Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ V Lucid Engagements ❯ Reflection of Your Eyes ( Chapter 1 )

Reflection of Your Eyes

I couldn't help my smirk as I moved from Acton's office. I'd been sure, during the first few days of the change over from the Healing Center, that they were going to set me up with him instead of Lucien. It'd bugged me, because Acton's stiff and formal manner was far from putting me at ease. Actually...as much as I'd rather not remember it, it reminded me of when I was young.

That thought took the smile from my face, and even dampened the petty little happiness I'd been experiencing.

There'd been a man like Acton training me...and that training in and of itself would be the failure of meetings with him. That man had hit me for showing emotions.

I moved back toward my room, studying the floor and blanking out my mind. I'd have to tell Lucien about that memory, which I didn't want to do, and why didn't I want to do it? ...because it made me remember.

I pulled out my little notebook and scribbled the notes into it, wondering again why I did it in Japanese. Lucien had asked me after I'd first shown him the thing, and I still didn't have an answer for it. My thoughts were in English, it'd make more sense to me if the natural flow of my writing was in the same language. He'd told me to think about it, and to let him know when I figured it out.

I'd met with Acton twice after they'd set me up with Lucien, and both times I'd managed to piss him off...it had actually started the first time I'd met him. I'd had a day of talking to both men, and whatever I'd said had bugged the shit out of the guy...which had made him bug the shit out of me.

Anyway, Lucien had asked me to keep a journal of things I did during the day, and why I did them. It'd been hard to remember to do the first week, but it was definitely easier now. By the end of the month, it had only been three weeks, it'd probably be simplicity itself. By that point I'd probably write down what I wanted to do and why before I did it.

Of course...that was only if being cut off from Nat would...if I could deal with it. It was already getting hard and it'd only been four days. Lucien didn't exactly appreciate me talking to the woman, and let me know it, but he never said for me not to do it...so he'd probably be happy that she'd lost phone access the day Duo left.

The thought of Duo sent a curl of guilt and nausea through my stomach, and I moved even quicker toward my room. I was expected there.

I wanted to get out of all of this so I could go home to my girl...go back to where it was warm...to the rain. I missed the rain...and I couldn't stand not being able to get ahold of the base to be sure things were ready for the yearly flooding. Our base in Brazil...our...my.

My stomach churned again.

I'd made Duo stay with me at that base in the middle of the Amazon jungle. I'd kept him cowed and under my control for almost three years before he'd run away from me. I'd searched for him for about six months before he'd managed to get into Manaus, the nearest city to my base. From there, he'd worked it around to claim sanctuary from the United States government, since his birth colony was from that land.

He'd also, evidently, taken a wife in that time period, and now they had a son...and the only reason I ever got to talk to him was because he was letting me talk to my girlfriend.

I turned down the final hall and moved into my room as the sentry up the way looked at me curiously. I normally nodded to him, but I wasn't feeling social, so I pretended not to notice him and closed the door behind me.

It wasn't like I was in a true military compound. This particular center was for soldiers, and because it was known that it was a soldier-used facility, they had guards posted in the halls. There were probably three on duty in the building, plus one in the office itself...and I'd found out that the one in the hall where my room happened to be...didn't happen to be a coincidence. At the times when I was supposed to be in my room, he couldn't see me leave my room. He'd reported on me when I hadn't gone directly back and Lucien had asked me very politely to let him know if I wanted to wander the halls.

That was one thing about the Healing Center that I'd liked; and that had also been the thing that had given Trowa his opportunity to run. We'd been allowed to be anywhere in the fairly small compound as long as we got to our appointments on time.

Lucien had suggested at one point that we'd get there, but I had my doubts about it...at least any time soon.

And Duo had left the village, and it'd been about four days since I'd gotten to talk to Natalie, and if I couldn't get ahold of my money or get a message to Wufei, there was no telling how much longer it'd be before I could talk to her again.

I dropped on my bed and leaned forward to cover my face with my hands.

