Twists of Fate

by Anne Khushrenada

While Lady Une tries to go on in the wake of her shattering loss, unbeknowns to her, a minor miracle is taking place near the Cinq Kingdom. Treize Khushrenada, whom Une and many others believe dead, is in fact alive. Novelette/Romance/fluff

Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and its characters do not
belong to me, but to the good people of Sunrise,
Sotsu, Bandai, and quite possibly various others,
whose names I cannot possibly keep track of, but who,
I'm sure, know exactly who they are.

Author's note: This story occurs more or less in
place of the episode of Gundam Wing in which Treize
Khushrenada dies. Since I haven't seen that episode,
and what I know of it directly contradicts a good
portion of this story's plot, I've exercised the
alternate universe writer's prerogative to entirely
ignore said episode. I should probably also mention
right about now that I have yet to see Endless Waltz,
either, and so the elements of Endless Waltz I've
used are more or less semi-educated guesses.

* * *

"Twists of Fate"
by Christine Anderson
aka Anne Khushrenada
ladyune@gundamwing.net

Upon the jagged plains of Earth's latest battlefield
lay the shattered wreck of Tallgeese II. Once amongst
the grandest Mobile Suits created by the genius that
had seized Treize Khushrenada at the time he ascended
to leadership of the Organization of the Zodiac, it
was now little more than a pile of rubble marking the
grave of its pilot.

Or was it? As the last members of the medical team
combed the battlefield in desperate, almost hopeless,
search for any more survivors, something stirred
within what remained of Tallgeese II. Perhaps it was
simply the mobile suit's debris shifting and
settling, as a wind swept across the battlefield,
stirring the fuel spilling from the suit's busted
tanks. As the metal fragments danced in the winds,
two of these scraped against each other, producing a
spark.

The spark seemed to hover there for a moment that
could have lasted forever, staring directly into the
ice-blue eyes of the man who'd been tossed from the
pilot's couch upon impact, restraints snapping as if
they were only the thinnest of threads- the man whom
the crash had twisted various metal fragments over,
around, and in several places, through. He drew a
gasping breath- and the spark fell, setting the fuel
alight.

He closed his eyes, daring to hope that his death
would be quick, perhaps even painless- or if it
wasn't, that those who loved him would never know
that he had not died upon impact. *Please,* he
thought in what certainly were to be his last
moments, *Please, God, let her never know that I died
this way. Oh, my beloved lady... why didn't I ever
have the courage to take you away from all of this? I
loved you, always. I hope that you will never forget
that, Lady.*

As the flames drew ever closer, engulfing the cockpit
in a hellish light, tears traced their way down his
cheeks, not so much from the pain- although that was
excruciating, far beyond anything he could have
imagined in even the worst of his nightmares. He wept
instead for his lost love, and for himself, lost now
as well.

A wave of agony danced its way along his left leg and
arm, while his life's blood bled away from other
limbs, other injuries. The pain seemed everywhere all
at once, in some places a freezing, icy chill, in
others a white-hot fury such as that at the heart of
a star. The pain seemed to gather at his center,
increasing until he was certain that this pure agony
alone would be his end. Surely the human body could
endure only so much pain of such intensity; certainly
it would end soon.

The smell of scorched flesh filled the air, and a
shudder went through him. One hand, balled into a
fist, flailed about, his muscles responding
sluggishly. *I have to get out of here,* was his only
thought. His focus narrowed, past the pain and beyond
sight of the fire, to this one objective. To escape,
somehow, before the flames consumed him utterly.

"Time," a woman's voice snapped out from somewhere
close by.

He raised his head, memories flooding over him,
obscuring what vision he had, though the haze of
smoke and fire both. *A woman's voice...? My lady,
have you come for me? I would not want you to see me
like this. But if you *are* here...*

"Forty-five minutes and counting, Dr. Po," a second
voice, this one male, responded.

The female voice again: "Damnit. There's still one
pilot unaccounted for."

"Sally!" a third voice, female, and also familiar,
called out. "Preventer Water! Look, there!"

*Lady Une...* he thought, at last lapsing into a
delirium that took him beyond his pain, certain that
the second and familiar female voice was that of his
love. *Forgive me, Lady.*

"I saw a hand," the second female voice said, quick,
insistent. "Someone's alive in there."

