Timeline : A.C. 194

    Two men were sitting face to face; each one refused to be intimidated by the other. Apart of the age difference, both of them wore similarly decorated traditional Chinese garbs; pattern of dragons fighting were embroidered on the fabric. White dominated the colour of their clothes; they both wore sober expression. There was a trace of sadness in the young man's eyes, but determination clouded it all. As for the older man, he wore an expression of indifference, although deep down his anger was evoked upon merely meeting the sight of the young man.

    The younger man looked studious beneath the older man's scrutiny, with thick rimmed glasses and slicked back black hair that was tied on his nape. His carriage was calm and poised, even when the other chided him, "You're not even yet a man, barely fifteen." The older man's lips twitched as he mocked the other one in disgust. "No wonder you couldn't protect Mei Lan. I shouldn't have handed her over to you to be your wife. She was barely fifteen herself." He stopped for awhile to measure his opponent from head to toe before adding, "Wu Fei."

    The words stung his pride deeply, although he refused to show it outright. As a chief of the Dragon Clan at merely fifteen years of age, he was trained to suppress his emotions downright, although sometimes he failed to do so. However, his common sense ruled his head at the moment, and his conscious told him to swallow the insult, ignoring it.

    "I am really sorry for what was happening to Mei Lan, Chief Liu of Phoenix Clan. Recovering her body was the best I could do as the chief of the Dragon Clan. If only Mei Lan wasn't interfering in the last invasion ..."

    "Are you saying that my daughter was in the way when we succeeded driving the OZ army out?!" Master Liu said behind his gritting teeth, the tips of his fingers were sank on the flesh of his knees, "Should I remind you, Wu Fei, that it was also Mei Lan who bravely found the initiative to fight the OZ back?"

    Shaking his head ever so slightly, Wu Fei closed his dark eyes and stated quietly, "We are in the situation of mourning, father." Opening his eyes again and looking back at Master Liu with some degrees of chilliness, he continued, "We are here together to pay some respect to the deceased Mei Lan, the daughter of the chief of Phoenix Clan and the wife to chief of the Dragon Clan."

    His eyes narrowed fiercely, Master Liu hissed hatefully, "Don't call me father, Wu Fei. You know that our union was only a cover. Before your marriage to my dear daughter, I never acknowledged your authority as the chief of the strongest clan in this colony." With that, he raised his fist and slammed it on the arm of his chair. "And now, with the death of my daughter, I will not submit to your authority at all."

    Wu Fei almost sighed in annoyance as he raised his palm as a sign that he did not want to pursue the totally changed subject. "We're not talking about your, or my authority here, Master Liu," he changed the way he called the other man to avoid further conflict. If he didn't want to acknowledge him as the husband of his daughter, that was fine for him. "We're talking about Mei Lan, remember?" he finished in a faint voice, barely audible in Master Liu's ears, "And, as one family, it is appropriate to pay our last respect for her together."

    "We're not family at all," Master Liu countered heatedly. "and it was your mistake to let her die in the hands of the OZ army."

    "There was nothing I could do about that, Master." Wu Fei replied clearly, "There was nothing we could do."

    Bracing himself from anger, Master Liu brushed his robe aside and demanded, "No. I still want your responsibility. You have to pay it with your eyes ... with your honour."

    Wu Fei stretched his drained body on the flower field where he usually shared his conversation with Mei Lan. There was no one else there beside him and the chirping sound of the little birds around. How quiet, how lonely. It used to be different with Mei Lan chattering by his side. He used to think that she was too talkative for her own good, but he was thinking the opposite at the moment. He longed for the time where he would tell Mei Lan that she was only a woman and thus she had no right to order him around. And of course, she would fight him back, with words.

    Sighing out loud, Wu Fei watched the blue sunny sky as he recalled the earlier event. There was no way he could talk sense into the old man's mind. He understood that his defiance came from his love to his daughter, but he didn't know what the other was going through over his daughter's death.

    Wu Fei loved her. With all his heart, he would pledge his loyalty to Mei Lan, forever. And he would replace Mei Lan's life with his own soul if he could. He would just run to her and prevent her death if only his other duties as the Dragon Clan's chief didn't call him. It would do his people justice to save them from the OZ attack. However, what about himself? Should he surrender and recant his right to live ordinarily as husband and wife with Mei Lan?

    He felt hopeless right now, and was totally exhausted. Master Liu had demanded that he gave his eyes in exchange of his daughter's life. As a man, he would sure do it with honour. However, as a chief, should he be capable to lead his people without a pair of eyes? Was it appropriate of him?

    The question was, actually, wasn't that act the same as abandoning his own people?

    Yes, he would answer it so. His people depended on him and he couldn't just run away from his responsibilities. It wouldn't do them justice if he acted without much concerns of their well being.

