Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Devil's Due ❯ - 11 - ( Chapter 11 )

— 11 —

October 24, A.C. 204.Base. 11am

“Wufei!”

Wufei half-groaned to himself as he stopped outside the canteen, looking skyward in resignation before turning to Danielle. He’d managed to avoid her the four days she’d been back from Italy. He’d been hoping he could keep it that way.

“Wufei!” Danielle repeated, closer this time.

Wufei turned to look at her.

She stopped just shy of him, studying his eyes…she opened her mouth like she’d speak…but changed her mind and stepped back, looking away.

“Hi, Danielle,” he muttered quietly.

“I hear your empath idea is catching on,” she said quietly.

He nodded slightly.

She looked back to him again and smiled a sad smile, then turned and walked away.

Wufei blinked after her, leaning against the wall behind himself as he looked to the sky again.

“Do you need me to say anything?” Quatre asked curiously from the far side of the door. He’d stopped when Wufei had.

“I don’t think so, no,” Wufei muttered, still studying the grey-clouds.

“Are you sure this is what you want to do?” Quatre pressed, watching the girl.

“No,” Wufei returned honestly, studying the clouds a moment longer…then turned back to the store.

Quatre noticed the girl looking back at him and stopped just long enough that she was sure to see he’d stopped…and followed his friend.

Maybe…if Wufei did find something with his research…Quatre could find someone for more than a night. It might be nice not to be alone anymore…but on the same hand, Wufei was showing wonderfully how that sort of thing could go awry.

So what would be worse? To never know and never have the chance…or to take the chance and know, then lose it?

That was definitely something to follow up on.

- -

October 24, A.C. 204.Base. 4pm

“I’m not really hungry,” Danielle muttered softly, stirring her drink with the straw Chai had provided her.

“You’re not really anything,” Riley noted. “What’s up? You’ve been withdrawn all day.”

“I saw Wufei,” she returned.

“Did you?” Jordan asked, startled. He’d realized right off that Wufei was avoiding the woman. Something about him saying she was coming over and Wufei making a very lame excuse and darting…he thought Wufei was making more an effort to stay away from her.

“Yeah,” she returned, still watching her drink.

“And?” Xane asked, leaning against the counter. His hair had already grown out enough that you could see a fair bit of roots. His body had also adjusted to the medication so he wasn’t exhausted constantly.

“And…nothing,” Danielle made a vague gesture with her left hand.

“Weren’t you going to talk to him?” Riley asked curiously.

“Yeah…”

“Oh,” Jordan noted, looking around a bit.

“Yeah,” she agreed again.

They all looked at him.

Jordan shrugged wordlessly, spreading his hands helplessly. He couldn’t say that Wufei didn’t want to get with the girl. That seemed beyond callous…especially since he could tell Wufei wasn’t entirely sure if he didn’t want to get with her.

“You didn’t tell me,” she noted, raising her eyes to his.

“You didn’t ask,” he agreed, studying hers. “Some things shouldn’t be said.”

She looked away.

“So put the big mean man aside,” Jordan suggested, “and let’s break out the Amber.”

“I shouldn’t drink,” Xane noted.

“No, just skip your next dose. You’re not healing or anything. You don’t have to take it on some regimented schedule.”

Xane studied him a moment, then looked to the girls. He looked back to his superior. “Let’s go sin.”

Jor grinned very slightly at that, then nodded. He turned to look around a moment, then raised his head slightly. “Baby? Wanna sin?”

“Sure, love,” Chai called back pleasantly from the garage. “But not with Mouthy.”

…even Danielle started giggling very hard at that.

Xane looked sidelong at his superior a moment, then smirked very slightly, raising his own voice. “You don’t even know what you’re missing…”

Chai’s laughter was wicked. “Nothing worth having comes easy.”

- -

November 4, A.C. 204. Base. 9am

Danielle was fairly eager for her next mission, and Jordan couldn’t entirely blame her for it. On top of that, Wufei all but disappeared from Jordan’s life because of her. He didn’t like that the pair wouldn’t be near each other, but he’d never had a normal break-up. He couldn’t judge how either really felt, and wasn’t intending to press the matter.

He had been intending to send Xane to Vietnam, but his hair wasn’t ready. The blond had all been sheered off, but it wasn’t out to a style by the time Jor’d been intending to send him. He conceded, finally, sending Danielle and Riley to Manoi. They worked well as a team, and he wouldn’t admit it for the world, but he didn’t like the idea of either of them being alone.