"Impossible," said the male voice.

He was desperate now, knowing that she was out there,
unable to bear the thought of her leaving. *Stay with
me, Lady.* He struggled, inch upon inch, to raise his
arm, to move it about again. She had to see it, to
see it and to come to him, while there was still
time...

"There!" exclaimed the first woman's voice. "Let's
go, quickly now!"

Running footsteps approached, though he was unable to
hear them clearly. From somewhere came the sound of
extinguishing foam, and then a blessed coolness. A
coolness that was so very like the snowbanks he'd
played in as a boy...

And suddenly he was eight years old again, the world
was different, younger, far more innocent. He was
eight years old and running through huge drifts of
soft, cool white snow, with his brother and sister
beside him.

He heard his brother calling his name. "I'm coming
with you, Treize!"

Laughing, he took his sister's hand and continued to
run. "Hurry up then, we're not going to wait all
day."

He shivered with the remembered chill of the snowball
his brother had thrown so very long ago. And with
that memory came the realization that he was not
eight years old, but nearing twenty-five... *Am I?*
he thought. *Has time really passed so quickly?*

Hands upon him, then, someone feeling at his neck,
his wrists- seeking his pulse, he presumed, thinking
that these must be the medics, these people, that
perhaps it was not too late, perhaps they could help
him. But he knew that he was beyond help, knew that
he was dying, and he did not want to die alone. For
alone he was, although the medics were near, because
*she* was not beside him.

A quiet moan escaped his lips, barely audible over
the screech of metal. What were they doing? And where
was she? *Une, I heard your voice. I know I heard
your voice. Where are you now, my beloved lady?*

"Dr. Po, he's still alive," the man's voice said.

"My God," said the second woman, she of the familiar
voice. "Those burns..."

He whispered something that might have been a word,
perhaps even a name. The first woman reached out to
him then, gentle fingers forcing his eyes open. Her
kind face gazed down upon him. "We're going to get
you out of here. You'll be fine, soldier."

He wondered if they told all battlefield casualties
such lies. Perhaps they did, thinking that it could
not help but ease their final moments. Yet it did not
ease his, and he reached for the comforting embrace
of his dreams, his visions of her. "Une..." he
whispered. The word, this time, was clearly audible
to his rescuers.

Lucrezia Noin jerked as if she'd been stuck, but
Sally Po, Preventer Water, shook her head, working
various tools and cutters, carefully but quickly
working to free the man from the wreckage of his
suit. "Got to get him out of here," she said quietly
as she worked. "Call the ambulance carrier, hurry!"

He gasped sharply, a wordless cry of pain, as one of
the metal fragments pinning his body into the cockpit
was removed. Sally smoothed back the singed hair from
his face as she worked, hope mingled with despair
clearly visible in her expression. "I will not loose
this one," she swore softly to herself. "I've lost
too many today already..."

He reached out, the movement of his one usable arm
far beyond agony, the fingers of his hand searching.
His thoughts were images now rather than words, and
when he spoke he was not aware of it. "Lady Une... my
love... forgive me for what I've done.. Lady! Oh,
God... God, how it hurts..."

Mercifully, he lost consciousness then, his world of
pain and images of times long gone fading quickly
into a deep place of nothingness- a velvet darkness
he embraced because there was no pain there, only
peace.

* * *

Sally Po and her colleagues rushed their patient to
the operating room, Sally shouting orders and the
team of surgeons hurrying to obey them. A nurse
started an IV in the patient's left and lesser-
injured arm, through which the doctors administered
first a heavy dose of painkillers, then a general
anesthetic.

These things done, they quickly went about the
business of saving the man's life. Members of Sally's
team worked to remove numerous metal fragments from
the patient's body, while others set his broken
bones, applying a plaster cast to his shattered right
hand. Still others tended to the extensive burns, and
Major Sally herself stitched and sutured the man's
numerous lacerations.

The operations were extensive, and took several long,
grueling hours for Sally and her fellow medics. When
at last she stepped back from the operating table and
ordered the patient be taken to recovery, it was very
near to local midnight.

