Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Survival ❯ Sugar, Spice, And... ( Chapter 18 )

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

Sugar, Spice, And…

Relena is so very fun to embarrass, just for the record. She just really, really is…

June 8th 197 - Thursday - Brussels

Relena sighed looking into the still empty room. It had been three days since she had gotten back and she still had yet to see hide or hair of Jake… and she really wanted his opinion on her proposal for the RLTT fund before she sent it out. She had had Dorothy and the other girls read through it a couple times already, but he had a sharp eye and she wanted this to be perfect.

Maybe he's asleep? The way he worked odd hours didn't necessarily mean he kept a graveyard shift, it meant he alternately worked and slept whenever he wanted to… he had just been keeping to a particular schedule for the first couple weeks she had started talking to him. He had made it clear before that if she needed something she could come wake him up that he wouldn't mind…

He didn't answer immediately when she knocked and she stood waiting for a while… knocked again, but didn't even hear a stir of movement. Biting her lower lip, she walked back out into the hall, shutting the door behind her. Maybe I just missed him in the hall… Dorothy said he usually ended up in the cafeteria sometime during the day, just rarely during normal hours. She had just checked there, but maybe…

The cafeteria showed no sign of him, and letting out an exasperated sigh, she headed over to the Department of Defense; Mitchell had been excitedly showing her a few sketches he'd made up of different cultural ornaments in their hotel that apparently Jake had asked him to make, before they had headed home. Apparently drawing was a major hobby of his, because he'd also given her a rather sweet one of her sleeping that looked professionally done. Either way, it had been Jake specifically that he called to work out the editing of the contract, and she had gotten the distinct impression they were good friends… so maybe he was visiting Mitchell.

No one seemed to notice her after a cursory glance… though that also meant they didn't try to help her find what she was looking for. They were all busy, and she certainly didn't mind the lack of fawning attention she'd encountered elsewhere. It did take her a while to find Mitchell's desk though…

…which was empty.

So, maybe they were hanging out then, and her theory wasn't wrong… but if they were, the question was where.

Sighing, she headed back out.

***

Maxyr, Belarus

Ivan Alekseev frowned at the little device. Sony brand, it definitely looked nifty, but he had no idea what it was…

…Kristine had probably gotten it for him and slipped it in his bag before he left. It had a shutter on it, so maybe she'd wanted him to take pictures? He hadn't properly gone through everything in his knapsack up to this point, which would be why he hadn't noticed the thing. He grimaced. This impromptu trip was for Treize, not Zechs, pictures were probably a bad idea… and it had far too many buttons too. He sighed a little, shaking his head. He appreciated the thought, really, but it wasn't his kind of gadget. He slid it back in his bag. When will she stop buying me overcomplicated shit…? He'd have to get one of the kids to figure it out for him once he got home. In the end, he still wouldn't play with it and Danielle would probably wander off with it… which was just fine because his daughter would actually use it, but the process would annoy his wife.

He couldn't be gone much longer without someone realizing something was fishy, though, so at least he would be home soon. He could ask Kris about it then.

***

Amsterdam

“Hello?” It was strange that someone had called and asked for him at work…

“I think my water broke,” Karina blurted out.

His stomach dropped. “You're going into labor?”

His wife sounded annoyed. “That's what that means doesn't it?”

She had a point. And really, she was over a week late, he shouldn't be surprised, but the idea that she was going to have her today… That one hadn't occurred to him.

“Chaos is taking me to the hospital and putting the money down,” she continued, “And this will probably take ten years, so you should finish your shift so your next check is decent.”

It was really tempting to just go to the hospital, his boss would let him, but she made a very good point; they did need the money, for all that Chaos had been bringing in more than normal lately. He didn't like the idea of having to rely on the American if push came to shove just because he didn't want to pressure the boy; he already took far more than his share onto his shoulders. “Alright,” he agreed. “I'll be another three and something hours; call me if it starts looking like you'll be getting in deep before that, huh?”

“Oh, I wish.” She hissed in a breath. “Fuck, this is really gonna suck…” In the background he heard Chaos cheerfully announcing, “Hey, you rhymed!” Luc started sniggering as Karina snapped, “Fuck you!”

“I love you,” he told her, practically bouncing. The baby was coming…

“I love you too,” she returned, sounding tired. “I probably won't in an hour or so, but that's beside the point. I'll see you when you get there.”

“See you at the hospital,” he agreed, and hung up, starting to work with a new fervor. His baby girl was almost here…

***

Zheleznogorsk, Russia

Heero leaned against the doorframe leading back into the bedroom, tousling his hair with a towel to dry it. Dasha was still curled up in the blankets, where she had been when he had entered the bathroom. He'd made it fast to accommodate her water and electric bills, so it wasn't exactly surprising that she was still asleep.

He considered her a moment, still resting his weight against the frame. He'd spent what were possibly the most amazing three days of his life with the redhead, and some part of him wanted to stay… but she'd also noted that her roommate was coming back from her parents' today, which would make already cramped apartment unbearable…

She shifted slightly so that he could see her face, and grinned over at him. “You're staring,” she accused.

