Gundam Wing/AC 1. The Box

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing…But as soon as I do there sure as hell will be more episodes, damn it.

I was awoken this morning by the phone. In case you people didn't know, which I'm sure you didn't since you don't know me, I don't like being awoken by foreign objects. Seconds before smashing the unsuspecting phone against the wall and into a thousand pieces, I heard an easygoing voice from the door that I recognized. It was my good friend, Grace. I _liked_ her, so I refrained.

But if it had been anyone else I would have annihilated that phone.

"Hello…" I said in a rasping voice, that I'm sure made me sound like the undead. Great.

"Well, you're sounding chipper," Grace remarked. 

"It's four in the morning. How happy am I supposed to be?" I moaned.

"Oops, I forgot what time it was, I've been up since three. And you were always on a different schedule than me. Sorry!" she said breathlessly. That's what I liked about Grace. She was actually nice to people and meant it at the same time. That is something I haven't found often. "Anyway," she continued, "You'll never guess who we got a call from this morning!"

I greeted her with silence.

"Go on…Guess!" she exclaimed. Still more silence from me. "Oh fine, I'll just tell you…" Grace was always so predictable. "Veronica."

Suddenly I was awake and kicking. I was ready to go, and was asking questions a mile a minute. Grace didn't get a word in edgewise, even for an answer. Then suddenly I got a hold of myself, and asked, "What _did_ she want?" I was prepared to hear things such as a kidney, blood transplant, part of my liver, my first-born child, so on and so forth, but instead Grace just simply replied, "She just wanted to see you Tate."

"Are you serious? That's all? No obscene amounts of money or anything?" I asked incredulously. "That doesn't seem like the Veronica I knew."

"Obviously you and I don't remember the same Veronica then…" Grace said, "because I don't remember her being quite the same cold, calculating person you're making her out to be."

"Well she didn't backstab you quite the same way she did me, did she?" I replied angrily.

"Yeah, well…" Grace tried.

"Well, what?" I said irritated at her attempt to defend Veronica.

Grace took a deep breath and continued in a controlled voice, "She was my friend too, and she left me just as unexpectedly as she left you. You weren't the only one confused by her leaving."

"You're right," I sighed, "I'm sorry." 

"That's all right. Anyway, she called to say she wants to meet you at Bernie's Bar. You know where that is don't you?"

"Of course, but what time does she want me there?" I asked.

"She said something about seven. I don't know her number so I suppose she just expects you to show up. She was always flaky like that."

"Well if she calls, tell her I'll be there."

"Try to be civil, Tate," Grace implored.

"Oh, I will be," I said. I would have to try really hard though.

Later…

The bar had absolutely no smell in it. This struck me as odd, because every other bar I had ever been to had a smell of old smoke and beer. But of course, this was on Earth and they never followed any of the rules, even the ones they set. This bar was uncomfortable and I had the strange feeling someone was watching me. I took a look around me and I didn't see anyone, or in any event, no one was looking at me. 

I sat down at the counter and a robot rolled over asking me in its simulated voice what I wanted. I asked for water on the rocks and the robot had dispensed some into a glass on the opposite counter. It brought it over to me on a small tray attached to its arm. I drank some of it without looking and was surprised to find the taste muddy and metallic. I thought about how the Earth's water supply was starting to wear thin in the last few years. Then I looked down.

The damn robot had actually put rocks in my drink. 

I hate robots. 

Especially ones who think they're funny. 

Or at least programmed to think so. 

I had my drink replaced with a glass of water and _ice. _It didn't taste half as bad as the first one, but it was still fairly disgusting. All there was left to do was sit and wait for _her_ to come. I swirled the glass around listening to the sound of the ice clinking against the sides. I sipped some and glanced at my surroundings. The entire place was conventional, with straight lines and plain colors. There were only a few people sitting around, talking, arguing, and generally conversing. It was the most boring bar I had ever been to. The robot bartender zoomed around filling orders, and if it were possible, seemingly enjoying the duties while throwing out witty one-liners.

While I was busy looking around there was a small swish as someone slid in beside me on another stool. I glimpsed a red dress and black hair. It was her.

"Well, hello. Tatum," she whispered in deep voice. "It's been a long time."

"Yes it has," I replied. It had been five years since I had laid eyes on Veronica. She hadn't changed much, except for that look in her eyes. She lost that careless look. The young, innocent look I had admired so much. She got what she deserved. "So what's the deal? Why do you call me here now? It's been five years."

"When did you become so questioning? The Tate I knew was much more rash," she charged quietly, with a far off look. 

"Yeah, well like you said it's been a long time," I bit back while taking a drink.

"Look. I didn't call you here for an argument…" she started.

"Well you're about to get one," I growled. 

"You know, ever since they made Mars inhabitable, you Martians have become intolerable!" she accused. "You think you're so much better than everyone else because you haven't had to clean up your planet. You haven't screwed it up yet, that's all."

"Don't bring planetary relationships into this, you know that's not what this is about," I replied. "This is about you and me, and your lack of ability to remain faithful." And besides I was born on Earth and I lived there now. I only lived on Mars for a year.

"Oh, you're not going to bring that up again, are you?" she practically yelled.

"And what if I do?"

"Oh God! This is why I left in the first place! You and your unbearable personality. You were always so argumentative. I thought maybe you had cooled off after all these years, but I guess not." She started to get up to leave but I grabbed her arm.

"Look, I'm sorry. I'm just a little bitter," I attempted at an apology. I was never very good at apologizing to people. Call it an Achilles' heel. People were starting to look at us now. She resumed her position, this time a tad bit more reserved. Obviously she had noticed our gathering attention. "So what have you been up to these days," I tried at conversation. People were starting to look away.

"Well, I'm still dating." 

If you could call it dating. She was never much of one for sticking around long, as I found out in my relationship with her. Although we weren't in a sexual relationship (we're both girls, and I don't exactly swing that way), we were good friends. Then she left, and I didn't find out where she went until two years ago. She ended up in some flea-ridden apartment on a colony. Funny how that comforts me a little. 

"You know how it is. Paying bills, working. I just called to find out how you've been. I guess I always felt a little guilty for leaving the way I did."

"Well I'm still alive if that makes you feel any better," I retorted. She laughed nervously and looked away. "Why are you here anyway? And how did you know where I was?"

"I have my connections. And I just wanted to catch up…" I just looked at her, disbelief apparent on my face because she then cried, "Really!"

"For some reason I don't think you'd go out of your way to see me." 

"Well I do have a date, he'll be coming in about half an hour."

So now it all comes out. I knew she came here for a reason. She wouldn't just call me up any old time for chitchat. She was never like that, even when we were younger. She had to have a hook, a reason for coming other than me. I was old news. I knew there had to be another cause. 

"So…who's the lucky man?" I asked.

"Oh, you wouldn't know him," Veronica replied. Doubtfully I would. I didn't get out much anymore, and her type weren't exactly the kind of people I would be making friends with anytime soon. We were quiet for a while. She took a nip of whatever it was she was drinking. I suppose she got it while we were having our quiet, which was a rare moment for us. We were always arguing or deep in conversation. We had always been such good friends. Apparently she wasn't stupid enough to order rocks. I let the silence sip me up and then spit me back out when she asked, "Did you hear about Lola?" She was always out of nowhere like that. 

"Yes I have," I dully answered. Of course I had, every idiot and his monkey I knew had heard about Lola. Then again I lived with her. But I wasn't going to tell Veronica that. She didn't need to know that, and it was Lola's business alone that she was pregnant. 

"I can't believe that's what happened to her. I thought she had more sense, and she didn't like guys when we went to school," she said in skepticism. 

"That's the way it goes, I guess. Things change, and people do things you don't expect them to," I reflected. 

"That was almost philosophic, Tate," she wryly said. "I wouldn't have believed it of you." 

"Why thank you," I replied.

"Oh, it looks like I have to go. He's here," she rushed. She picked up her things and smoothed her dress down, while looking over at her date. Who happened to be old, fat, bald, and probably rich beyond human comprehension. She was shallow, but she was also beautiful enough to get anyone she wanted. Figures she'd go for a guy with cash. 

"Doesn't look like someone you would usually go out with," I commented.

She smiled knowingly as she walked away, with that swing of hers she always had, and waved while saying, "Hey, it's a free meal. It's been nice seeing you, Tatum." 

I chuckled, and just like that, she walked off. I would probably never see her again, and that didn't bother me. Maybe we'd meet again, maybe we wouldn't. Maybe she would get her priorities in order, most likely she wouldn't. 

That's how life is. People can be merely players on the stage, in bit parts. You could know people for years and then, one day out of the blue, you don't know them anymore. Not like you thought you did. They aren't the same gentle, pure people you saw on the surface. Below, there are flaws and imperfections galore you never saw before, because you were blinded by a false light.

Everyone has those faults. And that's what makes it okay, because everyone has something in common that way. None of us are perfect. That explanation wasn't good enough for Veronica though, so she left. But it's fine by me.

I stayed at the bar for a few more minutes, attempting to savor my disgusting water. I then got up, clumsily tried to smooth my skirts, and then made my way toward the door. As I walked out, I saw another old friend. 

Jesus, they were popping up all over the place now.

Anita. It had been years since I had seen her. She and I had always liked each other well enough, but she had been closer to Veronica. Which didn't make me much more fond of her now. Part of me hoped she wouldn't recognize me so I could just push forward and be on my way, but the other part of me was hoping to meet up with someone nice at least once today. 

Well the latter half was gratified when she turned to me and cried, "_Tatum, is that you!" _I turned and smiled at her. She looked so much different than from what I remembered. Her hair was short and brown, but when we were younger she had the most gorgeous blonde hair. Shows what I know. "It's been so long!"

"You don't look anything like yourself," I replied. I was serious. She was skinny too. A long time ago she was, well, large. Now she was smaller than me. Damn Lola and her eating for two, while dragging me down with her.

"Well, you know, people change," she supplied.

"I guess," I replied. 

"Have you been here long?" she asked.

"Not really, I just finished talking to Veronica. You remember her don't you?" I told her. She got a look, like she was just told she missed her baby say daddy for the second time. Disappointed, but not to the point of tears.

"Really? I haven't seen her for a while. We didn't talk much after she left you know."

"I haven't talked to her a lot either," I said. We continued like this for a while and I found I liked her even if she had been Veronica's friend. She had lived on Mars for a while and was now visiting some friends on Earth. "So what else are you up to?"

"Well, right now I'm looking for somewhere to live."

"Why not here?"

"I didn't even think about that! I just wanted to get away. That's a good idea, and I don't think I'll find anything on Mars," she replied. "Where do you live?"

"I live around here. Been here for a few years. I could offer you a place to stay for a little while," I suggested. "You'd like my roommates."

"I think I might just do that," she answered.

I gave her the number to the place Lola, Grace, and I owned, and told her to call us if she needed anything.

And that is how it all started…

Much much later…

Where were we? 

Oh yes. 

I had just met Anita. She seemed nice at the bar, and called a few days later. I would go into more detail about what life was like after that, but you'll get the point from my story. Anita turned out to be quite a character; she was almost as irritable as me, and twice as strange. Grace took to her well, but Grace takes to everyone well. Lola didn't like her quite as much as I hoped that she would, but we didn't think Anita was going to stay very long. I liked her fine. I found she gave us another focus of interest. Plus I also didn't think she would stay long, so all of her quirks, that would have gotten on my nerves any other time, didn't bother me quite as much.

Anyway, she ended up staying. For a long time. Five months to be exact. 

We were somewhat annoyed by this development once time caught up with us and we figured out what had happened.

"So when are you going to leave?" Lola asked.

"Anxious to get rid of me, are you?" Anita replied.

"Oh…a little," Lola said with a sweet smile on her face.

"Well, I don't plan on leaving for a few more weeks," Anita said from the couch, as if Lola wanted to hear _that_. "I have a friend coming to pick me up, and then I'll get my stuff."

"Where are you moving to?" Grace asked. 

"Somewhere out west I guess…" she said.

"Way to be decisive," Lola grunted. She was getting touchy in her pregnancy. 

We were all sitting in the living room watching television, or at least I was. Anita was busy drawing or writing, whatever it is that she does. Grace was reading, and Lola was knitting. 

We had all changed little over the months. I was still pretty much the same. My hair was still dark brown and shoulder length, but I had a tendency to keep my hair in pony-tales now. My eyes were still the same dark brown too. I always envied Lola's hazel eyes because they were interesting. Grace was still the blonde that I was so envious of, with her bright blue eyes. Lola's hair was much longer now. We had all tried to bother her into cutting it like some pregnant women do, but she liked her bright-red hair long. 

Anita of course, changed quite a bit during the last five months. At first her hair was brown, which I thought was strange since she was originally a blonde. But then I figured it out one Saturday when she came out of the bathroom with bright blue hair. She dyed it at least four times since she moved in with us. After it was blue it became pink, then it was platinum blonde, and the latest color was purple. Her hair is still short though and her eyes have stayed the same constant golden brown.

Well, anyway, I was watching the news and seeing nothing interesting. The world wasn't up to much anymore after the war ended. Peace was nice, and Relena Peacecraft seemed to be doing her job well considering her age. She was only a year younger than my nineteen, and the same age as Lola and Anita. Grace was only seventeen, which was one of the few things that irked her. Anyway the vice foreign minister was giving another one of her speeches and quite frankly looking bored about it. Then there was a knock on the door and we all jumped at the sound. I clicked off the television.

"Who's gonna get it?" Lola asked.

"I'll do it," Anita said. "It could be for me anyway."

Anita went to the door and didn't return for a few minutes. We all returned to what we were doing previously, except I didn't turn on the television, and just waited for her to come back. She walked back in with a puzzled look on her face.

"What's wrong?" Grace asked. 

"Nothing really," Anita said. She had a medium sized brown package in her hands. She was looking down at it. "This is for you, Tate," she said while handing it to me. "It's from Veronica."

"Why in God's name would Veronica send me something?" I asked.

"I don't know," Anita replied. "But the man at the door said you had to get it and it was pretty important."

"What do you think it is?" Grace asked as I weighed the package in my hands.

"Maybe it's a bomb…" Lola suggested, bending forward as best she could with her huge stomach.

"I doubt that," I answered. "She wouldn't send a bomb with her name on it."

"Yeah, Veronica was dense at times, but she wasn't that dense," Anita said.

"Look who's talking…" Lola muttered with a roll of her eyes.

"What did you say?" Anita growled.

"Not now you guys!" Grace ordered.

"What?" they both yelled, being interrupted during another one of their usual fights.

"Look…" she whispered as I opened the box.

Inside there was a smaller box with a letter on top. It looked as if it had been written in a hurry, and then just stuffed in the box. I picked it up and started to read aloud.

