Notes: Special thank you to Erin Cayce, my beta-muse-conspirator, who continues to support and encourage me. You are the greatest! {{!}}
The new safehouse was less run down than the last one, but it made up for it with dirt and clutter. It took the combined efforts of all five of the pilots to bring some kind of order to the place and by the end of the day they were worn out. Wufei disappeared into the basement for a long while and when he returned he had a large cardboard box in his arms. He lowered it gently to the floor and opened it, clearly fascinated by the contents.
"Look what I found." He said as he pulled dusty toys from the box. One by one he removed a train engine and several different types of trailers and cars.
Quatre sat down on the floor beside him and began tearing through the box with him. "Wow, an electric train set! I had one of these when I was a kid." He pulled out tracks and bridges. Then stopped a second and closed his eyes, locked in some favored memory. "Let's set it up, Wufei."
Each of the pilots joined them one by one. Trowa took control of building the tracks, designing an intricate pattern of curves and straight-aways. Wufei placed bridges and tunnels, trees and buildings with a particular eye to harmony. This amused Duo to no end. He teased his partner.
"Feng shui much, Wu-man? C'mon, it's a TOY!" he laughed.
"Kisama! This is serious, Maxwell. Either help us or go away." Wufei growled at the unwelcome interruption.
Still, Duo got involved as well, hunting up parts to repair the control box, then settled in to get the power working and the train in running order. Quatre set up lights for the roadways and all the houses and buildings.
Heero stood and supervised the operation for a long time. He decided that the bakas knew nothing about what they were doing. He sat down at his laptop and reprogrammed the switches and controls so they worked flawlessly.
At the end of the day the five were exhausted, but they had a bright, shiny train set, ready for its maiden trip. Wufei took the controls and began running the train, much to the objections of the others.
"I go first!" he warned them off. "I found it." All of them were too tired to argue. Wufei ran the train, slowly at first, then faster, then as fast as it could go and still stay on the track going around the curves. A small smile broke out on his face that grew and grew. By the time the train had heated up enough for smoke to pour out of the engine's stack he was laughing. So were the others, more because of Wufei's uncharacteristically open happiness than the train set itself.
After an hour, the others had lost interest and walked away, all but Duo, who wanted his turn. But Wufei had no intention of giving up the controls.
"Wu-man, give me a turn. Please? I wanna play too." Duo begged.
"Not yet. Mine"
Duo ran to Heero. "Hee-ro, Wu's not sharing!" he whined.
"Hn. Bakas."
********
Late at night, four pilots were in their beds, unable to sleep, cursing the Conductor as he ran the train, blowing the whistle and laughing. None of them knew for sure whether they'd wring the Chinese pilot's neck or throw the train out the window.
owari