Duo watched as the young guy danced with Sophie. Even though he denied it, Sophie was his date. His eyes narrowed as he watched the guy start to pull Sophie towards the door. What was he thinking? He watched as the guy started to lead Sophie out towards the gardens. Glaring dangerously, Duo followed without hesitation from a safe distance. If that creep tried anything…
"You know, you’re the most beautiful girl here." Gregory said as they steeped into the gardens near a dimly lit water fountain.
Sophie blushed and said nothing as she stared out over the wall and at the water of the man-made pond. White swans swan peacefully near the other edge, and were barely visible in the dark.
Gregory stepped up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.
Sophie felt the butterflies of anxiety begin to flutter around in her stomach. Gregory turned her around slowly and moved in to kiss her.
Sophie didn’t know what he was trying to do, but it made her nervous. When he started to lean in towards her she screamed and pulled away from him. Gregory wasn’t discouraged. He grabbed her again and this time he pressed his lips against hers. Sophie struggled, but it was all in vain. Sophie tried to scream again but couldn’t. That was when Gregory was wrenched away from her and slammed into the wall of the building. Sophie forced her eyes open and saw Duo holding Gregory up by the collar of his tux. Duo punched him in the face and Gregory fell to the ground, bleeding.
Duo looked up and saw Sophie shaking with fear.
"Sophie?" He said softly. He stepped up to her and drew her into his arms. Sophie welcomed his embrace and buried herself in his shoulder. Duo could feel her trembling.
"W-what was he doing that for?" She asked shakily.
"Shhh," Duo hugged her tighter, "Don’t worry about that now."
"Oh Duo," She sighed and clutched his shoulders tightly. Duo saw that she was crying.
"Sometimes it’s a curse to be so good looking." He smirked, "I should know."
Sophie managed to laugh and rub away the tears from her face.
"Can we go?" She asked.
Duo nodded, "Yeah, let’s get outta here." He agreed. He gently put an arm around her waist and led her around to the doors. They walked in and walked around the edge of the ballroom to where the doors to the parking lot were.
They were almost home free when a voice behind them stopped them.
"Maxwell, where do you think you’re going?" It was Wufei.
"I’m leaving," Duo answered.
"You have to stay for the speech." Wufei protested, looking angrily at Duo and then at Sophie.
"Who’s the onna?"
Sophie was standing just behind Duo, her head bowed down shyly.
"Sophie," Duo answered. "We really gotta go Wu-man. Tape the speech or something."
"Hn," Wufei glared at them both as they left.
"Sorry about him," Duo muttered, "He’s always rude."
Sophie only nodded and let Duo helps her into the Limo. Once they were on their way home again, Sophie started to relax.
"So…did he hurt you?" Duo asked.
Sophie shook her head. "He scared me, though,"
Duo nodded in understanding. Sophie sighed deeply. "I just can’t wait to get home and go to sleep," She said.
She didn’t seem to notice the subliminal message in her words. Duo did, however, and blushed. Home? She considered his summerhouse home? Did that mean she was planning to stay? Or did she just say that because she was staying with him for the time being?
Duo glanced over at Sophie, who was leaning against the window tiredly. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself to fight off some unknown chill. Duo saw that she was crying again.
"Hey," Duo slid closer to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "It’s OK,"
"I know," Sophie sighed. "I don’t want to go out like that again."
"I understand," Duo said, "Maybe it was a bad idea to take you out to a big party like that when you still needed to get re-introduced to society."
Sophie found comfort in his words, even though she wasn’t really sure what he meant. She leaned against his shoulder and closed her eyes. Within minutes, she was asleep.
Duo was shocked when Sophie decided to use him as a pillow, but also strangely pleased. At least she trusted him. Duo draped his arm around her and let her fall asleep.
The Limousine pulled up outside the small house about an hour later. Duo nudged Sophie lightly. "Come on," He whispered, "We’re back.
"Hm?" Sophie opened her eyes, "Oh! We’re here!" She unhooked her arms from around Duo’s waist. They had somehow gotten there while she was sleeping. She sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She scrambled out of the car and followed Duo leisurely to the front door. She was still half-asleep.
