soon,” she told the Chinese man. Taking a look at the room number, Hilde dragged the shocked Relena off. Amazingly enough, the direction they had been heading in was the correct direction.

“Mei!” Meiran heard her name yelled. She turned to see Hilde and Ms. Peacecraft coming towards them. Hilde grabbed the Chinese woman’s arm and began to drag her away.

“What was that all about?” Heero turned and asked Relena.

“It’s Wufei. He’s here,” she muttered. Both ex-pilots looked at each other and nodded. Trowa picked Xin Xin up and they quickly rushed off to follow Hilde.

“Huh? Trowa? Heero? Where’s my Niáng?” Xin Xin asked as they followed. Apparently, she had woken up. Neither answered and she had to be content with waiting until Trowa set her down. Yawning, she buried her face into Trowa’s chest.

Meiran had no idea why she was being dragged but stopped when she saw who Hilde wanted her to see. Stepping into the room, she looked in shock as he looked back.

“You, you,” she stuttered, walking over to him. “You, ASSHOLE!”

She began to pound weakly on his chest. “You asshole!”

“Stop it, woman,” he ordered. Meiran growled at him. “You asshole, don’t you ever dare do something like that again!”

She was vaguely aware of Hilde leaving. They both were. “Don’t you ever do something so stupid!” Now tears were starting to form. “You idiot!”

“Woman, stop it,” he warned, grabbing one of her hands and holding it. “Didn’t you think of your daughter?” She asked, looking him in the eyes. He didn’t answer, just looked back at her. “Didn’t you think of me?”

“Die!” A high pitched voice broke the tension between the two. Xin Xin came running towards the bed-bound man. She scrambled onto the bed and hugged her father. Heero and Trowa, knowing they were intruding on this family moment, left.

“I never gave up on you,” she told her father. “Everyone else said you were dead but I didn’t think so.”

Meiran watched as her husband simply looked at their daughter, not saying a word. He was just looking at her, listening as Xin Xin filled him in on all that had happened. Finally, the young girl began to yawn again, leaning against her father, murmuring. With a final yawn, Xin Xin was asleep on Wufei’s chest.

“I, I wasn’t thinking,” he finally said, filling in the silence. The Chinese woman snorted. “Obviously.”

Meiran sat down in the chair next to his bed, neither saying a word. Finally, Meiran had to ask. “Why are you here?”

“Because the place didn’t want to let me go until either I could take care of myself or someone came that could do the job;” he answered, shifting the young girl into a more comfortable position than right on top of his chest.

“And why not?” His wife questioned. He sighed and replied, “Because, I had a concussion and my ankle sprained almost to the point of a massive fracture so I have to stay off of it.”

She started to laugh. “The Great Wufei brought done by a hurt ankle.”

“Shut up,” growled the man. Meiran shook her head and told him no. Just then Xin Xin moved, digging her small, thin elbows into Wufei’s ribs, causing him to wince. He didn’t say a word, just adjusted to the child. And then he yawned.

“Damn,” he muttered. “Medication kicking in,” he murmured, explaining as he began to drift off into sleep.

“Then go to sleep, asshole,” Meiran told him as he fought the medication. He yawned again, snoring softly within five minutes.

A/N: Well, Wufei lived. And, I dedicated a nice scene to him and Meiran. Though, I think my favorite part of this whole story is going to be that last one with Meiran and Wufei. Especially when they first re-meet in this chapter and she calls him an asshole. I so love the way that came out.

Oh, and I own nothing in this fic but Xin Xin, who may be, oddly enough, my favorite character of the whole story.

Chinese Glossary

Bang-zhu -Help