Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Survival ❯ Progress ( Chapter 15 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Progress

May 22nd 197 - Monday - Amsterdam

“Father!” Melissa called happily as they ducked in the church door. They knew it wasn't any kind of service hour, so the kids would be more or less running wild, taking the solemn mood of the building with it. True formalities were reserved for strangers.

“'Liss! Kay!” Casper squeaked excitedly, trotting up to them. The blonde little boy was three or four years old. Really, the majority of the church's children were under five. He blinked curiously at the pail Chaos was holding before pointing at it and tilting his head at the gang members.

“Kay's here too?” Helen asked, coming down the hall. “Fran, Fer, Kay and `Liss are here!” She came through the back doorway and her eyes widened; unlike Casper, the six-year-old knew what came in those clear plastic tubs with red handles. “Ice cream!”

“Ice cream?” demanded Marten, suddenly appearing from the back rooms as well, followed by Willem and Roosevelt. From the Duplos still clutched in Roosevelt's hand, it looked like they'd been building something with the blocks again… or more likely, Willem was trying to build something, and the other two were taking all the blocks he wanted, then smashing apart his work when he tried to take the pieces away. Will was an unusually focused three-year-old, while Marten was of the normal sort… and Roosevelt, now shoving a red block in his mouth, was incredibly two.

“Don't eat it all!” Cassandra shrieked from the next room. “I want some!”

“Come now,” Adriaan suggested with all his kindergarten-level superiority, also coming into the main of the church. “I don't want to have to watch how much I eat!”

“I'm doing her hair!” Sophie yelled bossily. She was not to be ordered around by a boy her own age… or a boy of any age, actually. “I'm almost done, so just wait!”

“You can't tell me what to do!”

“Sophie, hurry!” whined Cass.

“It won't look pretty if I hurry,” the other fussed.

“Do it later!”

“I'm almost done!”

The church's interior insulation seriously left something wanting… well, either that or the girls had started out playing school in one of the confessionals again before getting into each other's hair. It was hard to tell, with them up against the wall… which probably meant the church really could use some more interior insulation. It was warm enough, but noise carried amazingly well.

“I'll save you some,” Fran returned amiably as she stepped gracefully into the room and smiled prettily at Melissa and Chaos. At seven years old, Francisca Coppens tried very hard to be the elegant mother she had lost last year.

“What flavor?” asked Ferik excitedly, though he didn't hurry toward them; he knew the rule that no one would get any bit of treat until everyone who wanted it was present. Ferik had lived at the church since infancy, and had actually started asking Father Espen if he could take his name, Sister Agtmael's. He was tired of getting teased at the elementary school for not having a last name, for all that the eight-year-old took it much better that Duo had at that age; he had yet to hear of Ferik starting a fight over it, at least, and his confidence didn't seem too hurt.

Willem had been another “found” case instead of a child that was passed over by the state, so he also lacked a last name… but he wasn't old enough to realize the significance of that yet. Both of them were legitimized by the government, unlike how Duo had been… They worked things differently on Earth than in the colonies, probably because children were supposed to be recorded at birth for better control of atmosphere levels, and if they had no records, they were presumed to be from Earth.

There was a process to gain the government's recognition, but Father Maxwell had worked off of donations and a pension from the Vatican, not a government stipend like Father Espen. He had also kept to a policy of not doing the paperwork until a child was adopted, to make them seem less transient from the name changes throughout their life when it came to getting a job once they were older. In the case of Duo and how many homes he went through before getting sent back to the church each time, it was an especially good thing the Father hadn't admitted the boy's existence to the government; that would have looked bad, and marked him as a troublemaker to future employers. Father Maxwell had intended to design him a clean record… though they had also started talking about him just taking the name Maxwell before everything had gone so wrong.

Chaos smiled at the boy. Both him and Amos, with their brown hair and blue eyes, their confident attitudes, they reminded him so much of himself. Ferik even kept a ponytail down to the middle of his back. He had been much more of a little shit - these kids were practically angels - but he thought he might have straightened out to be like Amos, if the church had never been destroyed. “This one is chocolate vanilla swirl, and we've got vanilla, strawberry, and rainbow sherbet outside, if you'll help me carry one of them back to the kitchen,” he told the boy. Winking, he added, “I was just worried I'd really get mobbed if I brought in more than one at first.”