    Jumping up to his feet, he scanned the green and blooming field before him; thick emotion was clouded his sharp features. Then his eyes stopped at something. A figure. It is very familiar to him, a back figure of a girl who had haunted his every sleep. His eyes widened when the figure was turning back to him and smiled gently, and tenderly. A small smile curved as Wu Fei approached the figure, but she disappeared as he almost touched her shoulder.

    Frozen to the ground, Wu Fei lowered his hand and sighed in desperation. Those eyes, those smile…how he longed to touched them with his lips, to feel them. Even he still could smell the scent of her, mingling with blood, at the very day when she had died bravely defending the town from the OZ army's attack. Her image was always within him, for he could never escape the memories of her.

    "I want to give anything in exchange for your soul. I'll give up my position as the chief of Dragon Clan, if I could."

    A droplet of tears flowing down his pale cheek.

    "If I could…" he whispered to himself, choking and sobbing.

    Then, as quickly as the grief came over him, he wiped away his tears, and looked up bravely, determination shone in his eyes.

    He had made up his mind.

    Justice had called upon him, and he chose to serve his people. Not a single woman, not even Mei Lan, would interfere with his decision, even if that would mean a break-up with the other clan.

    And he swore that he would never shed another tear.

    Timeline : A.C. 203, L5 Colony  

    "Tea?"

    Chang Wu Fei only nodded as a slim, white hand of a woman put a glass of Chinese Tea on the

    computer table with a soft clunk. The woman, a beautiful lady in her late-twenties, sighed and kneeled beside him, laying a hand on his muscled arm. She was very pretty in a graceful kind of way, with golden hair braided neatly on the nape of her neck and slanting, dark brown eyes. Vaguely, she looked like Chinese. Well, she was quarter-Chinese, anyway. Her figure, once lithe and slim, now bulged; the mound clearly indicated her heavily pregnant stature.

    "It's been a hard day." She stated quietly, her eyes never leaving Wu Fei's darker ones. "I'm sure you could use…"

    Typing furiously upon the keyboards, Wu Fei never diverted his attention from whatever he was working on, but his words really implied what he had been thinking of the woman's presence, "Sleep? I tell you, woman, a man has to work hard to protect his family and his clan. We're different from your kind. And don't you think it's a bit too late for this kind of conversation? I could take care of myself just fine, if you're worrying about me,"

    Smiling thinly, the woman said nothing against Wu Fei's chiding words. She merely got up to her feet and walked away from the spot where Wu Fei was still working. "Anyway, just want to tell you that. You don't have to act as if my presence is a pest, though." Then, she whipped around, her left hand planted firmly into her hips, she remarked tartly, although calmly at the same time, "You and your degrading views of women. Do you really think that women could do nothing?"

    Turning and staring back at her nonchalantly, Wu Fei leant one arm on the back of his chair, growling under his breath, "Sally, what do you want? It's past midnight," Frowning, Wu Fei tapped his chin impatiently while adding, "Let me guess. Is that the cravings that most women usually have during their pregnancy? Or…"

    "Nothing," shrugging indifferently, Sally Po, the woman, walked back to the spot near Wu Fei's and lowered her body on the computer table just beside the monitor carefully. Her husband was being sarcastic again, but she could understand it. He always seemed disturbed since he learnt about her pregnancy. He never stated his displeasure toward her little but important news, but he acted as if the baby was a disaster, in the past couple of months. She wished Wu Fei would appreciate it a little, but what she saw was the opposite.

    Caressing the mound of her belly lovingly, Sally smiled contentedly to herself and cast a glance toward her husband, asking him absent-mindedly, "What shall we name the girl?"

    Wu Fei snorted in disgust, mumbling, "Women."

    "Come on, Wu Fei. We have to think of it, sooner or later. And the baby is almost due, anyway,"

    A growl, and then a curse when he accidentally mistyped something. Annoyed, he finally gave up his work and looked at his wife straight in her eyes. "It shall wait until the babe is born, and…since when you know that the babe is a girl? You refused to have the doctor told you about the gender of the babe, as I recall."

    She merely shushed him, a scowl forming in her face. Disgruntled, Wu Fei chose to close his mouth tight although he still had plenty to say. At the end, he merely said, "Mind if I ask you to leave me peacefully with this thing?" he waved his hand to the monitor to emphasise that he had works to do, "I have to revise the data that our network has gathered."

    Sally slipped a hand around Wu Fei's shoulder, pressing her belly on his back in the process, and made him jerk in discomfort. Always like that, Sally thought. The idea of being a father must be the least appealing for him. However, she was glad that Wu Fei didn't remove her hand away. He often would do that, and hurting her feelings without realisation. Not that she hated him for that; she merely felt rejected.

