Call of Duty

Part: Fifteen
Title: Winding Down
Genre: Gundam Wing
A/N: Last chapter. Thanks to everyone who reviewed, and I hope you'll all like the next story as well. If anyone wants to beta it, please let me know. I'm glad to hear that this story has piqued the interest of Sally fans and non-Sally fans alike. I hope only not to disappoint.

***

    Together, in one of his more lucid periods, my father and I agreed that he should come home. His lucid periods have gotten fewer and farther between over the week that I have been here, visiting the hospital daily. He told me where the information relating to his bank accounts was in the house, and I got it back to a point where he could be received there. Emily agreed to come to the house twice a day to help me care for him until I found another, more permanent nurse to come and help.

    I couldn’t stand to see him suffering painfully on those mattresses and sheets that he didn’t know at all. The texture, the firmness, it hurt him, and without much ability to communicate after they increased his pain medication to compensate for it, he had no way to let anyone know. I hate to think what a time he’s had in the hospital while I was away at work, but I console my guilt with the thought that I am here now, and doing the best that I can for him.

    Since he’s been home, he’s been coherent in his speaking, and we were able to reduce the dosage of his pain medication. He remembers things more often, but when he speaks, he doesn’t seem to recognize me. He thinks that I am my mother, and speaks to me using her name more often than my own. It makes me sad to think about him being that far away from me, and still in his body and his bed.

    I find myself taking long walks down by the river more and more often, and spending more and more time reading. Not just the books that I brought with me, by some divine foresight, but also things around the house. The family history according to my father’s updates is fascinating, and it helps me to feel closer to him.

    Yesterday, he received his first visitor. An actual cousin of his that heard through friends in the area that he was ill drove out to the house, and he and father spent some time talking, while I served them tea. He was particularly well together then, and the two spoke and joked as I remember them doing when I was younger.

    “Sai Lei appears to have grown into a wonderful woman, Shui,” the cousin said, taking the teacup after I filled it and drinking from it. “You must be proud.”

    Father nodded, and sipped his own tea carefully, but his eyelids began to droop after that, and I had to show our cousin respectfully from the house. Something told me father would not want to appear weak before family, if he could help it. Emily came upstairs and gave him a dose of his pain medication, and then the two of us said good evening as well.

*

    This morning I’m sitting in his room going over the bills. Not that they are very expensive, or a problem. My father’s accounts were larger than I had expected them to be, and it appears that whatever he did after Lin and I left home made him and my mother very well off. I brought up tea for him, and we’re passing the time. He’s staring out the window and I’m working with my calculator and a checkbook.

    Six days since he’s been at home, and my father hasn’t really spoken to me. He eats his food, allows me to clean the house, and his bedroom, but has yet to speak to me since leaving the hospital. I think there may be too many memories in the house for him to separate them from what he’s really seeing. I’m waiting for it, all the time, for him to sit up and castigate me over something. At this point, it would be a relief to be addressed, really spoken to, by the slowly dying man I call my father. The nurse should be by this afternoon, perhaps that will arouse some clarity in him.

    “Dwyn,” no that he doesn’t speak. Just the he doesn’t see me anymore. Instead I am the physical representation of my mother.

    “Yes, father?”

    “Where’s Sai Lei?”

    “In front of you.” I recall the words my aunt said to me when I was tending her dying, delirious husband. They had no children of their own, and they were very dear to me when I was a young girl. It happened to him just before I left to join the Alliance. Create the space. “She’s doing her homework in the corner there, like a good girl.” He may not see you, but he will want you to show him what he needs to see. No man ever goes to rest peacefully without taming his demons.

    “She always is.”

    As a woman, you must be his confessor. Never reveal his trespasses after he has burdened you with them. That is why daughters must be stronger than sons. You will be a good daughter, in this manner.

    “I’m hard on her, Dwyn. Harder than I need to be. Just as my father was harder on his daughters.”

    “It is your way.”

    He sighs, and closes glazing eyes in exhaustion. “I’m too Chinese. She’s not Chinese enough - and yet, she’s my daughter. She bears a strong spirit in her. One that Lin only hints at, and that Samuel cannot tame in himself. She is quiet thunder, our daughter.”

    “She gets it from you,” I say quietly, unable to look at him when he’s like this. I stare down intently at the checkbook.

    “Nonsense,” my father’s voice is growing fainter despite the reproach in his words. Every day I am afraid that he will close his eyes for the last time, especially when he gets this weak. His voice struggles to maintain it’s reprimanding tone. “She gets it from you, obviously.” His eyes close, and I gather up the tea service, setting my work on the tray with it, and leave the room, quietly closing the sliding panel shut behind me.

    As I am heading downstairs with the tea service, I hear a faint, familiar ringing. My cell phone, I find as I trace the sound, setting the service aside to be cleaned up later. I wonder who could be calling me. The name is not familiar, nor is the number. Lady Une hasn’t called at all since I have gotten to the house, which must mean that there is no news of Wufei or Trowa, or perhaps that since I am on a more semi-permanent leave of personal business, I am not informed of what is happening.

    I chide myself for that thought. Lady Une is many things, but not needlessly cruel. I answer my cell, slipping on a jacket and stepping outside, heading down towards the river where I seem to get the best reception.

