Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ True North ❯ True North, Chapter 2 ( Chapter 2 )

True North

Chapter 2

Pairing: 2x1

Category: AU

Warnings: OC kid

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimers: Gundam Wing is copyright Bandai, Sunrise and Sotsu Agency. "The Eternal Rhapsody" is copyright Midori Saiha/Ringo Zaidan. "At Least I'm Known For Something" by New Found Glory.

Beta read by Diamroyal.

"Can I get out of the wheelchair now?"

Duo groaned. "We haven't even reached the parking lot. Are you sure you don't want to wait until we get to the car?"

Heero shook his head. "No, I want to try walking by myself." Today, he was finally leaving the hospital and going home. He still had to go back in a few days for another IV treatment, and there were at least three bottles of pills that he had to take daily, but he was going home, and that was the important part.

"All right." Duo stopped the wheelchair and came around, holding his arms out. "Take my hands." When Heero didn't move, Duo thrust them further out. "C'mon. You can walk, but at least let me help you out."

Heero reluctantly took both of Duo's wrists, and hoisted himself up. The first few steps were uncertain; he tottered and nearly fell into Duo's chest, but soon, he got it and was walking by himself, if slowly. The gene therapy had been taxing, as Duo had warned, and he didn't have the strength to walk around the hospital floors while trailing the stupid IV pole behind him.

At least the hard part was over; he still felt under the weather, but it was much better than hunkering over the toilet at least three times a day, vomiting whatever he'd managed to eat. One invaluable lesson he'd learned; hospital food was a lot nastier going /up/ than it was the normal way. The delirium hadn't been at all welcome, first the crazy energy surges followed by extreme sleepiness, and the particularly vivid hallucinations. He'd woken up from one episode only to find a frightened, wide-eyed Moira peering out from behind Duo while clutching tightly to his lab coat.

No, Heero wasn't going to miss the hallucinations very much.

The first thing he'd have to do once he had more strength was to get some clothes that /fit/ him. Right now, he was borrowing an old gray sweatshirt and black track pants from Duo. The sneakers he had on were a size too large and they made an annoying shuffling sound whenever he moved. Duo's clothes were also too big; they'd had to roll up the sleeves and pant legs before they left the hospital room at least five times before there wasn't any risk of Heero tripping over himself. But they'd do for now, at least until Moira's graduation ceremony. Then he'd have to find a good button-down shirt and dress pants.

The car wasn't parked very far; Duo had been lucky today, apparently, and soon they were both inside, driving back home, the white blocky hospital growing smaller and smaller in the side mirror.

"You hungry?" Duo asked, flipping on his turn signal.

"No. Why?"

"It's almost dinnertime, and if you want, I can ask Moira to set another place at the table. She's been home since noon because today was her last exam."

"I see," Heero said. "No, don't bother, my appetite still isn't there."

Duo made an understanding noise. "All right. I'll ask Moira to set something aside for you anyway. I'd like you to get something down tonight, okay? You're not vomiting anymore, are you?"

"No."

"Good. No nausea?"

"Duo, I'm fine!" Heero snapped. "Stop fussing, will you? I'll eat when I feel like it."

Duo sighed. "Look," he said, "you need to get some nutrients in there. You'll recover faster that way. I know your appetite isn't much, but try to eat something, or you'll die of starvation before you even recover."

"Fine," Heero snorted, turning his head to stare out the window. They drove the rest of the way home quietly.

***

The tomatoes slid out of the can, red pulpy things whose skins came off when Moira prodded them with her spoon at the bottom of the pot. Today she was cooking pasta; they hadn't had it for a long time, and she figured it was about time she fixed that.

"...'cause I'm best known for failure, best known for giving up, there's nothing that I can say that could matter..." she sang along with the music coming out of the Seashell in her right ear. Since it was the very last day of school before her graduation, she felt like it was a `punk' day, and New Found Glory always got her moving. Who cared if they were ancient? Most of today's music was a crapfest anyway, with the exception of The Shippers, Sara Campbell, and Nick Watanabe Harris.