"Dear Tatum… I knew when I met you back at the bar on Earth that I could depend on you. You were always so dependable to be untrusting so I knew I could give this box of information to you. You would never let it fall in the wrong hands. If you so decide to look in the box, be careful. You probably won't understand what you will find. But if they do come, give the envelope to those who you know need the information. I leave you and your wonderful intuition to figure out the rest. Yours Truly, Veronica."

"Well, who are _they_?" Lola asked. By everyone else's looks, they all wanted to know the same question. Who were we suppose to give this crap to? This didn't make sense. 

"Leave it to Veronica to order you to do something and not tell you what the hell you're doing," Anita stated. 

"You know, I never did like Veronica much," Lola said.

"I didn't mind her," Grace said.

"You don't mind anyone, though," Anita said.

"I mind you though," Lola snapped.

"Tell me. Why is it that I didn't know you sooner? We were both friends of Veronica's," Anita asked, getting annoyed now.

"Happy chance, apparently," Lola shot back.

"Shhhh…" Grace whispered.

I was now opening the box. I wanted to know exactly what it was that people were supposedly going to come for, anyway.


	2. Someone's In The Kitchen

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or any of its characters. (If I did, I wouldn't be writing fan fiction about it, now would I?)

Later…

Once we had opened the box, we studied the contents quite thoroughly. We had no idea who any of the pictures were of, or who the little snippets of writing were about, and our wariness of the box grew as we rifled through the papers and photos. The more and more we went through the box; the more we began to understand we were looking through someone's past. There were baby photos, pictures of children together, and various photos of adults littering the box. There were birth certificates, notes (none of which could we understand, mainly because we didn't know who they were talking about, but also because a few weren't in English), some scraps that looked like diary entries, receipts, and a few odd bits of brown paper with various names scribbled onto them. 

Lola thought it was a joke. Albeit a very elaborate, and well thought out joke for Veronica. Grace wasn't so sure, and said we should just leave the box alone until we got more information on it. Anita tried to ignore us as much as possible, but found herself drawn in each time we dug something out of the box. I just found myself looking at these pictures of solemn children, and even more grave adults, and having an odd feeling of sadness and pity.

After awhile, we started to notice a pattern in the children of the photos. And a few of the pictures had writing on the back that helped us link some together. It seemed that the same seven or so children were in the majority of the pictures, while a few others showed up less recently. Anita suggested we sort them into piles, so we did, and we ended up with seven of them.

One pile contained a blonde boy with green eyes, who we guessed was about two or three years younger than us. The photos seemed to progress throughout his life. He looked angry in the first few photos and, later on, took on a gentle look. There was a blonde woman who looked a lot like him so we threw her photos in with his, although we had no proof that they were connected other than the similarity in their appearances.

The next pile was of a dark haired boy with a long braid down his back and beautiful violet eyes. He seemed to have a strange fluctuation between looking forlorn and cheerful. Later on he wore a priest habit, which was odd, because he seemed too young to be a priest in any of the pictures. He also tended to wear a baseball cap which Grace thought was funny.

"No priest _I've_ ever seen ever had enough of a sense of humor to wear a baseball cap…" she said.

The smallest pile contained a Chinese boy with brown eyes, who had several looks of general dislike on his face. There were a few pictures of him with another young girl during what looked like a marriage ceremony. She often looked happy, he often looked angry. Some of the pictures he wore glasses in, and he was sitting with a book, making him appear the scholarly type.

The next one had several formal appearing pictures. There was a baby with dark blonde hair and blue eyes, and a very little boy with whitish blonde hair and blue eyes. Then the boy seemed to disappear until the girl grew to be about fifteen or so, and then he reappeared as a man with the same platinum hair. Both appeared to be very serious and detached. It was Lola who first recognized that the girl was Relena Peacecraft. We were all a little skeptical at first, but then with looking at them closer, she was freakishly parallel, so we all had to agree.

Next came a stack of photos of a boy who looked by and large angry, or at the very least bored. He had dark brown hair and blue eyes, and looked intense in all of the photos. Only one seemed to show him at a weak point when he looked slightly sad.

"He kinda freaks me out…" Lola whispered.

"No kidding," agreed Anita. One of the few times they have ever agreed on anything.

The next mass of pictures contained photos of a boy with hair covering half of his face, and he seemed just as, if not more so, serious then the boy before. ("This guy depresses me," Anita commented.) He had brown hair and green eyes, from what we could tell. A few of the pictures showed him with a girl with shoulder length brown hair, but she seemed to be there when he was a very young child, then she, like the white haired man, disappeared until they boy grew to be about fifteen or sixteen. His face never changed, and this creeped all of us out.

The last pile of pictures were all of the ones we couldn't put into any of the others because they didn't have any of the same people. There was a girl with dark black hair and a smile on her face, and another with a woman who looked similar, but she was older. There was also a girl with bright blonde hair and weird looking eyebrows, a few pictures of gruff looking men, and an old man standing alone with a rifle. None of these people looked horribly interested in having there pictures taken.

The scraps of paper we gave up trying to order a long time ago. Grace only knew a smattering of French, Anita and Lola only knew English, and I was bad enough at English, let alone any other language. Some of it looked like Chinese or Japanese, we didn't know the difference. Others were in English, but we were clueless as to what they were referring to: parties, birthdays, meetings, and some others that resembled love letters. Given that we were getting tired, and didn't want to think, we decided to put away all of the notes. There wasn't much we were going to be able to do with it all at the moment. We left the rest of the stuff on the floor in the living room and went to eat some supper.

"So do any of those people look familiar to you?" I asked.

"Well, besides the Vice Foreign Minister, not really," Lola said. We were sitting down at the table now, eating some pork chops and green beans that Grace had made. Grace always made supper. The rest of us were clueless as how to turn on the stove. 

"Well…" Grace started, "that blonde boy looked oddly familiar. Almost as if I had seen him before." She was ignoring her food, and pushing around her beans.

"Personally, I can swear I've seen most of them all before, I just can't remember where," Anita stated. "I don't know who any of them are, but none of them look too horribly friendly if you ask me."

"Well no one asked you, did they?" Lola started.

"Not now!" I almost yelled at them. All we needed was another one of their ill timed arguments. They both clamed up, and seemed to look somewhat sheepish afterwards. "Can't you two just _try_ to get along? It can't be that hard." Normally they would have retorted back, but they resorted to playing with their food instead.

"Do you think anyone will come?" Grace asked.

"I don't know," I said. "I just want to know why Veronica saw fit to give this stuff to _us_."

"You never know with Veronica," Anita said with a roll of her eyes.

"Well that's true," Grace agreed.

"Anyway," Lola started, "I'm beat. I'm going to bed."

"See you later."

"See you tomorrow morning," Grace called as Lola made her way out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Grace also got up and started to do some of the dishes, while Anita polished off her drink and stood up with a yawn.

"I think I might just hit the sack, too," Anita said tiredly. So off went Anita, leaving me and Grace to finish the dishes. Figures she'd find a way to get out of the housework. 

Grace and I chatted for awhile, talking and wondering about all of those faces in the pictures. 

Later that night…

There was a noise in the hall. 

I swear to _God_, there was noise in the hall.

It woke me up in the middle of the night, and I jumped out of bed like a cat that just had water thrown on it. I fumbled around in the darkness for something to hit the intruder with, and I came up with an old baseball bat (which was weird, because I have never played baseball). I tried to stealthily move towards the door, but I'm a clutz so I stubbed my toe on the bed post.

There it was again!

It sounded like someone was whispering in our hallway down stairs. 

I tiptoed out my door and into the hall, when I bumped into someone. I was completely prepared to beat the crap out of whoever it was, but then Lola hissed, "Did you hear that?"

"Yeah, what do you think it is?"

"It better not be Anita raiding the fridge again, that's all I can say," she said in an irritated whisper. "And will you put that thing down?!"

I came out of batter/killer mode and lowered my makeshift weapon. We continued down the stairs and I ordered Lola behind me. "Maybe you should go back to your room…" I suggested.

"Don't be silly, I bet it's only our imaginations anyway."

Since it's impossible to change Lola's mind, I let her stay and we continued down the stairs. She stayed close to the wall why I made my way into the kitchen. Then I had to stifle a scream.

In the middle of the kitchen was a shadow, seemingly searching for something. It must have seen my movement because it then stopped. I then growled, "Don't move, whoever you are…"

And then suddenly someone came up from behind me. There were two of them in my kitchen. We had a struggle, complete with wild swinging of the bat from me (which I'm sure made contact at least once). But then whoever it was behind me got a hold of my arms mid-swing, and twisted them behind my back. The other took the bat, and then I was blinded.

Lola had turned on the light. My eyes took a second to adjust from the darkness, and then I could make out two people dressed and masked in black. Lola was standing by the light switch and the door with wide eyes, in shock, looking like a barn on feet. The two intruders just stared back at her. 

Then one of them said, "Look, we don't want to hurt you, we just want to talk."

The one holding my arms back grunted, "Yeah, if you just stopped fighting me I'd let you go…" I was still too busy trying to kick him where it hurts to pay much attention.

But then Lola said, "Do what they say Tate." So I stopped struggling, and went limp. The guy in holding my arms let me go, and I gave him a good kick in the shin before I walked over to Lola. He made to grab me again, saying something about being careful with what you swing around, but the other one ordered him to leave me alone.

"Who the hell are you people?" I yelled.

"Just…stay…calm…" the one with the bat breathed. Yeah right. Like I'd listen to him. 

"Oh damn it! I thought we were being quiet!" the other one moaned.

"Apparently not quiet enough," the one with my bat replied while taking the black clothe off his head. He then ran his hand through his bright blonde hair, and narrowed his green eyes, as if in frustration. He then looked up, and Lola's eyes went wide. I was slightly confused, but then the other removed his hood too, revealing a long, dark brown braid and violet eyes.

"It's them," Lola whispered.

Two pair of eyes shot towards us.

Later…

Duo Maxwell and Quatre Raberba Winner turned out to be perfectly nice people once they stopped trying to break into your house. 

There was quite a bit of confusion after Lola's statement. We knew they were two of the boys from the pictures, but who the hell were they? They were both surprised when Lola seemed to recognize them, but she just replied that she knew them from somewhere, she just wasn't sure were. I don't think they bought that, because they looked like they were going to question her. I think they just reconsidered because of her condition. 

"Let's sit down and talk this out," I suggested.

"_Now_ she wants to talk," the braided one grumbled.

"Okay," the blonde one complied. We all moved to take a seat. I sat down and so did the braided guy. The blonde one pulled out a chair and let Lola sit in it. She blushed as she took it and said thank you. I can't believe she was getting flustered from a guy that was just breaking into our house. Even if he was cute.

"So…" I began.

"So…" the braided one answered.

"Okay, who are you people?" Lola asked. Of course she would get straight to the point. "I don't mean to be rude, but you sorta beat me to it."

"I guess you do have a right to be annoyed with us," the blonde one said, "although you weren't suppose to know we were here…"

"Hey, don't try to pin this on me!" the other guy argued. "I was just wondering what was in their frig, I wasn't going to take anything!"

"So that's what I heard!" I declared. And that's why Lola thought that Anita was in the refrigerator. 

"And that would be why they found us," the blonde guy said in slight irritation raising his hand for emphasis.

"Oh whatever…"

"Anyway," Lola said, "who are you exactly?"

Both looked questioningly at the other, and then the blonde one said, "They've already seen our faces, I don't think it would matter now anyway."

"Whatever you say…" the braided one replied.

"Well I'm Quatre Winner, and this is Duo."

"Duo Maxwell, at your service," he smiled.

"Well…they seem friendly enough," Lola supplied in a whisper. 

"Yeah and so do puppies until they bite you…" I replied. At least he put down the bat. That was a good sign.

"Hey wait, do you mean, Winner as in L 4 Winners?" Lola asked. The blonde blushed slightly at this and nodded. Lola was now in love. She liked easily embarrassed guys. She was always weird like that, and now she'd probably be talking about that _nice_ guy that came over last night, and not the _potential burglar_. 

Duo seemed to be looking around our kitchen in a longing manner, and I couldn't help but ask, "Hungry?"

"Starved."

"Well I guess we could give you something to eat. But what are you here for exactly?" I asked.

"Well, we were informed that you had information that we wanted."

"Reheeally?"

"Yes, really."

"Well, did you find it? Or are you waiting for us to give it to you?" Lola asked.

"We're waiting for you to give it to us," Duo said simply. Lola's eyebrows raised as she considered this. Then she tried to move, but stopped, when she realized how hard it would be to get up. And there was that glare I sent her. That might have helped.

"What kind of information?" I inquired.

"Well, we're not really sure…" Quatre replied. "We were just told were to go and to look for a brown box from Veronica Lang addressed to Tatum Waslo. I am assuming you are Tatum, correct?"

"Yes, you would be."

"So do you have the box?" Duo tried. I handed him a glass of milk, which he took, and a plate of cookies that Grace had baked yesterday.

"Nope…" I responded. "I threw it away a _long_ time ago…"

Duo looked absolutely horrified by this recent development. "You _what_?" he asked from a mouth gaping open, half-filled with cookie.

"Don't worry…" Lola said, "we still have everything from the box."

"Where?" they both asked.

"In the living room. Just follow me."

We all got up. I wasn't so sure this was a great idea. I mean, they might have been in the pictures, but that doesn't mean that they were suppose to see them. Lola led us into the living room, hand on the small of her back while she did so. Once we got there, I was a little ashamed of the mess we had left. The pictures were all still in there respective mounds, but I felt guilty for leaving them on the floor the way we did. 

Apparently it didn't get on their nerves quite as much because Duo just remarked, "So that's what we came for? A bunch of pictures?" He had a look of disbelief on his face. Quatre just looked slightly bemused. He then bent down and picked up a picture of a girl.

"Hey," Quatre bumped the confused Duo, "who does that look like to you?"

Duo looked down, his eyes widened and his face broke out into a smile, "It's Relena. How did you guys get a picture of her?"

"It was sent to us by Veronica," Lola answered.

They started to look around a bit more, but then I suggested, "Why don't we do this tomorrow morning. You know, when normal people are awake."

Duo laughed and replied, "She has a point. We can always come back tomorrow. You know…if you guys let us back in." Then he winked. I swear he winked. 

This guy was cheeky.

We said our goodbyes, and told them to come bye tomorrow at eight or so in the morning. They walked off. I can only assume they had a form of transportation waiting somewhere in the darkness.

"They seemed polite," Lola commented.

I snorted, and made my way upstairs to my room. And prayed no one else would come into the house tonight. 

I needed some sleep.


	3. Pictures They've Never Seen

When I woke up the next morning, I tried to convince myself I had dreamed it all. I staggered to the bathroom to brush my hair and teeth. Once I finished there I made my way downstairs to the kitchen for breakfast. There in the kitchen was my proof it was not a dream. Someone had leaned the baseball bat against the refrigerator door. Also, on the table there was the plate of cookies I had given the guy with the braid. 

