Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Past Meets Present ❯ Chapter 21 ( Chapter 22 )

“Niáng, when am I going back to school?” Xin Xin asked at dinner a few weeks later. “Diana and Chrissy have to go but I don’t.”

“That’s a good question,” Quatre nodded his agreement to the question as he paused before taking a drink out of his glass.

“I think, I will enroll you in the local elementary soon,” Meiran told her daughter. “I just need to finish gathering your papers.”

“Okay,” Xin Xin answered, taking a bite of her peas and making a face. Looking at her mother, she asked, “do I have to eat my peas?”

“Yes, you do,” Meiran replied. Xin Xin turned to Wufei and asked him the same question. He looked at the girl, still getting used to the idea that he had a child. “Weren’t you just told that you had to?” He questioned the child. She pouted, picking at the vegetables half-heartedly.

Quatre cleared his throat, causing all eyes to be on him. “I am leaving for a week,” he told them. The two Chinese adults looked at him; twin questioning looks on their faces. Trowa, of course, already knew what the blond would say and so, continued eating. “My sister, Seitia, is getting married and she asked me to give her away.”

“Are you going?” That was Wufei, who had asked Trowa. The man with the large bang replied that he was. “And your family is okay with that?” Now the Chinese man was speaking to Quatre.

“Besides Iria and a few other of my sisters, most don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m going to use this to tell everyone.”

“Have fun,” Meiran told him. “I hope things go well.”

“So do I,” Quatre answered with a chuckle. “So do I. Otherwise, it could be pretty awkward.”

“Could be?” Trowa quirked an eyebrow. His boyfriend rolled his eyes, saying, “okay, would be. Happy now?”

“Quite;” Trowa put in the last word.

“I would like to enroll my daughter,” Meiran told one of the elementary school secretaries a few days later.

“Do you have all the necessary papers?” The woman asked. Meiran nodded and was given a set of forms to fill out. “Full name Xin Xin Chang. DOB June 19th. Ethnicity Asian. Mother Meiran Chang. Father Wufei Chang.” She whispered to herself as she wrote. “Let’s see, emergency contacts. I guess that’d be Trowa and Quatre.”

After a while, Meiran had all the forms filled out. She handed them to the secretary who in turn, said that she could start attending school, since it was a Thursday, the following Monday.

The Chinese woman walked to the nearest city bus stop, a glance at her watch telling her that she might get to work early. Though money was no option living with the guys, Meiran had found herself restless and bored during the days. Plus, just taking their money felt wrong. So, she had gone out and gotten a part-time job. It didn’t pay much but it paid and it was something to do.

Unlike when she had worked at the Chinese restaurant, Meiran actually enjoyed her job. She had somehow managed to get a job at a local Tai Kwan Do dojo as an assistant. The master had been reluctant to hire her but he relented after a while, admitting that though she was out of practice, Meiran was still better fit then most of the people at his dojo.

The man watched the hotel room through his high powered binoculars. His legs were numbing from having sat in the same position for the last few hours. But none of this mattered to him.

A young man entered the room followed by a young woman the same age. A smile flashed briefly on his face as he fingered the black box in his hand. ‘Soon,’ he thought, ‘my day will come soon.’

“Heero, why did you take the offer? It’s obvious you are unhappy here with me,” the former queen and princess asked the guy she had crushed on as a teenager. They were in her hotel room.

“Are you running from something?” She continued after a moment’s pause. “Am I being used?”

“Relena. It’s complicated. I need to think some things over, get away from the others for awhile,” Heero tried to explain.

“So, I am being used,” Relena put in, the look on her face not surprised.

“No,” Heero began before his eyes started skirting around the room. He walked over to Relena so that their chests were touching. “Stay quiet,” he muttered, her eyes straining to catch the words. “Follow me,” he ordered just as quiet. “We need to get out of here, now.”

Relena gave a quick nod and followed him out of the room.

Duo shifted his bag higher up onto his shoulder. He looked out the window of the bus he was riding, bored out of his mind. He had gone to the shuttle-port with Hilde and watched her leave on her shuttle. But when it came time to get on his own, he hadn’t had the heart to leave. Of course, he had called Howard and the Sweepers’, saying that he had changed his mind. He had then called the house, telling the other pilots’ that he hadn’t gone but he was going to take a long trip but he’d be back in a while.