She poured some cream into the waiting pot on the stove, stirred it until it all mixed well and then pressed the "LOW/WARM" setting on the LCD panel. While the sauce cooked, she filled a larger pot with water, threw in some salt and put it on the burner next to the sauce, pressing "HIGH". It'd take a while for the water to boil, so until she could add the pasta, she danced along the kitchen floor, pretending to be the lead singer with the wooden spoon as a microphone.

"Let's get down to business now, I'm saving myself the trouble in the end..." she shouted, jumping up and down to the beat of the guitar riffs. She /almost/ had this song down, just some more practicing and she'd have it cold.

Singing and dancing in front of the stove started when she was thirteen, when she'd gotten the Seashell that was worn on only one ear instead of two, along with a copy of the latest Bambi Bouquet mp3 stick. While Moira hated Bambi with the passion of a million fiery white-hot suns, she would have surgically bolted the Seashell to her ear if it was at all possible.

Her favorite part was coming up, and she took a deep breath, squeezing the wooden spoon so hard splinters were about to dig into her palms.

"I'm! The! One! To! Blame! For! It! Yes! I'm! The one! To blaaame!" she yelled, in a voice so loud she felt her vocal cords rupturing.

"To blame for /what/?"

Moira whirled around, seeing Dad standing in the doorway with his hands on his hips, trying unsuccessfully to suppress a grin. She screamed.

"W-when did you get back!?" she stammered. "H-how much did you see?"

Dad held an invisible spoon in his hands, pretending to sing while swinging his hips from to side to side. "I saw /that/," he said. "Anyway, not too loud. I just drove Papa here and he's going upstairs to rest."

Moira retied her apron strings. "Um, okay, got that. And I do /not/ swivel my hips like that," she muttered.

"Yes you do," Dad said. "The first boy you take home gets to see a picture of you dancing with a sheep apron over your capri pants," he said slyly, "right after the embarrassing fairy video."

She growled. "You wouldn't." Dad shrugged his shoulders.

"There's something boiling on the stove. Better check it," he said. Moira shrieked, running over. The pot for the pasta was about to bubble over the edge, and she hurriedly poured in some extra water, allowing herself a small "phew!" as the foam subsided.

"Should I cook some for Papa?" she asked. Dad nodded.

"He's not gonna eat now, but I'll make sure he does tonight. After I show him the school photo where you tried to cut a heart into your bangs."

"Get out of the kitchen!" Moira yelled, swinging a bare foot at Dad's retreating leg. Assuming the sauce didn't burn while she dumped in the pasta and stirred it, dinner would be ready within fifteen minutes.

***

The keypad beeped softly as Duo punched in the code for the shower: hot water, full strength, from the shower head only. Hopefully this time he didn't accidentally pick up Moira's shampoo; when he did that, Professor G had made some comments about how he'd thought there was a cheerleader in the room until Duo sat next to him at a meeting. Personally, he didn't think lavender jasmine shampoo was all that strong, and at least Moira didn't have that godawful stuff with glitter.

As the water poured down on him, Duo realized that he'd need to take some time to guide Heero around the house. In Heero's time, they didn't have controls for the shower nor the laundry machines. The sinks and toilets still worked the same way, with sensors, and were really only more streamlined.

And that was just the plumbing.

The computers, for example, were now thinner, probably no thicker than a few sheets of paper. The newest laptops now could be folded down, then over twice until they were the size of a deck of cards. Moira was getting one for a graduation present. It made sense, since she'd use it for years, and she was pretty damn good with doing upgrades on her own.

He picked up the shampoo (the right one this time, he could tell by the gold label) and lathered it up in his hands. One advantage of having shorter hair was that it took less shampoo to clean. Duo had cut his hair after going back to his own time with the baby in tow, because the braid had reminded him too much of Heero. He'd always liked Duo's hair, though he'd been hard-pressed to admit it, especially when the damn braid had knocked over a beaker. Now, Duo didn't know whether or not to start braiding his hair again, but he'd gotten used to the ponytail, and it was a lot easier, though he could pick up braiding easily if he wanted to.

After all, he taught Moira to braid her own hair as soon as it got long enough. That hadn't been too long ago, maybe when she was eight or nine.

There was a knock on the door when he was rinsing off the conditioner.

"Dad, time to eat," Moira said from behind the bathroom door.