    "What is it about?" casually she inquired.

    "About OZ last activities, and stuff like that." His voice was low and hoarse, indicating how worn out he actually was. "None of your business." Then, as if realising something, he measured her from head to toe, and implied more, "At least in your…delicate condition, now."

    Amused, Sally chuckled and tightened her embrace around him, making him fidgeting even more so. She loved doing it as much as Wu Fei hating it. It was amusing to see his uneasiness toward open display of emotions. "I'm glad you're being considerate, but I'm no weakling."

    Lips twitching in irony, Wu Fei reverted his attention to his work once again, sarcasm almost spilled out of his lips, but he knew better than to say it out loud in front of his wife's face. No weakling? Like she knew what it actually meant. The last time he heard the word from a woman, his past and deceased young wife, it had been a disaster. Like hell he was going to submit to the idea. Woman could be strong, but not in combat. He knew that Sally was different, for she used to be a trained OZ officer, but she was still a woman that he had to protect. Moreover, she was his wife and heavily pregnant with his child. Like it or not, his responsibility doubled the moment Sally broke the news of her pregnancy.

    "I'm not much of a help lately, am I?" Sally asked almost desperately, subconsciously released his shoulder and rubbed her suddenly cold arms. "I'm useless at the moment, you think." It was not a question. There was some level of accusation in her emotionally thick voice.

    Women, pregnancy and emotional outburst. They always came in one package, Wu Fei noted grudgingly. Luckily Sally was not to the extreme. Rolling his eyes, he processed to save his work for the day and turned off the computer, while at the same time getting off his seat and turning around to face her.

    "What…?" Sally inquired in puzzlement, her brows knitted together and her mouth formed a lovely pout. She looked as if she was only seventeen when she looked that way and he was glad for that, even if it was only secretly. He had admired his wife strength and agility sometimes openly, but deep beneath, he also admired her classic beauty. Most men envied him; he must admit it. He possessed a clever and lovely woman, befitted for a position of a wife of a clan's chief.

    Grabbing his traditional Chinese jacket and slinging it over his body, he stood tall, towering his wife. Jabbing his thumb toward the door, he lifted his finely shaped brow and said, "Come. I'll escort you to our room. It's been too late already, anyway, for you to be around."

    "But I still have some more works to do myself, in my office." She tried to argue, crossing her arm in front of her chest, looking a bit miffed. Wu Fei stifled the urge to smirk at the sight, and proceeded on talking her into going back to their quarter on the third floor of the building. Sometimes it is an advantage to have your workshop as the basement of your house, he mused, although we still have a headquarters a bit far away from the location of my estate.

    "Come," he had said it firmly, a sign that he didn't want to argue even further, "I'll take you upstairs,"

    "But…"

    "No buts. Come, woman." Extending his hand to her, he waited for Sally to approach him, but she didn't budge an inch. She was still standing over there, crossing her arms in front of her chest with a discreetly miffed expression. "It's been a hard day." he prompted her again, using the very same sentence she used to coax him to bed earlier. And now, she herself wanted to avoid bed. How conveniently sneaky.

    Seeing no sign of her going to move soon, he approached her in long strides. She only looked back at him in confusion, but a small cry escaped her lips when he deliberately raised her into his arms.

    "W-Wu Fei?"

    "Be still, woman…" he gritted his teeth in effort of balancing his burden while trying to open the door at the same time, "…You're getting heavier!"

    Strangely, Sally didn't struggle down in spite of her earlier protestation. She merely rested her head on the hollow of his throat, enjoying the warm contact of her cheek against his skin. Inhaling Wu Fei's scent of salt and sandalwood, she smiled gently as she looked up at his slanted eyes and remarked smartly, "You have no idea…"

    Wu Fei, his lips twitched in amusement, cradled his wife's body gently; he never avoided Sally's gaze for a moment.

    "Women," he commented, a hint of affection sounded faintly in his deep voice.

    Wu Fei smiled a half smile as he closed the door behind his back. He had stayed for a while, watching until Sally fell asleep eventually, then made sure that she stayed warm beneath the thick and soft blanket they usually shared. She looked peaceful, her sharp figures softened the moment she fell into the dreamland. Wu Fei was not the kind of man who felt obliged to tuck his wife to bed, but he was glad to do it at the moment. Watching his own wife falling into a deep sleep stirred some kind of fluttering feelings he felt to no other woman saved his wife.

    As he walked back to the little convenient basement of their workshop, his brows furrowed, his expression grim, he sank his hands into the pockets of his jacket, reflecting on the things happened in the past few years. Their partnership. The underground organisation formed under their leadership. The same policy the held against the OZ army, the federation army. Their brief liaison during those hard times. Their marriage.

    Yes, their marriage.