He smiled back, holding the towel in his hands. “I was given the impression that I was allowed.”

Dasha seemed to find that response amusing. “You are,” she informed him as she sat up, clutching the blanket to her chest. “I was just pointing it out.”

“Does that mean I need to stop?”

She just laughed, a soft blush lighting up her cheeks. It matched her hair. Considering her rather… unabashed… self-introduction, he wouldn't have thought her capable of blushing, but she seemed to do it quite a bit when the provocation wasn't sexual. Fingering the stitching on the comforter, she said more than asked, “I'm never going you see you again, am I?”

He bit his lip, not really sure what to say. On one hand, his heart was wrenching at the idea of leaving, but that wasn't even an option; she'd made it clear already that she wasn't interested in a long-term relationship. He'd more or less known that when she practically crawled into his lap in a public place. The past few days had been amazing, something he would never have imagined… but for all intensive purposes, it had been nothing but a fantastic fever-dream.

Yet she was asking, with a hint of sadness in her voice… “Do you want to?”

She tilted her head at him, and he wondered if maybe some of the same thoughts were running through her head as had been through his. Instead of answering, she asked, “Where are you going?”

He shook his head a little. “I don't know yet. I'm trying to find my friends from before the takeover.”

She nodded a little, looking out the room's one window…. and he couldn't help but focus on how the sunlight glinted off of her hair, lit up her skin. She was beautiful, and the confidence she bore said she knew it… but she hadn't seemed to mind that when looking for a bedmate she'd stumbled across a virgin. He would have expected that to turn an experienced woman away, but she hadn't seemed to care.

On some level, despite the desire to stay here longer, he realized that her attitude of wanting a three-day one night stand meant they wouldn't work well together in the long run. He wasn't entirely sure why he'd gone with it in the first place, honestly…

But he didn't regret it.

“Do you want me to just disappear?” He asked quietly. If she did, then he supposed that that would be that, and he could stop worrying about it.

Dasha gripped her hair with one hand, the other still holding up the blanket. “Gosh, Odin…” She met his eyes… and there was some comfort for him in her slightly bewildered look. “I don't know.”

…Why can't women ever be concise? Not that he was right now… but he had never done this before, and she obviously had. He sighed, motioning over at his bag. “I have to go.” He already wore his jeans, but the rest of his clothes were over there, including the ones Dasha had talked him into buying, saying they looked really good on him… Besides taking him to bed she had managed to explain some of what was apparently common fashion sense. She had shown him the city… for the first time in his life he had been introduced to a place not through its numbers, not its vulnerabilities to attack, just… for what it was. Because it was beautiful in its own way…

Like she was.

She nodded a little, looking away again, and he came over and sat down on the bed next to her, turning her chin so she looked at him again. Her eyes were glistening slightly, but not much, and she moved easily into the kiss he initiated. It wasn't any of the fast and hard ones they had exchanged over the past few days, but softer, sweet…

Heero pulled away and she didn't resist, only smiled slightly with that remorseful glimmer in her eyes… and he offered her an earnest look of his own. “Do you want to see me again?”

Those bright green eyes turned searching, and she was silent for a moment before nodding. “Maybe,” she whispered.

“Maybe?”

“I suppose it depends on how long it is. On what's happening when you come back.”

…He supposed that made a sort of sense. Resting his hand on her shoulder and the back of her neck, playing with her hair a little, he muttered, “Alright.”

***

Brussels

Relena muttered darkly under her breath, throwing herself into the desk chair. She had been searching for over three hours, and she still hadn't stumbled across any rumors of Jake. Well, she'd stopped to eat for a bit of that, and gotten into a conversation with one of the people down in Reconstruction, but still. He has to come back here eventually…

In truth, she was somewhat irritated that she hadn't been getting something more constructive done… She had gone to her office at one point and tried to work on a different project, however, and been unable to focus. It all hinged on this… Okay, not really, but it certainly felt like it. She had a mental block against it or something… finish one job before you start another…

The princess glared over at the blank computer monitor showing her reflection. Why can't he be glued to the computer like he always was before? she grumped. No, watch, he is, he just has a laptop too… Maybe computer junkies were all the same, combat specialists with a notebook laptop tucked under one arm…

A thought occurred to her, and she sniggered. So long as her blonde friend didn't wear spandex shorts under his jeans, it was all good. If it came to that, the ensuing paranoia would just be too much. She'd find a gun under his pillow if she looked, just watch…

She blinked in dismay at the weapon. She hadn't actually expected to find one, but there it was, dark against the navy sheets. Feeling flustered, she reprimanded herself for forgetting that he had been a member of the Specials, and a talented one, to work with her brother and Noin before they all went in different directions. Milliardo probably slept with a gun too… she knew that Noin had, if not necessarily under the pillow.

