Disclaimer: I dun own the usual stuffage. You know, official peeps and the like.

Autor Notes: Sorry if I’m not consistant with how I spell ‘Sank’ or ‘Sanq’ or whatever, but I can never remember from one chapter to the next what I was calling the kingdom.

In the Nic of Time-Chapter Seven

Year A.C. 197

March 18

“This is so sugoi!” Wing couldn’t help exclaim as she modeled her new dress. “A huge soiree welcoming his highness back to Earth, and we get to go!!”

Relena smiled at her future daughter’s happiness, Hilde and Kitty still searched through the racks of dresses for gowns they liked, and Catherine was in the dressing room. All the guys had been reduced to bag-carriers, much to their disgust, all though Vingt was far from disgusted when he saw Wing’s dress. Nuef however thought his younger cousin was showing a tad too much skin.

“You know,” Kitty said, carrying a long, deep pink gown to the dressing room, “If this is so formal, we’ll need dates, won’t we?” She winked at Wing, Nuef, and Vingt. “Let’s see,” she said thoughtfully, “Since we’re all going we can pair up. It’ll be fun. Hmmm, well, of coarse Heero and Relena are going together, sooo, how about Duo and Hilde?”

Hilde, coming towards the dressing room with a royal purple spaghetti strap dress, lit up at the sound of going on a date with Duo. Duo nodded in agreement to the idea, thinking hanging out with Hilde for the evening would be fun.

Kitty winked at Vingt, who grinned back. “Hey, Quatre, how about you and,” she paused as if thinking, “Dorothy, maybe?” She held her breath.

“Sure, I guess,” Quatre said, being his sweet and agreeable self.

“You guess?” Dorothy asked, mock-angry, and smacked him lightly upside the head, playfully.

“Dorothy, will you go with me?” Quatre asked her with puppy-dog eyes. Dorothy pretended to consider. She sighed.

“I guess so,” she said with a sigh, “If I can’t find anyone else, that is.”

Kitty grinned. “Now, Trowa and Wufei still need dates, who can we put them with? I suppose maybe Catherine could go with Wufei...”

Trowa’s eyebrows raised.

“Well, do you want to go with your sister?” she asked. “That’s being really desperate.”

“Putting poor Catherine with Wufei is pretty desperate, too,” Wing pointed out. “I mean, Sexist-pig-san isn’t exactly the best date material.”

“He’s not exactly sexist,” Kitty said.

“He just thinks women are pathetic and weak, and that men are better. Trina-chan, that’s called being sexist.”

“I guess she could go with Vingt...”

Wing scowled. Kitty chuckled. “Hey, Catherine!” She called into the dressing room, “You have a choice, do you want to go to the party with Wufei or just hang out with your brother.”

Catherine came out wearing a shoulder bearing red evening dress. “Wufei? I’ll pass. What do you say, brother?”

Trowa shrugged. “Fine with me.”

Kitty pouted. “Who’ll go with Wufei?”

“You could,” Relena pointed out.

“Uh, I think getting the rest of you dates was my good deed for the century.”

“Kitty, you just rattled off the most obvious pairings,” Vingt said.

Kitty scowled. “Shut up and carry my shoes,” she said throwing the box at him.

Relena snapped her fingers. “Hey--who was that lady with the braids? Not Lady Une, the other one?”

“Sally?” Quatre asked.

Relena nodded. “Yes, thank you Quatre. Maybe Sally could go with Wufei.”

“And that takes care of that.”

“We shouldn’t plan for Wufei without him,” Quatre pointed out.

“Where is he, anyway?” Wing asked.

“All the women in the mall scared him away,” Duo said matter-of-factly. He was met with a chorus of laughter. The planning, shopping and joking went on for the rest of the day.

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

Year-AC 197

March 19

A nondescript white delivery van passed through the security without any problems. The van had been making supply runs to the palace for years, so the van’s new driver and passengers had no trouble getting in, even with their cargo of explosives and guns.

Once inside, Breyer, Hunter, Ben and Jerry went to work setting up the bombs. Just a few more hours before the ‘king’ returned. Just a few more hours before the wrongs of the past would be set right. Only a matter of time. Breyer set up a bomb in the north wing, Hunter in the south, Ben in the upper levels and Jerry in the lower levels.

