Hi everybody! We're sinking!!  (Midii, thank you for being such a patient Bêta reader)
 
 

First!! Ahem.... Gundam Wing could be mine. Should be mine.
WILL BE MIIIIINE!!
But it's not. 'kay?

 

Trick riding
                             Chapter X : My job is so secret that I don't know what I'm doing.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

                    After a few minutes of sweating, breathing hard and blinking in the dark, Midii got a grip on herself and glared at the young Chinese officer. "To think that the first time I saw you, I believed you were out of the picture... I feel like you're always somewhere watching us all, 'Mr. God'." She huffed.

"I'm flattered, but we should leave now, shouldn't we?" Wufei retorted quietly.

Midii got up and was about to say something. But that was before a deafening alarm made itself heard and blinding white lights shot from everywhere. "For us??" She managed to yell.

Wufei, however, didn't bother with answering, and flattened her behind a huge steel caisson, unaware that their fragile perch was actually... Moving. Next thing they knew, the doors of a huge hold shut with a resounding noise and the silence was only broken by the soft and insistent murmur of the Seine's dark and deep water caressing the unknown freighter gently.

"Now you've done it!" Midii shrieked.

"At least, we'll be the first ones to know where that Gundam is actually being built." He snorted.

"And the first ones to die." She finished, her voice low.
 

 

"This is not okay."

Heero's cold and irate sentence was welcomed by four worried looks as the perfect soldier obviously threatened to implode on the spot. He was, had always been, and would always be a collected person. But Heero Yuy didn't like it when everything seemed to go out of his control. No. It wasn't okay.
Sensing his deep distress, and Trowa's mixed feelings about his chick's disappearance and her will to help them, Duo decided to take the matter in his own hands. So that everything would end soon. And so that he could prove to Hilde that there was enough room for two in his bed.

"Well... It's not thaaaaat baaaaaad. Lessee. Blondie and Wu-bie are gone. Okay, but we're still here, and we're gonna get them back, right?" He grinned. Then he turned to Shaolin with a snarl, "So, where are they??"

Shaolin shrugged eloquently, glancing for seemingly no reason at all at Quatre, who was sitting on Heero's bed, lost in his own troubles. "You already know where they are, she let bang dude a message, no?"

"How do we know she didn't lie?" Duo asked, his eyes wide with curiosity.

"She didn't..."

"Lie."

Shaolin and Trowa stared at each other, disgusted to have been on the same wavelength for a second. Trowa glared at her for good measure and turned to his fellow preventers, his green eyes holding a tender quality that they had rarely witnessed since they had met him. "I think... I know we can trust her, now." He said gently.

Shaolin shook her head at the pink candy she could almost feel dripping from the ceiling, but defended him, anyway, in her own words, "Pooh. It kills me to say it, but that hairy thing is right, she'll be on the level. She's stuck to him no matter what." She sighed.

Heero glowered at the pair with the 'you-better-be-f***ing-right' look, and threw the paper Midii had left expectantly to Shaolin. She gazed in bemusement at the crumpled blue sheet at her feet, and leveled a contemptuous stare at him. Quatre raised his head and witnessed the glint in her eyes, as well as that strange confidence she had seemed to loose lately, coming back full force. He couldn't help but smile ; she never gave up. But she was obviously on her territory, and she knew something they didn't.

"You bunch of amateurs... You see only one thing to do. I can tell you there are at least three." She smirked.

Her remark was welcomed by several glares, but she didn't seem to care. She had her ace, and she knew he would follow her. He did.

"I admit you're surprising us, but we are willing to listen to your idea." Quatre smiled. For the first time since they had met, he was actually proud of her. Maybe she had finally understood she could work with him.

She purposely ignored him, however, and turned to Duo and Heero. Those two would be hard to convince, but they were also far from stupid, they knew when they were wrong, she could tell. "Finding Midii and what's-his-name is almost irrelevant, for now. What we need to know is what she was looking for. We also need to discover what she thought would be in Hoedic island. I suggest... Braid boy goes to the address Midii left, to try and get them back, Grouchy and Bang Romeo go and ask the right questions to the right person, and I will try to get us a Navijet for Hoedic, with the Winner brat to ensure a preferential treatment. Any questions?"

There was an eerie silence in the room, and the same dilemma was boiling in all masculine brains : It was absolutely out of question to follow her plan and obey her. But she was damn right, and she had information to share, for sure. Heero glared until his eyes were about to pop out of his head, but found no better plan whatsoever.

"Waddya mean with 'the right questions to the right person'?" Duo suddenly asked.