"Wow, didn't know you were that quick, kiddo. Look, I'll be down in about five, let me get some clothes on. Oh, and Moira?" he asked, stepping out of the shower.

"Yeah?"

Duo grabbed a towel and started drying his hair. "Would you mind showing Papa around the house sometime this week? You know, getting him familiar with the appliances and all that?" She and Heero hadn't gotten off to a good start, he thought, and now that Heero was recovering more from the gene therapy, hopefully they could start over again.

There was a long pause, and then, a hesitant "okay," from Moira before he heard her walking down the stairs.

"Thanks, sweetie," he called out.

***

Everything in this house was new. New furniture in the dining and living rooms, new light fixtures that were built into the house so that there were no lamps at all, and the plants outside in the garden-the ones that Heero recognized, at least-had grown taller and thicker.

The carpeting was the same beige color he'd seen last time, but it was softer, even though Duo said that they'd have to actually /try/ if they wanted to stain it. Moira had happily demonstrated this earlier by taking a glass of juice and dumping it on the stairs. After she'd wiped it up, it was like she'd never spilled anything in the first place.

The mop, he didn't like so much. Moira had yanked him out of the way before this shin-high machine rolled in, spraying water within a half a meter's radius before proceeding to cover the area with a thick layer of foam. Then it mopped everything up in a widening circle, and smoothly rolled back out.

Now, Moira bent over the dishwasher, pulling out a plate. "Here, check this out," she said, passing it to Heero. The white china was now spotless, gleaming in the sunlight.

"That's all sonic waves at work there," she continued. "No water, no soap. I've never used those to clean dishes before, but Nana says that they're not as effective anyway."

"How long does it take to clean?" Heero asked. "An hour?"

Moira snorted, taking the dish and putting it in the cupboard. "Not even. Fifteen minutes. Put the dishes in, press the button, and that's it. Come on, I'll show you how the TV works," she said, walking briskly to the living room. The TV itself hung on the wall like a painting-that was nothing new-but when Heero was about to ask where the remote control was, Moira shook her head, smirking, and snapped her fingers.

The TV switched on automatically.

"It's keyed to our movements," Moira explained smoothly, ignoring his surprised expression. "Snapping your fingers turns it on. Snapping twice turns it off. Now, this is how you change channels."

She turned to face the screen. For a few seconds, she didn't look like she was doing anything except blinking randomly. But then the current channel, a news program, changed to a kids' show where brightly colored things danced about in the grass.

"You blink if you want to change the channel. It works like a remote control in that you don't blink fifty-six times to get, oh, channel fifty-six. What you do is you blink five times," she demonstrated this, closing and opening her eyes deliberately, "then you pause for a second, and then blink six times. That's five-six."

"It's different if you want to scan or change the volume," she continued. "For scanning channels, you look from side to side. To go up, you move your eyes to the right, like this. And then, to go down, you move to the left. Volume is the same way, except you move your eyes up and down." She cocked her head at Heero, a few strands of loose hair falling over one side of her face. "You think you can try it now?"

He nodded, moving to stand in front of the screen. Assuming the channels hadn't changed on him, forty-two should work. It was a documentary station, one that Duo had dismissed as dry and boring as all hell. That hadn't stopped him from plopping down on the couch whenever Heero had been watching it.

He blinked rapidly four times, paused, and then blinked twice. The brightly colored dancing things disappeared, only to be replaced with loud moans and a naked woman writhing on a bed.

"Yes, yes, yesss...keep doing that, keep doing that, don't stop," she panted. "I can't believe it feels so good, don't stop..."

Heero heard a strangled giggle to his right, and he glanced over. Moira was bent over double, holding a hand over her mouth, shaking with laughter.

"What? This isn't funny!" he said.

She shook her head, snapping her fingers twice. The screen went black, and she straightened up, smoothing her T-shirt over her stomach.

"Show me how you blinked at the TV," she said, still giggling. He blinked the channel at her, and she clucked her tongue.

"You blinked /way/ too fast," she said, now without laughing. "It has to be a complete movement for it to read properly. Guess the TV didn't pick up some of those blinks, because normally forty-two's Documentary Central. Dad loves it to death."

"He does?"