“Four?” Helen asked, surprised and awed. Ferik was walking out to grab the other containers.

“Well, there are a whole lot of you,” Melissa returned, crouching down to be at the little girl's level and gently tapping her nose with one finger. She held up the bags she was carrying that looked bulky. “And we brought some smaller containers so we could save whatever you all don't eat today for later without crowding the freezer too bad.”

“We could always put what's left in the courtyard,” Amos suggested, coming in with two-year-old Coby on one hip. The toddler looked extremely sleepy, but still happy to see his Uncle Kay, struggling to be put down so he could go wrap himself around the ex-gundam pilot's leg. Amos moved to take the two tubs Ferik had brought in so the younger boy could go get the last one, and then started leading them all back presumably to where the Father and Sister were feeding the baby, Abigal, because it was that time of the afternoon. “It should keep for a while there, with the weather we've been having.”

Melissa handed her bags to Fran as Sophie and Cass spilled out of one of the two confessionals so she could pick up Coby before moving to follow Amos. “I don't know, the weather report says it might be warming up. We'll figure it out once we know how much we have leftover, and how much room is in the freezer.”

“That's cute,” Chaos offered to the newly present little girls, indicating Cassandra's hair, which was done in an utterly bizarre arrangement of twists and braids. Sophie absolutely beamed. Cass was still feeling it all with an unsure look on her face… and Kay imagined he would be doing much the same if Sophie had gotten her hands on his hair.

“Up,” Roosevelt insisted, holding his arms up so it would be easier to grab him. Since Duo still had a huge tub of ice cream in one hand, he knelt with his free arm spread and allowed the little boy to clamber onto him before standing again.

Moving after Amos again, he asked, “Are you busy this afternoon? `Liss and I are off to another job after this, and you might learn something from it.” It had been a week since she'd started helping him, and she wasn't always along, just as much as her work hours and need for sleep would permit, but having her to help or show him things he wasn't so familiar with just made the whole business more fun. That, and between the two of them they were pretty good at teaching Amos everything they did. They showed Nolan too, when he was interested, but Melissa's little brother was more interested in school and maybe becoming a teacher than in how things worked, the way Amos was.

They still weren't getting enough jobs for it to really be a full-time thing that might be worth quitting Tate's nightshift for, but they getting popular amazingly fast. Part of that was probably that he didn't mind being paid in things like a pound or two of fruit grown in somebody's greenhouse once it finished ripening, or a certain amount of bread out of a woman's oven for a few weeks, or for someone to come spray the professional strength pesticide about the whole Den or the church. Marien and Adelheid, who were usually the ones making meals, or at least planning them, had been delighted when he told them about the coming strawberries, and the addition of regular sweet rolls to their diet had the gang asking after how much the woman who made them would charge to keep making them, once her contract with Chaos was up. The way this all was going, he'd probably end up switching roles with Daan or Val so that he was putting money to food and the other guy was helping with the bills.

Sister Isabel was feeding Abigal in the kitchen, as Chaos had suspected, and the church's last child, three-year-old Klara, was stretched out on the floor, coloring. The nun beamed at them when they came in, standing to hug the teenagers. “You shouldn't have!” she exclaimed, kissing each of the boys in their arms after she'd hugged them.

Melissa laughed, setting down Coby to go pull bowls and out of a cupboard. “I haven't done anything to help out in a while, come on.”

“They can't eat that much,” The older woman noted, eying the tubs dubiously.

“It's cheaper to buy in bulk,” Duo explained, shrugging. “We'll see how long it lasts. It was pretty cheap, so if it keeps for a few weeks, we can probably keep you stocked with dessert more often.”

Klara tugged gently on his pant leg, staring up at him seriously. He smiled and nodded, leaning down so she could whisper in his ear. “Can I have pink?”