Does Mitchell? That seemed likely too, but she'd never bothered to check, or just watch him when he woke up to see where he took it from. Dorothy had kept a bag with a long cord looped around her neck that had a small pistol in it when they slept, despite Mitchell's presence. Dorothy was apparently a fairly good shot with her little purse guns she always seemed to have; according to Milliardo she wasn't bad with the bigger ones either, but she didn't like to appear to be carrying a gun unless she was in uniform.

Jake's weapon was hauntingly familiar… it looked like Heero's. But really, all guns looked alike. I just had the most experience with Heero's in my face… The one time she'd fired a gun, it had been more the kind of thing Dorothy liked to carry, and Une hadn't had to even try to dodge… and that had seemed something of a directive not to try again, because she wasn't any good. Then there had been the whole total pacifism idea that had gone completely to pieces, but that was so long done that there wasn't much for it.

How do they tell them all apart? she wondered, gazing at the thing. What kind of gun had Heero always carried? It would be too much of a coincidence for this one to be the same, but she really couldn't have pointed out the features of Heero's… she wouldn't recognize it if she saw it again. Maybe she'd ask Dorothy later, or Jake…

...Oh my God, I'm in his bedroom!

Blushing furiously, she put his pillow back down and rushed back into his office, expecting the man to be standing there with a raised eyebrow, but no, he hadn't come back. Throwing herself back into the desk chair, she let out a relieved sigh; she would have absolutely died if he had caught her poking around his personal space… she wasn't the overly bold teenager she had been a few years ago, and she had had distinct reasons to encroach on Heero's privacy anyway. Good reasons. Jake had shown himself to be nothing but a worthy friend, as had David Mitchell and the girls she'd become close to, and she'd just barged in there without a moment's hesitation… She rested her elbows on the desk, head in her hands. I need to start realizing what I'm doing before I do it. I am not a little girl anymore…

There was a slip of paper on the keyboard.

She had assumed before that it was something that had been left for him, because there were papers all over his desk that had obviously been things he needed to go through… but this was handwritten.

…in Jake's handwriting.

Hey,

Having something of a change in occupation, and needed to go into retraining. I'm going to be living down in the barracks for a few weeks so if anyone needs me for something, I'm either sleeping or kicking ass down in Twelfth.

Jake

Wow, I feel stupid… Hurriedly, she stood and ducked back out into the hall. She hadn't closed the door while she was in there, but it had been shut initially so she shut it on her way out, and headed in the direction of the main military complex.

“Hey.”

She spun around guiltily at the call, giving Dorothy a look that she knew was too nervous. “Hello.”

The other woman raised a brow, smirking slightly. Pointing back to the room, she asked, “What were you doing?”

“Nothing.” The moment she said it she wanted to slap a hand over her mouth. Really, can I get any more hand caught in the cookie jar? “I was just seeing if Jake was in.”

Dorothy's look was skeptical, but she only let out an amused sort of snort and gestured for Relena to follow her. “Come on, I have something you ought to see.”

***

L3 cluster - Undetermined

I shoved the back door open and nodded a hello at the startled butler before bolting across the kitchen and through the formal dining room, up the stairs. “Meagan!” I threw open the door to the craft room, frowning when I didn't find the woman there. The fabric for my new summer dress was laid out, though, and she kept neat, so she hadn't gone far. On a different day I would have slunk in and ran a hand over the fabric, tried to guess what it would look like when it was finished because Meagan never let me see until she was done, but not today. Today there was a more important matter at hand.

Someone was giving away a box of kittens over by the grocery store. And I really wanted a kitty.

“Meagan!” I shut the door as fast as I could without slamming it, running down the hall and ducking into her bedroom. The bed was neat, so she wasn't feeling bad and napping…

Oh yeah, she was going to get her hair done today, wasn't she? I raced back down the stairs and into the far corner of the house, only to find the little salon was empty… Sandra was sweeping up hair, though, so the hairdresser had come and gone. The maid smiled at me. “You're all flushed, baby, what's all the excitement about?”

I grinned at her. “Kittens! Have you see Meagan?” I swear, if she's gone out to town and I missed her I'm going to die…

The blonde woman laughed delightedly. “Kittens, huh? She's up in the library visiting with someone.”

“Thanks!” I dashed back out of the room to the stairs again, across the top floor to the other set of stairs that led to the observatory and library. I wasn't so hasty to just burst into the room if she had company, though; I stopped at the mirror near the door and smoothed my pleated school skirt, checked to make sure my shirt was tucked in, my tie straight. My hair was all a mess from running so I yanked off my cap and ran my fingers through it. It was as red as it had ever been, but Meagan had said I could let it grow out this year if I wanted. I was eleven years old, not a little girl anymore; I was going to look like a real lady, which meant the chin length hair had to go. It just reached my collar, now, and I took the time to re-clip my barrettes that kept it all out of my face. If I embarrassed my governess in front of company there was no way she'd let me have a cat.