    “Po Sai Lei?”

    I chuckle. The voice on the other end of the phone line is very formal. Very Chinese sounding, although they have no accent, and a different speech pattern. Perhaps someone who is an aficionado with our culture, moreso than I myself am, being partially of this culture. “Speaking,” I say with a slight smile. It is good to hear the voice of someone other than my father, who can speak in English.

    For miles around not a single neighbor can speak my near native-tongue. Or else they simply will not. Not with me.

    “I’m sorry to disturb you, I have been informed by your Chief that you have taken a leave of absence for personal matters, however, I felt it prudent to speak with you swiftly.”

    “What happened?”

    “I am sorry, I have not yet introduced myself. My name is Lawrence Fong, and I am represent a private law firm.” Oh no. I am sick of law firms, and their offers, law firms and their bad tidings… “I represent the holdings of one Chang Wu Fei.”

    “He’s alive,” I say, voice breathless and defiant. “I shouldn’t be getting this call. Wufei is-”

    “Of course, Mr. Chang is alive. I have every confidence in his survival instinct and skills, however, with his MIA status, a certain predicament has fallen into my lap.”

    The confidence he answered my defiance with steadies me more than the tree I am leaning against. “Go on.” I push away from the tree and make my way down the path towards the river.

    “While he is on active duty, he allows the firm to handle his financial matters. We pay his rent and utilities, pay the car payments he has, and his insurance bills, all from his accounts, while he is away. We work with his personal accountant.”

    “All right,” I respond, not quite sure where this conversation is going. I reach the river, and stare out over the water for a long moment, listening both to the voice on the phone and the noises the water makes against the rocks on the shore, and the animals outside. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps this is home.

    It certainly feels like it, now.

    “However, with the status of MIA he has been given, he must be treated as though he were present and unable to act on his own behalf, due to a rather complicated set of regulations we are bound to abide by. Because of those same regulations, the firm looses power of attorney over his holdings until his return.”

    “What has all of this got to do with me?”

    “Mr. Chang named you as his next of kin.” Hearing that, I quickly find a seat on one of the large rocks near the banks of the river.

    “Why… why would he do that?”

    “I cannot answer that for you, Miss Po.” He says, waiting expectantly on the other end of the line. I’m not quite sure what he wants me to say. It comes as somewhat of a shock. Wufei and I were always on friendly terms with one another… but I never thought we were so close that he would entrust me with this sort of a thing.

    “So,” I swallow the lump in my throat, “So what does that mean?”

    “I’d like to send you some documents. Bank statements, the checkbook normally used to pay his bills. Copies of records, if you’d like, so that no defaulting occurs on Mr. Chang’s part, and his credit isn’t blemished.”

    Leave it to Wufei to find a way to keep his record perfectly clean. What better way to keep from forgetting to pay a bill than never to have started paying for them yourself? I wonder, however, what sort of resources can interest a law firm to leash an accountant to do all of this for him.

    “Send what you see fit,” I hear myself say. “I’ll inform you if there’s anything else I require.”

    “I’ll be sure to include one of my cards with the packet I send you, Miss Po, so that you can get in touch with me.”

    I nod, realize he cannot see that, and so I mumble my thanks. Without preamble, the two of us hang up the phone.

    I tuck the phone into my jacket pocket, and spend a while staring at the flow of the river. The smooth motion of the river calms and reassures me to no end. “Aptly named, Preventer Water,” I murmur to myself before standing and heading back towards the house.

*

    Time passes slowly in the house. It is quiet often, my father sleeps a lot. I check on him every hour, during the day, and twice during the night time, but his state seems to remain the same. The nurse I hired to help me care for him says that it may be a long road he has to travel before he can find his peace, and I believe her. I’m willing to stay… to wait as long as is necessary for him to move on. The packet from Wufei’s attorneys came by carrier, and I spent some time reviewing it after I sent off the checks to the various people he owes money to.

    For a few days, I try not to pry too deeply into his financial information, but eventually, with only a slightly drooling and fading man for company, anything is better than nothing. Wufei’s savings account is impressive. Making a few idle calculations on the amount within the account, he wouldn’t have to work… until he was fifty, if he lived in his current manner. His expenses are minimal, but what he does pay for, he takes the time to get properly. But it seems that he gets his imported staples in quantity once a year. There’s evidence in here that he takes a trip to Hong Kong once a year, as well as one to India, and Nepal.

    I don’t recall ever being in Nepal and finding anything worthwhile, but then what should I know about such things? Wufei is often times a mystery to me, his travel should be nothing less. I never took notice of it before because I had other things to do on my vacations, and before a few weeks ago, I didn’t think about him much outside of the office.

    Funny how now I can’t stop.

    There is a noise upstairs. Leaving the documents on the table in the sitting room, I head up the staircase and back towards the bedroom. When I came down today, my father was resting peacefully, so I didn’t feel the least bit guilty about taking some time to be alone with Wufei’s work. It’s more than I thought, keeping everything straight.

    Sliding back the panel to his room, I see my father sitting upright in bed, on his own. I nearly gasp, since according to the doctors he shouldn’t be able to do that without quite a bit of pain. He turns to look at me, and smiles a little, “Lei,” he says fondly.

***