“Sure thing, princess,” he assured her, and was rewarded with a sweet little smile. Klara was shy, he'd been coming regularly for over six weeks before she'd even whisper at him… and there was just something about her that made you want to make her happy. She was always scared she would be left out, or forgotten, especially by older men… it seemed like she had had an abusive or at least neglectful father, but he had never been able to bring himself to ask. He just tried to show her that he could be nice and attentive, the same way Father Espen was… that not all grown up boys were scary. He knew he was something of an adored uncle here, and he wanted to set an example of the good things somebody could be, despite being in a bad situation. He was important here… he made a difference to each of these kids, to Karina, maybe to some other people in the Devils…

…He was starting to actually believe in his hope that being associated with someone wouldn't bring trouble to them; he had half expected this to all blow up in his face a while ago, and then the point would have been proven, time for him to move on again… But it hadn't, despite everything. If he could prove that he wasn't cursed, that he could keep everyone safe, build himself a new life… then maybe he could be forgiven for all the things he'd done so wrong before. Penance, atonement, whatever they called it… Or at least, if he really started to matter to somebody, anybody… Maybe it was all worth it after all.

Maybe he could start talking to Father Espen about it, soon.

Well, might as well bring it up… “Hey, I'm going to go find the Father, go ahead and dish it out before it starts melting.”

***

May 24th 197 - Wednesday - China

Dorothy held out a hand with some ibuprofen in it, along with a bottle of water. Relena took both gratefully. “We should have brought a lawyer along too.”

“It would have weakened your stance,” the other woman noted, leaning over her shoulder to read the lines on the contract proposal that Relena had underlined in blue.

“I'm terrified that I don't know what I'm getting into,” the princess grumbled. “And it's taking forever to figure out if these,” she motioned to phrases underlined in red, “are a result of sneaky wording or just a non-native grasp of English.”

Dorothy pursed her lips. “Alright, we should have brought a bodyguard who was fluent in Chinese.”

Mitchell made sure to snort loudly from the next room in response to that. The connecting door was open, and he was fully dressed, but had lain back down for a brief nap before he relieved Dorothy. He hadn't been sleeping, really, he would have shut the door if their noise bothered him, but he said it was nice to rest his eyes and drift, that it gave him time to think.

Relena sighed again. “This is going to take another three or four days minimum.”

“I think your brother will have a coronary if it takes another two,” her friend noted.

“We have good doctors, he won't die,” she returned irritably. “I can't afford to screw this up, I need to walk through it slowly and make sure I don't miss anything… which means I need to dissect as much of this as I can before I sleep, but my brain's getting all fuzzy.”

“You have been at this for over three hours. Take a break and come back to it. Better yet, take a nap and let me read through it and see what I can get suspicious about, and we'll let Mitch run through it, and then you can dredge through it again and see if we sparked anything for you… then transfer the scribbles over to a new copy so it's more organized and look at it again. You can work up a list after you wake up tomorrow, and double-check that you have everything caught after that; there's no point in meeting with everyone again until you've finished nitpicking, so you guys can revise it again from there in the afternoon or the day after.”

Relena pursed her lips and downed the water bottle, considering the idea. When she was done she glared at the papers in front of her for another few seconds before rubbing her eyes and sighing. “That sounds really nice… when I had to wade through this during the wars I had Pagan to help me, at least.”

Dorothy blinked. “Pagan? Your old chauffer guy?”

She snorted. “Well I certainly didn't have him constantly on hand because he was cute.”

“I just…” Dorothy looked completely befuddled. “Well, I mean, I know he was loyal, so I just figured…”

“He was Milliardo and my's bodyguard before the kingdom fell.” Relena noted dryly. “He was our tutor, too. He taught my brother the basics, at least, of politics.”

“Wow… What happened to him anyway?”

“He had a close call with a heart attack, so Milliardo let him retire with his pension, up in the colonies where it's warm.” She stood and started taking out all the pins holding her hair securely in its French knot. “I'm going to lay down, then… if you guys end up talking about it, try to whisper, mm?” She would have made the request that they go into Mitch's room and close the door, but there was a separate entrance to this room, and that would be breaking the security measures the two of them had decided on once they settled into the rooms.

“Of course,” Mitchell returned, sitting up. “Dorothy, come in here so I can read over your shoulder… I'm not good at this kind of thing, but maybe I'll catch something obvious while you look for little things. We'll shove the desk in here over against the wall next to the door.”

“Alright, just a moment,” Dorothy returned, pulling out a bobby pin Relena had missed and undoing the knot herself.

“I can do my own hair, you know.”

“Yeah, but I want you to feel special,” she returned glibly. “You've had it really tight all day, I bet that's part of your headache.” She smirked as it came loose and the princess let out a happy little sigh, moving to rake her nails through the mess and massage her scalp.