"Oh, totally. If it's not CNN, it's that. C'mon," Moira said, walking briskly ahead, "there's the bathroom stuff to show you too."

***

The weather outside was /fantastic/. It was currently seventy-five degrees out, with miles of pure blue sky. Moira checked the clock on her cell phone. She had about twenty minutes before Amy came to pick her up to get their graduation robes.

Hanging out on the roof seemed like a perfect way to kill time. Besides, she could say hi to Amy before she rang the doorbell. She pushed the window in her room open, grabbing her sneakers in her other hand. The shingles could be hot, and she didn't want to burn her feet. Then she climbed outside.

She pulled on her sneakers, tying double knots in the laces so that they wouldn't come undone, because tripping on this roof and falling down was not her idea of fun.

"Wow," she murmured in awe, standing up. The leaves on the trees had long unfurled, so now below the sky was a lacy canopy of green. It wasn't really good as seeing it from the school roof, which was taller, but it was still pretty neat. She'd been up here for years and still felt thrilled about seeing everything from a higher place. It looked so different.

Different. Like how things were now.

One, Moira had a /summer/ to look forward to. The last time she had summer was when she was eleven. Just thinking about it made her so giddy and bouncy that Audrey had to punch her in the shoulder during class to stop. But it was so exciting to think about getting to sleep in late and have nothing to do for a month and a half! It meant more hanging out with Amy, Audrey and Gwen on things that weren't related to studying, more time to take pictures with the digital camera she got from Nana for Christmas, and more time to putter around on the roof, from just doing stuff on the laptop to taking out the guitar and playing until she felt like her fingers were falling off.

This was good because once she started going to Blair Institute, she didn't think she'd be really able to do all of those things. Maybe the guitar, because it was a good excuse to unwind between studying, but the camera would have to sit for a while. Hell, she needed to spend more time with Amy and Gwen, because they'd be going to different schools this fall-both in the colonies-and they'd only be able to see each other online.

Moira wasn't that scared of going to college. At least this time she looked more like an adult-when she'd gotten into high school, anyone could tell she was a kid, which sucked. Hopefully this time she could blend in age-wise.

Another thing she could do this summer was try and get to know Papa. She walked further on the rooftop quietly and peeked into Dad's window. The bed looked empty, so either Papa conked out on the couch after she'd shown him around or he was somewhere else in the house.

<I hope he's not upset about the whole TV thing,> she thought. <I /really/ didn't mean to laugh when he got the porn, but I couldn't help it.> Still, just thinking about his expression had her giggling again. The whole thing with him wasn't going too smoothly, and she needed to fix that. But he was so hard to get used to; the expectations she'd had didn't fit whatsoever.

She'd asked Nana and Dad two questions when she was little: one, if Papa would know what she looked like, and two, if Papa loved her. The answers were always yes and yes, no matter how many times she asked. Finally, Dad had told her that Papa loved her /very/ much, which put the whole thing to rest. So when Papa came here, at least he knew what she looked like, though he said that she'd looked retarded when she gaped, but she didn't think he liked her. Granted, he'd been loopy thanks to coming out of what amounted to six decades of sleep, but he'd been home for about a week and she thought he'd have shown some signs of interest in what his kid had been up to.

Dad told her to be patient, that Papa was still adjusting to being sixty-four to sixty-five years down from his own time, and that things would fall into place sooner or later. All Moira could tell was that he didn't really try to know her, and there were a few times where he seemed all out irritated with her.

It was beginning to frustrate her tremendously. /She/ was willing, in fact, she /wanted/ to know everything about him, now that he was here and not in the picture on her desk, and there wasn't much on the other end.

Unfortunately, she couldn't do much about it right now. Not only was Papa recovering from his illness, there was the graduation ceremony to worry about. This year, they'd decided to let the students have charge of part of the commencement, so what happened was that they'd elected her, along with Steve Barlow, to speak at the beginning. She had a vague outline of the speech written down, but there were only a few days left; today was Thursday, and the graduation ceremony was the following Tuesday.

The window to her left whisked open, making her jump.

"What are you doing up there?" Papa asked. Moira gulped; he didn't look happy.

"Uh...just chillin' on the roof. I do it all the time," she said, trying to sound as casual as possible. "It's a lot of fun. You can see a ton of stuff from up-"

Papa cut her off. "Get down. Now."