Deciding I was as ready as I was going to get, I offered my reflection a grin and gently opened the door, slipped in. I could hear talking but couldn't see them, so they had to be over in the armchairs by the window that overlooked the city. It was a man's voice, and I took a moment to listen before coming up on them, since they didn't seem to have noticed my entrance. Manners were all very well and good, but Mom always said that knowledge was more valuable than gold, and after all, it wasn't bad manners to eavesdrop if they didn't notice.

“Now that we have Vulkanus, we have to move before Peacecraft suspects,” he declared. His voice was old, a little raspy. “There's a very small window of time available to us for us to achieve independence from OZ before we find ourselves surrounded by his army. Vulkanus can only make so many dolls without it being noticeable, and we've gathered our army. I will be taking Mariemaia home the moment she arrives.”

I frowned at that. Take me home? I am home… At the same time though, I could feel my heart quickening its pace. I didn't understand any of the stuff about mobile dolls, but… Am I going to get to live with Mom? Forget the kitten, I'd take my mother over a stupid cat any day. I only got to see her a couple times a year, but she'd always promised that I could stay with her once she finished with school. She hadn't done it when it happened, but Meagan had said it was because someone had died, that my mom needed time to cope… though I hadn't believed it until New Year's came and that sad look had never left her eyes, even when she was laughing.

“Are you sure it has to be now?” Meagan asked tentatively. “I haven't had any time to warn her, and she has yet to pack… it's a very big change for such a young girl.”

“Of course we have time to pack her things,” he scoffed.

Now seemed like a good time to make a bit of noise opening the door, and I shut it again quickly before scampering forward. “Hello,” I told the old man breezily before focusing on Meagan; if I didn't give them a reason for me to be excited, they might suspect I had been listening. “They're giving away kittens out in front of Keagan's.”

“Kittens?” The old man asked warmly, and I turned my attention back to him. “You want a kitten, eh?”

“I'm old enough to take care of one,” I informed him proudly. Looking back to Meagan, I added, “Kaitlyn got one.”

The woman who had always taken care of me shook her head. “Not today, Marie.” She moved aside and gestured to our guest. “This is your grandfather, Dekim Barton.”

I felt my eyes go wide at that. I had always heard about my grandfather, from other people, but I honestly knew nothing about him. Mother had always told me that he was to be treated with the utmost respect, even if her look was sour half the time she said it. I almost wanted to curtsy, but I was one of his heirs, that couldn't be appropriate…

He solved the problem of how I should respond by walking toward me and bending down slightly so we were eye to eye, holding out a hand for me to shake. I took it and he smiled. “My, how you've grown, Mariemaia… Would you care to help me do something very important?”

My breath caught. Me? Something important? Mom had told me before that my grandfather was ashamed of us, of how young she had been when she had me. He hadn't liked who my father was, though no one had told me who he was. Uncle Trowa had said at Easter a few years ago that it wouldn't matter anymore, but then he had died, and nothing had changed. I still couldn't live with Mom even though other people in her school kept their children, and neither of us could use the Barton name. But maybe my uncle had been right, and the plans he talked about hadn't gone right before…

…My Grandpa wanted me. “Of course I will help you however I can,” I told him easily, pleased with how rich my voice was, how smooth I kept my face. “Just let me pack my things.” If he was willing to look at me, to take me with him, I wasn't going to mess this up.

I was going to make him proud.

***

Brussels

Twelfth Barracks. Relena stepped smartly into the building and looked around before spotting someone who might be able to help her. She wasn't going to go back into the barracks themselves because men might be changing back there, and he was unlikely to be sleeping anyhow while he was retraining. It was only a moment before the man her eyes had settled on noticed her.

“Miss Peacecraft,” he greeted, surprised but not displeased. “What can I do for you?”

“I'm looking for Jake Miller,” she admitted. “He's here, isn't he?”

“Eh, well, he's sleeping here…” He scratched at the back of his head, seeming to think.

It was really tempting to just throw up her hands and be done with it. At the same time, though, she had come this far already. “I thought he was training,” she noted. “Is he just due back by a certain time then?” She would have assumed, with as many soldiers as were around her now, that he'd be back, but maybe he was working with another squad…

“Well, he's kinda just freelancing it, so he's keeping to his own schedule. He's usually running around this time of day, but he might have gone on to something else… He's high up enough that he doesn't really answer to anyone.”

“Really?” She knew that Jake had been a member of the Specials to rival her brother in some aspects because Milliardo had told her as much, but not having a superior officer was a bit… excessive.

“Well, the colonel answers to Mr. Peacecraft, of course, but he changes divisions all the time, something of a lone wolf; so far as I can tell, it's rare that he's responsible for anyone besides himself.”

She blinked at the man; the insignia on the lapels of his open jacket said he was a Major, last name Reiker. “Have you known him long, then?” She also hadn't realized Jake was ranked as a colonel. He had seemed too laid back, too… well, freelance, as Reiker had said, for that high of rank. He's the same rank as Mitchell, then, too.