It was so damn lonely...Wufei had come in to see me twice, and probably would later in the week...but I didn't even have Quatre anymore since he was living with Wufei now.

Why couldn't I do that? Lucien had said something about being ready when I'd asked, but it had been all but unintelligible, and he'd probably meant it to be exactly that way.

When I "was ready" seemed to be their mantra. When I was ready I could wander the halls, when I was ready I could make phone calls, when I was ready...I could leave...

I wasn't entirely sure how they would know if I was ready, but evidently they could read minds.

I dropped myself irritably backwards onto the mattress, staring up at the plain ceiling. The room was unadorned, and until I was ready it was probably unadornable.

I groaned quietly to myself and flopped over to write the thought processes in my little notebook, then thought about another way to get the thoughts out. I'd never been one to keep a log...a journal. It would have been stupid of me to keep a record of myself when I was supposed to be able to disappear without a trace. I didn't seem to need that particular skill anymore, so I didn't need to keep myself un-traceable...right?

It took me a long time to finally reassure myself that it was, in fact, an all right thing to do. I'd been given a handful of notebooks to entertain myself as I would, and had set the things on the bookshelf and then had proceeded to forget they existed...but a journal might help me get out the stress? Wasn't that how it worked?

Of course, if I wrote in my little notebook that I'd started a journal, he'd ask after the damn thing and probably read through it, and that wasn't an appreciable disruption of privacy...so I'd put in a half-truth and admit to writing my thoughts out.

- -

It had taken three days to get the damn visa...and Duo still wasn't entirely sure why a woman he generally disliked was being flown back to London from his wallet...

Actually, that wasn't entirely true. He wasn't settled with leaving the Amazon basin like that. Heero may have been a monster, but he was genuinely trying to get the help he needed, and cutting him off from his girlfriend was an unnecessary cruelty, especially after she'd suffered six months of having no idea where the man she loved was. He hadn't been able to come up with a way to circumvent it, being in the village, but as they'd made their way through the non-roadways toward Manaus, he'd realized that he'd have just bought her a phone and had his driver take it back out to her.

There was no point dwelling on it, though, because they were disembarking from the plane, and even though the scenario in his head of sending her directly back to Brazil with a cell phone and a pat on the head was amusing to him, it wasn't even remotely realistic.

He'd spent two weeks in the village his wife had been married into for her first marriage. She and her brother had both married into the thing, but Nassaiya's first husband had died a few years before Duo'd showed up. He'd spent about five months in that village before finally finding out he was even in Brazil—Heero was a bastard—and then escaping to an American embassy. From there he'd been set up in London, working as a government official under Hilde Schbleiker. She was the European Sphere leader, and worked to further cooperation between the different European nations, and how they interfaced with the Earthsphere as a whole. It hadn't taken him terribly long to get his wife pregnant, and the first year had mostly passed dealing with that...not that the phrasing suited his mind.

The second year had been work and kids and family, they'd been very happy for all of it...and then Wufei had shown up. Wufei had been fine, and Duo'd even wanted to see the man again. Trowa, however, had brought Heero and Quatre on his heels, knowing full well that even though Wufei had been searching in silence for two years, that he'd finally found Duo. It had all finally climaxed in Duo seeing Heero up the street and all but panicking and running. The entire ordeal had ended in a brawl between them in the rain, Nas pissed, and Vasu very confused at the mixed message he was getting...actually, what it had really ended in was realizing that Quatre had disappeared earlier in the day.

That night had been long and cold, searching for the pilot, who was having hallucinations and war flashbacks as he wandered through the rain.

They'd all gotten grabbed for therapy, and while Wufei wasn't a danger to himself or the general public, the same couldn't have been said for the rest. Quatre had been fairly promptly medicated, and was, last Duo knew, taking his medication regularly. Something had come up—on the day he and his wife had headed with their children to Brazil—where Trowa had disappeared. There hadn't been any news from him since, but the issue had led to Wufei accidently setting a lynch-mob on the people who were supposed to be helping Heero and Quatre. This, in turn, had led to Quatre getting out to live with Wufei while Heero went to a different and soldier-run facility.

