Choosing Fate
Chapter 8
By Lady Saffir

DISCLAIMER: I do not own the characters from Gundam Wing, although I will claim the storyline.

"If I am pressed to say why I loved him, I feel it can only be explained by replying: 'Because it was he:because it was me.'" - Montaigne

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My grandparents are very calming. They don't rush to do anything, sure that everything will fall perfectly into place without their help.

It is obviously something that you can only learn as you grow older; I've tried not to worry and fret, but I always end up feeling pressured to hurry.

At any rate, my grandmother and I had several long conversations while we baked. My grandmother absolutely loves to cook, so whenever one of us visits, she goes into master chef mode.

Mind you, I'm not complaining.

We were to leave tomorrow morning to take me back, and after that my grandmother was heading down to stay with Milliardo and Lucy for a few weeks. Lucy was due any day now, and according to Milliardo she was driving him crazy.

Most of the stuff we were baking were Lucy's favorites, so Milliardo could use them as a peace offering.

I was betting it didn't work.

The whole sordid story came tumbling out while we were mixing the ingredients for Zucchini bread. I didn't seem to be able to stop the tumble of words from falling off my tongue, but I found when I finally did stop I felt so much better.

Gran regarded me for a moment, staring at me intently. We are exactly the same height, so it's a bit disconcerting, but it made communication so much easier.

"Relena, sweetie, I don't know what you want me to say. It was something you say you felt you had to do, and no one should put you down for that. All of our lives, we hurt people, both intentionally and not; the only thing you can do then is apologize and try to make amends.

"But don't beat yourself up over this, otherwise your entire relationship with Heero will be overshadowed by past events."

Gran's words did a lot to cheer me up, but some small worry must have shown through still.

With a sigh she moved around the table, putting one flour-covered hand over mine. Then, looking me straight in the eye, she said something that helped me through many of my life's difficult problems.

"You and Duo were together for quite some time, and it is still relatively fresh, so your feelings are still there - they haven't quite faded to a memory that you can touch and feel the warmth, but not get burned by it. But I promise you, sweetie, that one day you will be able to pull out all of these old memories, and only smile at them," she reassured.

Her words brought tears to my eyes, and I clumsily swiped at them with my fingers, completely forgetting that I was covered in flour up to the elbows.

So I ended up with white clumps smeared all over my face, and in the process managed to spill quite a bit of flour to the floor.

You should be able to guess what happened next.

Oh yes, I, klutz queen of the world, took one step and fell flat on my butt. It didn't end there, unfortunately. On my way down, my hands flailed around and I knocked the mixing bowl off the table and right on top of me.

And that was how I came to be sitting on my grandmother's sunwarmed kitchen floor, laughing myself silly.

I still have the picture that my grandmother took to commemorate the event.

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I hate first dates. Heck, forget first dates, I hate first minutes. You know what I mean. You and whoever suddenly decide to date each other and you're feeling all happy. Then the next time you see them, poof! - instant awkwardness.

It's annoying as hell.

It also perfectly describes how well my first meeting with Heero went when I returned home.

How exactly does one start a conversation with their new boyfriend, knowing their Ex lives only yards away? Apparently you don't, since I couldn't think of a single thing to say.

Thank god Heero felt like talking for once.

"Quatre said to tell you there's a band meeting tomorrow night - that's when you'll get your uniform. And Catherine wants you to call her tonight. Something about riding together to band camp; I didn't quite catch it all," he commented, his lips quirking up into a smile.

"I don't think I'm cut out to be your secretary; way too many messages for me to keep straight," Heero teased, effectively breaking the ice.

I smiled, glad to talk about mundane things.

"How'd your week go?"

"Not much happened. Slept in, cut the grass, got my own car...." Heero trailed off, looking sideways at me.

"Your own car?" I gawked.

"Well, it was mom's car, but she decided that she'd take the new one, and give me her new one," he clarified, shrugging.

"Still, that's pretty cool," I insisted, and on that note we both fell silent again.

"Duo went to go visit Damien for the week," Heero announced suddenly, and I felt my heart instantly jump.

"He did? Well, that's good; I know he really misses hanging out with him," I tried to throw out nonchalantly.

I had a sneaking suspicion that it didn't work.

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I stood in awe at the edge of the roadway. Kids and parents swarmed in and out of cabins, laughing, shouting, and chiding each other. It was the official start of bandcamp, and the Riverview High Marching Warriors spent one week at the beginning of August away at camp, devoting all of their time and attention to learning the music and drill.

I was never going to make it.

My dad lugged all of my stuff into the cabin as numerous friends greeted me. Cathy and Marie had already claimed two beds, leaving one in the middle for me, and my father groaned theatrically when he dropped my stuff onto the bed.