"It's not dangerous or anything," she explained. "Unless you walk up to the edge on /purpose/, it's pretty safe up here. C'mon, I'll show you," she said, reaching out to him.

"No. Get /down/," he said, this time beginning to sound really pissed off. Moira put her hands on her hips, and opened her mouth to tell him that he didn't have the slightest idea of what he was talking about when she heard Amy pull up onto their driveway and honk twice.

"Well, I'm getting down /now/, happy?" she grumbled. Papa snorted and turned away from the window. Moira crawled into her room and headed downstairs and out, where Amy was waiting.

"Hey," Amy said, checking her rearview mirror, "on the roof again, huh?"

"Yeah." Moira slid in, buckling her seat belt. "God, I hope getting our robes doesn't take too long."

Amy shook her head, making her blonde hair swing from side to side. "Shouldn't. Check the back for me, will you? I'm about to pull out." When Moira didn't say anything, Amy turned to her. "You okay? You're real quiet."

"Uh...yeah. Just a little argument with the folks," she replied absently. "Someone's a little upset about me being up on the roof."

Amy guffawed. "Jeez, you've been doing that since /forever/. Kinda late for your dad to be doing that now."

"Eh, not Dad, but I hope it blows over." Moira stared out the window, trying to forget the last few minutes ever happened. After all, she had that speech to work on, and she didn't want it to sound /too/ pissy.

***

Dinner that night was not too comfortable for anyone. It had started out fine, but when Moira brought up getting her graduation robes for the ceremony, that was when Heero put down his fork and asked Duo about their daughter spending her time up on the roof.

"Well, I never had a problem with it," Duo said, pausing to take a bite of salad. "It's not like she's tried to walk off the edge on purpose."

"That's still not safe. What if she slips?" Heero asked. Moira rolled her eyes, sipping her water and shoving a forkful of fish into her mouth.

"The shingles are rough. Besides, they have labs in summer where they go out at night to hang out on the school roof. There's no point in freaking out over her staying on the roof here when she spends time on one that's two stories higher." Duo shrugged, mopping up the sauce on his plate with bread.

Moira exhaled loudly after swallowing her fish. "So I got my graduation robes today, and I tried them on, and they're /so/ long. Like, /really/ long. They reach the floor on me and I think I could trip. But the cap fits okay and the tassel's all perky and cute and I even got a special ribbon to wear around my neck because I'm speaking at the ceremony and of /course/ I got the special silver cord because I got good grades and-"

"Don't change the subject." Heero's words were sharp and abrupt, accompanied by a nasty glare aimed at the younger girl.

"Fine," Moira snapped. "Don't talk about me like I'm not here, then. Especially when I can see and hear you perfectly." Her lip was curling into a sneer and Duo could see one of her eyebrows slightly twitching.

But before he could warn her to cut the smartass act, she got up from her seat, picking up her fork and knife and putting them on her empty plate.

"I'd like to be excused," she said. "I need to work more on my speech. If you want, I'll be back down to do the dishes." She left the table before Duo could say yes, her hair trailing behind her as she walked.

He waited for Heero to finish eating before leaning back in his chair and saying, "Looks like you're hitting some rough spots with each other."

Heero stood up and starting clearing the table. "She shouldn't be on the roof," he insisted. "I was in the bathroom and then I saw her walking up there, and she acted nonchalant about it. Like I was making a big fuss over nothing." He reached for Duo's plate. "I don't know. She's so...different."

"She's not a baby anymore. When they put you in coldsleep, she was only six or seven months old, remember?" Duo got up and circled his arms around Heero's shoulders and burrowing his chin into the dark, silky hair. "Give it time," he whispered. "I can talk to her, but you've got to be patient. She adores you, okay? I'm not lying here."

He felt Heero nod, after a moment's hesitation. Duo smiled, tightening his arms around the other man briefly.

"It'll all work out. You'll see." He kissed the top of Heero's head and then released him. "/I'll/ take the dishes. You go and rest."

***

Moira groaned; even with shoes on, the purple graduation robe still dragged on the floor. Everyone else's hung at least six inches above the ground. This wasn't fair; even Ella over there was just as tall as she was and hers wasn't dragging. But then again, Ella had huge boobs.