Rather then time bombs, the group decided on remote activation, it was safer in the event that they couldn’t get out of the area marked for destruction in time. A few minor setbacks were bound to happen.

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

“Relena,” Hilde asked as the two of them got ready for the party, “didn’t you have a meeting that was scheduled around the same time as Zechs’ welcoming?

“Yeah,” Relena said making a few adjustments to her long evening gloves, “but Wing and Kitty really wanted to go, so I managed to get out of it.”

“You wouldn’t have gone otherwise? But he’s your brother!”

“I know, but I’m very busy, and we don’t have a very close relationship anyway. Though I am hoping that this party might give the family ties a few more knots.”

“Oooohh, clever pun,” Hilde said sarcastically, “think of it yourself?”

Relena rolled her eyes. “Let’s go.”

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

Heero blinked. “What?” he asked. Relena grinned and latched onto his arm. “You are soooo cute in a tux, Heero.” The Ultimate Soldier blushed, something he found himself doing more and more often since he and Relena became am official couple.

Something no one had expected was that one of the guys would take longer to get ready than all of the girls combined, but Duo had a very hard time getting his braid neat enough. A fancy party called for good grooming and a braid that was over a meter long was hard to get just right, and Hilde insisted that it had to be. So the two braided and braided and braided.

Catherine pouted. “The biggest party I’ve ever gone to and I’m going with my brother,” she grumbled.

“It was your choice, Catherine,” Trowa reminded her.

Quatre and Dorothy didn’t seem to be getting along very well. They were barely speaking, but every now and then stole glances at each other. Quatre had never found himself staring at his shoes so much in his life, he noted while gazing downward after making eye contact with Dorothy. Smiling faintly, Dorothy reached under Quatre’s chin and pulled his head up. He turned to look at her and managed a nervous half-smile in her direction. “First date jitters?” she asked softly. Embarrassed, Quatre didn’t reply. “Don’t be so nervous,” Dorothy whispered in his ear, taking hold of his hand. Quatre’s fingers curled around Dorothy’s hand, and both their smiles widened a bit.

Wufei was rather peeved with the situation. First, it upset him that he had been setup without his consent. Then it bothered him that Sally smacked him when he voiced his displeasure with that. Lastly, he was mad, and strangely happy at the same time that it hurt where Sally had hit him. Maybe she wasn’t such a weak woman.

The Gundam Boys and their respective female counterparts were prepared for a party, but not what lied ahead.

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

Year-AC 215

January 9

The house was quiet and Heero Yuy didn’t like it. For once, there were no video games, alternative music or movie marathons to distract him. Wing was no where to be found, and he didn’t like that either.

Heero learned early in life that anything he had that was really worth having would be taken away from him. It was just the way his life was. He had absorbed himself in his missions, trying to quell the feeling of emptiness that would so often overwhelm him. His Gundam, Dr. J, missions and meaningless tasks when they were no wars for the warrior, and later Relena helped him. Relena. He tried not to think about her, but even after ten years it still hurt. He should have been with her, to protect her. All he had left of her was Wing, and from the sounds of the house, he had lost her, too.

He had known for years before long Wing would be lost to him as well. She had a calculated recklessness about her and a love of dangerous situations. It would only be a matter of time before something happened to her. Stopping her now would only delay the inevitable. Becoming close to her would only make it hurt that much more, and Heero Yuy was tired of pain. Pain was what his first fifteen years of life amounted to. Then came two of boredom, eight of happiness, and another ten of pain. When you are alone no one can hurt you but yourself.

Walking down the hall, Heero stood at the doorway of Wing’s room. The walls were painted a deep purple, with Christmas tree lights draped from the ceiling and around the corners of the wall for light instead of a lamp. Fake cobwebs from Halloween were strung around the room. Candles, incense burners and photographs framed by brass were the decorations. One photo was of Wing and Vingt, another of Zechs, Lucrasia and Nuef, the third of Kitty, sitting on the laid out palm of her Gundam’s hand. The people in the pictures smiled, but Wing’s smiles were fake. They always were. Heero didn’t think he nor his daughter had been truly happy since Relena died. Had one person really held them together that much? Wing didn’t even remember Relena, how could the girl be so sad without her? Heero knew the answer, he always had:without her mother, Wing didn’t have anyone. Her father had never been there for her, he was too wary of being close to her.