He'd been there...well, the third week was starting, as far as Duo could figure...and his own situation wasn't getting any better.

At least the boys liked Natalie.

The little family and their "guest" reached their minivan, and Duo popped the trunk.

"So are you renting this?" Natalie asked in quiet Portuguese.

"No, we own it," Nassaiya returned with a grin.

"Mom has a cute little car," Vasu informed the woman happily, mimicking the general stance of his mother when she said the same words...it was something of a happy dance that was mainly just her shoulders...damn cute on the woman, and cute in a different way for their son.

"Vasu," Nas protested, grinning at him.

He grinned happily back at her, then moved around to help his father with the luggage.

"That's...scary," Natalie muttered.

"You get used to it," Nassaiya reassured her.

It had been because of Natalie that Duo'd had to run. He'd been living in Nassaiya's village taking care of her and her first son, Vasu, as well as a few other widows. Natalie was the sister of Indra and Narsi, and it had been Indra who had initially saved Duo from being caught when he'd run. It had been the siblings and their mother that he'd lived with. Nat had worked in the base where Heero had been keeping him, and as far as she understood the situation, Heero simply missed Duo to the point of depression...which he figured was true enough, but the dark side of the situation was how Duo'd been treated there, why he'd run...

He smiled slightly at his wife as she strapped the two-year-old into his car seat and dug out one of his familiar toys from the seat in front of him. He was excited to get ahold of it, and Natalie hesitated uncertainly, not sure where she would sit once she was in.

"You sit by the baby," Duo muttered to her, helping Vasu with the biggest of the bags. "Thanks, son."

Vasu smiled proudly at him, then turned to bounce back to the car.

"Hold on, cowboy," Duo muttered, pushing the empty cart at him, then pointed at the cart return a few rows up.

"Ah, Dad..." Vasu started.

"Fine, we won't have pizza for supper," Duo retorted.

"We're not having pizza for supper," Nassaiya grumped, turning to give him a look.

"Yes, we are," Duo stuck his tongue out at her and pulled his phone out.

Nas started laughing and slapped a hand to her face.

"Come on," Duo muttered, gesturing with his head at Natalie, who was playing with the baby.

"Why?" Nas retorted. "She's had pizza."

"No," Duo gave her an amused look. "That's not what I mean. She's going to want to go see Heero. If we have pizza it'll upset her stomach so she's not there long." He was saying all of this in English...Nat didn't speak much of the language.

His wife gave him an incredulous look in return. She wasn't entirely sure he didn't mean just that.

Duo started laughing, slamming the cargo-door closed as he put his phone away.

He didn't really mean it.

"Go," he ordered Vasu in a firm tone.

The boy groaned and turned to run the thing to the racks.

"What are we having?" he added as he moved toward the driver's seat.

"I don't know," she grumbled, leaning up to kiss him as he passed. "We'll have to go to the store...unless I have some meat frozen."

"Mm, we'll have to look when we get home. That's fine, though, because I still have to call Wufei and see what's going on."

"With what?" she demanded blankly. "You're not getting involved with that Trowa stuff, are you?"

Duo gave her a severely level look. She believed that Wufei was fine, and Quatre might be okay now that he'd been medicated, but Trowa and Heero were wastes of time and space.

Duo wasn't entirely sure he didn't agree with that, but they had fought in the wars together. It wasn't that simple...it wasn't black and white.

At any rate, he more meant he needed the information the press would probably hound him on before he was caught in public. The repeated "no comment" response didn't bolster the opinion of the masses and usually meant that it was bad or getting worse.

Duo hadn't seen any references to the pilots on the flight home, and considering how long that was, it meant that things were calm, but as soon as someone with a camera and mic saw him, it'd probably get stirred up.

"You've been in a car before, haven't you?" Duo teased Natalie as he slid into the driver's seat and looked back to the woman.

"Haha," she retorted, giving him a look.

