The Dragon Awakens

Chapter Twenty One

"Mushu," Lanie turned to her friend who was trying to build a fire with a measly amount of sticks. Her voice cracked but she didn't even care. She was tired of trying to be strong. 

"Yes?" He looked up at her and then stomped on his own fire as he ran to her, squeezing her in his arms. Lanie finally let it all out, sobbing as she buried her face in the soft down of his jacket and letting her shoulders shake. It had been a very long time since she'd cried like this and as each tear flowed she felt a small weight lifting off her shoulders and her mind.

"I never should have done this. We should have left the moment we found his dead body. It should have never got this far!" she cried, collapsing into the snow. Mushu handed her a long sleeved shirt from his backpack and took off his own jacket to drape around her shoulders. Khan came over and knelled down, folding himself around her so as to block some of the wind and give her some of his warmth. Clark had taken their tent when they left, but left a sleeping bag. No one had noticed Mushu staying behind. 

"No... No Lanie, without you they would have died. We would be in such worse shape without you. You are incredible and you are the strongest person I have ever met." 

Lanie rubbed her nose and leaned back against Khan. "I've just been lying to my family for so long you know, and for what? The DA gave me a choice, I didn't have to join. It was just... They asked right after Christmas after my parents didn't come home and my Nainai was who knows where and I had to spend my week home with Charles our cook and the cleaning staff and the gardener and his family. I was so angry at them all that I figured joining the DA would finally give me a sense of belonging, give me people to connect to? But I've never felt so alone in my life.
   "Every time I look in the mirror it's like I don't know who I'm staring at. What my point in being is. I kept working for the DA because I wanted to do something important, something worthwhile. I wanted to look at myself and feel that way. But all I see is a reflection of someone I don't know." 

Mushu starred at her and took a deep breath. He poked the smoking sticks and opened the bundle Po had thrown them as they walked away. It was mostly food mingled with some stray matches and heat packs and extra bullets. 

"I joined the DA because I was trying to impress my friends. They were all bigger and smarter and more important than me, so I figured I'd show them. But I never could because the DA took me away and shoved me behind a desk because I was good with computers. But then I fucked up a mission and they told me that I could either get this mission right or not expect to see another day. So here I am.  I came here purely to save my own ass because I think we both knew that I could be doing this job behind a desk." 

Lanie looked up at Mushu and began to chuckle. And then laugh before she was full-blown laying on her side, holding her stomach guffawing. Mushu began to laugh too but he didn't understand what was so funny. He'd just told her that he'd lied and deceived her for extremely selfish purposes and she was just going to laugh?

"We both did the same thing!" Lanie choked out at last. "I fooled Shang and you fooled me! Oh, how cruel the world is." 

Mushu rolled his eyes and used one of the matches to start a larger fire. "So we did. You deceived for love, I deceived for me."

Lanie shot him a look and pulled the jacket further around her when the wind started to pick up and the fire went out again. A loud whirring sound filled the air and then a helicopter was descending upon their little encampment pointed straight at them.

"Jesus, it took them long enough." 

"Mushu? What did- Who did you-" But he didn't respond as a ladder descended from the helicopter and Mushu started to climb. Lanie looked up, huddling closer to Khan as the DA helicopter hovered above her. Ironically she might have been worried about an avalanche but she'd already taken care of that. A few seconds later the helicopter lowered itself and managed to maneuver just close enough so that Khan and Lanie could hop aboard. Lanie gathered all their stuff quickly before climbing in and glanced at all the suited men surrounding her, faces covered with masks and shields. She didn't like the look of this. 

"Mushu, where are we going?" she asked, touching the wound in her side. Her head was beginning to feel a little foggy and the altitude change was not helping.

"Right now? The hospital." He reached over and squeezed her hand, to avoid her from noticing the syringe going into her arm, knocking her out.

+_+_+_+_+

The light was too bright to be real. And everything was too white. Lanie bolted up and then was yanked back down by the needles in her arms and strap around her chest, arms, and legs. She was in a hospital room that was entirely white. The walls, the bed, even the medical instruments were all white.

Lanie looked down at her hands that were no longer bandaged and then gently lifted her gown to look at the knife wound. There was a scar; a very thin and pale scar along the edge of her stomach.

"The doctor did a number on your skin so they couldn't get rid of the scar, I hope that's okay?" Mushu pushed open the door and Lanie looked up at him. He was in a pale blue button down and grey slacks with wire-rimmed glasses pushed up his nose. He looked so fresh and clean shaven you wouldn't have believed they'd been living in the mountains together. 

"You look different..." Lanie looked at his combed hair and clean shaven face and back down at her stomach. No, she didn't mind the scar. She liked the reminder.

"Yes well, I've been given my job back plus a promotion so I have to look the part." He puffed out his chest a little and Lanie grinned at him.

"Congratulations! Oh, Mushu I'm so happy for you!"

He beamed and moved his hands from behind his back to reveal a small white bag. "I've, uh, brought you some clothes to go home. All your stuff from, uh, camp, has been inventoried."

"All of it?" Lanie gasped, thinking of her sword and her uniform.

Mushu winked at her and set the bag on the edge of the bed as a nurse came in and shuffled over to Lanie and began taking out her IV's. "I'll see you in a few minutes."

They gave Lanie a plain pair of jeans with a blue tshirt and sneakers that she would never have been caught dead in, but she slipped them on anyways because it was either that or a hospital gown. She was lead through more white hallways before stepping outside a plain white building that to her surprise was surrounded by normal businesses right in the middle of town. No one even looked twice as Lanie climbed into the black SUV that pulled out of the white gates and onto the busy streets.

She was in her hometown. She knew that grocery store and that park on the corner where she'd first learned how to ride a bike. She knew the high school she could have went to if her life was normal and the diner where all the kids hung out after football games. She knew everything about her town and nothing about it at all. But what she did know was the long drive out of town, past all the subdivisions and houses and mansions, into the countryside where the cherry blossoms and apple trees were blooming, up the long drive under the maple trees to her front gates.

"Mushu..." Lanie turned to Mushu whom she hadn't spoken to the entire drive and found he was looking at her with a sad look in his eyes.

"Will I ever see you again?" she whispered.

"I'm sure of it." He responded, but they both knew he was lying. No agent ever worked together twice. Never. And they were never allowed to keep in contact after the mission had been completed. The fact they'd been given this drive together was a gift. 

"Goodbye... My friend." Lanie launched herself across the seats and hugged him tightly. She wanted to remember his warm skin and the way he smelled faintly of pen ink and mountain pine.

"Goodbye Mulan." Mushu squeezed her hand and pressed something small into it. She didn't have time to react though as her door opened and she was dragged back into reality. Her driver handed her a black suitcase and a backpack, got back in the car, and drove off down the dusty path.

Lanie took a deep breath and punched in the code and pushed the gates open. Everything looked exactly the same as it had those months ago when she had graduated from high school. Except for this time, the front door flew open and Nainai shuffled out under the awning and leaned against the wooden pillar.

"Nainai..." Lanie dropped her bags and ran into her grandmother's arms, crying for the second time in only a few days. "Nainai I made a mistake... I made so many mistakes..."

"Sshh... Shh, it's okay... It's okay my little dragon warrior..." She patted her back and held her tightly. "Everything will be okay."