The major shook his head. “No, I just looked into it once I kept seeing him in and out of here and realized how hardcore he was.”

“Hardcore?”

“He came in here two weeks ago, and he's been just… going. He wasn't in bad shape when he showed up, but…” Reiker shook his head. “I mean, I guess you have to have that kind of drive to be a jack-of-all-trades like that, but-” He seemed to cut off what he was going to say after a quick glance at her and finished with, “I can't keep up with that routine.”

She wasn't sure she really believed that. Reiker's dog tags hung on a bare, heavily muscled chest, and he was tall; she would imagine that he was similarly muscled elsewhere. This was the kind of man that made her just feel tiny and powerless. “I'm sure he's just been training up to it,” she countered. “He's been sitting at a desk for the past year.”

Reiker snorted. “No disrespect meant, but he can't have been just sitting at a desk for that long. There's a reason they call them the Specials; they require a wholly different level of discipline.”

Relena shook her head a little. “Lieutenant Colonel Catalonia was teasing him about being scrawny a few weeks ago.”

Another soldier laughed. “He can't lift for shit, but he's fast.”

Reiker laughed. “Yeah…” Focusing back on Relena he explained, “I've literally watched him run eight miles straight.”

“That's probably what he's doing right now,” muttered the man who'd commented about Jake not being able to lift weights. He was sitting on a bench, unlacing his boots. “That or sparring… Especially if Dave's off today.”

“David Mitchell?” she asked, perking up at the familiar name. “He wasn't at his desk earlier.”

The man shrugged, settling back against the wall. “Then I'd bet they're horsin' around, they're close. Mitchell used to be in the Specials too, learned most of his hand-to-hand in there; that's probably why they still like to spar.”

“Yeah, Kushov, I'm out kicking ass while you sit back and tell stories about me…” came a voice from across the building.

The second man, Kuchov, laughed and quickly tightened his laces, tucking the ends into the top of his boot. “Yeah, you know, spreading rumors.”

Jake cackled, but he was still not within her line of sight. “Good things, right?”

“Yeah, about how I could kick your pansy a-ah,” he glanced guiltily at Relena, “butt.”

She snorted softly at that; as if it hadn't been obvious. Jake, meanwhile was having a similar reaction. “Sure you are, come here and prove it.”

His friend laughed more, standing. “You come here.”

“No, the Sergeant'll have my head if I drip water all over the main, you come here.”

“Finish drying off and put some clothes on then!”

His voice was all mock indignity. “Oh, I'm man enough to beat you down in my towel, bring it!”

Reiker choked slightly, giving Relena an apologetic look before winking at her and calling, “Oi, Jacob, you've got a girl here to see you.”

“Tell Nelson he needs to stop it with his dress-up routine.”

Another soldier, presumably Nelson, started laughing naughtily. “But didn't you notice? I put them in your drawer!”

“Huh, I thought my shirts looked a little long…”

“I bet you look better as a chick,” Kushov added, half creeping over to where the calls were coming from, making a `shh' gesture at Reiker and Relena, his eyes sparkling.

She really was just amused by all their antics… after the initial shock of Jake's words had settled, it really was just funny.

“Yeah, I'd look kinda like your sister, eh?”

She choked on that one, though.

“If you manage to be that pretty, I'll disown you,” Kuchov returned easily, sidling in close to the door.

Jake finally appeared then, dashing out of a different door in a pair of dark pants, whirling up a towel and whipping it hard at Kuchov before running over towards them… and stopping dead when he saw the princess. She barely managed to not burst out laughing, keeping it at a smirk and waving at him slightly. Kuchov came lunging after him and he dodged, somehow managing to throw him into the wall with the same movement, before focusing back on Relena and starting to chuckle a bit guiltily, his cheeks going red. “Um… hi.”

She laughed a little too, feeling her own flush rise back up. His hair was still dripping, and his bare chest was just as well-defined as Reiker's. “Hi.”

“…I'm going to go put a shirt on and then we can head back up to the main, alright?”

She nodded a bit. “That sounds good; I was wanting too get your opinion on something.”

“Alright, just a minute then.” He ducked back into the door he'd come out of.

Well, it probably really hadn't been worth it, but she had found him… and she was going to get his opinion on the fund proposal. That's enough, I suppose.

***

June 9th 197 - Friday - Amsterdam

“You look tired.”

Chaos turned to smile at Melissa as she came down the hall. “I didn't feel like walking home yet.” Motioning at a doorway, he added “They're in there, but unless she asks for me I'm done hearing her in pain.”

His friend bit her lip, then shook her head a little. “Luc was just dripping with happiness earlier, he can finish what he started. I've got Father Espen's van, though; when he heard that Sin kept you up all day fussing over little contractions he said I could come get you.”

He stood and pulled her into a hug, just grinning when she squeaked in surprise. “You're my hero,” he decided, resting a fair amount of his weight on her. “I thought I was going to have to crash in one of these plastic chairs…”

The Dutch girl giggled, pulling away… and he turned so he could lean across her shoulders as they walked. She laughed harder, shifting her own weight to balance. “You're not that bad!” she protested.