Sally untied her surgical mask as she walked down the
corridor towards recovery, already concerned about
her patient. As unstable as he was now- hardly stable
enough for surgery, but they'd had to take that risk
or lose him for certain -his condition could
deteriorate very rapidly, and she wanted to make
certain he would survive the night before going home.
To her surprise, she found the other woman who'd
helped her rescue him seated in the waiting room.

"How is he?" Lieutenant Noin asked.

Sally sat down in a chair beside her before she
spoke. Noin did not find this particularly
encouraging. She knew, of course, that the man she,
Sally, and the male medic had pulled from that
battlefield wreckage was very badly injured. That
being the case, Noin half expected Sally to tell her
the man was dead. But there was something about him
which made her believe that he would not let go so
easily, that somehow, as serious as his injuries
were, he might find a way to survive them.

"He's still critical," Sally told her, "but he's
holding on, and that's a good sign." The doctor shook
her head in disbelief. "The strength that must
require... and the pain he's in. I can't even imagine
how he's done it. Whoever he is. I'm not sure I
*want* to know his name. If he dies..."

Noin jerked back into the chair's padded cushions, as
if, like that moment on the battlefield, she had been
slapped. She was vaguely aware of Sally saying
something to her, but paid little attention to what
it might have been. With a sudden, sick, lurching
feeling in the pit of her stomach, she knew the
identity of the man whom they had snatched back, if
only temporarily, from the brink of certain death.

"Sally..." Noin spoke slowly. "What this man was
saying earlier. The name..." She shook her head. It
would probably be near to impossible to convince her
friend that the horrific thought she'd just had might
actually be the truth, or very close to it. If she
were right... Noin shook her head again. It could not
be, it simply *could not* be.

"Was it a name?" Sally asked.

"Yes," Noin said. "He said 'Une'."

"Could he mean Lady Une, of the Preventers?" Sally
asked.

Noin sighed deeply. When she spoke again she did so
very, very softly. "Lady Une... was Colonel Treize's
adjutant. Before the Preventers, she was. And who
else would call out her name like that?"

"Colonel Treize is dead, Preventer Fire." Then: "You
reacted to something he said back there. I didn't
notice at the time... Did you recognize him?"

"I'm not sure," Noin said. "I thought it *could* be
him, Sally. I know it sounds crazy, but..."

"I don't know about crazy, but it *does* sound
unlikely," Sally replied.

Noin shuddered. "I almost hope I'm wrong. No one
should have to endure that kind of pain and live.
Least of all someone like Colonel Treize."

"To an extent I agree. But he *is* still alive. And
if he is who you claim him to be..."

Noin shook her head. "I'm not making any claims,
Doctor. But there's something familiar about him. Add
that to what he was saying, and... It's possible,
Sally. It's possible."

Sally made no reply, but her expression was
thoughtful. After Noin's departure, and before she
herself left for the evening, Sally stopped in to
check on her patient, who seemed to have come through
surgery rather well under the circumstances. She
picked up his chart and scanned its contents. Slowly,
she nodded, and wrote orders for a retinal scan. If
the patient's retinal prints were on file with the
Alliance's computers, she would know his name by
morning.

* * *

Treize Khushrenada came back from beyond the darkness
in a haze of pain and fogged memory. The pain was
beyond excruciating, beyond that of the worst he had
suffered in his life- and for a moment he was certain
that this mindless, endless agony would devour him in
short order. But it did not, and he was encouraged by
this, encouraged so that in spite of the pain he
reached out towards true consciousness, inching
closer to the blazing center of anguish that went
with it. Because that, painful though it was, meant
*life*.

He opened his eyes slowly, cautiously, expecting
great pain from that simple movement alone, and was
rather relieved when he did not feel it. The muscles
in and around his eyes seemed sore, true, but that
was the worst of it, at least in that area.

Thus encouraged, he proceeded cautiously to take
stock of the rest of his body, cataloging every hurt,
every ache- broken bones and deep lacerations for the
most part, although the pain that blazed along his
left leg and up his left arm was a thing he could not
readily identify. *What has happened to me?* he
wondered. He knew, for this much was obvious, that he
was seriously injured, but found he could not
remember how he had acquired those injuries.

His memories were strangely fuzzy, as if seen through
a frosted glass. He recalled the battle, or most of
it... the crash, and the awful, piercing agony that
followed it...

Treize struggled to speak, and found that he could
not. His throat felt scraped, raw.