What was his name? Something weird. And the other guy's name was something funky too.

I took a cookie off the plate, and took a bite. Surprised to find it had gone stale, I spit it out into the trash, and threw the rest of the cookies in with it. I went to the refrigerator, throwing the bat aside, and found the juice. I poured myself a glass, wondering over their names, and then Lola walked in. 

"Good morning."

"How long have you been up?" I asked.

"About half an hour. How about you?" she answered.

"Ten minutes, tops," I replied. "What time is it?"

"About fifteen minutes till eight. You might want to get dressed. Duo and Quatre should be coming over at eight." Leave it to Lola to remember their names. She remembers everything.

"Are _you_ already dressed?" I asked while eyeing the sundress/tent she had decided to wear.

"Yes, thank you for asking," she retorted. "By the way, I put all of the pictures into envelopes, and put them on the coffee table. I figured we shouldn't leave them all on the floor."

"Good thinking," I replied. "Where are Grace and Anita?" I asked looking around.

"Well Grace is at work, and God only knows where Anita is. Probably still asleep."

I couldn't help but wish that I was still asleep and went off to change my clothes. It was summer, and all of us were trying to dress cool. I only had a few select shirts and shorts I could wear, so I chose something that made as much sense as possible and made my way downstairs. 

Lola was sitting in the kitchen, eyeing some papers when I walked in. 

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Just looking over something from the box. It is another letter addressed to some people. I guess we missed it."

"Who is it to?" I wondered.

"Well…" Lola started. But then there was a bump, and Lola put the paper away as fast as possible. We waited a moment to deduce that it was just Anita moving around in her room before Lola started talking again. "I shouldn't be looking at it anyway, I'll just put it back."

"Okay, whatever you say, Lola."

"You know…" I started as she left the room, "I think maybe you were too nice to them last night. I mean, I should have beat the crap out of them…"

"You weren't exactly being a warrior woman or anything, you know?" she shot back from the living room.

"But still, you did tell me to stop, I mean…"

"You mean, what?" Lola demanded from the door. "They weren't going to and didn't _do_ anything. You should have a little more faith."

"Yeah, but we couldn't have been sure, and I don't think we should have invited them back the way we did."

"Well, it's too late now," Lola stated. "They'll be here in about five minutes."

"Okay, but don't get too close. If one of them makes a move, I'll be on his ass so fast, he won't know what hit him," I said while glancing at the baseball bat.

"I don't think either of them will try to do anything. They seemed nice enough, and besides, Veronica mentioned that people would be coming for whatever was in the box," Lola replied.

"Yeah, but she didn't say they'd come in the dead of night, complete in full _criminal_ mode."

"You have a point there, but I bet they thought we wouldn't give it to them otherwise."

"Now that they know we're just girls, they probably think it will be easier to get it. But we won't make it so easy for them," I said in defensive fashion.

"Oh, just calm down, Tate. Everything will be perfectly fine," she soothed.

About ten minutes later…

Lola and I were sitting at the table, enjoying some muffins (that Grace made I'm sure), when there was a knock at the door. Lola started to get up, but I made sure that I got up faster. I ran towards the door, and looked out the peephole. 

I always thought it was kind of funny how people looked through the glass in the hole, and I couldn't help a chuckle now, when I looked at their deformed faces. Then I noticed that they had brought a friend. This made me a bit wary. Two I could probably deal with, if worse came to worse, I could call for Anita. But three? Now I didn't know what I was going to do if they were less than friendly. Anita sleeps like a rock, and I didn't think that I could get past three guys to her room.

I opened the door, to find three faces staring back at me. Quatre, Duo, and some new guy with light brown hair covering half his face that looked slightly familiar. 

"Why, hello," I started. "Who is your friend?"

I think they heard the wariness in my voice because then Quatre replied, "Trowa Barton. Sorry, we would have called to warn you we were bringing him, but we didn't know your phone number." The other guy just stood there, not making a move, and not saying anything. He creeped me out even more than the other two. 

"Well, come on in… Lola's waiting in the kitchen."

I led them back to the kitchen, thinking all the while that I shouldn't have to; they seemed to know their way into the house well enough. When we entered the kitchen Lola looked up, and gave us all a slight smile. 

"Hello."

"Hello," Duo replied, "sleep well? No more intruders?"

"No," we both replied. Lola with a small laugh, and me with more than slight irritation. This guy struck me as nice, just cocky.

"By the way, Lola, this is Trowa Barton," I told her. She just nodded her head. And there was no reaction from him. What a weird guy.

Everyone took a seat, and I ended up by creepy boy, the other two took the two sides of Lola. Damn it if she didn't look _smug_. Quatre was the one to start the conversation.

"So, I am assuming you have already looked through the contents of the box. Am I correct?" he asked. 

"Yes," Lola replied. "We actually separated all of the photos in to groups, and put all of the notes, and writing into other envelopes."

"I'm impressed," Duo said. "I wouldn't have put that much time into a bunch of crap I've never seen before."

"Well, we don't have much better to do…" I replied.

"Exactly what did you find?" Quatre asked.

"Pictures," Lola and I replied. 

"Lots of pictures," I continued, "and letters, certificates, that kind of stuff."

"Oh," Duo said. "Why would we want them then?" he asked the blonde.

"Well," Lola started, but then I gave her the you-tell-and-I-will-show-no-mercy look. They just looked expectantly at her, but she just died off.

"Can we see this 'information'?" Quatre asked.

"Maybe. Can we trust you?" I asked.

"Well, I would like to think so…" Duo answered. "I would never lie."

Right.

He wouldn't lie, but he would _steal_. 

Anyway, Lola looked like she was thinking it over, and I swear, if she hadn't been pregnant, I would have killed her. Double homicides just aren't my thing, though. 

"We just want to know what we were sent here for," Quatre said.

"Who sent you anyway?" I asked. They stayed silent, which I took for they weren't going to tell me. "You weren't sent for much as far as I could tell."

"Let's just show, them," Lola whispered.

"But we don't know who they are," I hissed. "I mean, they might have told us their names, but that doesn't mean they were telling the truth."

"Personally, I think if there isn't anything terribly important in the box, you should just show us," Trowa said out of nowhere.

"He speaks," I muttered to Lola. 

Duo laughed and said, "Yeah, Trowa's not much of a talker." Quatre also looked bemused by my comment, but Trowa just stared at me. I felt a slight chill run down my back that was oddly familiar. Then I realized. He was the other face from the pictures. The little boy with that girl, it was him. He was the depressing kid.

It then hit me that they were all much older than we had perceived them to be from the pictures. These three were at least our age, if not older, and the others must have been too. Relena, we had all recognized was older than the picture, but we didn't think of it at the time. 

"Well, we were told to be careful," I replied.

"I think you can trust us," Quatre said empathetically. He reminded me so much of Grace that I wanted to believe him. 

"That's what you say," I replied, realizing he was not Grace.

"I think we can trust them to," Lola said.

"Okay, but if they kill us and leave us in some seedy motel, without our livers, or whatever sick shit psychos do these days, don't come to me…" I said while getting up.

In the living room…

Lola had put all of the pictures in envelopes like she said, and placed them all on the coffee table. On two of them, she labeled with names, the rest were descriptions of the person predominately in the photos. "Brown hair, Blue eyes" for example. There was also one with the letters, and papers. 

I picked up the one with Duo's name on it, and started to take the pictures out. I passed one to them, it was of him in that priest outfit, which he had apparently ditched since the picture was taken.

"Hey, that's me?" he exclaimed. 

"Yes, all of the pictures in here are of you," Lola responded. "Each envelope holds pictures of a different person. "Or persons," she said as she picked up the one with the various pictures of people we didn't know.

"This one is yours," I said as I handed the one with Quatre's name on it to him. "There a few of a woman in there too. I guess she was your mother."

He looked oddly startled. "I never had a mother," he said simply. 

"What?" Lola asked. 

Quatre had taken out the pictures of her though, and he was staring at it. He was currently holding one of a man and her together. She was heavy in her pregnancy and he had his arm around her. They looked happy, although he looked strangely serious in the picture.

"That's my father," Quatre said in awe. "But I have never seen that woman before in my life."

"Hmm, maybe it was a previous marriage he just never told you about…" I suggested, because he was visibly starting to grow upset. He turned over the picture and looked at the label on the back.

"It's in my father's handwriting. 'Quatrine and I'. My father never married anyone. That's what he told us," Quatre said. "This makes no sense."

"Maybe there's a note explaining it," Lola hastily said. 

"I think we should do this later, once we've seen everything," I said. "We don't even know who's in half the pictures."

"Well let's see those," Duo said. Lola got out a few more from another packet. 

"So…do you know him?" she asked. It was the Chinese boy in the picture with the girl. 

"Oh, that's Wufei…" Duo casually replied, "but I don't know who the girl is. His sister maybe?"

"Grace said it looked like a marriage ceremony," I replied. Duo looked like he was about to choke on a chicken bone once I said this.

"Wufei? Married? For some reason I just don't see that one…" Duo stated.

"Well it seems we don't know all we thought we did, do we?" Trowa asked.

"Were did they get these pictures?" Quatre asked, still going through the envelope we had given him. "I haven't even seen most of these, and they're of _me_."

"We don't know," Lola answered. "We just got a box in the mail. Then we went through it, and ordered them by who was in them, or who they looked like they were related to…"

"We have some of you, too," I said to Trowa. "Here," I mumbled while handing the envelope to him. "There was a girl in there, who seemed to be related to you. You know about_ her_, don't you?"

He looked slightly confused, and for the twenty or so minutes I've known him, I have found any facial expression from him must follow an extremely significant moment. He took out a picture and looked at it. He looked about ten in it. The next one, he looked about fourteen, and he was standing with a girl.

"That's Catherine," he said simply. 

"Oh good. You know her. I didn't want to shock anyone else today," I sighed.

"But you've done a really good job so far," Duo replied.

"Do you know this guy then," Lola asked, handing over a picture of that blue-eyed, mean looking guy. 

"Yeah," Duo answered, "that's Heero."

"Hero?" we both asked.

"Yeah. He's another friend of ours," Duo replied.

"Really?"

"Yes, really," Duo replied.

"Why do people have pictures of us?" Quatre asked. "How did they get them? Do you have anymore of other people?"

"Well, we do have pictures of these people, but we don't know who they are," Lola said while handing them the envelope of the women and gruff old men we couldn't place. "There is also the packet of Relena Peacecraft Darlian, and that man."

"This is the weirdest thing I have ever experienced," Duo muttered.

"No shit," I said back.

"Hey, that's Hilde!" Duo shouted while going through another packet. "How did you guys get a picture of her? Even I don't have a picture of her, and I've lived with her for years."

"We already told you," I said, exasperated. "We got sent a package from some idiot we knew when we were younger. We have no idea where this stuff came from. We just looked through them, trying to figure out who the hell we were looking at. We _still_ don't know who _you_ people are."

"Well, I think we need to meet this 'Veronica' person," Quatre started. "Were is she? Do you know her well?"

"I hadn't talked to her for five years, until a few months ago, and then we get some damn package from her. Don't ask me," I retorted. "It just figures she do something stupid, and drag us into it."

"Well, why did she send it to you?" Duo asked.

"She said that Tate was dependably untrusting," Lola smirked.

"She wasn't wrong," Trowa remarked.

"You know, so far I don't like you," I snapped at him. He just smirked. Everyone else looked taken aback at what I had just said or the fact he had and expression on his face. Either one. Oh well. He was annoying. He barely ever talked, and when he did, he was sarcastic as hell. Or he had a point. 

Both got on my nerves.

"Well, maybe we should meet this girl. Find out what it is that she wants. Or at least, what she thinks she's going to get," Quatre grimly said. "Maybe these are just fakes. And this is some kind of sick joke."

"I don't know man," Duo replied. "These are pretty realistic…I mean come on. This looks exactly like Hilde, and it's a close-up."

"Let's get breakfast," I said out of nowhere. "Or brunch," I suggested after I looked at my watch. "We can do this later, and maybe I can find Veronica…though I doubt it. She probably never stays anywhere long, and there was no return address."

"Okay, but can I keep this?" Quatre asked.

"Sure. Let's go."

They all agreed to this, and we left the house. While in the car, I heard them mumbling in the back together…

"Maybe we should tell Heero and Wufei…"

"Do you really think we need to get them involved?"

"I don't know, but this could be serious."

"…the likely hood that someone would have pictures of all five of the Gundam pilots…"

"…pictures of the Vice Foreign Minister…"

"…can't be good…"

This was starting to sound serious.

And what did they mean by the Gundam pilots?


	4. The Other Roomates

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas or "The Waking" by Theodore Roethke.

Grace was sitting on the kitchen counter, trying to get me to recite a poem. I had no memory for anything, so I couldn't even think of the first line. 

"Do not go gently…" I opened.

"Gentle," she corrected. 

"Gentle…" I muttered. "…into that good night, old age should rave and burn at…"

"Burn and rave," Lola shouted from the other room. "Burn and rave!"

"Oh who cares!" I groaned. I threw down the paper. "It doesn't matter anyway. There is no way I'm going to remember this poem."

"But how do you expect to get into college if you can't remember a simple poem?" Grace asked getting exasperated. 

"Maybe I'm just not college material. Maybe I should forget about it."

"No, no you won't. I won't let you. You deserve to go to college. You could remember it last week," she said. "What's been on your mind lately?"

It had been a week since those guys had come over and I couldn't think straight. So much had been going through my head. Lola was the same way too. She couldn't decide what she wanted to do now.

*

They had decided to inform their friends of what they had found at our house and decided to leave everything with us. 

"It's survived this long with you. It might as well stay a bit longer," Quatre said. "We'll be back."

"Don't go having that baby on us now, though," Duo yelled back at Lola while walking away. She blushed and waved bye. Trowa didn't say anything, but waved bye too.

"Do you think their friends will be very nice?" she asked.

"I don't know. I sure do hope so," I replied as I watched the three walk away.

*

"How about we try another poem then?" Grace offered. "How about 'The Waking'? You always liked that one."

"Okay. I wake to sleep…and take my waking slow?" I inquired and recited at the same time. "I feel my fate in what I cannot fear?" Grace nodded in encouragement. "I learn by going where I have to go." 

We continued like this. It was to build up my memory skills, such as they were. Grace loved trying to teach me poetry, and Lola seemed to learn as I went along. I was supposed to go to college. Do something with myself, but I don't know what. Besides, it was hard enough to afford house payments, let alone college tuition.