“Mm, you should carry me,” he returned, grinning madly.

“Oh, should I really?” She continued to trudge forward without shoving him off, though. “What happened to Mr. `I-can-handle-anything'?”

“It got old?” He laughed more, resting his head on her shoulder. She was tall enough that it wasn't too hard to do, but it couldn't be the least bit comfortable either. “You smell nice.”

She snorted. “I smell like an ashtray.”

“Mm, only a little bit,” he argued, holding up his thumb and forefinger for emphasis.

She shook her head a little, trying to shove him off again as people actually came down the hallway. The hospital was fairly deserted at this wee hour of the morning, but giving people the impression that Chaos was high was probably one of the less smart ideas they could go through with…

He really couldn't care less, though, and in response he put all his weight on her and only took some of it back when they were about to hit the wall.

“Oh my God!” Melissa exclaimed, leaning back into him. “I do not claim you!”

“You can't do that,” he dismissed easily, though he was walking along with her now instead of making her drag him.

“Oh can't I?”

“Nope. I'm too loveable huggable.”

She stopped and gave him an incredulous look at that, only to have herself dragged forward as he took her weight… and noticed the amused looks on the staff's faces. “You didn't just say that.”

“Oh, but I did.”

“When was the last time you slept?” she demanded.

“Um… Wednesday morning?”

Considering the fact that he did manual labor from 11pm to 10am, Saturday though Wednesday, and they were entering Friday morning, that explained a lot. He hadn't slept Wednesday night because they'd been trying to fix an apartment complex's plumbing and had lost track of time before he had to go to work, but she had assumed he had gotten some sleep before Rina had started chasing him worriedly. “No wonder you're loopy,” she decided.

“Mm, I've done worse,” he admitted, practically snuggling with her as they walked. “But it's so nice to not have to be alert when I'm this tired, you have no idea…”

She went quiet at that. The idea was just kinda scary… and sad. He never wanted to talk about it, but he hinted enough that it was obvious that he'd led a hard life…

She had always been curious about him, interested, even, though she had presumed he was into guys before the Hilde girl had proven otherwise. He just… hadn't shown the slightest bit of that kind of interest in any female, it hadn't been that odd of an assumption. It was actually really pleasant to have him so close to her now, so completely trusting with his person; she hadn't been sure he would ever do that with her…

“You know what, Kay?”

“Hm?”

“You're sweet,” she decided as they made their way through the parking lot.

“Okay.” He was yawning. “That's good, right?”

“Not everyone likes the assholes,” she agreed, grinning as she unlocked the passenger side of the van first.

“I can be an asshole,” he protested, blinking at the open door as though surprised he was already there. “I'm good at it too.”

“I'm sure you are,” she returned, grinning. She walked around to the other side and climbed in before finishing with, “I like it when you're sweet though.”

“Like ice cream?”

He had this shit-eating grin, so she knew he was just screwing with her not actually that out of it, so she grinned and corrected, “Like cotton candy.”

Chaos sniggered at that, looking thoughtful. “Like… licorice?”

She blinked at that. “Licorice?”

“I've never had cotton candy?”

That just figures… “It…” She wasn't quite sure how to explain the flavor, actually. Pulling out of her parking spot, she said, “It melts in your mouth. Like divinity.”

“If it melts in your mouth wouldn't that make me inconsistent or something?”

“That's entirely not the point… it's…” She snickered. “It's just sweet.”

He frowned at that. “Chocolate's sweet too,” he muttered by way of suggestion.

“But it tastes like stuff other than sweet,” she argued. “It tastes like…” She laughed again. “Like chocolate.”

He snorted at that and leaned over the space between the seats to rest his head on her shoulder again as they pulled out onto the main road. “You're silly.”

“I'm silly?”

“Mmhm.” He yawned. “I'm tired, you don't have an excuse.”

“I happen to have worked two full shifts today, thank you,” she returned easily, amused just the same. “I'm very much looking forward to a bit of sleep.”

They continued like that for the ten minutes ride back to the den, and Gust said he'd take the van back to the church for her once on their way back through the main of the den when she said she just wanted to sleep. Chaos had decided that he needed to continue hanging off her like had had through the hospital and actually even in the car, until she half dropped him down on his pallet in his room. Well, she tried to drop him on his bed; really, they ended up both laughing their asses off as they both tumbled to the floor.

“Oh my God, you're special,” she protested, smacking at him.

He made a half-hearted attempt to dodge, laughing harder. “If I am, so are you.”

Melissa snorted and moved to stand, but he caught her around the waist and pulled her back. “No, don't go…”

“I want to sleep,” she told him frankly.

“Just stay a little bit,” he pleaded, his arms wrapped around her waist, head resting next to her leg. “I don't want to fall asleep alone, if it's too quiet I'll hear her screaming again…”

She blinked. “It bothered you that bad? It's just one of those things, Kay, it's not a big deal.”

