Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Devil's Due ❯ - 23 - ( Chapter 23 )

— 23 —

December 6, A.C. 204. Base. 3pm

"Mm," Bradley Wilkon muttered, trying to sip more of his drink. "It's too hot, but I want more..."

Chai gave him an amused sort of look, going back to the cups in front of her.

"It's ready!" Quatre called happily into the living room.

"You may want to stir that," Jordan suggested, following Quatre into the room. "Why are you in my kitchen?"

"I knocked on the door and the pretty lady told me to follow her," the man returned, grinning at him.

"Chai, we talked about strays," Jordan admonished seriously.

"He doesn't look like he has fleas," she returned.

Bradley choked hard on that, covering his mouth and looking between them as Jordan grinned wickedly at him.

"Don't mind them, they'd do that to a visiting reigning monarch if that person somehow ended up here," Quatre reassured him. "The fact that you're our reigning monarch..."

"I'm not a monarch," the man protested. "Presidency and monarchy..."

Quatre waved it away with a smile, taking his cup from Chai. "Thank you."

"What he means to say is that you're human in our house," Chai noted, smiling at the man. "And we mean no harm."

"She told me we had to take my girls to the vet," Jordan agreed.

"You...have children?" the man asked, blinking at him.

"Only in a manner of speaking," he returned with a smile. "When I say my girls, I'm referring to Riley Mae and Danielle Duvall...in the not so distant future, Simone Moreau will be added to the list."

"Is she a new recruit then?" Wilkon asked curiously.

"Yes, nineteen year old spitfire," he agreed.

"A wonderful actress, too," Chai agreed, passing a cup to Chance. "Did she tell you what she did to Chance while you were gone?"

Chance focused on her sharply as Bradley looked between them.

"She said she was being his assistant," Jordan noted. "Why?"

"Because she also, uh..." Chai's eyes sparkled as she looked to the man in question. "Well, Danielle came in muttering about Chance trying to get rid of her, and she put on a show of being all upset. She got Chance to take his meds with water to appease her, and Quatre was all over trying to reassure her that Chance was just in a bad mood."

And that explained what Chance had been muttering about.

"What?" Chance protested. "She was acting?"

"Oh yeah," Chai returned with a grin, looking to her husband again. "She had them all convinced."

"How do you know it wasn't sincere?" Chance protested.

"I was fairly sure to begin with, because Jor has noted he takes my observations seriously, and then she came here the next day briefly to ask if she'd laid it on too thick."

Chance was staring at her in horror.

"Do we..." Raul was saying as he moved through the front door.

"Proper respect in front of your leaders," Jordan snapped at him instantly in German.

Raul fell immediately silent.

"Are we late?" Trowa asked curiously.

"You're still following him around?" Quatre asked Trowa.

"We went out for lunch," Trowa protested. "What do you mean, following?"

Jordan flashed the president a brief grin.

"Oh...are we late?" Danielle asked nervously as she followed the others. "We're not late, are we? I told Rile to hurry..." she trailed off, then moved into the kitchen with very wide eyes to stare at the president.

"Proper respect in front of your leaders," Jordan prompted her gently in Italian.

Danielle saluted the man, instantly going to attention.

"What are you telling them?" Bradley asked curiously, rising to his feet.

Riley and Raul moved around Danielle to salute the man as well.

"This is first lieutenant Danielle Duvall," Jordan noted happily. "First lieutenant Riley Mae, and first lieutenant Raul Jaem. Ladies, this is your president."

"It's an honor," Riley and Danielle said quietly almost in unison, both ducking their heads respectfully.

"Mr. President," Raul greeted.

"I thought you were all colonels," the man muttered, frowning at them.

"As part of General Maxwell's team, we hold more rank than our given status," Riley noted quietly. "Colonels give us curious looks when we start throwing them orders, but anyone below that tends to obey."

"Ah," the man smiled and moved forward to offer his hand. "I'm happy to meet you."