Lola had been busing herself in her room, probably looking over the contents of the box. Trying to make sense of it all. She had been getting bigger and bigger, and kept comparing herself to various shelters. But she still insisted on doing things around the house. It was as if she was afraid she would stop being useful. We _let_ her do things like the laundry, and made sure that she got a say in who did what around the house. The funny thing was, none of us were sure how long she had been pregnant. She looked to be around her eighth month, or nearing her ninth. But she wouldn't tell anyone, and she didn't want to know the sex of the baby. ("I want it to be a surprise!") 

Lola, like me, hadn't told Anita or Grace about the guys that had come over. It was like it was our little secret, and we weren't going to tell anyone. I kind of liked it that way. Then we didn't have to share, and we didn't need to worry them over something that could very likely be pointless. 

And then they came.

It was a bright day. Looking to be about twelve noon, but it was more like ten in the morning. Grace was sitting in the study, trying to make sense of some French that Lola had dug up from somewhere, and I was sitting in the kitchen, looking over a few bills. Lola was nowhere to be seen, probably getting the groceries that she insisted on getting earlier, even though, the rest of us do have legs. And Anita was asleep.

There was a soft knock on the door. Not thinking I just yelled, "Come in!" And whoever it was made their way inside.

When I looked up, I was shocked to see five young men crowding the doorway. 

"Hello," Duo greeted brightly.

"H-hi," I meekly replied. I sure as hell didn't see this one coming. "Ummm…Take a seat?" I offered. There were two new people, and I didn't know what to say. Both looked extremely serious, and I'm sure I knew them from somewhere. Neither one smiled. These people just didn't run out of the intimidating kind, did they?

"This is Heero Yuy," Quatre said, pointing to the brown-headed guy beside him, "and this is Wufei Chang," he ended pointing at the other Chinese man, standing in the far corner. He had a cast on, so I assume he had broken his ankle.

"Hi," I said. I offered my hand, but neither seemed too excited to take it. Then the guy named Heero took it very briefly, only touching me for a moment.

Friendly.

"And I trust you remember Trowa, Duo, and myself."

"Yes, of course," I answered, still a little stunned.

They took their seats, and I took a moment to swallow the scene. Five guys I barely know, in my kitchen, all wanting something from me. Not good.

Then Grace came in. She dropped the paper she was holding, her lower jaw along with it. "Did I _miss_ something?" she asked.

"Umm.. Yes. These are some acquaintances of mine…" I stumbled over the words, not knowing what to label them. Friends… I haven't known them long enough. Intruders…well that sounded rude now. Besides, I invited them in.

I would have introduced them, but Quatre beat me to it. "This is Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, Heero Yuy, and that is Wufei Chang. I am Quatre Raberba Winner," he informed her with a smile. "And you are?"

"Grace," was her one word reply.

"Nice to meet you, Grace," he smiled.

She just nodded, and tried to smile back. Then in true Grace style she asked, "Would you like something to eat?"

"Why have we not met your friend sooner?" Duo asked. Smiling as he nodded to Grace. "Tate, here, has never mentioned you." He then shook her hand also. And Grace looked like a fish facing a shark with nowhere to hide. 

"Well, she hasn't really been around here lately," I tried. "At least, not when you're here."

"Oh, is there anyone else we need to know about?" Duo asked.

"Well there is Anita…" Grace started. "But I don't know if you'll ever meet her, she is never awake, and she's moving anyway." Grace said all of this really fast, so it sounded more like one word. Duo looked slightly confused, but didn't ask her to repeat herself. She was getting nervous now. You could tell.

"So, what are you gonna fix?" I asked Grace, hoping to calm her down a bit.

"I don't know," Grace replied, bewildered.

"Would you like anything special?" I directed this question to all of them, but only Duo answered. 

"How about some sausage and eggs?"

"Sure," Grace mouthed, barely making a noise. She began getting the cooking supplies and I began the inevitable conversation with our guests.

"So…" I started.

"So…" the guy with the messy brown hair repeated.

"I don't know where to start," I said. What was I suppose to say? 

So I found some pictures of you people you've never seen before, and now I'm starting to think you have a stalker…

No.

You people freak me out and I wish you would just take the damn crap and go.

Umm…no.

"For starters, how much do you know?" Trowa asked.

"Not much," I replied. "I don't know anything. Lola probably knows more than I do about everything that was in that box. I think she's even translated a few things."

"What do these things say?" Heero asked.

"I don't know…" I've never read any of them. Lately I have just tried to ignore the stuff. "Like I said, Lola knows more about it than I do."

"Well where is Lola?" Quatre asked.

"She went grocery shopping." I got up to get the juice from the refrigerator. I poured myself a glass and gestured in question if anyone else wanted any. They just shook their heads. 

"Hmm… I thought she would be here. We told her we were coming."

"You did?!" Now I was annoyed. She knew they were coming. And she left me to deal with them? 

Injustice.

"Well, I suggest we wait for her to come back, and she can tell you what she found… what she knows…whatever," I advised.

"Okay," a few replied.

A few minutes later… 

Grace was still making brunch for everyone, while I was still drinking orange juice. Our guests were just sitting there quietly, staring at me. I almost wanted to get up and start tap dancing just to find out if their expressions would change. So far, they had all seemed serious, except for Duo. And I'm sure he could be as serious if he wanted to be. Sometimes they would mutter something to each other, and I couldn't make out what they were saying, so I tried to sit still and look unperturbed. 

Then a girl with long red hair walked in, stumbling with large grocery sacks, unnoticed. As she wobbled about dropping the bag of apples, you couldn't see her large pregnant stomach. While trying to place the bags on the table she grunted, "No, don't get up! I'd hate to think you'd have to move."

"Well, you could have said something…" I replied while picking up the apples, dodging Grace's foot. The others moved to help, but I told them to sit back down. "Is there any more?"

"There are five or so more bags out in the car…" Lola started.

"Jesus, did you buy the entire store?" I asked.

"Well, we were running low on supplies. Plus we have company," she said while pointing to the boys at the table. "I see you all made it here well," she smiled sweetly. "I'm Lola."

"Yes, quite well," Quatre smiled back. "And these are…"

"Yeah," I replied, ignoring their side conversation, "_human_ guests, not freaking hippos! How much food do you think they need?"

"I don't know! I don't normally do the shopping," she grumbled. 

I knew I was being rude, but I didn't care. She should have told me.

"That's true," Grace supplied to the guests, "I'm the one who usually deals with the food. I love to cook." She said all of this while flipping sausages, and cracking more eggs in another pan. Of course Grace would try cover up my impoliteness. 

"And we're thankful to you for it," Lola said while rubbing her round tummy.

"Well, you know, if you had told me they were coming, I would have done the shopping. But you didn't do that did you?"

Lola looked like she was going to answer but just then a girl with short brown hair came in, stopping our argument mid-shout. 

She had dyed it again. They hadn't met Anita yet, but we knew we would have to introduce them sometime. I think we were just hopping she would be in a different state. At least her hair was a normal color.

Anita was wearing a skimpy pair of pink underwear, bobby socks, and a shirt, that for all it covered, she shouldn't have worn at all. It would have left less to the imagination, but since there were only two buttons done up on her shirt anyway, not much. She yawned, raising her arms, and Lola couldn't help but wince. 

Grace just stared, I continued with putting away the groceries as normal. Hopefully if they said nothing, maybe it wasn't real. But by the looks on their faces, it was other wise. Only Lola spoke up, in a slightly choked voice.

"Well, I see you're alive."

"Oh… shut up," Anita mumbled, sounding halfawake.

"What's your problem?" I asked.

"I am not a morning person," Anita answered while taking a chair and grabbing a cup of coffee. She happened to take a seat next to Duo, who looked slightly shocked, but didn't look too upset at the development. Only Anita could get away with something like that. "I have never been a morning person," she continued, pouring spoonful after spoonful of sugar in her coffee, "and I have no intention of becoming a morning person," she finished before taking a sip of the coffee. 

"But it's eleven fifteen," Grace said slightly confused.

"My point exactly."

"That doesn't give you an excuse to go around practically naked," Lola scolded. Although from my point of view, the guys didn't look that put out by the scene. "Really now, I bet you all think we're a bunch of freaks now." 

Duo didn't look freaked out at all. 

Anita then decided there was not enough sugar in her coffee and put in a few more spoonfuls.

"So I see you're having some coffee with your sugar, Ani," I commented.

"Yup," Anita grunted.

Then she noticed where she was, and who was there. 

"Who the hell are all of these people?"

"A little behind the times aren't you?" Lola wondered. Anita was looking around the room as if she had just noticed us all there. 

"Why didn't you tell me we had company?" Anita asked. The guys were looking at her with amusement and confusion. Duo was openly smiling while Quatre hid his behind is hand. Heero had a half smile (which I must admit was nice) and Trowa a smirk. Wufei seemed to cock an eyebrow.

I myself had to admit; the look on her face would have been cute… if it wasn't so pathetic. 

"Well," Grace started, "maybe you should get dressed."

"Maybe…" she mumbled. Then she looked down, "Oh, who cares?"

I do! I do!

So she made herself comfortable, while Lola shot daggers with her eyes. I just hoped that this would pass quickly and Grace started to put the food on the table.

We all ate in silence. I didn't know what to say, and Lola looked like she wanted to avoid talking altogether. The guys seemed to not want to scare us. Which they were failing at…miserably. 

Grace was standing by the stove, because we only had six chairs. Anita and the guys were occupying those. Lola was trying to put things away, while I was trying to help. Grace just played with her food, not knowing where to go. 

Once we had all decided that we were done eating, or wondering around, we settled down. I was readying myself for the interrogation to come. But no one seemed to speak. Lola was twisting her hands around, looking more nervous than I have ever seen her in my life. Her eyes darted around at each of them. 

"Well," Grace sighed. "What are you here for exactly?"

"They want what was in the box," Anita said. I was floored. How did she know? And as if reading my mind, she said, "I'm not blind. They're the people from the pictures."

"I think there is some explaining to do…" Heero said.


	5. A Little Too Much Information

Disclaimer: No. I still don't own Gundam Wing. I didn't in chapter three either, but I forgot the disclaimer.

And by the way, thank you Saiya-jin Patricia. I feel so warm and toasty inside when I read your positive reviews. 

*

"I think there is some explaining to do…"

*

Lola looked as if she was going to throw up once Heero said this. Her hands moved lightning fast and she looked like she might cry. Now I felt bad for my treatment of her earlier. I pinned this on her in a way.

Well the least I could do was make it a bit easier on her. So I decided to leave the room, and when I returned, I threw a pair of pants at Anita. If Lola was going to tell these people anything, we would all be dressed, for crying out loud. Anita grumbled something about a free world, and then slipped the jeans on, also buttoning a few of the buttons on her shirt. Good, she was getting the point.

After Anita dressed, everyone's attention returned to Lola. I had made it clear that I didn't know anything. Grace didn't know anything about it either, and neither did Anita. At least they didn't know anymore than I did. 

Lola looked lost. Her breath was shaky and she never seemed to focus on anyone in the room.

"Well…" she croaked. "Tate was sent a box…"

"Yes, we know that," Wufei said.

"and inside the box were pictures…"

"We know that, too," Duo smiled. 

"Tell us something we don't know," Wufei supplied to Lola as if he was becoming very bored with the entire situation.

"and letters, lots of letters, and birth certificates, and diary entries, love letters, and death certificates, and…" Lola said all of this very fast so that I could barely catch all of it. But she paused at the end. She took breath. 

"And…" Heero supplied.

"and I know what you all are."

Once she said this, there was quite a change in atmosphere. Duo stood up, Quatre leaned forward and Trowa leaned back. Wufei looked as if he would have moved if he didn't have a cast on, and Anita jumped because of Duo's swift movement. Grace stepped back, not understanding the change, and I turned toward Lola. What were they? 

Only Heero didn't move. He struck me as the kind of person that very few people could surprise. His eyebrows rose, and he looked questioningly at Lola. 

"What are we?" he asked, a hint of caution in his voice.

"You're the Gundam pilots," she said simply.

What?

Huh?

Where did _that_ come from? How did she come up with _that_? Gundam pilots? Weren't those guys up in space, or something?

Obviously I wasn't the only one that thought this was strange. Anita looked at everyone in the room as if seeing them in a new light. Grace's eyes widened, and our _guests _just looked at each other as if Lola was going mad.

Then they started to whisper to each other, and it all started to make sense to me.

*

"…the likely hood that someone would have pictures of all five of the Gundam pilots…"

*

How had I not seen it before? They had even said as much in the car to each other when we went to eat. How had I missed that?

Dumb! Dumb! Dumb!

I was looking around the room now. I felt like I had just met these people all over again. Gundam pilots. 

That changes everything. We weren't looking at just anybody's forgotten past or anything. We were looking at real living history. These people would be known for ages, and they were sitting in my kitchen. 

I wanted to take a picture.

Fortunately I refrained. 

"How do you know this?" Quatre asked, visibly trying to remain calm. 

"I read some of the documents. It said as much in them. It didn't take to much to figure it out once I got a few things pieced together," she replied.

"What's wrong with us knowing?" Anita asked, somewhat annoyed. Celebrity wouldn't faze her.

"We went to great lengths to keep our identities secret," Quatre began.

"And the fact that you people know who we are now changes some things," Duo added. "We might have to do some more covering up."

"Well I didn't know until I went through the box, so I think you've done a fairly good job so far," Lola supplied.

"Yeah, but if you know, then the person that gave you that damn package knows too," Duo moaned. "I don't wanna go on another search and destroy mission," he whined.

"What do you mean by destroy?" I asked stunned. I didn't like Veronica, but I didn't dislike her that much.

"Well, we have to make sure she doesn't tell anyone else, and we have to find out where she found this out from. Make sure that they don't tell anyone else," Quatre said.

"What else did you find out?" Wufei asked. This guy just didn't get off the subject at hand. 

Lola looked kind of annoyed now. I think Wufei might have gotten on her nerves. She had this look on her face that clearly said don't push it. 

"Well?" he prompted. "Did you find out anything important?"

"I know that after your wife died, they cremated her and put her remains on a flower field. That has some importance to you, doesn't it?" she asked getting very aggravated. Whoa there girl! She was getting rude now.

"You had a wife!?" Duo half exclaimed, half asked.

"Yeah," Wufei whispered. "I didn't know they did that. She would have liked that." He sounded sad. I felt bad for him. 

Clearly Lola did too because she then whispered, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to blurt it out like that."

Wufei didn't say anything, he just stared. There was a sadness in the room. All of us girls had lost someone important in our lives. We knew what it was like. I got the feeling the guys did too.

"What else do you know?" Trowa asked. For some reason every time he said something, it sounded out of place. He never seemed to speak, so it was weird when he did speak.

"Well, there was a letter about you to your grandmother. Your mother said your sister, Catherine, named you because your parents couldn't think of anything, and she thought you were beautiful like a god. Triton. God of the sea. 