“That feels lovely,” Relena muttered happily, closing her eyes and moving into it. “You're weird, but that feels really nice…”

Her friend sniggered and shoved her in the direction of the bed. “Go to sleep.”

“M'kay…”

***

Between Rostov-na-Donu and Kharkiv, Russia/Ukraine

Heero punched more or less mindlessly at the game he'd picked up, leaning against the window his seat was next to on a bus. It was something to do… and it gave him something to look concentrated at when he was thinking. He had to be around sixteen or seventeen, and seeing a teenager around his age playing some sort of handheld video game was something to just dismiss… right? That was how people had acted when he'd seen them near other boys his age doing the same thing… which was where he'd gotten the idea.

He'd caught the scent of a scent of a trail on Wufei… and was really annoyed that a whole new set of searchers had been sent out, because he hadn't seen most of their faces, and therefore couldn't have their faces memorized so well as he had the last. It was like starting from scratch… and he was even more wary because he didn't think anyone but Zechs would have the kind of resources to pick handful after handful of randomly arranged individuals off whatever they were normally supposed to be doing for this covert hunt.

They were on a similar enough trail that he had caught wind that they were up to the same thing as him, though… and having fine hearing combined with the ability to move stealthily helped in terms of gathering information. It was also due to eavesdropping that he knew Wufei had neatly disappeared again, and they were actually employing the same method as him of fanning out and sniffing out possibilities.

So naturally, he had decided to stick by one who seemed to be in charge of relaying information, and bugged his cell. It was a useful gadget that Duo had introduced him to during the war, and he'd managed to keep a couple after the war just because the tiny sticker chips fit easily in his wallet; even if he opened the battery compartment, the man would probably think it was a little signal booster. Duo was also the one who had shown him the finesse of knowing how to pick a pocket, plant the little rerouter, and put the phone back without the carrier being all the wiser.

Not that Heero had learned how to do any of that; he'd snuck into the man's hostel room one night and slapped the sticker onto the underside of the battery while the phone was hooked up to the charger. Still, he could admire how much more efficient Duo's methodology was, especially in terms of how long he'd had to stretch his leg before he could trust himself to move as quietly as he'd wanted to. Not that it would have really mattered; he doubted a bomb going off would have woken the man up seeing as his own snoring didn't, but he hadn't known that before fooling the lock.

Technology was useful; the headphones he had plugged into the game right now would easily hook up to the little digital recorder linked to the bug. The only tricky part was staying close enough to the man that he didn't lose the connection, without him realizing he was being followed. He hadn't called back to his higher-ups, yet, but, outside of the calls to his wife, he'd contacted other searchers to share notes a few times. If push really came to shove and he had to drop away from him, Heero supposed he could try dropping the recorder in the man's bag and follow the tracker he had in it to get it back later; the recorder was truly tiny, and the tracker didn't have any kind of distance limit.

So basically, he got to ride in the passenger seat for a while, per se, which was never something he'd done, but it was… almost relaxing. Not the same way letting Trowa drive had been nice, because he had trusted Trowa to handle the vehicle, but these people seemed competent to at least get close to Wufei. It was nice to be using resources that weren't his. If they managed to catch him, he could help the other pilot escape; if they started getting close, he could jump ship and try to get there ahead of them. So for now he could just focus on this somehow addictive game the clerk had suggested with a mutter of, “The classics are always good,” and-

“I'm sorry, but your princess is in another castle.”

He stared at the screen in dismay. What?

***

Brussels

“You're ingenious,” Jake agreed, grinning as he smacked the print button. “To be perfectly honest, though, I would have expected it out of Dorothy, not you.”

“It's like something out of those really bad spy movies,” David noted dryly. “Except that I don't think I can get away with calling my camera phone any kind of nifty gadget when I feel weird talking to you on the phone and not seeing your face.”

Jake snickered, sending out the thoroughly scribbled-on photos of the contract to everyone who ought to see it. “Peacecraft is going to be breathing down my neck here in a few; Relena hasn't deigned to contact him.”

“She's asleep, and she needs it,” Dorothy announced mildly; from the protesting noise Mitchell was making, she was probably leaning up closer to him than he felt comfortable with in order to be heard. “If he tries to insist we wake her back up, I'll hang up the phone and claim it was the battery.”

