AC 197 September 6th.
Heero eyed the package wearily. He contemplated between opening it and throwing it out the window before he shrugged at started to tear the wrapper open. The anonymous package hadn't shown any sign of threat when he had scanned it before anyway.
He stared incredulously at the content.
A teddy bear. Big brown with white ribbon around its neck. There was a card with it, written:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HEERO. I HOPE YOU LIKE IT. HR.
The first thing registered in his mind was that this wasn't a work of any of his friends. The writing on the card was obviously not theirs. They could have asked someone else to write it, but none of them knew that today was his birthday.
Nobody knew but him and Odin Lowe….
Heero picked up the teddy bear and went to his laptop. He typed the initial 'HR' and ordered the computer to search the list of the name under that initial.
While the computer was doing its work, Heero studied the stuff animal in his hands. It was hand made. Somehow he could feel the emotion of whoever had been the maker in the teddy bear. It felt like….
He looked up on the screen as the laptop beeped. There were 8,875,740 names under the list. He stared at the names before he entered 'female'.
5,917,160 names….
He chewed on his lower lips. After a long thought, he finally added the date of AC 180 September 6th. Soon, the screen showed up 53 of the names that had connection with the date.
The boy sighed in relief. At least 53 names was better than 8,875,740. Later, he was busy with the files of the 53 people starting with number one….
Heero was half way drifted to sleep when a picture caught his attention. He blinked. He blinked again. He rubbed his fists against his eyes and stared at the screen incredulously.
Some people had said that he looked like a woman. Who knew that there actually _was_ a woman who looked like him. But this face was older and wiser than his was.
Heero scrolled down the profile of the woman. Her name was Heiwa Rei, born at AC 160 January 1st in L1-X07711. Raised in an ordinary family, received high grades at school, IQ estimated around 145. Moved to Earth at 14 to study under the tutoring of Dr. June Jekyll and Prof. Rex Gilbert.
Heero frowned. Dr. Jekyll…. Wasn't that Dr.J's name when he had been teaching in universities?
AC 175, Heiwa Rei disappeared along with her mentors after the assassination of colony leader Heero Yuy. AC 180 September 6th, captured in a hospital after giving birth to a baby boy. She was charged for rebellion, sent to prison for seventeen years and to be liberated at AC 197 September 8th. Her son had been missing. It was suspected that a fugitive assassin named Odin Lowe had taken him….
Heero stopped right there. He read the profile all over again to make sure he wasn't reading a wrong one.
He wasn't.
He printed the file and shut down his computer. Tossing the clipped papers to his desk, he picked up the teddy bear and threw himself at the bed backbone first.
He lay on the bed for moments, silently playing with the brown teddy bear as he tried to digest everything he had read all over again. It was hard to believe. All this time, he had believed that he was a war orphan, that he had no other family than the dreaded scientist calling himself J, that was, if one could call him a family. Odin Lowe had long died and he had no one else….
Heero stared at the teddy bear wistfully. He whispered, "I have a mother and she's still alive…. Or maybe she's not my mother and this is all just a silly mistake."
The small room was in silence once again.
Dr. J looked up from his work and eyed his ward critically. Heero had come to him and he was reserved more than ever. That was not a good sign. "What is it, Heero?"
Heero handed him a small pile of paper.
The scientist took it and made a quick scan. After a long silence, finally he sighed, "So, you finally found out."
"You knew it all the time?"
"Not really," the doctor confessed. "I didn't know it at the first time, but I found out about it later. I was trying to tell you, but I couldn't get myself to. Then the instruction for Operation Meteor came…."
Heero sat next to the scientist. After a moment of silence between them, he finally asked. "What was she like?"
Dr. J closed his eyes, trying as possible to remember one of his most favorite students. "Rei was smart. She likes to learn very much and God gave her the ability to receive the entire lecture G and I gave her easily. She's genius and hard, both heart and head. She's my assistant when we first developed Tallgeese. When we five scientist left OZ, she insisted on coming with us. I told her not to, but she said that her name was Heiwa, 'Peace', and therefor she'd do anything to regain peace, though pacifism was not something she'd like to consider."
"What happened to her?" Heero asked.
The old man sighed. "She fell in love with a man and got pregnant. Got caught in the hospital after giving you birth. Sent to jail. You read the file."
"…Do you know who my father is?"
"Sorry, Heero. Nobody know but her."
Heero fell silent again.
Dr. J stood up and ruffled the boy's hair. "She'll be free tomorrow. I was going to pick her up but apparently I have something important to do. Can you pick her up?"
The Prussian blue eyes were staring back at him. Finally, the boy mumbled, "Ryoukai…."
The wind hitting his face was undoubtedly fresh, but Heero couldn't feel it. He was too nervous to notice. He had never been this nervous. Not even before facing a mission with almost zero chance to survive. The jeep he was renting ran on the road at the speed of 110 km/h, but he felt as if it had been running like a tortoise. The teddy bear he had received two days before was on his side, saved from the rapid wind by the safebelt.
Half kilometer before destination, the jeep stopped abruptly with a loud screeching sound of the brake. Heero stared at the big prison building almost unsure what to do.
He was scared.
He was going to see his mother for the first time of his life and he was scared. What would his mother think of him? How would she react? Would she believe him if he told her he's her son? Hundreds of questions were running through his mind and he almost moved the gear and turned back to where he had come from.
But she gave him that teddy bear….
Heero glanced at the teddy bear and picked it up. He brushed away the dirt from an hour of high-speed driving from its face and stared at it.
This maybe his only chance to have his one dream come true. Would he give it up just because he was scared?
He hugged the teddy bear tightly. After that, he put it back to the seat beside him and hit the gas.
It's time to meet his mother.
~tbc~
Hime D.