There were things about you, after you were taken from your family. They knew they wanted you as a pilot. They had been worried about the real Trowa Barton from the beginning of the plans for Operation Meteor. You were considered backup."

Trowa's eyes widened at this. I don't think any of them really knew what she was telling them. This was all new to them. I had the urge to stop her. She shouldn't be telling them this.

"And you," she said, pointing at Quatre, "your mother died giving birth to you, but your father didn't want you to know, because he didn't want you to blame yourself. He wanted you to feel as if you had a place with you sisters, so he told you that you were a test tube baby like your sisters, but you're really the first naturally born child in the colonies. He named you after her."

God, what was getting into her? Now she was on a roll, so she wasn't going to stop. She continued with Heero.

"And you. You _were_ a test tube baby. Your mother couldn't conceive and she wanted a baby so badly. Then she died, and your father had to give you away to an orphanage, he couldn't raise you alone with out her. Then some guy named Odin Lowe got a hold of you. And you lived with him. And they knew they had to have you once they met you. You _had_ to be a Gundam pilot."

Heero looked horrified. I was starting to think that she was going way too far. But the only one left was Duo so I just let her finish what she started.

"Duo. But that's not your real name is it?" Lola asked.

"No," he replied simply. I think he was afraid of what she was going to tell him.

"John Dempsey. You ran away from home to the colonies, and lived on L2 in an orphanage at a church. Maxwell church. That's the one from the Maxwell Church Tragedy. You lived there. I'm guessing that's where you got Maxwell. I don't know about Duo."

"Solo," was his one word reply. "No one has called me John in years. How did you know it?"

"You told Sister Helen…once…she wrote it down. That was the only time your real name or past was mentioned. She was musing over why such a nice boy was alone and the irony of your name."  
Duo sighed. Lola was quiet now. She just gave everyone in that room a lot to swallow. Grace slid down on the floor. Anita's eyes were wide. I was staring into space, wondering what to do now. The rest were just sitting there, breathing, trying to figure out what she just told them.

"You wouldn't lie, would you?" Heero asked quietly.

"No," Lola said softly.

"Wow."

"Yeah, wow," Duo agreed with whoever spoke.

"So," Grace started, "anybody want some cheesecake?"

"Good timing, Grace. Really," came Anita's sarcastic reply. 

"What?" Grace asked looking around. "I always feel better after some cheesecake!"

"You can give me some then," Quatre sighed.

"Cheesecake all around," Duo exclaimed, and the rest seemed to agree. 

Later…

Once we had all consumed our cheesecake, the guys asked to see the pictures and documents. Lola got them out, and they all went over everything, and a few hours layer, they all came to the same conclusions that Lola had come to.

"How did this Veronica get all of this stuff?" Quatre was musing to himself.

"I am starting to wonder that myself."

"I think we need to find her," Heero said ominously, "she might know more."

Suddenly eight heads turned towards me, and I yelled, "Don't look at me! What makes you think I know where she is?"

"Well she did send it to you…" Wufei started.

"Doesn't mean I know where she is," I bit back. 

"Do you know where she lived last? Maybe she still lives there. And if not, maybe she left a forwarding address," Quatre offered.

"I'd have to think about that. Ummmm, no," I answered quickly.  
"Then we'll have to do this the hard way," Heero said.

"What is the hard way, exactly?" Anita asked, very interested, I'm sure. So he was cute. She didn't have to drool on him. He was also creepy as hell.

"Oh no, not that damn laptop!" Duo cried.

Suddenly, Heero left, and came back just as quickly, with a sleek black laptop, and was typing away furiously on it. And he could type fast. Really fast. Like I'm-not-sure-if-he-was-actually-typing-real-words fast.

He continued like this for a while, or at least until the rest of us got bored with it and started to drift away. I was sitting on the couch in the living room with Wufei and Duo, while Grace was in the kitchen with Trowa and Quatre. Anita drifted off outside. Lola was sitting on the floor beside my feet, rubbing her tummy. 

"Are you okay?" I asked, concerned. 

"Oh, yeah," she assured me. "The baby is kicking like crazy though."

"Ooh, can I feel?" I pleaded. I have always wanted to feel a baby kick.

"Uh, sure," she consented. She took my hand and placed in a little below her belly button. Well, actually, she didn't have a belly button anymore. It disappeared in around the seventh month. But anyway, there, right below her skin, was this awkward movement. It felt like feeling something bounce around in really thick rubber.

It was amazing. 

I oohed and awed and did all the appropriate things one should do when touching another person's stomach. And Wufei looked at me like I was nuts. Duo looked more amused.

"Does it hurt much?" he asked. 

"Not really, not like that would," Lola answered, pointing at Wufei's cast. "What did you do anyway?"

"Well," Wufei started.

"He was pushed down a flight of stairs by a four year old," Duo replied. "I wasn't there, but I heard the whole thing from Sally."

Wufei looked completely mortified by that one. "I-I was n-not," he stuttered. "I was chasing a criminal and I fell down the stairs mid-pursuit."

"Yeah, _after_ being pushed by a four year old," Duo muttered.

I snickered at this, and Lola lightly laughed.

"Did you get him?" she asked.

"Of course," was Wufei's reply.

"Sally did," Duo whispered, behind his hand. "He was to busy writhing in pain."

Wufei's eyes took an I-will-kill-you-later look and he got up to go to the kitchen. I can only assume because he wouldn't be ridiculed there. 

Duo got up to follow him, and I stayed with Lola.

"Do you have any names yet?" I asked. 

"No, but I've been thinking about it a lot lately."

"Hmm, if it's a girl, you can always name her after me," I said with a smirk on my face.

"I don't think so."

"Well," I said, mock stunned. "I have never been so insulted in my life!"

I dramatically got up, and started towards the kitchen. I was going to find out what Grace was doing. And what all those guys were doing. But only because they were with her. Really.

Lola got up to follow, and we both found Grace in the kitchen making food for supper. God, she never stops cooking. It was chicken and cheesy broccoli. My favorite.

Lola and I sat, and then we all stared at each other. 

"So…"

"So."

"Well, where are you from?" Quatre tried at small talk.

"Earth."

"Well, Earth is pretty big. You got some place more specific than that?" Duo asked sounding slightly exasperated. 

"Well, I was from North America, and it was by the sea, but that is all I can remember. We moved a lot when I was young," I answered.

"I was from the Midwest in North America," Lola replied. "I think a few hundred years ago the area was called Iowa or Illinois. Weird names, huh?"

Grace had finished the chicken, and I got up to help pass it out. We left some for Heero and Anita, whenever they decided to join the rest of us normal people. We ate a few minutes in silence. I got up to walk around for a drink. 

"So where is the…" Quatre started. I knew what was coming, and behind Lola, I was giving the please-dear-lord-don't-ask hand wave and pleading with my eyes. "…father?" he finished looking confused.

"Somewhere off screwing around I'm sure," she began. She continued ranting for the next few minutes about jerks and abandonment, all the while wilding stabbing the chicken with a glint in her eye. I took her hand, hoping she wouldn't try to stab me too. She finished with snarling, "Well I hope he's happy with Dolores, or whatever the hell her name is…" Then her eyes went wide as if she just realized where she was, and she looked around blushing. "Sorry," she said looking upset. "I'm still a bit bitter…"she mumbled. She turned to leave the room, with a hint of tears in her eyes.

"Wow," Duo said stunned. "Way to be tactful, Quatre."

Quatre blushed, not knowing what to say. He looked upset and made to go after her, but Grace stopped him.

"She likes to be alone," Grace said. "Besides, you couldn't have known it would upset her so much."

"Still," Quatre said, looking into the other room.

"There isn't much you could say anyway. She doesn't blame you. Just let her work it out on her own. She'll be fine. Really," I tried to assure him. This is coming from someone who had suffered the wrath of Lola many times. 

Wufei looked unconvinced. "She's probably just overly emotional. Almost all women are…"

Whoa. 

He didn't really mean that. 

He has ten seconds to redeem himself. 

"Especially when they're pregnant. Sally isn't ever like that…" he continued. Breathing slowing, heart rate returning to normal. Killing urges subsiding. "But women are weaker beings…"

Now I have to leave. I am not above murdering a chauvinistic jerk in the middle of our kitchen, but I wouldn't want to leave the mess for Grace to clean up. 

"His name was Michael Chancellor. He was nice. We all thought it would work out," I said before I left the room to go find Lola. "Don't worry, I'll take care of Lola."

I looked around the house for her, but she didn't seem to be anywhere. I passed Heero, still wildly typing on his laptop, and absently eating the chicken I'm sure Grace brought to him. I then walked out side. I heard sniffling in the corner. Success! I had found her!

When I rounded the corner, I didn't find quite what I had expected. It wasn't Lola. Or at least not _only_ her. 

It was Lola and Anita. Lola was crying on Anita's shoulder, and Anita was patting her back, whispering to her. I had never thought to see this in my whole life. 

Those two getting along was like seeing oil magically blending with water. Impossible. I stood by the edge of the wall, listened to them.

"I don't think I can do it alone…" Lola confessed.

"You don't need him. He was slime and he didn't deserve to have you or be around the baby. You did the right thing. You're doing the right thing," Anita soothed.

"You really think so?"

"Of course I do. This is me talking here, I would never lie to you," Anita said.

"I guess so."

"What do you mean you guess so? You know so. You will live and prosper, and all that jazz. It will be great. You'll wake up in the morning, and you'll see your baby smile, and all of it will be worth it. The pain, the sorrow, the long hours of labor. I just know it," Anita assured.

"Thank you…" Lola murmured, sniffling and wiping her nose. She then hugged Anita, and got up. I ran off before I fainted from shock, and got back to the house before they noticed me.

Once inside, I was scared half to death by Heero yelling in triumph. 

"Ah ha!" 

After my blood curdling scream, and the confusion that followed, we all had settled, and Heero announced his news.

"I found her. She's not all that far either. Up north about 250 miles. We could do that easy. Although we might have to hike for a while."

Whoa.

We?

What did he mean by 'we'? 

Because if he thought I was going, he had another thing coming.


	6. A Night At A Hotel

Disclaimer: Same as always.

The stars are actually quite beautiful when you think about it. They sparkle and entice you into thoughts, ones you might not have thought of otherwise. You dream. You dream of things that could have happened, or you wish of things that you want to happen. You hope. And you feel so small. 

Of course, I wouldn't be talking like this if I hadn't been dragged into the woods by a psycho.

We left Lola and Wufei at the house. Lola was too pregnant to go, and Wufei's ankle was broken. This gained much grumbling from Wufei. Something about being left behind with a woman. This annoyed us, but he must have talked like this often, because everyone else just ignored him. We had to talk Anita into going. I wasn't about to leave her there with Lola. Just because they had a little powwow in the back yard doesn't mean they were going to get along when I left. And all I needed was an angry pregnant woman to return to when I got back.

Packing was easy; we weren't supposed to be gone any longer than two days. The guys didn't take long either; they seemed to wear the same clothes all the time anyway. Figuring out how to transport seven people was the hard part. We had our car, which was a piece of crap, and they had a motorcycle and a car. Decisions, decisions. In the end, we took their car, and the motorcycle. Duo agreed to take someone with him on the motorcycle, and Anita looked ready to pounce on the idea. Grace put in that I get carsick, so no one wanted me to ride with them in the car and I ended up riding with Duo.

It was starting to get cloudy by the next day, and I was getting a burning feeling in the pit of my stomach. I mentioned this to Anita, but she told me it was probably just gas. Great. We headed out fairly late in the day, for what reason I don't know. Before we left, we made sure Lola was okay being left behind with Wufei (who had given me the impression of a cross between an angry anti-feminist and a knight in not-so-shiny- armor). 

While loading the car, Heero was very analytical about putting in the bags. It occurred to me then, that we were hanging out with soldiers from the war. I remembered the war. How confusing it was, and all of those people dying daily. They were younger than me at the time. I was so suddenly blown away by this, that it took me a second to think straight. What must their lives been like back then? What were they like right now? While I was a not-so-innocent schoolgirl, they were fighting in a war. Man. That's…screwed up.

Suddenly Grace mentioned that Heero was only wearing a green tank top for a shirt. If it was going to rain, he should wear something more practical to go out in the woods (which at the time, I only thought was a threat), and offered to get something from the house for him. Lola argued that he was a big boy and would wear what he wanted to wear. 

"At least he stopped wearing that spandex…" Duo started.

"Oh, I don't think I'd mind," Grace murmured absently, with a half smile on her face.

Lola looked shocked by this. She blinked a few times, as if trying to take in the comment, and then said stunned, "Did you just make a joke?"

Grace just smiled and walked back into the house for the rest of her stuff with Lola gaping at her retreating back.

By the time we had set out, I had just realized I was scared to death of riding on a motorcycle. Also, the concept of holding on for dear life to a guy I had met only a few weeks ago didn't strike me as being pleasurable. Unfortunately I had been given my transportation, and there was no turning back. I closed my eyes and I worked hard at holding on to Duo's stomach. I was in for a surprise. Duo's braid would sometimes whip around and hit me while we were driving, but beyond that, there was nothing bad about riding a motorcycle. In fact, it was quite exhilarating.

Then it started to rain. 

It didn't start by sprinkling or even by a light drizzle. No, it just poured down, so from one moment we were riding free, to the next moment we smelled like wet dogs going really fast down a highway. Now, the smell didn't bother me. It was the way the rain pelted against my face and my upper body much like little rocks being thrown at me. It hurt and it was very uncomfortable. 

As it was getting darker, it became even harder to see and sometimes we stopped to make sure we knew what we were doing. The car didn't seem to fair much better than we were, because every so often they would start going very slow, as if they didn't know if they were on the right side of the road. Soon we decided to stop at a hotel. A fairly nice one with an indoor swimming pool and a warm, _dry_ lobby. I can only imagine what Duo and I looked like standing there. Probably as if we had been out in the rain for hours. Which we basically had been.

There hadn't been plans for a hotel when we had left the house, but it seemed to be in them now. That was the first problem that popped up in my mind, and the second was where I going to get my clothes washed. I didn't bring along all that much to begin with, and what I had now was dirty and wet. 

Apparently I missed something when introduced to these guys, because Quatre paid for two rooms without blinking an eye at the cost. We were soon all in chilly, well-groomed rooms lit with dim light from lamps. I shared with Anita and Grace and the guys shared a room. 

A bit later…

I don't think we would have talked all that much that night if our rooms didn't have a conjoining door. Anita had the genius idea that we should go swimming, and Duo thought this was wonderful too. He had only been swimming a few times. Apparently pools weren't common in the colonies. So they busied themselves trying to get the rest of us to go along. Which they finally did, but only on the conditions that we didn't have to swim.