The female medic he recalled from the battlefield
stepped into the room. "Don't try to talk. You've
been very badly hurt. Among other things, there is a
tube in your throat to help you breathe."

His expression must have clearly shown his shock, for
she said, "We should be able to remove the tube soon.
Your lungs were slightly damaged by smoke inhalation,
and I wanted to make sure no permanent harm was
done."

*Smoke inhalation?* he thought. *Was I- was I burned?
I need to know what has happened to me.* Bracing
himself for what he knew was to come, he focused upon
moving his hands, and eventually he was able to
produce a clumsy pantomime of writing. His right
hand, a horrid mass of shattered pain, screamed in
protest as he tried to move it, but the left seemed
to do well enough to communicate.

The medic nodded, turning to retrieve a yellow legal
pad and a pen from the table at her side.

He took the pen in his left hand, amazed at how much
such a small appendage could ache. In trembling,
awkward letters- for he was right-handed, not left,
and his left hand, while aching horribly, was almost
mobile -he wrote, "where?"

"A medical facility near the Cinq Kingdom- jut inside
its borders, actually, but a few hundred kilometers
from the capital."

Again he picked up the pen- not having noticed that
he'd dropped it, but hardly aware of that even so.
"how long?" he scrawled.

"Just under a day. We've kept you sedated, for the
most part. I thought that was best. Are you in pain
now?" He started to write again, but she shook her
head. "Blink once for yes, twice for no."

He blinked once.

"Bad?" she asked, something in her tone of voice
conveying the fact that she already knew the answer.

One blink.

The medic nodded, reaching behind her again to
retrieve a syringe, the contents of which she
injected into his IV.

"You should start to feel better in a few moments."

He wrote, "thank you."

"You're welcome." She paused, leafing through the
pages of what Treize presumed to be his chart. "My
name is Sally Po. I'm a medic with the Preventers. We
didn't find any ID on you, so I ran your retinal
prints through the computers."

He winced, or tried to, at the least. *She didn't
recognize me. But how-? Oh, dear God...*

Sally was still turning pages in the chart. "This
can't be right..."

In halting script, each letter paining him not only
physically but mentally as well, he printed, "I am
Treize Khushrenada." The lettering, while shaky, was
perfectly legible. As best he could, he extended his
arm, holding out the pad of paper towards the medic.

Immediately after reading what he had written, Dr. Po
took the pad and pen from him, replacing them with a
small palmtop computer. "Try this, sir. It may be
easier for you. I'm sorry I didn't-"

He blinked twice, meaning no, intending to interrupt
her and stop the flood of apologies before they went
any farther, and she, rather used to the subtleties
of signals used by those as severely injured as
Treize, fell silent.

His fingers brushed across the keys, and hesitantly
he tapped out with the fingers of his left hand:

*will I live?*

"Colonel Treize, I..."

He blinked twice, quickly. A spark of anger might
have been visible in those blue eyes. Meaning no
again, meaning don't lie to me.

"I really cannot say, sir."

Treize tapped at the keyboard once again:

*that bad*

"Bad enough," Sally replied.

*truth*, she read upon the screen.

"Frankly, Colonel Treize, I am amazed you survived
the fire."

*fire. I remember [...] flames [...] burning.* In the
long pauses between his words, as he struggled again
through that haze of memory, the palmtop marked his
pauses with bracketed ellipses.

Sally moved as if to take the palmtop from him. Two
blinks, again. "Try not to think about that, sir."

But he did think of it, would think of it, and little
else, now and in the days to come. His fingers moved
over the keys again. *fire. burns?*

The doctor nodded, slowly. "Yes, sir."

His hand, trembling now, returned to the keys once
again. *doctor. I am asking you to level with me.
asking you to tell me the truth.*

Sally nodded again. "As you wish, sir. Your Mobile
Suit, Tallgeese II, was shot down in battle roughly
twenty-four hours ago- and you might be interested to
know it is a good sign that you're awake and alert so
soon after the accident."

*I do believe there is a difference, doctor, between
battles and accidents. please never speak of it again
in those terms.*

Each word, each letter, pained him to produce, but he
pushed himself onward despite the pain, feeling an
overwhelming need to communicate in complete
sentences.

"As you wish, sir," the doctor said.