He was now in a small town that he remembered hiding out in during the war. There wasn’t anything really memorable about it, but he was drawn to the place for some reason. The bus halted and he stepped off, almost immediately falling into a young, blond woman about his age.

“Err, sorry about that,” he told her, standing up. He gave her his hand, which she took.

“It’s my fault. I wasn’t watching anything around me,” she answered.

“I’m Duo Maxwell. I may run and hide but I never tell a lie.”

“Middie Une,” the girl said with a giggle. “Are you meeting someone here?”

Duo shook his head, telling her, “I’m just kinda wandering right now.”

“Well, I hope you have better luck than I did,” she told him. “Though, I was looking for a boy, so that may have been part of the problem.”

“Who were you looking for? If I meet him, I could send him this way,” Duo offered. She gave a sad smile as she opened her mouth, saying, “He never told me his name, so I called him Nanashi instead.”

“No-Name?” Duo asked, quirking an eyebrow. Being around Heero had meant he picked up just a little Japanese. “You don’t look like would know Japanese.”

“I am more complicated than I appear Mr. Maxwell,” she smirked. “Duo,” he corrected her.

“Have a nice day,” she said, walking away. “You too!” He called, going the other direction. She was headed out of town whereas he was going to this nice little inn he remembered from the war. Hopefully, it would still be there but if not, then oh well, it couldn’t be helped.

Meiran sighed, miles away, something bugging her. She wasn’t homesick, per say, but she did feel like something was missing. And she didn’t know what that would be. But it bugged her.

Xin Xin was starting school in two days, so some of it might have been that. But not all of it. She turned on her side and smiled faintly as she saw her daughter’s sleeping form in the bed across the room. The two were sleeping in Heero and Duo’s old beds. Xin Xin was in Heero’s, which had been immaculate. Meiran, though she had grown to love Duo in a friendly way, was less than pleased to be in his bed. It was basically the complete opposite of Heero’s. It was tempting, she admitted to herself, to go down and sleep on the couch. She made up her mind that if she couldn’t go to sleep in the next fifteen minutes, she’d go down to that couch and sleep there.

A/N: Lots of scene changes in this chapter. This is kind of a transition period, if you hadn’t noticed but everything should smooth out soon and I’ll get into the next little arc. Yes, I’m starting to place the chapters into little story arcs. What arcs they are, I’m still working on. And, this is a pretty quick update from the last chapter, so no complaining I didn’t update quick enough. My finals are all on the 15th and 16th, so I won’t be able to work on the next chapter until after then. I’m going to predict that the next update will be around the 22nd or 23rd. Please don’t complain I just have some really advanced classes this year on the 15th. Chemistry, Spanish III and English all on the same day with Journalism and lunch the only things separating Spanish III from English. And the 16th will be the day I most likely start chapter 22.

You know, I never foresaw this fic getting this big. But it has and it really gives me a thrill of happiness. I just wish that there were more Wu/Mei fics out there. That or the ones out there would update. I want to read more of Quiet Chatter! It’s a really awesome story but the last time it was updated was right before the last update of Past Meets Present, or as I shorten it, PMP.

In one of the reviews I got for Chapter 20, one person addressed a few things that I feel the need to correct. Since an email address was not left, I will just say them here. In regards to Wufei and Meiran having the same family name of Chang, I did not find out that women keep their family name after marriage and once I did find this out, Chang was already established for Meiran. Instead of changing midfic and confusing people, I’m just going to leave it as is. The other thing that was mentioned was ages. Wufei and Meiran were both around 13-14 when they were married. An age is never specified but the fact that Shenlon (Nataku) is around, as well as the fact that Wufei looks just a little younger in Ep. Zero point to that age frame. It is my personal belief that Wufei is the older of the two and it’s set up in PMP that he is a year older than Meiran. It states this back in chapter 3, right at the beginning. The story starts out on Heero’s 21st birthday, with Quatre, Trowa, and Wufei’s 22nd birthdays all approaching. Xin Xin is seven going by Western standards, a small error on my part that most people wouldn’t have caught. Going by Eastern standards, she would eight. But again, to go back and change anything would confuse a lot of people. I appreciate this sort of thing. Once I finish PMP, I do plan to rewrite it so that all the details like the age thing are fixed. If anyone spots any other things wrong, please let me know so that when I am done, they fixed.

I own Xin Xin! And, that’s it.