"When are we going to go in?" she asked Audrey, who was standing next to her.

"They said any time now," Audrey replied, "which means not in the next five minutes. I want to go now and get this over with, man. At least I'm not you, you're the last one to go in." She grinned down at Moira.

"Shut up," Moira grumbled. She'd spent last night trying to memorize her speech so that she didn't have to look at her notes all the time while she spoke to the audience. Now, where the hell was Steve? They were supposed to go in together for the ceremony. He said that he was going to go to the bathroom for a bit, but that was about twenty minutes ago.

Now that the speech was less than an hour away, she was as nervous as hell. That was really weird for her; she normally didn't have any problems talking in front of anybody. But now her stomach was doing jumping jacks inside.

<I guess it would have been different if it was just Dad and Nana,> she thought. Now that Papa was here, she felt like she couldn't screw this up. If it had been Dad and Nana only, she could have forgotten everything in her speech, and in the end it would be okay. They'd laugh, and it'd be fine, once she knew she could live it down. But Papa didn't look like the type to laugh at all. Right now Moira was wondering if he even had a sense of humor to begin with. There /had/ to be, if he could smile like that in the picture by her bed.

That was the problem. The thing was that people that /didn't/ have a sense of humor couldn't smile like that, and at least from what she'd heard from Nana and Dad, she thought Papa would have found something funny or at least seemed more amiable. But it seemed like his face only had two modes: stony or pissed. Granted, he was still gaining back some strength from his stint in the hospital, but honestly, she was wondering if that picture she had was just a really rare thing going on.

Moira heard the strains of "Pomp and Circumstance" beginning, and looked around furiously, wondering if Steve decided to lock himself in the bathroom on purpose just to embarrass her.

"Steve isn't here yet?" Audrey asked. "Tough, girl. Good luck on your speech, maybe he'll show up on time." She gave Moira a quick hug, taking off her cap and ruffling her hair. "I gotta go get into alphabetical order with the rest of `em. See ya around."

"Great. Terrific." Moira shuffled her notes around, going over her speech one last time. Her classmates were disappearing quickly into the auditorium. They had at least two hundred graduating, right? And Steve /still/ was nowhere to be seen.

"Come on, come on..." She started bouncing up and down, watching the numbers dwindle to fifty, then thirty, then ten. Their cue was coming up fast, and now the usher was looking at her, mouthing, "where is he?"

Moira shrugged helplessly. "Good Lord above, I beg of you, strike me down where I stand," she whimpered.

"Not today, babe." She whirled around, seeing Steve walking casually to the entrance.

"What the hell is wrong with you? We just...oh, there goes our cue. /Terrific/," she said.

"Dude, it wasn't my fault! I got lost on my way to the bathroom and on the way back."

"Save it, Barlow," Moira snapped, "we're /late/." She gathered up the folds of the purple robe in both hands and started running down the aisle, ignoring Steve's plea to wait.

<Get to the podium, get to the podium, get to the podium /now/.> Her classmates were a huge blur of purple, white, and silver all around. She'd been pretty fast, but at this point, she might just make it before the music ended, with a few seconds to catch her breath.

"Oof!" Moira hit the ground hard, flat on her face. Head spinning, she slowly rose to her knees. Her palm was stinging, and her ankle didn't feel too good either. And she was only halfway to the podium.

She felt someone lifting her arm. "Tsk tsk, Maxwell," Steve said, "Running isn't a good idea for short kids and long robes, don't ya know." Before she could protest, Moira felt another arm around her knees, and they were running the rest of the way up to the podium. The music had already finished.

She didn't want to look up into the audience to see where her family was. The scenarios she had in her head were bad enough, and she was swaying from side to side, looking out over a sea of giggling classmates, and trying to figure out what, exactly, were the closing remarks of her speech.

"Well, we sure can say these four years have been a trip, eh?" Steve shouted into the microphone, setting Moira down on her feet like she was a toddler being shooed out to play.

"I'm going to get you for this," she hissed to Steve. Then she turned to the audience, straightened her robes, and batted the tassel out of the way. At least the speech was going to be good.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen..."