*go on,* he typed out, slowly, and she did so, albeit
reluctantly.

"Your restraints didn't hold, and you were tossed
around the cockpit before the suit crash-landed. When
the suit hit, it hit on its side and rolled. Metal
fragments broke off and pinned you in place in the
cockpit. Colonel, you would have bled to death if we
had gotten to you any later."

*damned chutes didn't open,* he mused to himself via
the keypad. *if they had...*

"If the chutes had opened, you would probably have
walked away with maybe a few bumps and bruises. The
suit would probably still be in one piece, too."

He blinked once, in place of a nod. Then: *tell me
about the fire*

"There's not much to tell, sir. The suit's fuel tanks
burst on impact, a spark ignited the fuel."

Another single blink. *and the burns.*

"Mostly second-degree, but some third. You may loose
your left leg from the knee down, and possibly your
right hand- the hand because you shattered nearly
last every bone in it."

One blink, subdued.

*is that all?*

"Isn't it enough?" Sally asked.

Two blinks. *no.* Then: *after the fire. voices,
yours, a man's, another. one I recognized.*

"That would've been Preventer Fire, I expect.
Lucrezia Noin, sir."

One blink. *Noin. yes. I had thought [...] no. think
nothing of it.*

"You called a name, sir... Lady Une? We know of her,
of course, but Noin told me she was your adjutant."

*yes.*

"I'm certain I could reach her-"

Two blinks, both of them quick. Tears floated
directly beneath them, but he seemed not to notice.
*no* And a dull, scratchy croak issued from his
throat. *No,* he thought. *No... She already thinks
me dead. And I may be still. Une, I will spare you
the pain of my departing this Earth for a second
time. Forgive me, Lady, I must.*

"Shh, sir," Sally murmured, mopping the sweat from
his brow. "If that's really what you want."

One blink, and with it a tear drifted down his cheek.

*I [...] don't want her to see me [...] like this.*

The medic nodded. "I understand. Hurting less, now?"

*yes, thank you.*

"Can I get you anything?"

*no, thank you.*

Sally wheeled the small table beside the bed. "Can
you reach this?"

In answer he attempted to do so, and his fingertips
just brushed the table. She brought it closer.
"Better?"

*yes.*

He laid the palmtop upon the table, and the medic
stepped back. "Try and get some rest, now. If you
need anything, hit the 'enter' key on the palmtop."

Treize blinked once. His eyelids had already
fluttered closed by the time she'd left the room.

* * *

In what had once been the home of His Excellency
Treize Khushrenada, Lady Une paced, unable to keep
herself still, and yet unable to decide what course
of action to take. Strangely, she found it impossible
to leave this place, even for all the pain it brought
her. For a space without even the merest echoes of
Treize's presence simply scraped at the jagged edge
of her shattered heart, tore open the not even half-
healed wound left by his passing. In those spaces, he
was truly gone. Here, something of him remained, and
if it pained her, it was still preferable to the
alternative.

After Treize's death, after she had given the order
to surrender, Une had fled back to Earth, intending
to return to the apartment she hadn't set foot in in
over six months, thinking, perhaps, to loose herself
in grief behind those walls. But she discovered, to
her dulled shock, that she had no apartment to go
back to, that shortly after the surrender, someone
had set fire to it. The pair of students who lived
across the hall had greeted her with tears and
embraces, and had offered condolences and sympathy
for the loss of her home, her things. Une had wanted
to laugh at that- a rich, hysterical laugh which
might have gone on forever. For they did not
understand, when she'd thrown her glasses against the
far wall and then burst into tears, that it was not
the apartment fire that so enraged and tormented her,
but that last horrible battle that had taken the life
of the one she loved.

Foolishly, her two well-meaning neighbors had braved
the flames to rescue her personal affects- what few
of them there were. She had berated them for their
recklessness, their stupidity, but truly she had been
grateful. She had only a small number of personal
possessions in the apartment, because in the past few
years she'd hardly lived there, but those she did
keep there were near to priceless to her, many of
them far too personal for her to carry with her or
keep where Treize might have seen them.

