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     Lesson Plans
~ A Moment of Haven ~
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	"Man, I was hoping never to have to sit in one of these things 
again," Duo complained, slipping around the tiny desk and flopping down 
in the chair.

	The agent closest to him gave him a sympathetic smile.  "Yeah, 
reminds me of the ol' college days..."  His words trailed off as he 
realized the two agents next to him couldn't possibly be old enough to 
have gone to college.

	Duo covered the would-be moment of awkwardness by sweeping 
along.  "It's like they're discouraging you from bringing anything to 
class.  Hmm, but it's just big enough to sleep on!"  Heero discreetly 
nudged the side of his boot with his own foot as he sat down at the desk 
next to him.  Duo 'accidentally' 'tapped' back.  "Not enough people here 
to get away with it, though," he finished with mournful good cheer.

	The other agent smiled in a way that let them know he didn't 
have a response and the conversational space was divided again.  Heero 
kept up the small talk as he continued his evaluation of the other 
agents in the room.  "Your classroom is filled with these desks."

	"Yeah, but I've got the big desk up front, and that's all that 
matters."

	"Compensating much, Maxwell?"

	"Ha ha.  You may not have any desks in your class, but you spend 
all your time beating up guys bigger than you are.  At least I'm being 
subtle."

	"Subtle?  Subtle would be commandeering two of the desks for 
your use, not getting a desktop ten times as large as everyone else's."

	"Hey, not like I had a choice.  They gave me that desk.  Guess 
they knew who the alpha male was."

	Heero might have responded, but an agent stood at the front of 
the room and addressed the small gathering.  He introduced himself, laid 
out the basics of what they wanted to cover with this meeting, and then 
began to distribute packets from the formidable array of papers in front 
of him.  He reiterated the goals of the program before passing out a 
questionnaire for review.

	Another agent stood.  Judging from the way he had not been 
handed any packets to add to the stack he already had in front of him, 
he was another program administrator.  "Maxwell, Shevtsova, Yuy.  Over 
here, please."  He led them to one corner of the room.  "You three are 
in charge of the advanced seminars.  The Preventers are especially 
interested in evaluating the success of these courses, so I have some 
additional materials for you."

	Duo had scarcely drawn in the breath to mutter something to the 
effect of 'yippee' when he felt Heero's elbow bump lightly against his.  
He almost rolled his eyes, but decided against it, not wanting his 
overly-vigilant partner to think he was acting out against their 
handlers despite the tacit warning.  He settled for letting out his 
indrawn breath at a just barely audible volume, enough for Heero to know 
it was quite deliberate, but not enough to catch the notice of the 
others.

	"I'd like to hear what each of you think about the effectiveness 
of your classes," the agent began after giving them a few moments to 
glance over the extra paperwork.  "Maxwell, let's start with you.  Field 
improvisation, yes?"

	"What about it?"  He thought he deserved points for not sounding 
wary or flippant.

	"I have the syllabus you submitted here.  You should be about 
halfway through it.  How are the students responding to the lessons?"

	Duo was quiet for a moment.  "Could you be more specific?"  He 
was really no good at interpreting management-speak.  Well, interpreting 
it in a positive way.  He was pretty darn good at reading negative 
things into it, but that was a habit he was trying to leave behind.  
"D'you mean like, are they interested in it or something?  Or do you 
mean, how good are they...?"

	"Both.  Were the right students chosen for the class, and should 
we offer the class the again?"

	"Uh, sure, why not?"  He blinked for a moment, wondering if he 
had unwittingly committed himself to teaching more of these courses, 
before continuing on with a more complete answer.  "Some are benefiting 
from it more than others, I guess, but overall, they're a good bunch.  
Hard to gauge how much they're learning, but after I put someone on the 
spot, I don't get any more long, awkward pauses so much these days, not 
like I did in the beginning, so I guess something's working."

	The agent nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer.  
"Alright, fair enough."  He paused for a brief notation in his sheaf of 
papers.  "We've received fairly positive feedback from the students so 
far.  You're called 'unconventional', but there don't seem to be any 
problems regarding that."

	"Oh, hey, that reminds me.  Do I get a budget for this class?"

	"A budget?  You should be able to use Preventers facilities for 
producing your class materials."

	"Um, well, if you'll look at my almighty syllabus, you'll see 
that I'm kinda coming up on the explosives part of the class.  I figure 
you guys would probably not be wanting me to blow up Preventers 
facilities, right?  I mean, I can go raiding the janitor's closet if you 
want, but in a place like this, I'm sure I'm supposed to leave a paper 
trail a kilometer long."

	The agent glanced surreptitiously at the syllabus, as if he had 
to confirm for himself that there would be some big booms shortly, and 
that some mad person higher up in the food chain had approved that.  
"Well, I'm sure there won't be any problem getting you the materials you 
need for your class, but I'm not the one to talk to about that.  
Requisitions would probably be able to tell you what you need to know."

	"Great," Duo muttered.  The office of requisitions was like 
triplicate hell, but he pasted on an almost-smile.  "Yeah, okay, I'll 
drop by and chat with 'em."