Reaching towards Wing’s smooth black telephone, which she preferred over visual communicators, hoping only to not be alone anymore, Heero dialed the Maxwell household, and for the first time in more years then he would like to count, he heard his best friend’s voice again.

“Hello?” Duo’s voice came through the phone, but rather than answer, Heero slammed the phone back down on the receiver.

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

Year-AC 197

March 19

“Who’s that?” Wing asked, pointing to a man rushing down the hall adjacent to the ballroom. “He looks really familiar.”

Kitty pulled her wristband out of her purse and flicked it on. Snapping a ‘picture’ of the man, her wristband’s mini-computer did a check of the man’s identity.

“How come she gets a computer?” Vingt asked to no one in particular.

“His name is Breyer. No wonder he looks familiar, Wing, he’s a known terrorist that we have on our most wanted list. In a couple of years, he’ll be the leader of a group called ‘Red Hand.’

“‘Red Hand,’” Wing mused. “Wait a minute!”

the other people at the table, namely Relena, Heero, Trowa, Catherine, and Nuef’s stared at Wing, who was in the early stages of making a scene.

Wing jumped up.

“They’re the group that killed my mom!” Wing took to a run down the hall, followed close behind by Vingt. Likewise, Kitty and Nuef leapt to follow, but Kitty soon froze in her tracks.

“I’m dead in the future?!?!” Relena exclaimed.

“The future?!?!” Catherine asked, looking at Relena like she was crazy.

Everyone seated at the table turned to stare at Relena, except for Trowa, who knew the reasoning behind Relena’s outburst. People dancing and sitting at other tables in the ballroom turned their attention to the group as Vingt and Nuef carried a struggling Wing back to the table.

Kitty looked panic-stricken, but took control of the situation as best she could. “Wing-chan,” she barked, “standing down!”

Wing ceased her struggles. “Yes, ma’am,” she whispered and did a small salute.

“You mind telling us what in Deathsycthe Hell is going on?” Heero demanded.

“Yeah, we kind of do mind,” Wing spat angrily.

Sighing heavily, Kitty took a deep breath.

“Guys, I think the time for secrets has passed. If the Red Hand is here, it can only mean trouble for the Sank Kingdom. Nuef-get Quatre, Duo and Wufei over here, Vingt-track Breyer, Wing-watch what you say.” Nuef ran towards the dance floor bringing the remaining Gundam pilots to the makeshift mission headquarters. Vingt flipped on the ID tracker on Kitty’s wristband to track Breyer. Wing crossed her arms and scowled Kitty surveyed the group. Heero, Relena, Duo, Hilde, Trowa, Catherine, Quatre, Dorothy, Wufei, Sally, Wing, Vingt, Nuef and herself. She took another deep breath. “For those of you who don’t know the whole story, I think it’s time to explain.”

“Uh, Leader-Girl,” Vingt spoke up, “he’s getting away.” Kitty snatched her wristband back and typed in for it to track Wing and Vingt as well.

“One-Zero, Two-Zero, after him, Five-Zero, scan for explosives, I’ll do the talking.”

Wing nodded, “Mission accepted.”

Vingt saluted and the two were off. Likewise Nuef followed orders.

“It seems we don’t have a lot of time, so I’ll make this quick,” Kitty said. “I came from the future, the year 215 to be exact, as did the others. As Wing and Relena have so thoughtlessly blurted out, in that time period, Relena Peacecraft is dead, and Wing is her daughter. That man Wing and Vinnie are tracking now is the man responsible for her death. I believe it is possible that we can change the future.”

“If that’s true,” Quatre said, “then I think you four got here in the nic of time.”

Kitty smiled. “I think you’re right.”

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

Author Notes: The getting ready for the party look longer than I thought it would, so it will be a little longer before Chapter Six’s Flash Foreward will be explained. Stay tuned for ‘In the Nic of Time:Chapter Eight!’