Find Me [Completed]

P28: Exploration

[A/N: Woo, an update! Sorry for taking so long, but it was the holidays and all and I was hanging out with my family. PLUS I got a new full time job as a professional graphic designer! So I've been adjusting to that and haven't had too much free time lately to write :P ]

While her father had dealt with his boyfriend, Tami had been given permission to go explore the base. It was a nice opportunity, since she had only explored a small bit of the Norway base when they were there. Now she had all the time in the world to get to know the place that she'd be calling home from now on.

Tami was currently making her way through one of the halls in the residential building. It was like a literal maze in there, with random twists and turns and halls that just stopped suddenly with dead ends. She wondered how much of a hay day drunk soldiers had trying to navigate the halls back to their quarters, and snickered at the thought.

To be honest though, Tami was more focused on playing the candy-matching game on her tablet than she was on where she was going. That's probably why she kept bumping into people, who would all apologize, give her a weird look, then whisper about her as they continued on their merry way.

None of that bothered Tami a bit, she was use to people whispering about her behind her back, after all. It was only when she bumped into someone similar in height to herself and fell back back into her butt that she finally looked up from her device.

"Owwwchy..." Came a small whine from the small headband-wearing girl who'd also been knocked back during their collision.

Of course Tami immediately recognized the other child her father had created. And of course they just had to bump into each other. Tami grimaced, liking this girl about as much as she liked Tom.

"Whoaaaa look at your eyeeees!" The other girl cooed, her own blue ones shining bright with awe and excitement. "They're all black!"

Tami froze, only realizing now that her glasses had flipped up onto her head during the fall, leaving her eyes completely uncovered for unwanted onlookers to gawk at. She hastily reached up and pulled her glasses back down, pressing them harshly against the bridge of her nose.

"Forget you saw anything!" Tami yelled at the other girl, who's excitement dimmed as she cringed slightly at Tami's raised voice. Tami quickly stood back up and turned on her heels to leave, only to be stopped by someone tugging on the bottom of her shirt and a small cry of, "Wait!"

"Don't touch me." Tami growled, turning back around and smacking away the smaller girl's hand from holding her shirt.

"Waaaaait!" The other girl whined, finally getting up herself. "I wanna talk! I've never seen someone my age here. Pretty please?"

Tami huffed our a breath and crossed her arms. "Fine. But make it quick. And don't ask about my eyes or I'll leave."

"Yay!" The other girl chirped happily. "My name's Mateya, but sometimes people just call me May. What's your name?"

"Tami." Tami answered simply.

"Okay, but I'll call you Grey because your shirt is grey." Mateya explained, pointing to Tami's shirt.

"That's stupid." Tami retorted, her face scrunching up in disdain.

"You're stupid." Mateya countered, sticking her tongue out at Tami. "Anyway, where did you come from? Do your mom and dad work here? Why do you sound funny like Red? How come I've never seen you before?"

"Slow down so I can answer you." Tami grumbled, and held a finger over Mateya's mouth to shut her up. "Red Leader is my father. I just arrived here from Norway a couple hours ago."

"Ohhhhh." Mateya droned after pushing Tami's hand away. "That's so cool! It must be fun having Red as your dad. What about your mom?"

"I don't have a mom, technically speaking." Tami replied.

"Oh, oh! I don't have a mom either! I have two dads instead. Do you have two dads too or only Red?"

"Red Leader is my only parent." Tami answered, a grimace poking the sides of her mouth as the thought that Tom was her other parent once again crossed her mind. She promptly pushed the thought back to the back of her mind where it belonged.

"Aw. Only having one parent is no fun." Mateya told Tami with an over-exaggerated pout. Her face then quickly morphed into an excited expression. "Come! You can meet both my dads! They're super cool!" She exclaimed, jumping up and down like the small child she is.

Tami pondered over Mateya's offer for a minute, wondering if she actually wanted to spend more time with her.

"It'll be fuuuuuun! Daddy always has lots of fun things to do like makeup and nail polish and hair stuff! And Papa makes lots of drawings! He's really good at it and he teaches me sometimes so maybe he can teach you too if you wanted to!" Mateya tried to entice her new friend into coming with her.

"Fine." Tami agreed with a sigh, and was immediately grabbed by the hand and yanked down the hall by a giggling 8 year old.

Soon they came to a door literally no different than any of the personal quarter doors in the building, other than the numbers engraved into them, of course. Mateya swung open the door and charged in with the energy of a thousand suns.

"DADDY LOOK WHAT I FOUND!" Mateya practically shrieked upon entering the small room. She caught the attention of her dad who was sitting on the couch watching something off Netflix.

"What is it, pumpkin?" Matt asked, turning his head to look at his daughter. In all honestly, another child was the last thing he'd expected to see, and it showed as his eyes widened at the sight.

"I found a friend while walking back from outside! Her name is Grey." Mateya explained, seeming pleased with herself.

"My name is Tami, not Grey." Tami corrected Mateya, not wanting the stupid nickname she gave her to stick.

"Nice to meet you, Tami Not Grey, you can call me Matt." Matt jokingly greeted his daughter's new friend with a cheeky smile.

Tami cracked a minuscule smile at Matt's joke, it being akin to the ones her father sometimes made with her.

"Are you here visiting someone? A parent?" Matt asked, although he couldn't see how some random soldier would be granted permission to brings their kid to the Red Army base. Unless of course they held a really high rank and maybe a close bond with Tord.

"I'm not visiting, I just moved here from Norway." Tami explained.

"Oh, Tord is from Norway too!" Matt exclaimed. "Have you met him? He runs the Red Army." He said, not clicking the pieces of information together in his head.

"Yes... he's my father." Tami told the dim-witted man, wondering how he didn't put two and two together.

Matt's eyes widened again, and his mouth dropped open in surprise. The absolute last thing he'd been expecting other than another kid at the base was Tord's kid at the base.

Just then, the door opened again, and Edd made his way into the room leading a slightly stumbling Tom. "Hey Matt, Tord asked us to watch over Tom for a bit because the med bay is full and there's no one else who can-" His sentence came to a full stop as he laid his eyes on Tami, his features morphing into the same surprised expression as Matt. He knew Tord's daughter was running around somewhere in the base, but he didn't expect her to be in his room.

It looked like the married couple was going to have their hands quite full that day.

[A/N: I'm really excited for the next chapter, because it's going to slot in a HUGE puzzle piece that has been hinted at since, well, the beginning of Glasses (ESPECIALLY after Project Firestone-)! Can you guys guess what it is? >:3c

Congrats to _TomTord_Shipper_ for getting last chapter's cookie question! Matt's pet name for Edd is "Muffin" XD

This chapter's cookie question is fairly easy because I reference it a lot: What can Tom's glasses do that Tord didn't program them to do? ]