Like Father Like Son
Two years and four months later...
"Duo, did you pack Chip's teddy bear somewhere? I can't seem to find it." Hilde rummaged through her child's diaper bag and toy bag.
He called from the upper floor of their new home, "I think it might still be in the truck...in one of the smaller boxes." At that moment, he was focusing his energy on setting up Chip's room with the crib decorated in blue, even though he insisted of having cakes and cookies decorate the crib. "Let see this screw goes into this hole," he looked at the manual, "Ah-hah, there we go."
Hilde ventured out with Chip in her hands and looked through the truck to find his missing friend. She looked through the last row of boxes and found his other belongings. "Let's see if we can find Chocolate here...shh now...Mommy's going to find him." The boy quieted down and before long, she produced the dark brown teddy bear. She saw her child's face light up when she brought his friend towards him. "Okay now, let's see what's daddy is doing." She carried him back to the house and went up to the second floor. "So how's it going?"
"Just fine," he was setting the last post into the crib. "There." He wiped a little sweat off his forehead, "And how's my little boy doing today?" He tickled him on the stomach and saw the boy giggled. His violet eyes looked up towards his daddy and he opened his mouth, "Cho-c---ohh-la-te."
Two their amazement, he heard his first multiple syllable word. Hilde picked him up and hugged him. "Well, you have him saying bakery terms before he can even say Mama or Dada."
He grinned in response, "Hey what can I say, we have a winner for a future baker in this house...let the line continue!"
"We'll just take it one step at a time." She noticed that her son was pointing his hand towards Chocolate again.
Duo quickly picked up the teddy and handed him the toy. "There ya go buddy, sleep tight now and don't let the bed bugs bite."
The boy closed his violet eyes and held his dear friend in his small grip. Hilde then placed their child in the crib and turned the baby monitor on.
Duo whispered into her ear, "I think we should have another one."
"Uh no, not yet." She waved her finger at him, "Don't want to go through that pain again...nearly twenty hours of labor."
"He's going to feel lonesome, if he doesn't have a sibling to play with." He gave her a puppy-eyed look.
"Not that now...I don't want to see that look," she closed her eyes and heard a whimpering coming from her husband. "What am I ever going to do with you?" She headed out of the room, "I'll think about it."
I'll think about it...that's it? His jaw dropped.
"Hey Wu-man, what's cooking in here?" He cradled Chip in his arms while pulling in the baby's high chair.
"Oh nothing...and who do we have here?" He looked over to the bubbly baby. "He's grown since the last time I saw him."
"Yup, he's a good eater." He placed Chip into the baby's chair in the far off corner of his work area away from steaming pots of chocolate and other gooey sugary substances. "Now be good. You get to see your pop working hard in the kitchen." He went over to his bag and pulled out a miniature chef's hat. "I think you might need this," and placed it on his son's head. "Picture perfect." He even went to the toy bag and pulled out a small digital camera to capture the Kodak moment. "Hilde will love this pic."
"We need to bake three dozen cupcakes for a birthday party. The order's going to be picked up at four." Wufei called out from his batch of batter.
"On it." He went around the corner and grabbed the extra large steel bowl along with the dry ingredients. "Okay, this what we do first...we mix the dry goods together and then we'll add the eggs." Chip watched anxiously to see his father mixing the batter with little effort. He banged his hands on the table of his high chair and made oooohs each time he saw his dad do a funny trick with the batter. "Well it looks like you want to get into the fun a little too. Your mother will give me an earful if she caught you dirty with chocolate stains all over you." He looked around his workbench to see if he had any small bowls already lying out, which he did and filled it with a small portion of chocolate sauce. "Now have fun."
The boy looked down at the chocolate sauce and placed his finger in it. "Choco----late."
"Right." He went back to work and dumped the batter evenly into the cupcake tin, while keeping a watchful eye on his son. He then looked over to the clock and timed himself on when to take out the hot tins. He noticed that Wufei was awfully quiet for the past twenty minutes, since he walked in to begin his shift. I wonder where he ran off to now. He peeked through the kitchen door and noticed that the morning's donuts and bagels were already laid out in the display cases.
"Well it looks like Wufei ran out somewhere," he smirked to his son and noticed that his partner's workbench had a tray of cooling cupcakes.
Chip peeked over his father's shoulders, and noticed something moving in the background. "Da---ddy." He grabbed onto his father's braid that was tucked under the chef's hat.
"What did you do that for?" He noticed that his son was pointing to something behind him. "Uh oh." He quickly turned around and noticed that round two of the bakery war was going to start again. "Don't you think about it!!!" He tried to grab his small pastry bag of chocolate sauce, but was too late.
"Hah, got you." A spray of chocolate sauce ran over Duo's newly cleaned apron. "Round two...winner Wufei hehe."
Duo looked over to see his son was still clean from Wufei's antics. "This is what happens when you work with him."
Wufei walked over to Chip, "Your father was the one that actually started this whole thing." He patted the kid on the head, in which Chip grimaced. He began to finger through his small bowl and unexpectedly launched the chocolate sauce onto Wufei's face.
A loud laugh escaped from Duo's mouth as he saw his son throwing chocolate sauce at Wufei. "I think you should reconsider the final decision about round two's ending...it's more like this...round two draw." Right then, the timer went off on his desk and he went over to his oven to pull the two trays of cupcakes out.
"Like father like son...it figures." He wiped the small splotches of chocolate off his face and saw the baby giggle.
"That's my boy," he beamed while balancing the two trays in his hands with gloves. The front door to the their bakery jingled. "Well it looks like we have our first customer for the day." He grabbed his son and went out to the front area.
"And how are my boys doing?" Hilde looked at the two and her smile quickly faded. "Maxwell!!! What have you been doing in the kitchen?" She tapped her foot on the floor.
"Um...Wufei started it this time, but Chip warned me ahead of time. See," he held their son up to her, "he's still clean...no chocolate sauce on him."
"I see." She grabbed Chip from him.
"Ma---ma."
"He just said 'Mama,'" she squealed in delight.
Phew, I've been saved again...sweat drops lined his forehead.
"And Duo, you're not off the hook yet."
"Yes, dear," he sulked back to the door and worked on his cupcakes, while Hilde took their son.
Treize poured over the photographs that Une had been taking of Relena over the past two years. "Did you notice something, Lady?"
"What," she looked up from possible articles to put in their daily newspaper.
"How Relena has been hiding her left hand in all of these pictures..." That thought just came to him after analyzing twenty or so pictures.
"Interesting...you have my attention so far." She was following his train of thought, "Are you saying that she could possibly be engaged to someone?"
"Exactly...you're one step ahead of me."
"But who could it possibly be?" She looked through a mini pile of pictures of the men closet in Relena's life and drew up two possible suspects. "Do you think it could be Heero Yuy or Quatre Winner?"
Logics pointed to Quatre, but there was something about Heero that caught his attention. "I'm not too sure, but I'm leaning towards Heero right now. Have our photographers watch him closely, but not too close...we don't want them to get traumatized by him."
"Very well then. I'll have our men setup their cameras." She went back to her desk and dialed up several phone numbers. I better take my own pictures just in case these don't work out.
"What are you thinking?" He saw a quizzical look on her face.
"Oh nothing, just nothing." She looked down on the page layout for tomorrow's paper.
TBC
How will Duo's and Hilde's bundle of joy be linked to Heero and Relena? Until next time, I hope you all have a Happy New Year!