“But she was hurting,” he protested, his voice quiet. “And I couldn't do anything… And even after Luc got there she wanted me to stay, and I just didn't know what to do…”

She moved to lay down next to him and he let go of her and shifted to one side so she had more room. “Rina will be fine,” she reassured him.

He let out a deep breath. “I know… I just…”

Melissa moved more into his arms, laying on one side and half hugging him. “Women go through labor and are just fine every day. And she won't hold your not being able to magically make everything better against you.”

“That's not the point,” he returned almost sullenly.

“You're such a sweetheart,” she decided, burying her face in his chest. She expected him to stiffen at the gesture, but he stayed relaxed… and it was just so very nice. She'd been tempted to try cuddling up to him on the couch practically since he'd joined, she'd liked him the moment she saw him in Lancaster park the night they found him, but she'd never had the guts to do it… and here he had outright asked her to stay until he fell asleep… “One of the nicest people I've ever met,” she told him.

“I think that's the best compliment I've ever gotten,” he returned amiably, shifting slightly so that her head rested on one of his arms, using his other to move the blankets into a more comfortable nest around them.

“I'm glad you came to us,” she went on to explain. “I don't care what it was that made you have to come someplace as bad as this city, about who you used to know or be… I like you, I don't care what any of them thought.”

He seemed to tense at that and she looked up to see a sort of shock on his face before he pulled her tight against him in a hug. “That means a lot,” he whispered. “Thank-you.”

“You don't give yourself enough credit,” she dismissed, happy to be held. He'd held her this tight before but hadn't meant anything by it, and if that was the case now she wasn't going to pursue it, but you never knew, he might start something. Her heart was beating fast, she wondered if he could tell…

“I just… I like to help,” he said after a minute. “Part of it is that I want to make up for what I've done, but just… I remember how hard it always was growing up…. And I wish there'd been someone like me now to help things along. People as old as we are now never cared on my colony. I tried to look after my crew when I had one, but I was just a little kid, I didn't know how to take care of myself…” His chest was moving in a shuddering sort of way so she held tight to him for a few seconds to try to calm it. After a minute he calmed down and muttered, “And the Father took us in and it was all okay, but then after it all was burned down I was younger than Nolan, and there wasn't anybody that gave a shit about me… not until I broke into a Sweeper ship for food and they were all impressed that I'd pulled it off so they decided to keep me.”

“Yeah?” He was actually telling her about his past… She'd told him she wanted to know and he was actually telling her… She didn't know if she could be any happier right now.

Well, I could be, but that's beside the point.

“I don't remember any parents… don't even really remember Solo taking me into his crew, I was just told that he had at one point. All my early memories have him in them… Luc reminds me a lot of him, just the way he looks after everyone.”

“You do it too,” she pointed out, yawning. He was really warm… “It's one of the reasons you get on so well with Luc, you're two of a kind.”

“Mm, maybe.” He yawned too. “I just do what I can, you know?”

She just made an agreeing sort of noise. That was one of the things she liked so much about him, he was ready to give the shirt off his back without thinking he was really going that far out of his way. He was so self-assured, so confident in his own ability that it really wasn't a big deal to him, which only made it better. He was just… self-sufficient and he knew it. He did what he had to do in any given situation without any wayward considerations for pride. In that way, he reminded her of herself, the way she'd suddenly been separated from her little friends at school after her mother had died. Chaos understood what it was like to be the stable point, the anchor, in other people's lives. He did it all the time for anyone who wanted or needed it, the same way she did for Nolan and most the girls in the Devils. They were older than they really were…

She really hadn't planned on sleeping there, but she didn't exactly fight it when her eyes didn't want to stay open anymore.

***

Treize's hidden compound

Treize gently unrolled the negatives, holding them up to the light. He had a light box that he used sometimes, but he wasn't in his office right now, having strayed to a little nearby alcove. Being dead, and for such a long time, had the tendency to cause a severe case of cabin fever. His house arrest during the war had been nothing so remote as this, but all his efforts so far might crumble if he tried to move publicly. Chance was really such a fickle creature…

He wished he could get these developed, but at the same time he didn't like the idea of anyone recognizing who was in the photographs and then proceeding to wonder about who had gotten such casual pictures of Barton family members.

Playing dead really had to be the most frustrating time of his life. These were old, from 193; Leia hadn't sent anything during the war, and she must think him gone, now, so she would not have thought to try after Libra, and even if she had known better, she would have no way of getting anything else to him.

He didn't regret the beyond classic `accident' of his youth, only wished that he had known before Leia found him again in 188. She'd simply vanished… to show up three years later, introducing herself as if they were perfect strangers before meeting with him later during his stay on X-18999, bringing along the most darling toddler… and noting that Dekim would happily take the head of little Marie's father, if he was ever found.