He laughed again himself, looking out as his son came running back from his errand and Nas slid into the passenger's seat. It only took Vasu a moment to be in the vehicle with the door closed, ducking to the back bench.

"I can't wait to get home," he noted, dropping down. "I like the village and had a lot of fun there, but I missed my bed and my friends here. They aren't going to believe this..."

Duo grinned slightly, shaking his head. After driving through the jungle to get into Manaus, they'd gone through all sorts of layers of crap to get the visa for Natalie to go with them to London. In the end, Duo'd had to pull his own weight to get them to wave the time limit the damn thing had. It'd taken a while, and the woman would be staying with them.

He didn't really like Natalie...this was insane.

Duo grinned slightly to himself as he reversed.

Strange, how life works...Duo'd been insanely mistreated by the group, and specifically by the man he was working so hard to help. He'd delayed his home trip for three days for the woman, he'd forked over the money for her identification needs, her flight needs, and they'd be feeding and clothing her until she got her own job. It wasn't like the money was a serious problem. Duo made plenty and Nas had her own job...it was more the effort he was putting out to help the woman.

He wasn't entirely sure he wouldn't have left her behind if his wife hadn't spoken up...and he wasn't entirely sure he was okay with that.

- -

Trowa yawned as he moved through the airport with his head down and Amelia's hand in his. Their whole falling-in-love thing had been severely interrupted when he'd told her the truth about who he was.

For some reason, being told that he was really Trowa Barton and not Paul Kendrick had bugged her. She hadn't entirely appreciated the fact that he was so randomly in India because he was running from the government to skip out on therapy...it'd taken him a day or two to talk her back into going with him to London.

At any rate, she wasn't entirely sure she was okay with him anymore, but at the same time she didn't want to be without him. He had promised her he'd set up an account for her after they'd arrived, and to prove it, he'd given her the money for a ticket in case she freaked out on him. Their relationship was about...two weeks old. Doubts about the serious change in their set-up were perfectly all right.

"When I go turn myself in," he said quietly, pulling her up to his side, "I might have to stay a night or two at the unit."

She frowned at that.

"I know," he soothed. "First I'm going to Wufei's. We'll get settled in there, and once I'm sure you're settled in...tomorrow morning, I'll go in tomorrow morning, all right?"

She nodded, still not looking very happy.

"Your English is pretty good, right?" he added as they swept through the busy port toward the luggage claim.

She shrugged slightly. "It's not the best...but I think I'll be all right."

"I don't know if Quatre or Wufei know Hindi, is all," he explained. "You know Chinese or something, right?"

She nodded.

"All right, Chinese was Wufei's first language...and I'm pretty sure Quatre knows it..."

"I'm still really nervous about this," she muttered, moving closer to his side. "This is scary to me."

"I'm sorry," he muttered, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her forehead. "I feel horrible...but I honestly didn't think we'd be more than a night or two."

"Ass," she muttered, smacking him in the side.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, smiling at her as he pulled away to start walking again. She followed, her hand still tightly in his.

"I still think this is strange," she noted as they stepped onto an escalator. "Doesn't it seem strange to you?"

"Not particularly," Trowa refuted. "This is one of my skills...the whole disappearing thing. The coming back part is sort of strange, so I suppose I can't really just refuse my understanding."

She giggled slightly at that, and he figured he'd flubbed up the grammar on top of odd phrasing anyway.

"Paul?" she said quietly as they started for the belt things.

"Mm?" he returned, realizing that he was scanning for the authorities and forcing himself to stop.

"What if it's more than a few days?" she asked quietly.

He looked out the wall of windows toward the pick-up and drop-off traffic, shaking his head slightly. "As soon as I know for sure what they'll do, I'll let you know...I'll make sure they tell Wufei my status and everything...so you can go home."

She blinked at him.

"I won't ask you to wait for me if that happens," he explained, meeting her eyes again. "I don't think that would be fair. I'm sure Wufei will show you the tourist attractions...he'll take you to the eye or whatever it's called...you can see the parliament building and that clock...I'm sure he'll be fine with that...and then you can leave."