    How long had it been for them? Had it been two years already? It had been convenient sort of thing, the union. They always spent time together, worked together, and were so attached together, so he saw nothing wrong in tying the knot, despite the protestation of his elders, for Sally was four years older than him. He never minded that. In fact, they shut their mouth voluntarily when they met her for the first time. He was sure the moment they knew her, Sally had won them with her charming intellect. Besides, as the head of the clan, he needed to find a capable wife and produced an heir, and Sally was more than sufficient for the position.

    It happened in a hell of a lot of speed. It wasn't a shotgun wedding, yet it resembled one. It just happened so quickly for his memory to digest it. The moment he proposed she hadn't been hesitating at all in answering his proposal. He thought that being a reasonable woman, Sally would think twice over his request of her hand in marriage, by being his wife, her responsibilities alone would double as a wife of the chief of Dragon Clan. Reality check? Sally was behaving very irrationally at the moment. So unlike the calm poise that she displayed all the time. She wept as all women did when they were feeling happy and threw her arms around him, almost choking the breath out of his poor lungs. Not that he objected. His own chest swelled with an intense emotion he couldn't even describe.

    No matter what, from then on, he realised one thing. Sally was still a woman. A weak part of the race. The one that supposed to stay home, cooking, taking care of the family instead of marching with all the male soldiers into the grim and horrible reality called war. Wu Fei chuckled to himself as he pondered over his ideal for the billions of times. Even his past experiences of battling side by side with mostly very capable woman pilots couldn't change his mind. He hated to admit it, but he was still a chauvinist who was tied to the old ideals that was the opposite of the ideal of woman emancipation. He was raised in a situation whereas old traditions were held high in the family. He was totally exposed to those kind views and traditions as he grew up into manhood.

    Many people said that he had to wake up from those outdated reality, to face a more-in-the-future reality (as Duo had put it), but he just couldn't. Not after what had happened in his past. Well, he may consider discarding his other ideals for the better ones, but certainly not the one about women. Women were weaklings, creatures whom he had to protect. Women weren't designated to do what men did. He might have been changed a bit from experiences, at least not to underestimate women's ability, but deep down, he still believed that women couldn't survive on their own.

    Almost stumbling as he entered his little and private office, the one he built just beside his wife's, he then realised how tired he actually was. Sally was right, and it would be nice to feel her fingers marvelling on his taut muscles, relaxing them with her gentle massage, as she always did. He hadn't had a decent sleep in the past week, monitoring OZ movements and all. There were rumours that OZ was in the way of commencing their rearranged plan in dealing with the colonies, and he intended to protect L5 Colony at any costs. He would pay it with his dear life if he had to. Besides, his vows a long time ago had included excellent protection for his people, the residents of L5 Colony. Like it or not, he was the chief of the strongest clan in the colony, thus assuming the position as the leader of the other clans and therefore the colony itself. His responsibilities were very heavy. He even noticed that some strands of his hair had greyed, despite his young age.

    The other vow he had committed himself to was…

    The phone beside him was ringing, jerking him back to reality. He massages the bridge of his nose tiredly before he lifted the receiver up and pressed it to his ear, then mumbled a very soft, but firm, "Hello?"

    "Sir! Good evening, Sir!" said a light baritone voice of a man from across the line.

    "Just skip the formality and inform me what happens over there," Wu Fei ordered in composed demeanour, as he usually displayed toward his lower ranking officers that he stationed in the headquarters.

    "Yes, Sir!" then calmer, the young soldier explained to him, "I think the situation is urgent, and we need you and Brigadier General Sally Po to be here to observe the situation."

    "How bad? Explain,"

    "I think we've spotted some alien objects coming inside our atmosphere, Sir. From our radar, we've only picked one signal, but I am sure there are more of them. We need both of you to observe the situation, Sir."

    Clearing my throat, I replied, "I will attend the matter there immediately, but I'm afraid my wife would not be disturbed tonight. She was retiring to her bedchamber not a long time ago, and it is my intention not to have her disturbed. But I will come over and see what we should do. Your rank?"

    "Corporal, Sir."

    "Corporal, you're dismissed. Attend to the problem until I reach the headquarters. I'll be there in less than twenty minutes."

    "Aye, aye, Sir."

    The line was cut off with a monotone sound played over and over. Wu Fei was thinking very hard as he put the receiver down carefully. He had to go there, and fast. It could be some sort of attack from the OZ. It was really fortunate when he had come to Heero and asked that their radar be improved in quality. He knew how sneaky the OZ could be, and he wanted to be prepared for that.

    Grabbing his car keys from the hooks near the door, he ran to the garage that was located not far away from the workshop. No time to notify his colleagues. He would tell them when things had been cleared out. Or, it might be too late for that then.

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