So there I was, sitting on the side of the pool, soaking my feet, praying to God that Anita wouldn't get one of those annoying streaks and splash me, and thinking. Grace was sitting beside me, doing the same while Heero was busy typing away. It seems he spends a lot of time with that laptop of his. I understood what Duo was saying then. Quatre was reading a book, and drinking tea, while Trowa did the same as Grace and I, but on the other side of the pool.

Anita and Duo were having a grand old time in the pool just swimming, sometimes racing, other times looking as if they were plotting something. It was those times I made sure that I tried to be fairly far away from the side of the pool. We were decidedly quiet though, for being at a pool in a hotel, looking like teens on a road trip. It was then our little conversation started. 

"So where did you say you were from again?" Duo asked while performing a backstroke. 

"North America. Where are you all from?" I replied, curious. 

"Well, I am from L2, and Quatre basically owns L4," Duo said. So that explained the rooms. Quatre's loaded. And that was probably why Lola knew who he was even though I didn't. "And lets see, Heero said he was from L1 once, and I know that Trowa lives on L3 with his sister. Wufei lives on L5."

"So you all come from the colonies?" Grace asked.

"Yeah, you could say that."

"Do you like it there?" she asked. "Is it nice?"

"Hmm, well, I always liked it up there. It's the only place I ever knew as home. But Earth is nice too," he answered. 

"I've always wanted to go up to space," Grace sighed dreamily. 

"I never knew that…" I started. Grace was one of my best friends, and she never told me this. What else didn't I know about her?

"Well, I never told anyone."

I was a little annoyed now. Why didn't she ever tell _me_? What else hadn't she told me? Why was I so bothered by this? It then occurred to me. I was taking not know that Grace wanted to go to the colonies like a child, but these people had found out things they didn't know about their lives and were taking it amazingly well. Then my big mouth opened up and commented on this.

"You know, you all are taking this situation extremely well compared to how I would take it."

Duo stopped suddenly and turned around. His usually cheerful face was suddenly serious and he looked thoughtful. He then answered me in a quiet voice, I can only assume so that no one else would hear. Apparently Quatre, Heero, nor Trowa had heard my observation and Duo wanted to keep it that way. 

"Well, when you think about it," Duo replied, "you didn't tell anyone anything we didn't already know. You did tell Heero and Quatre things they didn't know, but not the rest of us really. You see, Wufei already knew his wife was dead, and Trowa already knew Catherine was his sister. I already knew my real name. I never did intend on telling any of them about it, though."

He paused then, he had a small smile on his face. But then he continued with his serious face. "Quatre didn't know about his mother, but after the second time we came to see you, he talked to a few of his sisters, and they told him the truth. He's had a little bit of time to get over it, or at least accept it. Heero, though. I don't know how he's taking his information. I mean he never knew about his parents, I think he always assumed that Odin Lowe guy was his father. Heero has never been known for showing his emotions, so I don't really know how it has affected him, if at all. "

"But that's not important…" he said suddenly.

"Yes it is," Anita said.

"Well, not really. The fact that you know is more important than what you found out. I mean, if you know, then whoever told you knows. And whoever told them knows. And who knows who else knows who we are!"

"Wow, I think that is the most I've ever heard that word in one paragraph. But why does it matter if we know or not who you are?" I asked. He made his way toward me in the water, and I was yet again reminded of the shark out for the kill.

"Because, that means someone else knows. You people have no idea how much time and energy we put into hiding our identities after the war. It took a lot of work, and we were never completely sure if we had gotten ride of all of the information. Obviously we didn't." He sighed and leaned back against the side of the pool beside my legs. "Now we have to do another cover up job." 

"Why are we coming along?" I asked. I was still mad at them for taking me on what I saw as only a wild goose chase.

"Because you know her, and you could probably talk some sense into her."

"Why am I here?" Grace asked.

"Backup," Duo replied. Grace's eyes widened and Anita was ignoring us as she so often did anyway. "Although why we brought her along is still news to me," he said motioning towards Anita.

"How did you find us?" Grace asked. 

"Well, we got a message, from who I now think is this Veronica person, and went to find you. It said we should steal it at night, or try to get it during the day at our own risk. Which if you ask me, from what I've seen of you people, wouldn't have been much of a risk on our part."

"Why thank you," I replied, not sure if I should be insulted or flattered.   
"Have you gotten wet enough yet?" came a growled question from our stoic friend at his laptop. "I'm getting tired, and we still have to go seventy miles, twenty of which we will have to hike. So the rest of you will need your rest too." We all agreed to this, and retired to our rooms.

A few hours later…

I was snoozing comfortably in my bed and Grace was beside me while Anita was in the other. There was a knock on our door, and a blonde head peeked in. I am very territorial when I am tired, and I had to remind myself this was one of the nice guys before I ripped off his head for interrupting my sleep. 

"There is a phone call for you, I don't know what it is about but Wufei wants to talk to you," Quatre whispered anxiously. I got up quickly. What would Wufei want to talk to me for?

It became pretty apparent when I saw him on the videophone. We didn't have one of those, so I assume he was using his. One look at his and Lola's face said everything. Why did she have to have the baby while I was away?! I looked out the window. Going back was out of the question, I wanted to see the baby born, but I didn't want to die in the middle of a thunderstorm. 

Wufei's face was anxious. He looked like he was going to faint. Lola looked like she had just finished a marathon and wanted to kill Wufei. 

"Why did you leave me with her? You didn't say she was so far along! What am I suppose to do? I have never been around a pregnant lady before, let alone one giving birth!" He said all of this in a very angry tone and very quickly. I had very little sleep, and I was about to explode myself. I should have seen this one coming. Lola was breathing hard in the background, moaning loudly. She was so red in the face and sweat was trickling down her face. Suddenly I was scared.

"I don't know what to do. Why didn't you take her to the hospital?" I cried at his worried and stunned face.

"In this weather?"

"Well then why not the ambulance?" I screamed. My friend was having a baby on the floor of our kitchen with only a guy who I'm pretty sure knows beans about women in attendance. Oh God. Lola's face was getting redder, and she looked like she was going to pop. Wufei turned around looking lost. "What about hot water and towels?" I suggested.

"I've already done that."

"Then make her comfortable. I don't know what else to do," I replied, defeated.

Wufei then turned around to look at Lola. Her face was a stunning shade of vermilion and I assume this startled Wufei because he yelled at her, "Hey! Breathe! Breathe!"

"Breathe!?" she screeched back. "Breathe!? I am breathing! YOU BREATHE!"

Wufei then walked over to her, and then walked back to us when she about slapped him. He then growled, "You people are no help!" 

That's when he hung up. Or when we lost connection.

Either way I didn't get much sleep. Quatre looked astonished and the rest of them looked back at each other. Even Trowa didn't look his usual impassive self.

It was a few hours later that we got another call. I was a few moments away from falling asleep from pure exhaustion. When the phone buzzed my head shot up, and I ran to Quatre's side to see a tired looking Wufei.

"Is she okay?" I asked automatically. 

"Yeah," he replied. "They're both fine. It was a girl. Now I'm stuck with two girls." He sounded so tired I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

From Wufei's account he only had two words for giving birth. 

Wow. And…

Eww.

"I don't think I shall ever have children now," Wufei sighed. "Not after that. I mean, that looked really painful. And I don't think I could ever put a woman through that." This coming from a war hardened soldier.

"Are you sure they are okay?" Heero asked.

"Yeah."

"Well then, we're going to bed. Have fun." Heero then hung up on Wufei. "You need to get to sleep," he said to me. I was tempted not to, just to find out what he would do. He was treating me like a child, much to my exasperation. I ended up doing what he said anyway. He was right. I was tired. It had been a long night. I wondered what Lola was going to name the baby.

The next day…

Now we were trekking through the woods. Yet again we got a late start. We had to pack up all of our stuff again. Grace and Anita wanted to know all about the baby. I told them what I knew and said we'll find out more once we got back. We had lunch and then decided to take our time setting out. 

We parked the car and motorcycle behind some bushes and headed out. It was late by the time we had done this. About six. It was very apparent after the first mile or two that Grace and I were out of shape. We were getting very tired while everyone else seemed to be walking quite comfortably. By the time we had walked ten miles, we were tired and wanted to rest. Heero decided we could afford the time and we camped for the night. We got ourselves situated to a relatively dry place, and set up camp. Trowa and Duo went out for firewood, and we got dinner ready. Leftover sandwiches from lunch. Yum. After that we settled down, and everyone was quiet.

I looked up at the stars. They were beautiful. I had never noticed it before, because I had always lived in the city or close to a town. The stars are so hard to see close to the lights of Earth.

I mentioned this to everyone, and Quatre commented that you could see even more when you're in space. "The atmosphere doesn't get in the way. It's like there are twice as many stars when you're up there."

Grace got that dreamy look again. I wish we could take her up there, but it was too much money, and we were working like crazy trying to afford the house. It was Grace and my little project. We were going to prove to everyone that we could make a home together, without help from our families. Or what was left of them. It had taken us a year to make enough money for the down payment. But now we were on our way.

Then Lola came, and now we had someone else, or two. And there was Anita, but she was leaving. I have to admit, I'd love to go to space too, and now that peace was picking up with the colonies that would be realized much easier. But we were too well grounded.

So I let Grace dream on her perch by the fire, and contented myself with looking up at the stars.


	7. Some Things Come Out

Disclaimer: Sigh… I don't own it. Just the plot of the story. 

I woke up to the sun shining bright in my eyes. Once I had stretched and looked around, I could see everyone else was awake, except for Anita. I had to get up to get dressed, and tried to make myself presentable. Apparently it had been decided that Quatre and Anita would stay behind. Quatre for backup and Anita, well, because she had no use anyway. 

"I didn't want to go on this dumb trip anyway," Anita grumbled in indignation. 

"Why are we staying here?" Quatre asked, eyeing Anita a little nervously.

"You won't stay here exactly. You'll be about a mile or two away from the mansion that Veronica is at," Heero supplied. "So if anything happens, we have someone to come in."

"What could possibly happen?" I asked.

"Who knows?" Trowa answered from just behind me. I jumped. God, did he always have to do that? Weirdo. "But it is better to be prepared for anything."

"Okay." I was starting to get really nervous. How was Lola? What was going to happen? What was I suppose to say to Veronica when we got there? What would she say? But most importantly what were they going to do?

"Duo will stay at the door, while Trowa, Grace, Tatum and I will make our way to Veronica," Heero continued giving me the brief like I was some soldier in formation. "Then we'll question her, and if all goes well, we will find out how to delete this threat to our identities."

"What do you mean?" Anita asked. "Threat to your identities?"

"No one is to know who we are. That is our accepted rule. Those who do know are sworn to secrecy, or…" Heero replied.

"Why?"

"We just wanted to be normal people after the war. We wanted to go on with our lives. We discovered this would be much easier with our identities as former pilots hidden," Quatre replied sadly. "Being normal is very hard anyway, we didn't need people to know about our part in the war."

"So now, we're gonna make sure your friend doesn't talk, and find out who told her," Duo supplied. "And make sure they don't talk either. Then I'm going home to Hilde and my scrap yard and taking a long nap." He sighed and closed his eyes, pleasing himself with the thought.

Quatre glanced at Duo and then shrugged. "Basically, that's what we're doing. Nothing grand or anything. So you don't have to worry." He sounded tired. All of them did. Or bored. They had probably done this several times. Well at least they knew what they were doing.

We had started off, crunching our way through the underbrush in the woods. It had occurred to me that we were taking our time traveling 250 miles. Then I just figured it gave me more time to think about my situation and what was going on. Maybe they did that on purpose.

"Who else knows who you are?" I asked while we were walking along. They never mentioned anything about the other people who knew their identities, but there had to be more.

"Well, there is Relena…and Dorothy, but we don't see her much," Duo answered.

"Who's Relena?" I asked, probably sounding dumb. 

"Relena Peacecraft Darlian," he replied simply. I was surprised. These people knew the Vice Foreign Minister? Who else did they know?

"Then there is everyone else who knew us during the war," Trowa supplied. "Catherine, Noin…and there are others."

"I still find it hard to believe you people were pilots," Anita said.

"So do we sometimes," Trowa replied. Wow. That's a lot of talking for him.

"Were you all friends during the war?" Grace asked, finally speaking up. 

"You could say that," Duo replied. "It seems I don't remember being very close them during the war. As I recall I was shot a few times. But I think we always generally liked each other. We don't talk to each other much now. This is the first time I've seen Wufei since that Christmas incident. But Quatre likes to keep in touch and that's nice."

"Well, it's good to know that you all are still alive sometimes," Quatre wryly answered. 

"What are you all doing now anyway, if you're not soldiers anymore?" Grace wondered.

"Well, I've been working with Relena and the colonies on peace negotiations…" Quatre offered. Wow, this guy was higher up than I thought. "And lets see, Trowa is still a clown in the circus." A CLOWN?! Trowa? Why _don't_ I see that? "What have you been up to Heero?" Quatre asked. "I haven't really heard from you much for a while."

Heero frowned. Well, more so than usual. "Not much," he finally replied. "I finished school."

"That's good," Duo said. "I never got the heart to go back myself. I've been working with Hilde on the scrap yard. And didn't Wufei say that he was still a Preventer."

"A Preventer?" I choked. I'd heard about that job. That had to be dangerous. No wonder Wufei seemed so moody. Then there was the fact he just helped a girl give birth. I don't think that made him any happier.

"Yeah, I haven't really seen these guys together for years," Duo said. "And I only saw Relena and Noin once or twice. That's life I guess," he continued a little sadly. Then he brightened up and said, "Well now that we've rehashed all of our old memories, how about you?"

"Well," Anita started, but I interrupted her.

"We're all acquaintances from school. Veronica and I were best friends, and Lola and Grace were our friends too. Anita went to another school, but she was friends with Veronica and I knew her." I hoped this would explain everything and we wouldn't have to bring up anymore unpleasant history. Apparently not, because then Quatre asked about Veronica.

"Why don't you like her anymore?" 

I sighed. I was so hoping we wouldn't have to bring this up. How was I to go about this?

"Hmm," I started. I sighed and continued, "I had moved to town from Mars. My family was apart of the early terraforming project. I met Veronica. We hit it off. Veronica and I came from troubled homes. My father was not very friendly to say the least, and her stepfather was a little _too_ friendly. If you see where I'm going with this. Anyway we were supposed to run away together. Start new lives. God, we were so naïve. We thought that we could build new futures at the age of fourteen." I sighed again and went on. 

"Well, anyway. She left without me. I felt so betrayed and hurt that I've basically hated her ever since. I guess she just needed to get away quicker than I did. I would have taken her back if she had returned. In a week, a year even. But she never came back. She didn't return until about five months ago, then she send me a package, and you know the rest."