Once the girls were gone again, Wufei moved back into Jordan’s life with news of the lack of progress his study had made. He hadn’t expected instant results, but he’d been hoping.

Shin and Chip stayed more nights than not at the house with Chance, and Chip was put into the pre-school. Halloween came…and went without much happening.

With less than a month to go before his wedding, Chance lost anything resembling concentration, and was more often than not staring into the distance.

“Oi, moonlight,” Jordan muttered, nudging his friend under the table.

“Huh?” Chance focused on him, blinking. “What did you just call me?”

“Moonlight,” Jordan repeated with a grin. “Where were you?”

“Somewhere where vows were flying around my head in Japanese calligraphy,” Chance returned, shaking his head.

“Was it pretty?” Jor asked, grinning at him.

Chance grinned back and shook his head, focusing on his eggs, noticing they were cold. He sighed, prodding at the white substance before shaking his head and starting to eat it quickly.

“I was just going all over sending the girls to Vietnam and having Raul in Thailand,” Jor informed him. “You actually hear me?”

“I heard you,” Chance reassured him. “I wasn’t listening, but I did hear.”

Jor grinned at him.

“I’m sorry,” Chance added when he’d cleared is plate. “It’s just….”

“Two and a half weeks,” Jordan agreed with a smile. “You gonna make it?”

“We can hope,” Chance agreed, studying his friend. “How’d you make it?”

“I’m not sure,” Jordan noted, sipping from his coffee cup. “I think I went decaf, to start with…and I just repeated my vows to myself.”

“Should I write mine? Like…do the calligraphy?” the guy asked, thinking about it.

“I don’t remember if your calligraphy was any good,” Jordan shrugged. “Besides, the vows are what you say. If you actually do that, you’ll want them displayed.”

“Hm,” the guy agreed, mixing his hash browns together some more.

“I was researching the tests that have been done on the empaths since the phenomena started,” Jordan noted, spreading a thin layer of jelly over a piece of toast. “Back in the day they were a little wicked. They’d put them in confinement cells and shit to see if it helped them get back inside their own heads. That sent a few of’em even more schizo than they had been, so that stopped…and they’d do MRI’s of their heads and crap.”

“Did you find anything useful?” Chance asked, managing to focus on the topic.

“Not…really,” Jor shrugged. “There have been no conclusive studies. People run out of funding before they can get anything accomplished.”

“So we need to start looking into grants?” Chance asked, going over the ones he knew right off.

“Pretty much. We might even be able to submit to the government for it, since we’re doing it.”

“Not unless we get A-list scientists into it,” Chance negated, shaking his head as they met eyes. “If we want government funding we’ll have to make this a huge deal. Wufei is sincere about this, so he’s not gonna be able to handle that. A lot of those guys are worried about the money aspect. Until he finds someone he needs who is expensive we need to work on a lower level.”

Jordan nodded, considering that.

“Did you find anything for them to test on?”

“I found some stuff that was intended to be tried,” Jordan shrugged. “I printed out the test forms they had and a community thing of empaths willing to be studied.”

“That should make him happy.”

Jordan nodded, thinking about it.

“So what were you saying?” Chance muttered, picking up his own toast and stealing the remnants of jam from Jordan. “About Nam and Thailand?”

“Just noting that Raul isn’t getting anywhere on his end. I think his window is about to pass, but there’s not much to do about it…then I was noting to you that I’m really chauvinistic, even if I pretend not to be damn hard.”

Chance blinked at him.

“I can’t bear the thought of my girls alone,” he shrugged. “Xane, Raul, and Jude, sure, fine…but not Riley or Danielle.”

“How about your younglings?”

“I started with ten and lost three of them right off,” Jor made a face. “Then two more of them…then another. I’m down to four, and one of them isn’t making it.”

“Who is, then?”

“Brown, Moreau, and Zhou,” Jordan shrugged. “I think it’s shit that out of ten, only three can fly, but I think getting my five first-off set me up for a dive.”

“So are you going to start bringing them around the house? What’s the age range?”

“Nineteen, actually,” Jordan smirked. “All three are nineteen. I’m gonna have to tell Anderson today that he’s not in. I don’t think he’ll be too upset about it, he sorta wigged out when Riley and Danielle started telling the stories of the trust games.”

“Those aren’t games,” Chance retorted. “That’s entrapment…abuse…rape.”

Jordan gave him a look.