Duo unlocked the door and they headed in together. Then they both stopped dead in their tracks and their eyes widened to the size of saucers.
The entire place was a complete and total wreck!
"How did this…?" Duo said in shock. He looked around the apartment. Maybe someone had broken in. But that was impossible! He was a Preventor! He had the best security system possible. It was almost impossible to break into his house! So how had this happened?
Sophie answered his questions for him.
"NANO!" She shrieked. "Bad dog!" Nano was sitting in the middle of the room, looking cute and innocent. Holding something in his mouth and covered in the stuffing from Duo’s pillows.
Duo sighed and pulled the thing out of Nano’s mouth. It was a black ledger of some sort. "What’s this?" Duo wondered. Then he recognized it as the book he had pulled from Sophie’s hands the day he found her.
Sophie stepped up behind him and took thew book from his hands. Her eyes grew wide and she gasped. "Oh my…I forgot about this!" She clutched the book to her chest and smiled ever so slightly.
"I’m sorry, mom." She whispered.
"Hun?" Duo asked, "What is that thing?"
"It was my mother’s" Sophie answered.
"Does it have anything in it?" He asked.
"It used to, but all the words have been washed away."
"Let me see that," He took the book and started to flip through it. There were numerous letters and words, but he couldn’t make out any of them. But he wasn’t about to give up. He turned to the middle, seeing if maybe the water hadn’t reached it. He stopped suddenly at one spot. There, slightly runny, and cracking, was the word ‘Dad’ with a phone number.
"What the…" He recognized the area code as a Florida one.
"What is it, Duo?" Sophie asked.
"I found a phone number for someone here in Florida."
"You did?" Sophie asked excitedly. She ran up next to him and peered over his shoulder at the book. "We should call it!"
"Yeah…" Duo looked at his watch and sighed. "We’d never get a hold of them at this hour. We’ll call first thing in the morning, OK?"
"Why can’t we do it now?"
"Because its too late." Duo replied, "And besides, this number is from ten years ago, there might not be anyone living there anymore…" He broke of when he saw Sophie’s disappointed face.
"Hey, don’t worry about it!" Duo said cheerfully, "We’ll check it out tomorrow morning, we can even do some research if you want…" "OK," Sophie sighed, "But we’re getting up early tomorrow!"
Duo groaned but agreed. Then they both went to bed. Duo fell asleep, but Sophie was tossing and turning, too excited about actually finding someone who could tell her what her real identity was.
Duo was still sleeping when Sophie woke up. But since Sophie was so excited about the number they found in her mother’s book, she wasn’t about to let him sleep. She decided to use her usual technique in waking him up. Sophie jumped on Duo chest and stayed there until her woke up. It never really took that long. As usual, Duo jumped off the couch, throwing Sophie to the ground. She looked up at him and giggled.
"Oh, be quiet about my hair." Duo groaned. He got up off the couch and started to head towards the bathroom, but Sophie stopped him.
"No way, Duo!" She said sternly. "We’re going to call that number!"
Duo groaned. "At least let me shower first! They’re probably not even up yet anyway."
"But…the sun is up." Sophie pointed out.
"Sophie," Duo sighed, "Not everyone gets up with the sun."
"What a waste of time," She sighed.
"Yeah sure," Duo pulled himself away from Sophie and headed for the shower.
"Half an hour, Sophie!" He called, "That’s all I ask!"
"FINE!" Sophie screamed, "But not a second more!"
"OK…" His voice faded out as he closed the door to the bathroom. Sophie was unable to sit still, so she took Nano outside for a run while she waited for Duo. She would have called herself, but she didn’t have much experience with phones, and she was nervous as well. Not to mention she didn’t have any of what Duo called people-skills. She wouldn’t be able to speak to whoever answered the phone without making herself look dumb.
When she got back into the house after her run with Nano, Duo was out of the shower and dressed with his hair freshly braided.
"Can we call yet?" She asked excitedly.
Duo looked at his watch and shook his head. "I guess," He sighed. He didn’t know if anyone in their right mind would be up at six thirty on a Saturday morning, but it was worth a shot.
Duo fished out the black book from his dresser and found the phone number easily, because of the mark he had put in it the night before.
He dialed the number carefully and listened to it ring.
