Romina
It rains. With short gasps, feeling an incalculable, desolate fury, she cries tears of bitterness. If only she had tried… if only she'd asked… Don't go Nicol!
But too late. Her son is dead.
She drapes herself over the other side of the piano, her eyes unseeing. He loved to play the piano… He can't play any longer and it's her fault and Yuri's. It feels like a big black hole in her chest, that her bright, beautiful boy will never say "I love you." She is a bad mother. Her job is... was to protect her child. She would sell her soul in a heart beat, she would climb any mountain, she would kill for Nicol. But she didn't say a word.
She can't look at Yuri because she sees her son, Yuri's son, marching to the war, to ZAFT, to a senseless death. Why did Yuri encourage him? Is he happy now? But she is too harsh on Yuri and she has seen Yuri cry, she has listened to him as he asks himself "Why Nicol?! …Nicol… my son…" in a hoarse voice. Yes, Yuri is flaying himself alive. In a deep, dark part of her heart, she whispers to herself that he deserves it.
Yuri
With one fell swoop he lost his son to that Earth Alliance scum and his wife can't bear to touch him. He knew the sons of mothers would die on the battlefield. He knew Nicol was in danger... but he didn't think that Nicol, his Nicol, would die. He had been so proud when his son gave up the piano, gave up on his songs of peace to protect their future, his future. He saw his son don the proudest uniform ZAFT had to offer. How could he have known that even a skilled redcoat would fall? He'd been relieved when Nicol discovered an aptitude and temperament for quiet strategy. He saw the fury with which Ezaria's son threw himself about the battlefield, and quietly consoled himself that his son had the intelligence to safely fight a battle... if any battle could truly be called safe. How then did it happen? How did a cautious, cunning redcoat die?
Yuri, a peacable man, answered Patrick Zala's call with the bitterness in his heart... the only way he could.
Even he failed.
Nicol
And if Nicol could have seen his parents, he would have cried. If Nicol could have seen his friends, he would have been proud. If Nicol could have seen his friends finally understand him, he would have been very happy. If Nicol could have seen the Clyne Faction and peace in the Plants, he would have smiled.
If Nicol could have played the piano one, last time, he would have played a piece about hope.