Chance rolled his eyes. “Your girl got shot, Jordan. Someone actually shot her…I had to get Mario to come gather her for you and your guys didn’t even let mine see where the hiding place was. If they can’t trust me, then who can they trust?”

“It was the parameters of the game,” Jordan brushed that aside, finishing off his coffee. “I needed them to think on their feet…it’s time for me to go, though. I’ll see you tonight, probably.”

“All right, bring the new toys,” Chance called after him, watching him go. When Jor’s car had pulled away, Chance shoved his plate away and sipped at his too cool coffee, making a face and rising.

It was so considerate of Jor to not bring him back to when his food was warm…

He grinned slightly to himself, and started for the register.

- -

November 4, A.C. 204. Base. 11am

“It’s more like this…” a guy muttered quietly to his companion, a notebook spread open on his lap. All over the lobby area of the M building, the people were sitting in small and quiet groups, muttering to each other.

Quatre wondered if Paris had ever joined them or not. Gina and Varia had the same sort of conference going on in their room. He would have joined, but he hadn’t been keeping his little diary. Fei wanted to study people he didn’t know to keep their mutual understandings from tainting the work.

Considering that most people were asking him how he saw the world anymore, he sort of wished he’d followed through on it.

“Hey,” Paris muttered happily, moving down the stairs with a can in hand. “You ready?”

Quatre nodded, rising from his seat, then followed his tall friend from the building to a few calls of farewell.

Out of all the things that had happened since Jordan had burst back onto the scene, Chai had to be the best and most useful. Her presence in Quatre’s life gave him a grounding-line so he could function…and that line was extending to Paris. Since they’d gotten used to her assistance, they’d both calmed down and settled in. Paris wasn’t anti-social anymore, and Quatre himself…hell, he’d stopping having to take the Prozac.

On top of that, everyone was convinced that Wufei and Morgan were their saviors. Every empath on the property believed, either openly or in secret, that the pair had what it took to make it all better.

Quatre wasn’t sure how that’d started, though. When Wufei had initially been looking for volunteers, he’d been hard-pressed to get Calvin. Of course, he’d won over Clinton Anjer…and Mikel Jamison, too. Clinton was backwards, even though Quatre didn’t like thinking it. The way he read emotions was completely opposite anyone else Quatre had come across. He didn’t like the perpetual flame that burned inside Wufei…just as an initial note, because Quatre himself believed Wufei would figure it out, too.

At any rate, Quatre followed Paris onto the path they took that would lead them to the house.

“You’re brooding, what’s up?” Paris muttered after a while.

“I’m just trying to decide what I really think of Wufei’s meddling.”

“He’s trying and he means it,” Paris noted. “What more do you need?”

“I’m not sure,” Quatre replied honestly. “You can trust to his intentions…all of you…but he’s my friend before my hope, so I look at this all differently.”

“He’s doing it for you,” Paris retorted, stopping to look at the blond.

“He’s doing it to help,” Quatre retorted.

“Yeah, you,” Paris considered his friend a moment. “He’s your friend before your hope, you look at it different. You see him trying to help and use your friendship as a resource. He’s doing this so you can walk down the street…”

“No more than you,” Quatre protested.

“He did mention that, yeah,” Paris agreed, amused. He started walking again. “As your friend, he does everything he can to help you out when you need him to, and the fact that you get overcome in his presence as often as you do drives it in more. He started this because of you.”

“It was because of you,” Quatre retorted. “It’s because you’re stronger than me and it takes so much to make a difference to you.”

Paris grinned at that, taking another drink from his can. “You gonna start a journal?”

Quatre sighed. That wasn’t capitulation, that was moving on. “Yes,” he admitted. “Everyone keeps asking me if they can read it.”

“It’s kinda fun,” Paris noted, looking up to him. “Mikel approached me because I guess Fei and Morgan reference me a lot…he showed me his so I showed him mine.”

Quatre snorted.

“No, it’s what you do,” Paris explained happily, turning to walk backwards. “I guess mine is really interesting, because a lot of people keep reading it and being all amazed.”

“You’re strong,” Quatre reminded him. “You probably see fine designs or something…mine’s not that special. I just see…balls…like a spark”

It was Paris’ turn to snort.

“They kinda move,” Quatre added, thinking about it more. “Yours is damn big.”

“Nothin’ modest about me,” Paris noted happily, stopping to look for traffic along the road they were on.

“Not even your ego,” Quatre agreed dryly.