	"Uh... okay."  The agent shuffled through his papers again.  
"Shevtsova.  Mission planning and ops.  Tell me how that's going."

	Shevtsova showed the faintest hint of surprise, having to tear 
his glance away from the explosive-happy teenager sitting next to him.  
He'd been a bit skeptical about the other two seminar teachers.  He was 
still a bit skeptical about them.  But their evaluator seemed to be 
taking them seriously, so he supposed they were legit.  Somehow.  He got 
his thoughts back to the business at hand and answered the question.  
His students were a very sharp bunch.  He was pleased to work with them.  
The round table approach he had set up was working splendidly.  There 
were no complaints about his performance.

	After completing his notes on the second seminar, the agent in 
charge turned his attention to the third.  "Yuy.  How is the CQC course 
going?"

	"I recommend that, after the course has been completed, each 
agent undergo testing by their respective agencies to evaluate their 
skills before use in a field situation.  Overall, the quality of the 
students is high, but there are a few that will require further 
experience to help them cope with a real combat situation."

	"Uh, okay, duly noted."  It was a diplomatic answer.  The 
expression on the agent's face hinted just faintly that he had not been 
expecting highly informative recommendations at this time.  "You still 
have a few more weeks with them.  I'm sure there's still plenty yet for 
you to teach them."

	Heero started a breath to answer, but let it go instead.  A few 
more weeks of sparring wouldn't help the ones he was thinking about.  
They needed to get tossed into the meat grinder and spit back out again 
before they would really understand what it was all about.

	The agent pulled a sheet of paper out of his stack and put it on 
top.  "We've heard reports that you were interested in choking your 
students out.  To simulate a 'real combat situation', I'm sure."

	Heero tilted his head slightly in response.

	Agent Shevtsova just barely refrained from allowing his eyebrows 
to shoot up into his hair line.

	"When you first submitted your course materials," the agent 
continued.  "You were specifically asked to remove that lesson from the 
syllabus."

	"I did remove it," Heero answered blandly.

	"Taking it off the official syllabus doesn't count if you 
continue to include it in your class."

	"I didn't include it in my class, as requested.  I offered the 
experience outside of the class.  It was entirely voluntary, just as I 
had always intended for it to be."

	"Did anyone take you up on your offer?"

	"No."  Their loss.

	"Agent Yuy."  He flickered back and forth between being 
nonplussed, relieved, and stern.  "The course you are teaching is 'Close 
Quarters Combat'.  You are teaching technique.  We have other exercises 
to simulate combat situations.  For you to do so is outside the scope of 
your class."

	Heero gave him a steady look of disagreement.  "A person cannot 
be effective at close quarters combat until he comprehends the immediacy 
of his situation.  He must also understand his limitations--"

	"Limitations, yes," the agent agreed, happy for the opportunity 
to break in.  "You must understand the limitations of your class.  
Certainly, no one disputes that experience in the field is perhaps the 
most effective teacher of all, but you are teaching a seminar.  An 
academic seminar, in a way.  You are not responsible for exposing your 
students to simulated field conditions.  You are not even a field 
agent."

	Heero's gaze did not falter in the slightest.  In fact, it 
seemed to convey the idea that he could kill this insignificant man with 
his pinky finger, with or without field accreditation.  He tried to 
package that into a dry, ironic sort of look instead of a murderous sort 
of glare, but people often got those two confused when it came to him, 
so he decided to let the whole thing go with a slight shrug.  He would 
address this issue with Une later.  "There will be no further mention of 
choking anyone out during class."

	"And no breaking of bones?"

	"And no breaking of bones," he half-sighed.

	The agent finally seemed satisfied and finished up their 
discussion with no further reprimand.  When they were all packing up to 
leave, Duo elbowed Heero in the ribs with a snicker.  "And here you 
thought I would be the trouble-maker."

	Heero exhaled audibly.  "You just haven't gotten to the 
explosive part of your class, yet."

	Duo grinned.  "Well, I'm getting there, so don't worry.  I'll 
probably be joining you in detention some time soon.  In fact, I think 
it's kind of my goal to do that.  Kinda missed my chance, back in that 
school.  Had to behave, and all that crap."

	"I don't know what the point is of--"

	He touched Heero on the shoulder briefly.  "Hey, don't gotta 
lecture me.  I get it.  And I agree.  And now that I think about it, I 
think you just totally stole my thunder.  Great, now when I make things 
go boom, everyone's just gonna think I'm copying you.  Ugh, I'm going to 
be such a loser!"

	He won a faint smile from Heero.  "Guess you'll just have to 
one-up me."

	"Sure will.  Now come on.  Let's go drop in on reqs.  I'm sure 
that'll cheer you right up!"

	Heero snorted.



_________________________________________
This piece of fiction is the intellectual 
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The basis for this fic, i.e. Gundam Wing, 
Kyuuketsuki Miyu, et al., is the property 
of someone else.  The author can be con-
tacted at jchew at myrealbox.com.  This 
has been an entirely automated message.
http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~jchew/misc/gw.html

last modified : 10/14/2007 01:54:08 PST