Sophie leaned over his shoulder curiously, waiting to see who would answer the phone. After four rings, an old man in a crisp suit-like uniform answered the phone. He had a chubby, round face with squinty eyes and a calm manner. His posture was perfect and his thinning gray hair looked absolutely ridiculous with his thick, bushy mustache.
"Hello, Parish Manor," He answered in a clean-cut English accent.
"Um, hi," Duo answered, slightly confused. "I need to speak with the owner of this house. Is that you?"
The English man didn’t look amused.
"I would appreciate it if you didn’t joke, Sir." He answered rudely. "And I would like to let you know that we do not take prank calls lightly here."
"This isn’t a prank call!" Duo said urgently as he watched the man start to hang up. "I swear it!"
The English man paused for a second and looked at him curiously through his thick eyebrows.
"Then what is this?"
"I…did you ever have a Sophie Parish in your household?" Duo asked. "I mean, Parish is the last name, right?"
"Yes sir, the Parish family is a highly influential and powerful family, not only in the state of Florida, but also in the entire ESUN. You mentioned a Sophie Parish? Could you possibly mean Sophia Parish, daughter of Gina?"
"GINA!" Sophie cried! "That was my mother’s name! Her name was Gina!" Sophie leapt out of her seat in excitement.
The English man looked angry again. "Please Sir, we don’t have time for your jokes here. My master’s Granddaughter died in a plane crash ten years ago. I don’t think he’ll find this funny..."
"Whoa, you’re master?" Duo asked. "You guys must be loaded! Sophie, you’ve got a good family!" He laughed, refusing to let the English butler hang up.
"Y-you really mean that these people are my family?"
"Could be," Duo shrugged, "But from what I hear…"
The butler snorted rudely. "Goodbye," He said curtly, he started to hang up once again.
"WAIT!" This time Sophie stopped him. She stepped into full view of the VidPhone and gave the butler a puppy-dog face.
"Please, just listen to me," Sophie begged. The butler, just like everyone else, was unable to resist the puppy dog look and paused to let her speak.
"I didn’t die in a plane crash." Sophie said. "My mother and I, we got off. We were stranded on this little island; she died of some sickness one year later. I just got off the island a little while ago and Duo has been taking care of me. Please, all I want is to find my family."
The butler gave her a long hard stare and finally squinted his eyes even more then brought them back to their normal, squinted state.
"You do look quite a bit like Miss Gina did, and her daughter…" He lost himself in some form of thought.
"Very well," The butler said finally, "I’ll arrange a meeting with you and Mr. Parish. But I can’t guarantee you any success in this wild goose chase of yours. "And if this is some sort of joke, young man. I must warn you that Mr. Parish takes the deaths of his family members in that crash very seriously. "I promise you, it isn’t." Duo swore.
"Very well then," The butler nodded. "How’s tomorrow at say…"
"Why not today?" Duo asked.
"Today?" The butler looked baffled. "Oh no, Sir. My master does not like schedule changes so last minute."
"But don’t you think that if it means possibly being reunited with his granddaughter, he’ll make an exception?" Duo pushed.
"I…I’m not sure. Please wait one moment." The Butler disappeared and came back a minute later with a thick black book, identical to the one Sophie’s mother had. Sophie’s eyes widened but she said nothing.
"Mr. Parish is free for lunch today at one. Do you know where the estate is?"
"Um…no." Duo admitted.
The butler quickly rattled off an address and then said, "Your name, Sir?"
"Duo, Duo Maxwell."
He nodded and scribbled something in the book. Finally he said. "Fine, thank you very much Sir. Mr. Parish will be expecting you at one o’clock sharp."
"Got it," Duo nodded. He watched the old English Butler hang up then turned to Sophie and grinned. "Sophie babe, I think we may have found something."
Sophie was so awestruck that she could only nod. Finally, a wide grin spread onto her face as well and she jumped into Duo’s arms.
"Oh Duo! This is so great!" She hugged him tightly and started to laugh.
"A real family!"
"I’m happy for ya, babe," Duo smiled. It was the truth. Sophie was unable to contain her excitement any longer and she started to dance around the house. Nano soon joined in, barking and nipping happily at her feet.