Part of the desire to overtake the Alliance had been fueled by a want to gain enough influence for the Barton Foundation to have to bend to his will… But then two years before Operation Meteor had been attempted they had vanished again. He would have been able to take them if he had to in all the chaos of what they were now starting to call the Eve War, but all traces of his would-be family had just vanished… Just like Leia had disappeared because, as he later found out, her family realized she was pregnant and wanted to minimize the embarrassment instead of facing up to the fact that their daughter wasn't as naïve as they wished her to be.

He knew that it had been bad on more than one level, but… it just hadn't seemed to matter to either of them, and they had wanted to, so they did it… If he had known, he would have come forward and they would have handled it somehow.

He had never been able to decide if the version of history that would have rewritten would have been better or worse than what he had actually lived. Leia had made it clear that it would have meant the Khushrenadas mourned their young heir's death by a mobile suit malfunction, but… it could have worked out differently than that.

He had been tempted to send someone out hunting for them after the conflict really started, especially with all the evidence that the Bartons were behind Operation Meteor, but then Trowa Barton certainly hadn't been the person he had been expecting to give him a lead, and Zechs had been too concerned with his own issues… and becoming more closed to him by the day. Une had been undyingly faithful, but considering her obsession with him, trying to make her find his once lover and child probably would have broken the woman more than a simple reprimand had. Noin had been too wrapped up in Milliardo's business to call back out without alerting the man who might be twisting himself into an enemy… and anyone else he trusted as well had been so deep in their previously assigned projects that trying to pull them out, or redirecting their attention, would have been lethal.

And considering the original Operation Meteor plan that hadn't been executed, which he had learned of after his “death”, his lack of full search for the Barton daughter might have allayed Dekim's suspicions that he was the father, and been what kept the increasingly psychotic old man from using his own kin as hostage against certain actions OZ took against his empire. He was relatively sure that the man's suspicions were why he hadn't heard from Leia for those two years, with how thoroughly Dekim liked to control everything around him… Leia had grown into a careful woman, and she wouldn't risk exposure while she still lived under her father's thumb; the old style film instead of digital memory chips had been because it would take more effort to obtain the final result, and they were so easy to destroy.

But why can't I find her? There should be records, for both of them, somewhere… He didn't want to consider the most obvious possibility; surely Dekim was more drawn to keep his family close or safe, he had just tucked them away somewhere. He would have needed a reason to kill his own kin.

…It was so hard to tell features when they were turquoise and shades of brown. He couldn't afford to get the negatives developed now, though… and these were four years old, Mariemaia might look entirely different now… It wouldn't make a good picture to use for any kind of search…

He had been through these thoughts again and again for the past few years. He did have someone working on it now, but eighteen months of finding nothing didn't exactly inspire hope. It wasn't healthy to stare at the negatives, he knew, it wouldn't make the two in them be any more easily found, but memorizing names wasn't healthy either, and sometimes this all felt so hopeless that he needed something to keep driving him on… He had a drawerfull of pictures and negatives, locks of hair and little trinkets…

“Your Excellency? What are you looking at?”

“Evidence,” he told the man smoothly, rolling up the film and tucking it back into its container. “A different case than yours, don't worry.” He smiled at him. “What needs my attention, Lieutenant Colonel Sanchez?”

I would like to note that there are a great number of discrepancies in the manga Episode Zero and the Endless Waltz movie concerning the subject of Mariemaia. Instead of deciding that the creators of Gundam Wing made a typo here and there or had a really poor idea of the psychology/physicality of children, which is probably the true culprit, I decided to take what was in the show at actual value and came up with a convoluted family history that would work for the girl's existence.

Note that:

-Treize was 24 when the show starts.

-Episode Zero shows Treize and Leia Barton meeting in 188, when he, at least, is 17. If this was his and Leia's only meeting and a child resulted from something of a hot and heavy few nights in the hospital, which is the most popular theory, we start running into problems.

-Mariemaia looks like she's about to go into middle school in EW; this is a bit up to perspective, but I feel the need to note it.

-In EW, when the real Trowa Barton was showing the Trowa gundam pilot the picture of his sister and niece, Mariemaia, she's obviously somewhere between the ages of 3 and 6. However, the picture is dated “May 189”. This is where the questions start, because even if Treize and Leia were getting it on immediately after meeting, Mariemaia would have been born around that date. Even if we fall into the common movie mistake of forgetting that a pregnancy takes about a year, she could only be one, which is still far too young to match the picture.

-Therefore, running on the conclusion that Mariemaia was right in noting that genetic tests proved she was a Khushrenada, Leia and Treize met long before that day young “Heero” put Treize in the hospital. Assuming that she's as young as could be possible in that photograph, that still makes her two when Leia and Treize meet up in that hospital in 188, which means that Treize had to be fourteen when the girl was conceived, and Leia had to be in a situation where she's interested in that age group and would have some similar haunts as a fourteen-year-old soldier boy. This leads me to conclude that she was about the same age. This is all made insanely funnier and more plausible because to quote Mariemaia in EW “I'm told there is an adult world that children can't understand.”