"What if I don't want to?" she asked, looking for her bag with interest since the mechanical thing was already moving.

"That's entirely up to you," he retorted, grinning slightly to himself. "I said I wouldn't ask you to stay, I didn't say I'd ask you to leave."

She snorted at that happily, then dived between a pair of males to pull his bag out. "That's mine!" she squeaked when it went beyond her reach...and since she was a very pretty woman, several men instantly hopped-to to give her assistance.

Trowa grinned slightly, moving the opposite direction to see if he could see her bag.

He really liked Amelia.

- -

Peach...Wufei really liked peach...he liked the color, he liked the taste...the smell...but mainly the taste of that lip-gloss.

He kissed Juki again, enjoying her personal scent mixed with the scent of the fruit.

"Mm," she muttered, smiling slightly as she brushed her lips across his throat. "Guess what?"

"Hm?" Wufei returned, toying with the end of her long black hair. It was mostly down now, aside from a comb securing it at the back of her head...

"I got an offer today," she explained, pulling back slightly to look up at him with evilly dancing brown eyes.

"An offer for what?" Wufei retorted, wondering what it would be this time. She'd evidently had offers to be a model, a mistress, a designer...and a firefighter. Her boyfriend wasn't entirely sure he believed all of it, but at the same time she was a geisha, and hence was very good at distracting any male off any topic. He knew for a fact how easy it was to offer her silly little things...

"To be my donna," she returned.

...and that was probably serious.

Wufei pulled away to meet her eyes properly.

She started laughing delightedly.

"I'll buy your damn kimonos, thank you," Wufei protested at her...which made her giggle even more. "I'll even buy your damn make-up...you told him, didn't you?"

She couldn't help her laughter a few more moments, then burrowed back into his warm arms. "Yes, I did."

"What?" Wufei asked, stopping slightly. She'd always brushed off his jealousy before, and she always had that same giggle when she did it.

"I told him that this was from you," she noted, pulling away slightly to display the design of her kimono to him. "And I told him this was from you," she added, touching the hair-thing he'd gotten her. "And he was very disappointed and asked what brand this was," she flicked the skirt bit.

Wufei blinked down at her.

She smiled sweetly, leaning up to kiss him again...sweet peach... "You thought I was teasing you again," she noted, "but I wasn't."

He pulled her to him tightly, nuzzling her hair as he thought about that.

She...was serious. She'd seriously told someone that he was her donna...holy shit.

"Mother told me I was foolish...until I told her that this is a Aoyuki...then she blinked and asked how much of the profit went to the house. She was annoyed when she realized you were my boyfriend, though."

He smiled slightly at that, kissing her temple as he noticed the clock in the corner of the room. "I need to get back home," he noted. "You sure you don't want to move in with me?"

"We can talk about it at the beginning of next month," she reminded him pointedly. "I told you..."

"You can't move until next month," he shot back. "That doesn't mean you can't consent to moving."

She smiled, kissing him again. "The last relationship I was in that ended up with me moving in with him was moving way too fast. It was stupid of me to do."

"But, Juki," he protested, frowning at this reminder. "We've been together for six months...I don't imagine my life without you right now."

"Right now," she smacked him in the stomach as she pulled away with her same grin. "You're obnoxious."

"And you keep coming back for more," he retorted, turning to gather up his coat, then move back to her to kiss her again.

"No, you're good sex," she retorted. "That's what I come back for."

He flashed her a grin, kissing her once more, then sighed and pulled away. "I dare you not to call me for two hours," he muttered.

"Three," she retorted. "I won't even break a sweat."

He grinned at that, then left her apartment.

He had a feeling he wouldn't even make it home before she called him...not that he minded. That drive was a long ten minutes.

- -

E/N: Not too much to say to this one, mainly that I'm assuming the terms from Arthur Golden's "Memoir's of a Geisha" are correct...at least correct enough for this work of fanfiction, lol. I don't own GW, or any other brand-name that happens to come up. Hope y'all like this.