"Thank you, sir."

The meeting continued in that same vein for a while as the man asked them random seeming questions. Considering that having the president in the kitchen didn't mean too much to the other pilots, they flicked the television onto children's shows when Chip entered the house, and the little boy then started muttering to his father about this cute kitten he'd seen that he wanted to get for his mother. He was being as persuasive as he knew how, throwing in hints that he'd be more than willing to help Shin take care of the creature.

Jordan wondered if Shin realized she could do whatever she wanted in that aspect, too...did Chai? Chai muttered about puppies occasionally...

"Jordan," Chai smacked his rear lightly as she passed and he focused instantly back on the conversation.

"Who are the two missing?" Bradley asked Jor in a slightly louder tone.

Um... Oh.

"Xane Featihl, my second, and Judas Ifhera. We're working on the smuggling ring out of Chile."

"The one that seems to have snatched up our mecha?" the man asked, focusing on him sharply. "Any progress?"

"We have a cache," Jordan shrugged. "There are men working on tracing it back, but we're still not entirely sure the ring really started in Chile."

The man nodded, looking to the trio in front of him.

"It was Danielle who procured the cache," Jordan noted happily. "With Riley at her side...actually, they had something of a misadventure at the end of last week."

"I'd heard you ran off to Vietnam," the man noted, smiling slightly. "I was wondering what for."

"Unfortunately, I haven't been in my post long enough to let these dangers stand. They came in fine on their own, but I couldn't bear all the ‘what if's," he made air quotes.

Bradley nodded his understanding.

"All right," Wufei said quietly as the front door opened.

"Hi, Chai," Simone said quietly.

"Hey," Chai returned.

"In here," Jordan called.

Bradley gave him an interested look.

"My new recruits," Jordan explained.

Simone, flanked by Max and Trent, moved around the older three to salute their leader...and then the president.

Jordan was startled by that.

"Simone Moreau," she noted, smiling at him and nodding her head once.

"Maximilian Zhou," Max noted, nodding himself.

"Trent Brown," Trent agreed. "It's an honor to meet you, sir."

The three saluted again.

"Over achievers," Raul teased.

Max flashed him a grin.

"Hello," the president muttered, moving to shake their hands. "I hear you're the next generation of hellions."

Simone smiled an almost angelic smile at that.

...Jordan...really liked his crew. He really did.

- -

December 22, A.C. 204. Berlin, Germany. 2pm

Judas wasn't entirely sure it was such a great idea, but Jordan had insisted, and once Jordan had insisted, there was no point in arguing.

They were going home for Christmas.

"I still can't believe you're bailing on us," Alek grumbled at him as they neared the gates. "Man, it's Christmas..."

"I told you," Judas returned, "I've had this planned for ages now. I'll be back before you even realize I'm gone."

"I guess," Alek muttered, shaking his head to express his disappointment before pulling Judas in and bumping his shoulder. "It's gonna get damn boring around here without you."

"You dealt before I showed up," Jude reminded him easily. "You can deal with a couple weeks."

"Yeah, yeah," Alek shook his head, then gestured slightly with it. "Happy Christmas."

Judas winked as he started to walk away.

"You better bring me something," Kiel informed him, pulling him into a brief hug. "And it better be special."

"Yes, dear," Judas retorted.

Kiel flashed him a grin with rolled eyes, then followed after the other.

"Happy Christmas," Victor noted, shaking his hand and bumping his shoulder as well. "Don't let them bother you. Alek can't really go home to his family, you know? Some fucked up shit a couple years ago and he got damn drunk. They don't want him around for the holidays, but we do, you know?"

Judas nodded his acceptance of that, though he'd gathered as much since they'd met. Actually, Aleksander wanted his family, or a family. It was part of why he worked for Brantley. Judas also knew that since he'd said he was going home for the holidays, Alek had been getting progressively more clingy toward him.