She grinned impishly. "Well... The moron who is supposed to keep a close eye on the cold-storage plant, or more exactly its ruins, is called Hegesippe Smadja. It's a lousy keeper and a pathetic drunk. That's why Midii went, I think, she knew at that time, he would be flirting with a bottle somewhere." She began.

"And?" Trowa asked, drawn by curiosity.

"And I know him. I know that he wears orange briefs. And I also know where to find him at such an ungodly hour!" Shaolin giggled, glancing at a clock that indicated half past three.

By the time she finished her sentence, Heero had a white knuckled grip on the table. How dared she find a better plan than him? Who was the boss, here?? Duo, however, didn't waste his time on such thoughts and got up immediately.

"I hate your plan. But it might work. Give them an address, a name, and get us a way to Hoedic. We'll call each other at 7. If we have Wu, Midii and enough info, we'll join you and Quatre there."

It was quite unusual for him to decide alone, but the general bewilderment cut any comment. Heero glowered at the cherry-haired girl as she scribbled something on a paper, Trowa took his jacket silently, secretly hoping to find Midii quickly, and Quatre merely yawned, shamelessly content with having the easiest role to play, because he could tell that even renting a boat would be a painful exercise, in her company.

She handed the address of an unknown bar to Heero, "Ask for Lalixe."

"We'll call you at seven, from the port." Quatre sighed, getting up.

"Man, if she tries anything..." Duo began.

"I know," Quatre chuckled, "I shoot her everywhere."

"No." Duo snarled. "Show her the cross-crusher."

Shaolin sweatdropped. "What's that crushcrushcrush thingie?? Why didn't anybody tell meeeeee?! You better not try!" She snapped, worry printed on her features.
 

 

In a certain hold...

"Trowa... He must hate me now." Midii sighed, hugging her knees. Even the soft sound of the waves didn't ease her the least bit. Nor did Wufei's presence.

"Don't think that. Barton has always been a weakling with women, anyway." Wufei replied calmly, in a tone that he had wanted to be lecturing, but which eventually betrayed his twinge of tenderness for their strange and twisted love story. Shameful, basically.

Midii looked up instinctively, seeking comfort, and barely believing she could find it there. "You know him well, then?" She asked timidly.

"I know him enough." He answered thoughtfully. "And what about you? If I have to die here for the sake of you two, I'd like to understand." Wufei finished sarcastically.

"I guess you already know everything." She sighed, "I met him when we were children, it was during the war, we weren't on the same side, I betrayed him, he left him. Full stop." She lied. He didn't need to have more hints than he already had about their current relationship...

"Full stop... Full stop usually means that things are over. Why do I have the feeling that you should inform Trowa, then?" Wufei smirked in the dark.

"You..." Midii turned beet red.

"Because I'm not a mundane person doesn't mean I don't take the time to observe my fellow creatures." He chuckled, "Did you honestly think I hadn't noticed your little games with Barton? It's almost as obvious as Winner's takeover bid on your disturbed associate..." he laughed in earnest. It must be rare, she thought.

"Ah... So you noticed that too..." She smiled, taking a genuine liking in that strange and wise young man.

"In that sort of case, I always come to wonder what the children will look like. Scary, if you ask me. Scarier than yours." He huffed.

"Than m..." She trailed off as a deep blush spread on her cheeks, once again, and she was grateful to the penumbra for hiding it. She quickly regained her composure, though, and a sly smile graced her lips, "You're the one criticizing everything... I wonder what Miss Po's opinion about children would be." She grinned.

Wufei choked. Shame. Dishonor.

"Yeah," She went on, "I only saw her once, but she's no ordinary girl, right?"

"She's a colleague. Nothing else."

"Sure..."
 

 

Heero glared at the black metal doors of the bar Shaolin had sent them too. There was no way he entered this hovel. What would Rel... Erm, Preventers think??

"Well... I hope Midii loves me as much as I think she does, so that she forgives me this one. And I also hope she'll never learn about this." Trowa sighed, eyeing coldly the pink neon sign that clearly said "Hot strip, All night"
 

 

Somewhere, on a highway, between Vannes and Fromentine...

"So sexy le ciel de californie, dans l'retro ma vie qui s'anamorphose... So sex-*"

"Miss Hao. Could you stop singing and switch to FranceInfo, so I can have some news. Please." Quatre sighed.

The feet on the seat, he could tolerate. The chips-munching-lips-licking, he could manage. The sour comments about the way he drove, why not. But he wouldn't stand another second of french pop music. No matter what.

"No." The defiant voice stated.

"And may I ask you why?" He hissed.