"What happened to your parents?" Quatre asked. 

"Well, Mom died of cancer a little over a year ago. And I don't ever talk to Dad. He could be dead too for all I know…or care." They all looked a bit shocked at this. I suppose I was a bit hostile towards my father, but who wouldn't be? 

"Well, I guess we won't bring up anyone else's parents," Duo mumbled uncomfortably.   
"Actually I never knew my parents. I was adopted," Anita said. "But I liked my adoptive parents. I just hade to move out at eighteen. I call them every Saturday."

"I never knew that…" I muttered. How much do these people keep from me anyway?

"My mother died when I was young, and I never really knew my father," Grace supplied. This I knew. Although I never really knew all that much about them. "And Lola's parents live back in Kansas or wherever. They don't like to talk to her, since she got pregnant. It's sad really."

Now that we have all reminisced on memories I would have rather left forgotten, we didn't say much. Quatre and Grace seemed to talk to each other behind us. And Duo tended to hum while he was walking. But other than that, the rest of us were silent.

A little while later…

We stopped. Quatre and Anita sat down, preparing themselves for the wait and I leaned against a tree. It occurred to me then that Heero might not even know where he was going. What directions were they going off of anyway? 

Once we parted ways, we started going faster. Heero and Duo were leading the way, while Trowa brought up the back. I think they did this on purpose now, to protect us. How sweet.

Grace just marched forward, not looking around at all, which was strange for her, because normally she would take in everything. Grace was a poet; she loved the beauty of the woods, and things like that. She loved to paint. Usually we would paint with each other. It was fun. Grace had gotten me to appreciate the arts. But now, she just stared ahead like a porcelain doll. This worried me, and I made sure to keep an eye one her.

When we arrived at the mansion, it awed me by its sheer size. I could easily conceive a hundred rooms in this palace. And it was gorgeous. It was three stories, made of brick and what I think was marble. I couldn't understand why such a beautiful building would be hidden in the woods. 

We walked up to the door. Did he honestly think we could just knock on the door and be invited in? Apparently he did, because Duo hid behind a bush, and Heero motioned to knock on the door. But before he did, Trowa stepped in front of Grace and I. Then he whispered, "We don't have any weapons, so it will be hand-to-hand combat if they're aggressive." 

Grace's eyes closed tight at this. Please, please say that didn't mean what I had thought it did. 

Heero knocked loudly on the door. We stood there for a few moments, waiting for sounds inside the house. Duo grumbled something from the bushes, and Heero growled at him to shut up. 

Then the door opened. Standing there was a tall man, dark tux and white hair. The butler. And he looked…snooty. A look of contempt came over his face and he asked in what I'm sure was a fake British accent, "Hello. Your business with Mr. Campbell is?" Who was Mr. Campbell?

"We have a meeting with him," Heero replied sounding very serious. We had a meeting with him? And this was not mentioned to me, why? 

The butler looked appeased with this answer and then asked, "Name?"

"Heero Yuy."

"And your friends are?" he asked after that. 

"Tatum Waslo, Grace Newman, and Trowa Barton," Heero replied low. " I believe I mentioned them in my message to your employer." From here it looked like the butler was slightly scared. Heero must be pretty menacing when he wants to be. The butler let us in, and we made our way to Mr. Campbell. 

About an hour later…

I would bore you with details about this guy's mansion, but lets put it this way. If there were any possible way for me to steal a mansion out in the middle of the woods, I would have. This guy had great taste, and there were windows everywhere just flooding the place in stunning sunlight. All of the windows had a view of a beautiful rose garden that I'm sure you could get lost in. I wanted this house. And I would have enjoyed it more if a mean, irate butler wasn't heading the tour.

We were led outside to a veranda. It was intricately designed and the table we were situated at was topped with glass. The table was set up for tea with small china cups with tiny flower patterns. 

Ah, hell. I said I wouldn't bore you with details.

There was steaming hot tea in the cups, and I thought it was strange that they would already have it out for us, but at the moment I wasn't in the mood to think about things thoroughly.

We all situated ourselves at the table as suggested, and we were then informed that Mr. Campbell would be with us shortly. If you could call an hour short. 

I sat there staring at my tea. Heero and Trowa did as I did, just not at their tea. They seemed to be surveying the area. Yet again I was hit by the fact that they were soldier boys. Grace had gulped her tea down, and was looking at the pot hungrily. I decided to take a sip. It tasted bitter, and I considered adding sugar, but then I remembered I didn't like tea all that much anyway, so the whole exercise would be pointless.

We stayed that way for a bit longer, and then a kindly looking old man came up to us. At first I thought he was the gardener or a servant. He wasn't wearing anything fancy, and was covered in dirt. But then he introduced himself as Mr. Campbell.

"You look just as I thought you would," he said with a smile. "Older, dirtier, but the same." This was our stalker? He looked like my sweet, senile grandpa, but without the purple bathrobe. A little nutty, (you might have to worry about him putting sugar in the salt shaker) but hardly dangerous.

"I suppose you would like to speak to Veronica?" he asked.

"Yes," Trowa replied. Why was he the one talking? We wouldn't want to give this guy the wrong impression.

"Where is she?" I asked. 

"I actually don't know…I told her you would be here, but she doesn't seem to have come to visit as I requested. It is unlike her to miss appointments." He said this with a slight frown, looking genuinely concerned. I wondered over what his relationship with Veronica was, but ignored the nagging feeling I felt in the back of my chest.

Whatever he felt about Veronica left my head once he sat down. 

"I imagine you would like to know about the documents Veronica sent you. There is actually very little I could tell you about them. Only the bits that Veronica told me about. I am told that much of it was collected by a group of scientists. From what Veronica told me, the Gundam pilots had been chosen, but the creators hadn't been sure if they should entrust their inventions to these young men." He paused in thought. He looked Heero and Trowa over. "Which I see there are only two here today. Where are the others?" 

"With friends," was Heero's simple answer. I wasn't going to get involved in this anymore than I had to, so I kept my trap shut, and it seemed that no one else was going to give away any more information because they didn't elaborate.

He took this as a decent answer, and continued. "So they studied you, found out every thing that they could about you. I don't know if they are dead or not. But there research remains. This data was given to a young officer. He was to hide it and make sure it didn't see the light of day until specified. That officer was my son. My son was very much in love with a young girl when this task was given to him. That young girl was Veronica." He sighed, seeming as if he was floating off to his own world. I found myself feeling sorry for him with no reason at all. He hadn't told us anything particularly sad. Then he returned to the real world.

"Then my son died, but before he did, he made us promise to keep this box of things until the specified date. Unfortunately we never did find out the specified date. So we waited until we were _ready_ to complete his task. Unfortunately, by the time that happened, we were being targeted. Outside sources had discovered we had something on the Gundams. So far Veronica and I are sure they don't know what it is, but we didn't want to take our chances at the time. So we agreed to send it to an undisclosed location, and Veronica would contact the pilots so they could acquire their records." He sighed and took a drink of the tea in front of him. His nose scrunched up. "That new butler…has no idea how to make tea," he muttered."It was this bad this morning."

"Well, obviously Veronica chose you," he said to me, returning to the subject at hand. "She sent you the box," he gestured to me, " and sent you the letter," he continued motioning to Trowa and Heero. "You were only to retrieve the information and leave, but apparently you got caught and seemed to have involved your friends here. I am terribly sorry for any inconvenience."

"Well, that explains a lot, but why us?" I asked. Why did Veronica send us the package and not some other dopes with nothing better to do?

"Veronica never enlightened me on that. I assume it was because she didn't think you would be suspected with such items. But as for that, I don't know."

Silence followed this last statement. So the guys knew where the information came from, and why he had it. But why were we sent it? Why did Veronica feel I just _had_ to be involved with this? We sat there in our silence, no one knowing what to say. I suppose it was a lot to swallow in a few days time. Soon Heero spoke up.

"I think we found what we came for…we can go home now." I think he was directing this towards us, but he hadn't looked in our direction, so he could have been talking to Mr. Campbell. "We wish you a good day."

"I find it terribly sad such young people had to get involved in the war. Gundam pilots no less." He looked so horribly heartbreaking when he said this, I thought he would cry. "I hope your lives are much more pleasant than they have been. Goodbye."

He then shook Heero and Trowa's hands and turned towards Grace and I. "I also wish you two the best of luck." We nodded in acknowledgement, not knowing what to say to him. As we made our way to the door, he caught us. 

"I would go through the garden if I were you, it is much more pleasant than that old house, and much quicker."

"Thank you," Trowa replied, and we made our way off.

That was until Mr. Campbell fell face flat on the grass.

I had never seen a dead body before then, and I had never wished to see another one afterward. Apparently Heero and Trowa had dealt with this kind of thing before, because both were oddly calm, and had things under control in minutes. We were there a few moments when Heero had discerned that Mr. Campbell was indeed dead, and I could freak out with no guilt.

We moved Mr. Campbell to the house, not wanting to leave him outside. Trowa was muttering something about crime scenes and Preventers to Heero. Grace and I just stayed back. I myself hoping not to touch a dead person, and Grace because she didn't want to be in the way. She seemed oddly calm also. Grace was quiet, but not normally when it was serious. She had gotten just as hysterical as I had when we found out that Lola was pregnant.

We were standing around in the hallway as Heero and Trowa debated what to do with the body. What were we going to tell the others? I didn't even know how to begin to describe the feelings that were taking over. Fear, terror, sadness? I didn't know.

We stayed in the hallway for a while Heero and Trowa discussing the dead man. 

"It was poisoning I think," Heero said. 

"But who did it, and what was it in?" Trowa asked.

"I'm not sure. Apparently Mr. Campbell was not the real problem though," he supplied thoughtfully. 

"It was the butler," I growled with conviction. "I just know it."

"What makes you say that?" Trowa asked.

"He seems to be the only one here, besides Mr. Campbell. God I don't even know his first name…Plus the guy was weird and freaky."

"Well that doesn't mean he really did it, but it _is _very likely. Whoever did it could be anywhere. Poison's not one of those things we can track until we get test results," Trowa amended.

"Which means we need to call the Preventers," Heero stated. Heero seemingly went to call, and came back a few minutes later, with a deep frown on his face. He looked at Trowa with a we-can't-tell-them look, but continued to tell him out loud. 

"I found the phone, but the Preventers won't be able to make it here for at least two hours."  
"So it looks like we will have to sit and wait," Trowa sighed. "Did you inform Duo and Quatre of this?"

"Yes. They're waiting for my call. We'll have to make a few plans. Best way to remove the body, you know the drill."

I sighed, and Grace moved to sit on the floor, as far away from Mr. Campbell as she could but still stay in sight.

Trowa leaned against the wall. Looking as calm as ever. I was about to throw up and have a nervous breakdown, and he looked like he was on a particularly boring cruise ship.

How did he do it?

Being nervous, I did what I do naturally. I started to pace. I looked around at a few of the paintings on the wall, not really paying attention to any of them. But I stopped at one. It was a woman hanging from a tree. Her eyes were blank and her tongue was hanging out just slightly. She looked so strange and disgusting. That did it for me.

I threw up, right there on the floor. All over his expensive Persian carpet. 

Trowa and Heero rushed over at the sound. Both grimaced at the smell of my vomit. Grace just stared at the picture sadly, not saying anything. 

"Just like my mother," Grace whispered after a while, wringing her hands nervously. She was looking around the room at nothing in specific. I was starting to think she was going to get hysterical. 

"What?" I hissed back. I was trying to be quiet. We didn't know who was listening. What did she mean? Just like her mother?

Heero and Trowa had stopped to listen. Trowa regarding us with his blank eyes and Heero not looking our way, but obviously listening.

"I never told you in the beginning," Grace said sadly, "Because I wasn't sure if you would understand. But then you never asked about my parents, so I didn't think you ever would. It was sort of a relief. Then I wouldn't have to tell you my father left. I lived with my mother alone for so long, I forgot I had a father. I was just her and me. We were each other's world. So I didn't tell you about my father." 

What was she talking about?

"You didn't tell us much about your mother either," I said. "You never said what happened to her." 

"I'm getting to that," she replied. She had our full attention now. All three of us were looking at her now. She looked slightly uncomfortable, but beautiful all the same. "I remember walking through the house trying to find my mother one day, but she couldn't hear me call for her. Or that's what I thought. I found our cat by the chair. When I picked Kitty up, she pounced off. I went looking for her then. She had run towards mother's bedroom. I got on my knees to look for her under the bed. That was her favorite place to hide. But when I looked down there, she wasn't under the bed. And then I saw the toilet paper. And I thought maybe she went to the bathroom and she was playing with it as she always did." Grace then took a shaky breath. She trembled but continued. 

"I crawled into the room, following the cat. Then I noticed something brush my face. At first I tried to brush it away. But then I noticed it was hard and cold. I looked over and I screamed and screamed and screamed until I wasn't sure if I was screaming out loud anymore. It was my mother's foot. She hung herself in our bathroom."

My mouth was gaping. I couldn't tell the other's expressions in the darkness, but then someone said, "I'm sorry." Maybe it was me. I never knew.

"You know what makes me sad now though?" she asked, knowing she wasn't going to get an answer. "It's not the fact she killed herself. I can accept that, now." We all stood not moving or saying a thing. "I can remember the exact shade of purple her lips were while hanging there," she whispered with a tear, "but I can't remember the color of her eyes. Where they blue or green? I don't know anymore. I wish I did." It was then she broke down in sobs. It was then it just occurred to me. 

I had never seen Grace cry. I had seen her concerned, upset, even livid, but I had never seen her cry. 

My poor broken Grace.

I held her there in the darkness, while Heero and Trowa figured out exactly what we were going to do now that the man was dead, and there was a true madman on the loose.

Sorry if this chapter was a long time coming...I'm a slacker...What can I say? 


	8. The Last Act of the Play

Disclaimer: Don't own. And I'm finally done. Don't know why it took me so long. But I hope I did a good job. Please tell me. I won't ever write again if it is _that_ bad. No need to torture you.

Sitting in the hallway, I had time to think. Grace was hiccupping in the corner softly while Trowa and Heero were talking quietly trying not to disturb us. But I still heard them whispering.

"Do you think it was suicide?" one of them asked.

"No, I don't think someone that had just poisoned himself would have acted the way he did."

"Where do you think the poison came from?"

They kept on like this, but I couldn't pay attention, my nerves were a mess, and my eyes were heavy with sleep. I look back now, and I'm not surprised I dozed off, my eyes closing and sleep taking me with no reserve. I'm not even sure how long I slept, but I do know when I woke up, there were six people surrounding me instead of the initial three. 