Victor winked at him and moved after Kiel.

"You watch yourself," Rasmus suggested. "We have more enemies than friends, you know?" He hugged Judas briefly. "Call and let us know when you've landed?"

"I'll tell you I'll try," Judas returned with a grin. "I have a couple little sisters who're apt to keep me running from the moment I get off the plane to the moment I bolt back onto it."

The man grinned at that, patting his back. "You might call Alek."

"Yeah," Judas agreed, smiling more as he backed up some. "I'll call him when I get in and then on Christmas day...try not to let him drink himself into oblivion."

"As long as you don't actually call too often it should be fine. You know how he is. Later, Dead."

"Later, Ras," Judas returned quietly, watching him walk away. He sighed when the guy was out of sight and moved across the room to sit on a bench. He was taking a small hop flight from Berlin to Hamburg, and from there back to the base. He'd call during his layover, and then set his clock to remind him a good hour to call on Christmas day.

He shook his head, running his hands through his hair.

At least he wasn't the only one with the problem. Mouthy had to be fairly entrenched in China by this point.

It'd be nice to be home and surrounded by English again, and it'd be nice to be with his team...and Jor...shit, his other friends.

He grinned slightly to himself. It was funny how priorities shifted after saving someone's ass and being saved while mired down in hell.

- -

December 23, A.C. 204. Fuzhou, China. 1am

Xane curled down into his chair as plane hit flight altitude, staring out the window at the vast amount of darkness he could see.

It was all well and good to be going home for Christmas, but he was going to be arriving in California at about two in the morning...in like...an hour.

He grinned slightly at that. He wanted to be properly tired at two in the morning, but it was one in the morning and he was damn tired.

There was no real way around it, he needed to sleep now, and try to sleep again when he got home. Maybe if he only napped he could stay up the remainder of the flight. His laptop was charged so he could work more on the discs Jordan had given him...

That was a pleasant thought...Jordan...but it was fairly quickly followed by the fact that James wasn't in the picture anymore. He wouldn't have to lie and sneak around, sure, but...he wouldn't get to see the guy, either.

Maybe James had gone home for Christmas. The breakup was a hundred times different back in the states than it was when he was in China. In China his reality was mafia play-time and one-night stands...at base it was a breakup.

How depressing.

Xane sank even lower in his seat, considering the melancholy attached to the thoughts, then changed focus back to Jordan. Not only Jordan, though. Judas, and Raul, Danielle, and Riley...and then Chai and Chance and Wufei...hell, he'd have to spend Christmas with his actual family, but that wasn't so terrible, was it?

He missed his mom. It wasn't like he could keep in regular contact with her when he was playing toy for a bunch of Chinese rich boys.

He yawned, sinking lower in his seat still. He was curled into something of a ball, and very glad no one was sitting next to him. He probably looked weird, and he was taking up more than his fair share of the second seat.

"Sir?" a woman's voice came softly.

Xane turned to look. She was offering him a pillow and blanket. "Oh, thank you," he said, smiling at her and taking the pillow.

"I hate it sometimes," she confided in quiet Chinese. "I see so many people from so many walks of life that I can't tell who would understand me and who wouldn't. My English is horrible."

Xane smiled at that, allowing her to tuck the blanket around him. "It can be hard," he agreed. "It's even harder when you don't know the local language and everyone's expecting you to."

She smiled at that, then slid back into the isle and disappeared.

Well, at least he'd have someone to talk to throughout the flight.

- -

December 23, A.C. 204. Airplane. 1am

Leafu tried to repeat after the computer voice and broke into giggles at her dismal failure.

"You're still doing it with your Es," Xane noted to her in amusement. "Eeh."

"Ih-eh..." she repeated, frowning.

Xane grinned more at that.

"There you are, what are you doing?" a second attendant muttered, moving into the row to glare at the girl. "We have to get ready to dock...come on!"