"I wanna listen to RTL2, that's all."

"What about my opinion?" He asked, amazed at such insolence.

"I don't care about it."

"When will you stop this?" He muttered.

"Stop what?"

"Challenging me."

"As long as I find I can, I will." Came the quiet reply.

"So I have to resist you, uh?"

"If you're a man." She chuckled.

"Is it the only way you can socialize? Do I have to break doors down and give you an injection again?" Quatre sighed, not even understanding why he tried.

"At least, you had the upper hand." She pointed out.

"This is a game, then? And you want me to tame you?" He replied, cocking a bewildered and somehow fascinated eyebrow.

"No, I want to prove you that you'll never 'tame' me." She retorted, turning the volume up.

"But what if I do? What if, right now, I stopped that car, put you in the trunk, and listened to FranceInfo?" He asked, smirking.

"Just try..."

"I could. But honestly, all I want to know is what I did to deserve this." He huffed.

"You. You little blonde brat. You humiliated me like no one ever did." She grounded out.

He stared at her, with that disgusting innocent look, those eyes she couldn't stand anymore because they made all she had believed in seem wrong. And the dam broke. She couldn't explain her shame, her confusion, her anger with words. None of them would ever reach the intensity and the complexity of the doubts he had sown in her mind.

"Can't... Can't you just try and be a suitable enemy, like anybody else?!" She almost shouted. "I seduced you, I stole you more than money can buy, I swindled you, I shot you, I seduced you again, I drugged you, and then I insulted you and..."

"And the list can go on and on and on... Why don't we discuss it around a sandwich? It's only two o'clock, and we're not late on the schedule." He smiled.

"You're doing it again." She whispered.

He turned his head, genuine concern shining in the clear aquamarine orbs, as he gazed at her bowed head.

"I'm doing what?" He asked softly, slowing down near a service station.

"I know you're doing it on purpose, anyway. You're just a sick bastard..." She gasped, her voice barely audible, and despite the lack of light he could have sworn it was tear, shimmering at the corner of that almond-shaped eye.

"I'm sorry... I don't quite understand." He said in a gentle tone, trying to tear out that confession, so close.

"After all that happened... Don't you think I feel bad wearing clothes you bought me, watching at the wounds you took care of? You did just so I could feel guilty. You're worse than me!" She sobbed.

It had never occurred to him that she could feel this way. He had suspected that, since her and Midii had been caught, her pride was an important issue. But he had never imagined this. Those weren't the words of a killer, not even the words of an adult. He felt like listening to a child looking for limits, thrilled and ashamed by her behavior, and the punishment that never came. And it dawned on him that for such a child, hurting her dignity was worse than any kind of torture. He suddenly remembered her wound shot and yelled at himself for having been so blind. She had been ready to bear the pain in silence, but she couldn't understand or even stand compassion. So Shaolin Hao actually had a heart. And as strange as it could be, that proud and insolent creature was mostly ashamed of herself.

"Is it why you said you wouldn't judge me?" He asked, seeking her eyes through that convenient mane of cherry curls.

Sensing that he wouldn't get any answers, and that she had most likely confessed more in five minutes than she ever had in her whole life, he simply left the car, before returning a few minutes later with sandwiches,  pastries and drinks. "I thought you'd be quite hungry."

"Ah."

"I'm sorry."

"If you offer me a tissue, I'm gonna scream."
 

 

"Okay. There was a boat hidden under the ancient storage structure, that's what you said, right?" Duo asked for the sixth time.

"Ooh... Maybe. But..."

"I know." He huffed, handing the tramp another donut.

"Did you see somebody?" He sighed.

"No. Or maybe yes."

"Not this time! My info first!" Duo whined.

"There was that blonde lady..."
 

 

"Hem... would you be kind enough to tell us where is 'Lalixe'?" Trowa asked at a pair of impressive breasts bouncing in an exotic and poor excuse for a bra.

"Dunno... Maybe in the private room..." The dancer replied, her voice covered by the deafening music, and her face barely recognizable under the spotlights and layers of make up.

Not so far...

"Omae wa korosu!"

"My, my, my... I love broodingly handsome guys... You wanna play it hard, eh?"

"Back off!"

"Let me show you what a real women can do..."

It took Trowa all his will and self-control to remain cool as he watched Heero being chased by an over-amorous and half naked 'mature' lady. Why was it that he never had a camera for the Kodak moments?