I'm not sure how long they were there, but Anita was stiff looking, not taking her eyes off Mr. Campbell's body on the floor, and Grace was looking green about the gills. Duo was sitting against the wall across the hall, his head leaning back, making him look asleep. Quatre was against the wall beside Grace, head in hands, pondering God knows what. Heero and Trowa hadn't seemed to change their position, and were still conversing with each other. 

Heero noticed my eyes upon him and stated, "We have a problem."

"Problem? What kind of problem?" Anita asked frantically. 

"The Preventers won't come," he replied.

"What do you mean they won't come?" Duo's head snapped up. "It's their job, this is what they live for! Why the fuck won't they come?"

"Lady Une says she's stretched as thin and she can safely allow without sending anyone in to help us. She can't spare anyone. We're on our own," Trowa answered.

"Holy shit," Anita growled. "This is just great! We hike God only knows how far, and wait forever just to find some dead guy, and now _we_ have to deal with it? What the hell are we suppose to do?"

"Well, there is always the local police," Quatre suggested. 

"Not likely," Trowa replied. "What will we tell them? We visited some old man and he fell over dead?"

"The truth never hurt anyone," I said.

"It wouldn't pass," Trowa said to me. "Old, wealthy men don't die of poisoning everyday. We would appear suspicious."

"So _what _do we do? Where do we go? We can't just bury him in the back yard and go…" Anita began. "Or could we?"

"That's sick," I said. "What the hell are you thinking!?"

"Hey, so far I'm the only one who's come up with something!"

"Do you think Relena could get someone to help us?" Duo asked. 

"She has enough on her mind," Heero replied.

"Well, we could look for Mr. Butler Man," Grace replied.

"Well, at least that's something," Quatre agreed. We can split up and search a few rooms. If we turn up empty…"

"We'll have a hell of a lot more work to do," Duo moaned. 

"But it's better than just sitting around," Trowa said.

"Yeah, but what do we do with him?" Duo asked, motioning towards Mr. Campbell's body.

"Leave him, he's not going anywhere," Heero replied.

Wandering around the mansion I was amazed at the difference the situation could make on the aura of a house. Earlier the mansion seemed friendly and amazing, but after Mr. Campbell died, it just seemed creepy. Shadows became monstrous killers waiting in the dark with machetes and psychopaths waving their guns. I couldn't walk past a corner without grasping at Grace's arm. I imagine Heero found me rather annoying also, but he just ignored me while we wandered around the house. We had split into three groups. Grace, Heero, and I were in one group. Trowa and Quatre went off towards a dark hallway, and Duo and Anita headed off into the other direction. The boys decided we were far too delicate to travel by our selves, so they wouldn't allow us to go off alone.

My humble group ascended the staircase. The upstairs portion of the house was very…stony. There was a multitude of marble and granite. Oddly enough there were statues…naked statues, which Grace couldn't help but blush at when she walked past. A small cleaner robot zoomed past us in the hallway, making Grace jump. 

"I wish we had one of those," she muttered.

"Well, the next time were billionaires, we'll think about it," I replied.

Heero appeared to be very engrossed in what he was doing, and he disregarded us mostly. Every room we entered, he turned on the light, many exposing an empty room. Mr. Campbell may have put on a show of having a huge, beautiful house, but that was about all it was, a show.

We came upon one of the few rooms with actual furnishings, the lights clicked on and we entered. We didn't notice him until he spoke to us. 

"Well, I do suppose you think you're clever."

"Who are you?" Heero asked.

"Grant. That's all you'll need to know."

No one said anything. The butler who greeted us at the door slowly rose from his seat and turned to look at us. "So, you have it all figured out do you?"

"We never said that," Heero replied. 

"Of course not, but you were probably secretly thinking it. Just so you know, you have no idea."

"I have no idea…" Heero started, but the old man interrupted him.

"Just SHUT up and let me talk, alright?" He demanded, a slightly maniacal look to his eyes. "You see, you were here for all of an hour maybe two before that old fart keeled over, so you don't even have half and inkling. All the trouble I went through…" he said this so mournfully, as if we should feel sorry for him. "You weren't supposed to show up for another day. Dear God, you probably didn't know his name for more than two days. And of course you take it upon yourselves come here and ask him questions. If only you could have left well enough alone." Grant said all of this with an air of annoyance. 

"We still don't know what you're talking about," Heero muttered.

"Of course you don't. Why would you? You might be a Gundam pilot, but that doesn't make you omnipresent."

"Would you care to explain then?" Heero growled in a low tone that even had me freaked out. What in hell were we dealing with?

"Oh, why not? It's not like it'll matter anyway."

He eyed all of us, as if judging our weight. Then he spoke in his nasal tone again. "You see, Mr. Victor Campbell was to be the rally point for you're little get together, but he was suppose to be dead by the time you got here. Unfortunately, he wasn't. You were to come to an empty house, with no answers. And I was to walk a way with nothing short of a massive fortune. Of course I took care of your little friend a long time ago. What was her name? Vanessa? Victoria? No."

"Veronica," I barely breathed out.

"Ah, yes. Veronica. Such an annoying brat she was." _Was_. Oh God.

He gave a disgusted sigh, and continued. "You were to come to an empty house, and a dead millionaire. And leave with your questions unanswered but none the worse for wear. But you came too soon, and you know the rest. Now here we are, crossing paths, but I have no intention leaving you unfulfilled. I was going to let you live before, but now, well, that's out of the question."

"How do you know we won't kill you?" Heero fixed him with his eyes. 

"Young man, I saw you when you came in, you have no weapons, and Mr. Campbell himself was a pacifist. Unless you raided the kitchen and have butter knives up your sleeves, I have you quite out armed." 

"I don't need weapons to hurt you…" Heero quickly moved to attack the man, but was halted when he pulled out his weapon. A shiny handgun with a silencer looming on it. 

"Oh, but you won't do much good without them, will you?" 

Heero stopped mid-swing, mid-whatever it was he was planning on doing. Even if Heero did have a weapon, Grace and I didn't. 

"Now just stand there like a good little boy."

Did he have to be so patronizing?

"Now, now, what shall I do with the three of you, and where is your other friend?"

It was then that Grace started to breathe erratically. 

"Oh, you drank the tea. But not quite enough, it won't kill you instantly. Pity. Well, I suppose I should just do you a favor." His arm swung towards Grace and two shots rang out as someone screamed in terror.

The scream was from me. One shot was from Grant, and the other was from Quatre who had just entered form the doorway. Quatre's bullet had gone straight through the butler's temple, killing him instantly as the autopsies later reported. Grant's bullet had hit Grace in the stomach, not enough to kill her. And she lived for a little while. For all it was worth.

By the time my mind had assessed what had happened, blood was spewing forth from Grace's abdomen. I dropped to the floor beside her. 

"Oh God, oh God, oh God. Holy shit." I panted between breaths. "What do we do? What do we do?" I was clearly panicking. Each word I said came out in a slightly higher pitch. No one answered me. Probably because we all knew, if the bullet hadn't killed her, the poison from the tea surely would. 

Oh God, I had drunk the tea too. That's why I vomited. 

I crawled to her, unable to cry, unable to do anything besides place my hands over her stomach as if there was something I could do to stop the inevitable. "You can't die, you just can't," I almost sobbed. Except there were no tears. I just couldn't believe.

She moaned, a half cry, half howl. Trowa and Heero just stood, staring, there was nothing they could do. Quatre sat against the wall, head in hands.

"Who will teach me poetry? Who will paint with me? Who will stay up late at night talking to me, and get up ungodly early in the morning by responsibility alone? You can't die. There is so much to do now. You can see space now, like you always wanted too…"

"Lola could do that with you…" she whispered.

"But I wouldn't be the same…" I pleaded. "Not without you."

"It'll be okay…" she said.

"It will never be okay…" I sobbed.

I kissed her forehead. She started to shiver and her lips were turning that blue color that isn't really blue. I couldn't even see my hand anymore on her stomach; it was so completely covered in blood. Like it was fading away. I don't think her heart was beating by that time anymore, but I'm didn't check so I can't be sure. And the memory eludes me now. 

She stopped breathing though. I can remember that so clearly.

She was dead. I just knew it in my heart. They didn't have to tell me. They didn't have to pry her from my arms. They didn't have to hold me, whispering it would be okay. It will never be okay. I knew it, just as sure as I knew my name. And the tears I had tried so hard to keep back kept coming, and I could feel my nose starting to run, but I didn't care anymore. 

Nothing could touch me now.

By the time we returned to the house, things regarding the butler Grant had been taken care of by some woman named Une who worked with the Preventers. Apparently they decided to show up after an innocent civilian was killed. None of us could bring ourselves to tell Lola, she looked deflated after having the baby, but once Heero broke the news, Lola slowly walked up the stairs and locked herself in her room. She never did want anyone to see her cry. 

I held the baby while Lola was up stairs. She didn't have a name yet, but she was beautiful. Well, as beautiful as newborns got. She was so small. I guess it's clichéd, but it was so hard to believe there was an actual person in there. Wufei had called the hospital the day after, they came and checked up on the baby, made sure she was doing well, and allowed mother and child to stay at home for rest. 

Once Lola came back down a few hours later, the rest of us had settled ourselves into the kitchen, many of us eating for no reason at all. She lifted the baby from her bassinet, cooing at her in a broken tone.

"I think I've got a name," she announced.

"Really?" Anita asked. "What is it?"

"Anais." 

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"Grace."

"That's perfect," Wufei told her. He patted her on the shoulder and walked out of the room.

We buried Grace in the old cemetery her mother was buried in, but not beside her mother. Her mother had been buried between her parents and some thirty-five year old man who died twenty years ago. Grace's grave was about twenty yards from there, on the outskirts of the graveyard. It looked very lonely, and the flowers didn't help much, especially once they wilted. Grace's father actually attended the funeral, which was very much a surprise to us. He cried the way most men do, silently, behind their hands. I only got to speak to the man once, but he seemed nice, almost shy.

Two of the Gundam pilots actually came to the funeral, and not the ones we secretly thought would. Trowa and Wufei stood beside a tall brunette woman that looked extremely uncomfortable. They whispered their condolences and told us why the others couldn't, or just didn't come. The girl, who introduced herself as Trowa's sister, seemed much more familiar once I got a good look at her.

I brought myself to visit Veronica's grave. As much as I hadn't liked her after she left, I felt a terrible sense of confusion. Tinged with a bit of guilt. We never did figure out what _really _happened. The only people who would know are dead now.

Anyway, Lola didn't bring the baby, because she just couldn't imagine bringing Anais to a funeral. Anita came with some guy in a navy sweater that looked like my great-grandmother could have knit it. Apparently she had been engaged for the last four months and didn't find the need to tell the rest of us. Why did we keep so many secrets from each other? I, of course, came alone, and spent most of my time talking to Lola, and at times Anita. I couldn't bring myself to cry, but I was grieving all the same.

Back at the house, people gathered with mounds of food, and talked like they knew her. Anita cried in a corner while her fiancé tried to console her. Lola disappeared into the kitchen, probably entertaining questions about Anais who was actually quite an attractive baby. And I, well I wandered around the house as if I had a purpose. We would have to leave in a few days. The bank was fully prepared to foreclose on the house because once Grace died, only Lola and I were left to pay for the bills, and Lola had a baby to take care of, so she wouldn't be much help financially. I suppose I was saying my last goodbyes, our dream of being independent was dying. Lola was going to move in with her parents, who extended me a welcome also, if need be. The lure of their only grandchild was too much for them to deny, even if she had been conceived in sin. But I didn't think that I could do it. 

Anthony, a guy I knew from work, invited me to stay with him for a while, just until I figured out what I was going to do. I was tempted to take him up on the offer. 

But then Trowa and Wufei walked over to me.

"We heard about your trouble, with the house and all," Trowa said softly, as if he didn't know quite what to say to me. "And Quatre, being who he is, decided to pay it off for you."

"What…" I was stunned; I didn't know what to say. 

"Well, it's suppose to be from all of us, but let's be frank, only Quatre could actually afford something like this," Wufei wryly replied with a roll of his eyes.

And that's when I burst into tears and flung myself at someone's chest. I'm not sure who's it was now, but he smelled of laundry. That bright smell that clothes give off after coming out of the dryer.

Everyone went home, and Lola and I were free to roam around the house that was now ours. Really ours. If only…if only Grace could have been here for this.

She calls me. She's been dead for months now, but she still owns my thoughts. I sometimes see her around the corner. Just a glimpse of her golden hair. She is humming and baking as she always did before. Sometimes, I can even smell her. Every time this happens, I just pause. I breathe the air. I listen to her song. But when I think I see her, I close my eyes. She fades away every time, and I cannot bear to see that. I am left alone. Alone with the golden light by the corner. I died that day. A little death. So small, no one noticed. No one notices I'm dead today. I would tell someone, but Anita is already gone. And I don't want to worry Lola. Besides, I'm not sure they would understand. 

It was weird at times, I did things I didn't even realize that I was doing. Once I chopped up five onions and didn't even notice until I started sliding them into the pan that the recipe only called for half an onion. Another time I drove for twenty minutes and didn't even realize I had no idea where I was going until I stopped the car in the middle of what looked like a pasture. It's there that I finished my crying. I was done. I cried like I was laughing, and if someone had come by, they probably would have thought that was what I was doing.

Which brings us up to the present. It's been a year now. I have been dating Anthony for about half a year. He moved in with us a few weeks ago, and I think he might ask me to marry him. I'm scared, but in a good way. I'll definitely say yes if he does. He reminds me of Grace in a way. Except he can't cook worth shit. 

Lola is doing fine, but can't seem to find a date. Anais had become the spoiled monster we had dreaded but secretly knew she would become. She is just now walking and is incredibly enthralled with the reach her new stance allows her. Lola's been dealing with Michael, Anais's father, and as come to an agreement with him, but they still don't seem to be on good terms. 

I've been taking classes at the college here, (yes I was accepted) and have been working towards getting my generals covered, but I think I might go into English. I have that poem memorized now. "Do not go gentle into that good night-rage, rage against the dying of the light." Not that it'll do me much good now, but it's a good poem.

I haven't seen the Gundam pilots much, except for a few times. I saw Trowa passing by on the sidewalk while shopping with Anthony. We talked for a few moments, but Trowa had to meet some one. And of course we saw Quatre on T.V. but never in person. We never got to thank him for the house. Once I thought I saw Duo, but it might have been someone else. And I've only ever seen Wufei a few times after the funeral. Heero I never saw again, but I think I heard something about him getting a engaged. I can't for the life of me remember who, actually, I don't think Trowa said. Anyway, we've all gone and done other things. On to other acts in one long play. Remember when I told you that people could be bit players on the stage. Well the Gundam pilots were bit players on the stage of my life, but it was a memorable act.

I am soooooo done. Sigh. Hopefully that wasn't too depressing, I just wanted to write something different. 


End file.

Gundam Wing/AC, Adventure, Angst