"Already?" Leafu protested, looking to her watch and turning horrified eyes onto Xane.

He took the laptop from her with a smile and passed her his empty cup.

She gave him a look, though it was amused, then darted after her co-worker.

Oops.

Xane smirked more to himself, closing down the program. There was a long time period where the attendants took turns going up and down collecting garbage, and until the last half hour or so, Leafu had been doing her job. They'd been talking about English and how it wasn't really too hard to pronounce if you practiced, which had turned into Xane noting he had a program that might have learning English on it.

The spy blinked tiredly, glad he'd managed to wake back up and keep that way. He'd napped away his initial tiredness at the beginning of the flight, then he'd turned the computer on to play solitaire for a while. Leafu had ended up joining him at every break, and had slept for a while next to him, too, and if he could have done it, he would take her home with him.

And since that wasn't an option, he wrote his email address on a piece of paper with his name and phone number.

The remaining time to landing went damn quick, and before he knew it, he was fighting his way toward the front of the machine. He stopped long enough to let a woman with two little kids slide out, and helped her pull down their bags from the overhead, then continued keep the crowd back long enough that she could get her two moving, then went forward himself as the people behind him grumbled disconsolately.

He didn't care, the woman needed out before anyone else with small children like that.

"You're sweet," Leafu whispered at him as he neared the entrance.

He winked at her, passing her the piece of paper before grinning at her and moving out with closing salutations to the other woman, who was grinning at him.

It was good to be home.

- -

December 23, A.C. 204. Airport. 2am

How Jordan had timed it to be just right was beyond Judas' comprehension, but at the same time he wasn't complaining.

He could see Xane.

They sized each other up from their opposite halls as people moved all around them, then joined each other at the intersection.

"Glad you're still alive," Xane noted.

"Harder to kill me than that," Judas retorted as they hugged briefly.

"Lets get out of here," Xane suggested, moving toward the area Jordan always used to pick them up.

"It'll be good to be back with everyone," Judas noted tiredly as he yawned.

"You don't know the recruits yet, either," Xane agreed.

"That's right, you have been back, asshole."

"You're the man that made his own mission," Xane retorted...but they both spotted Jordan before Judas could reply.

"Ha! I knew it'd work!" Jordan informed his wife proudly.

"Which is why I told you to do it," Chai agreed.

Jordan grinned at her, moving forward to accept Judas' hug before hugging Xane as Jude moved to Chai.

"Watch it, now," Chai warned happily, pinching her husband's rear.

He laughed happily at that, relinquishing his friend as Jude remained in close. He was giving her enough room to move, but not much more than that. "You need to watch it, too," he suggested.

Judas blushed and moved away.

"What?" Chai asked blankly, looking up.

"Welcome home, huh?" Jor asked the guy.

Judas shook his head at that.

"Come on," Jordan suggested. "Let's go get your shit. You're all mean and leaving me tomorrow, so let's get you home so you don't crash on the drive."

"Your family lives on the base!" Xane protested. "That's not exactly the most convenient thing for us!"

"But I wanted you all to myself for Christmas!" Jordan retorted.

"Well, when you put it that way..." Xane muttered suggestively, moving in to slide under his arm.

Jordan started laughing.

"You're horrible," Chai noted, giving him a look.

"You're adorable," Xane retorted, smiling sweetly at her.

She grinned back, moving under Judas' arm. "It's good to have you back. I was getting worried about you being gone so long."

"It's not so bad there," Judas noted almost hesitantly. "I get sick of...of...not speaking English." He rubbed his eyes with his free hand. "I'm damn tired."

"At least you only have to spend two days with your family," Jordan noted happily. "Then you can come back and meet the kiddos."

"Yeah," Judas agreed happily. "It'll be nice to...see my mom."

"I'm sorry you can't come in more," Jordan told him quietly. "I really am."

Judas gave him a faint smile. "I'm the man that made my own mission."