"Oh, haha, very funny," I muttered, becoming deathly embarrassed when my father enveloped me in a gigantic bear hug.

"Daaaddddd...."

Ms. U...um, I mean, Mrs. Kushrenada (that is still way weird for me) laughed and assured my father that she'd keep a sharp eye on me.

After my father left, I hurriedly made my bed and stored my junk away, then Cathy, Marie and I headed for the guys' rooms.

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At dinnertime, me, Cathy, and Marie sat down with the guys, and a few new friends as well. Jim was a fun, likeable guy, prone to do silly things to make everyone laugh. Alisa was a quiet, dark haired girl, whose witty barbs had us clutching our sides when she decided to speak up.

And then there was Sally Po.

Sally was a transfer from another school district, and a junior. She was part Chinese, just enough to make her good looks even more exotic. Her sense of humor was a mixture of everything, from sarcasm to self-depreciating.

Wufei was struck dumb.

As momentous as the occasion was, I didn't say anything immediately, waiting until I could pull him aside.

"Are you going to ask her out?" I asked.

"What?! Are you crazy?!" Wufei hissed, trying not to draw attention to us. "She's a junior, for god's sake! I'm only a freshman - it would never work out," he concluded glumly.

I could only shake my head at his words. I mean, Wufei is pretty cute, to be honest. And when you can get him to stop saying stupid things, he's fun to hang out with.

Then I remembered that Sally was in my cabin, and a little devil popped up on my shoulder. I'm sure that if I dropped a few hints, I could speed things up - or find out if she didn't even like him.

"Well, at least get used to her being around; I like her and I'm going to be friends with her if I can. So please try to say something a bit nicer than, 'You actually LIKE that hideous music?', okay?"

Wufei glared at me.

"Oh, go jump in the river or something," he advised, and then it was time for our evening practice.

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"Am I boring you?"

"Oh, no, not at all. I enjoy reliving every single moment in your life with you."

"Hmph. You're the one that asked me, so don't complain."

"Do you have any IDEA of how long this paper is going to be, even if I take out the non-essential parts?"

"Not my problem. Now, if you don't mind?..."

Sigh.

"Fine, go ahead."

***************** *****************

As soon as I returned from band camp, dad drove the two of us to North Carolina to see my niece. Lucy had given birth three days late, and had to endure eighteen hours of labor.

I was surprised to see Milliardo intact, with no body parts missing.

Lucy and Milliardo had thankfully changed their name ideas, so the seven pound, six ounce baby girl I held gingerly in my arms was to be called Kaitlyn Elizabeth Peacecraft. Her hair was dark colored, but her eyes were the same shade as Milliardo's and my father's, and I could tell Milliardo was going to have fits when she started dating.

Speaking of Milliardo, he hadn't come out of the battle completely unwounded. His hands and arms were a mass of scratches, were Lucy had raked her nails up and down his arms. He was also sporting multiple bruises, but that didn't stop him from turning into the biggest sap in the world. I swear, if I had to hear him gush one more time about how beautiful and perfect his daughter was, and how he was going to try his hardest to raise her correctly, and he had some many hopes and dreams for her future, blah blah blah - I was going to scream. Or bonk him over the head with something. Or maybe even both.

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I bounced over to Heero's the afternoon we returned, ready to start spending some quality 'us' time. We'd been dating for two weeks, but I'd barely seen him, so I thought it was high time we started doing couple things.

Like hugging. I don't care what anyone says, hugging definitely beats out kissing in the 'best part of a relationship' category.

Anyway, I had to talk to Gloria for a few minutes and tell both her and Hitori about bandcamp and Kaitlyn, and then Heero and I escaped to the rec room to play some pool.

We had made a few shots, talking casually, when Heero told me Duo was dating Dorothy.

"He's what? When?" I sputtered out, completely missing my shot.

Heero looked at me oddly, but finally answered.

"He said they went out to the movies two days ago, and I guess he asked her then. Weird, isn't it?"

"Um...yeah. I didn't know that he even liked her as a friend," I stammered out, desperately hoping that I wasn't about to break down and cry.

I mean...I don't know. I just had the thought in my mind for some reason that Duo wouldn't see anybody for a while. He was supposed to be upset over us breaking up, not move on so quickly.

Jeez...I sound like I want to control his life, or never let him see other people.

When Heero came around the table to envelop me in a large hug, I was thankful for him understanding that all of this would still take me some time (although what was going to take time, I had no idea) and wouldn't go crazy over anything.

And I felt horrible because just for the tiniest of moments, I wished that it was Duo's arms comforting me.

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