After having revived the stations of the cross by night and borne a few wandering hands, Trowa and the broodingly handsome sweetheart, erm, pardon Heero found themselves in a sort of vast lounge where the richest customers obviously paid for a private show. The whole space seemed to be an imitation of the worst Baroque on earth and in the colonies. Wherever they looked, it was only red fabrics, purple velvet, fake diamonds and golden furniture. Nauseating, actually.
The perfect soldier stood still and glowered stoically as, for the hundredth time, some poorly dressed fifty years old 'lady' patted affectionately his rear. He wanted to see that Lalixe girl. And he wanted it now. Trowa restrained himself from commenting on the effect Heero's backside seemed to have on the local crowd, not wanting to find his name in the morning paper, in the 'news in brief' column.

They eventually heard a loud laugh, and, judging by the whistles, 'Lalixe' was there. Trowa gripped the edge of the table in a desperate attempt at Preventers-patented-super-self-control. Heero clenched his fists, his teeth and everything that could be clenched in his perfect soldier's body.

'Midii. Forgive me.'

It wasn't that she was ugly or anything. She was actually a divine brunette. But she was wearing red high-heeled shoes.

Only red high-heeled shoes.

"Coucou les mignons**! Betcha you're here for a cumbersome virginity!"

There was a thick silence at her cheerful greeting and Trowa nearly fainted, as he was almost certain that he had seen Heero blush.

"We... Hum... We're actually here for business, Madam." Trowa stuttered, trying to remain cool and look anywhere but at her.

"Where. Is. Smadja. This will be thee first and last edition." Heero grounded out.

Her expression immediately changed, and she burst out laughing, which worried Trowa a lot. That didn't sound like a sane laugh.

"That thing? What did he do, this time? I hope you're not here to kill him!" She giggled.

"What is it that you find so funny?" Heero questioned with his best glare.

"I was just... Thinking, " She laughed, wiping the corner of her eye, "If you shoot him, be careful. With all the alcohol he has in his belly, he might explode like a car!!" She blurted out, literally in stitches.

Once she was 'sane' again, she left them and came back a few minutes later, dragging a fat and half-bald dark-haired man, in his late fifties.

"Say hello, Hegesippe!" She sing-sang

The uneasy guest immediately tried to roll under the nearest table, his little chubby fingers waving a white handkerchief, as a sign of peace. "Stay cool, guys! I swear I don't have Bressiasc's dough, 'kay?"

Trowa cocked an amused eyebrow, and leisurely pulled on his hand, until he saw his head. He made a mental note to tell Wufei that the guy wore the same ponytail, but mostly twisted his arm behind his back, in order to get an answer.

"I... I..."

"All we want to now is if there is something 'unusual' taking place in the cold-storage plant you're supposed to keep." Trowa said coldly, his thoughts of Midii alone there erasing everything, that ridiculous place, the naked ladies, the pathetic witness...

"Well, no. It's just... Ya know, business!" The man stuttered, rolling terrified eyes as he caught sight of Heero's gun.

The answer didn't seem to be satisfying enough, and Trowa watched in curiosity, as Heero, took a pink spoon in a plate that had been left on one of the red and golden tables.

"If you don't talk.... I dig your eyes out with this." He said icily, holding the spoon so their new friend could see it perfectly.

Trowa restrained himself from laughing out loud at the prospect of Heero actually trying to do it, but he had to admit it was worth it. Heero didn't need to show him the spoon twice.

"Okay! Okay! Mercy! They're just rich guys! And I have seventh kids too feed!!"

"And..." Heero replied, tapping his foot impatiently while digging the spoon suggestively in a bowl of custard.

"They said they would be storing stuff discreetly!", he sobbed, eyeing the pink spoon, "And that I didn't need to know... I think they were building a boat or something, because the Seine River was near and all... Mercy!!"

Trowa and Heero stared at each other. A boat? Maybe Duo would know more... Trowa released the sobbing man and Heero glared one last time, his spoon still in his hand.

"Have mercy for my ten kids!!"

Trowa blinked and counted on his fingers, wasn't it...? Oh well, seven, ten or fifty, kids were a pain anyway, so he deserved some sympathy...
 

 

A sad gray light bathed the small port, as dawn spread a thick fog all over the dark sea. Quatre observed the long marine blue, arrow-shaped boat quietly. So that what they called 'Navijet'. It was quite huge, actually, but then again, Miss Hao usually thought big.

"I hope you can swim."

Speaking of the devil...

"I can. Thanks. It's almost seven. We should call the others, now."

"Yeah. I'm beginning to miss Midii."
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

*Mature 'philosophical' and  sexual content, otherwise nearly impossible to translate, unless you're truly interested by the concept of 'anamorphosis'. (sob)

** Hi beautiful!