“Just like those reports were misfiled and you couldn't find them, huh?”

She made an amused sort of noise. “Nobody actually asked me about them.” There was another sort of amused sigh. “Oh, touchy, are we?”

“Personal space generally expands past two inches,” the other bodyguard muttered gruffly.

“Mm, if you weren't leaning back so hard it'd be more like a centimeter…”

“Oh Dorothy, give the man some space,” Jake protested.

“It wouldn't be an issue if he wasn't all freaked out,” she returned petulantly.

There was something lacking in Dorothy's general logic… That or she just liked fucking with people; though in all likelihood, it was a mixture of the two. “You can't molest him with the princess in the same room,” he noted instead.

“Jacob!”

“Well it's not like I'm giving her ideas, she already has them.”

“He has a point,” the woman noted almost sadly. There was a soft noise. “Don't worry, you're really not my type.”

Jake could guess what he'd heard, but he waited. After a minute Mitchell muttered, “God, that woman is weird.”

Well, Dorothy had found something else to amuse herself with, at least; it wasn't worth keeping to that particular topic unless his friend felt inclined to. “So… taking the photos was a really good idea.”

“Yeah…” David cleared his throat. “She's been working really hard on the negotiations and just attacking that paper…” He chuckled. “They were debating how long before Mr. Peacecraft had a heart attack.”

“Mm, baby bird's gotta start trying to fly sometime. How's she doing?”

“I don't know… she's always frustrated with something, and just exhausted. As for how well she's doing… I tried, I can't make heads or tails out of that paper.”

“Frustrated about something in particular?” he asked curiously. It would be good to know if the princess had any outstanding annoyances.

His friend laughed. “The delegates, the entire Chinese race, Mr. Peacecraft, Dorothy, chopsticks, her eyes…” He paused. “Shit, Jake, you ever meet a woman who kisses you then tells you you're not her type?”

“She's not still in the room, is she?”

“No.”

“Mm… yeah, I have no idea.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Seriously, with Catalonia… there might be something there, or she might just be bored.”

“Great… Yeah, she took my wallet and made a mention about the vending machines.”

“…You let her take your wallet?”

“Shit, she just took it after she kissed me.”

“Huh.” He had stopped talking for a minute… but it was something to be noted that a girl could stop David Mitchell in his tracks. Speaking of… “So… stay away from the jailbait.”

“Oh shit, yeah, huh?” The two of women didn't really look as young as they were, but even if seventeen was a legal adult, it was still young enough to be illegal for his twenty-six-year old friend, even if the girl were interested.

…If Junior was still alive, he'd be about eighteen… Somehow, thoughts of Relena always turned to his dead brother. They were close enough in age… and the way Zechs acted about her made him just want to bite his tongue. He gave the other man shit for how careful he was about Relena, but…

What a luxury, to be able to be so protective of a younger sibling. Not that Zechs was anything but fully aware of what a treasure it was, but some wounds never stop hurting, even long after they've healed. “Hey, Dave, I've gotta go; Zechs is going to either be calling or actually in my office in a minute.”

“Alright… shit, I didn't even remember that she was that young… I'll talk to you later. They were thinking it'd take another four or five days, probably.”

“Alright, thanks. Sketch me something tonight to keep busy, huh?”

“Sure. Later.”

“Bye.” He hung up the phone… and set his head in his hands. He wasn't going to cry, he hadn't cried in years… but there were times that he still wanted to. It didn't matter what good you tried to do in the world, or whether or not somebody deserved to be taken away… dead was dead. There was no redemption, no going back, nothing that could be done about it, you'd missed your window of opportunity…

He'd get himself sorted out in a minute or two, before Zechs actually checked his mail and really was trying to get information out of him. He'd get back to work and the memories would fade again, and this would stop being important for another few weeks or months…

But right now… It was alright to be sad, right now.

Hey, I posted again quickly, how about that? I know this is kinda an in between chapter in terms of plot, but I have to get characters to a certain point developmentally before I can keep moving them forward, and I keep seeing everything happening in clips, so trying to follow one character in particular would be both kinda choppy and boring, because they're not doing anything fast-paced yet. Things will start moving along faster as Relena becomes more active in the world-scene, because her actions really work as a catalyst. The impending series of world disasters are lining up all domino style, right now.

That said, thoughts?