Une had wept again over the box the two had pressed
into her arms, wept over the framed photographs, the
dried roses that had once been red, the books and
letters- and the dress, a beautiful thing of
shimmering blue silk Treize had given her upon her
last birthday, when he had taken her out for dinner
and dancing, the dress she had worn as he kissed her
beneath the stars, and begged her to stay with him
that night.

She'd reached out trembling fingers to touch the
silk. "Thank you," she had said at last, before
turning and walking away, her box clutched tightly in
her arms. She had known then, though they had not,
that she would never return there. She had no
destination in mind when she left the apartment
building, but she'd known she could not ever go back.

For what felt like hours she drifted, seemingly
aimless, along city streets lightly trafficked at
that late hour. Because for so many years, her life,
such as it had been, had revolved around Treize, had
been lived for him, at his side or apart from him,
but always by his command, without him, without his
presence, his inner fire and inspirations to guide
her, she did not know what to do, where to turn or
even where to go.

She had respected the commander within Treize from
the moment she first met him, the noble officer whose
presence could command the respect and the loyalty of
those who served him in very short order. And to this
day she respected the commander still- but it was the
man she had come to love, to her own shock and
surprise- and to his amazement, his wonder. How long
she might have kept her silence on that matter, she
did not know. Had he not looked into her eyes and
seen the truth that day so long ago-

Une shook her head, furiously. No. She would not
think of it, could not bear to think of it. The
memory of his touch, or of his voice calling her
name... these were things she would not allow herself
to dwell upon. She could not loose herself into grief
at this moment- not when there was so much yet
undone.

And yet... and yet, while she could stop the flood of
memories, she found it impossible to stop the tears.
As they streamed down her cheeks, her glasses fogged,
and she set them aside with a sigh. Almost as if
moving by rote, as she wept her hands moved seemingly
of their own volition, to take down her hair. She
brushed her fingers through the strands to undo them
from their braids, shivering as she recalled Treize's
fingers running through her hair...

"Lady..." She trembled. That voice- that voice was a
thing of the past, a rich, intoxicating sound she
knew beyond doubt she would never hear again.

And yet across space and time she heard her own
reply, felt her own hands move across his face as she
drew him down to kiss her. "Une," she corrected
softly in the instant before their lips touched.

In the haunted silence of the room, Une fell to her
knees and wept bitterly. "Treize," she whispered
through her tears. "Treize... why?"

But in a way, she knew why. Because he had been a
soldier, had been born a soldier, had lived and died
as one. Because he had always told her that he was
destined to die a soldier's death, upon some dirtside
battlefield, or somewhere above, in a battle that
raged across the stars. It had been her cruel fate,
as it had been that of thousands of men and women
alike before her, to love a soldier, to loose her
heart to him, and to know that while he might be
gone, her heart was lost and she'd never get it back.

But Une, too, was a soldier- although she knew there
were those who did not consider her one. As a
soldier, she knew her duty just as Treize had known
his- knew both what it had been, and what it now was.
And the two things were not, in fact, so very
different. Before his death, her duty had been to
Treize- to aid and to serve him, to follow his orders
and watch his back, and to keep him safe as any
soldier could be in times of war.

And now, after his death, her duty was still, and
always would be, to him. It had fallen to her to take
what Treize had left her and somehow find a way to
form it into the realization of his dreams. Had
fallen to her because none living understood Treize
as she did. And while she might have believed that
she had failed Treize because she'd only been able to
stand by and watch him die, she was determined that
she would not fail him again.

Few truly realized how deeply his death had effected
her. As long as anyone was there to see, she managed
to put up a false front- the strong, confident
Colonel Une, doing what had to be done in memory of a
man she had both admired and greatly respected- a
Colonel Une who knew she could never replace Treize,
but was determined to succeed him as best she could.
But when they were gone... When they were gone,
Colonel Une split down the middle and shattered, and
from the fragments of the Colonel's facade emerged
Lady Une- weary, grieving, heartbroken. Lady Une,
unlike her alter ego, was tired of fighting, tired of
the battles that never seemed to end.

Tired, too, of watching them cut short the lives of
gifted, brilliant, dedicated and honorable people,
people who should have been able to grow old in a
time of peace. People like Treize Khushrenada.

*Treize,* she thought now, alone with her tears and
her sorrows, *I know that more than anything, you
wanted peace. I will give you that, somehow. But oh,
Treize, how I will miss you...*

* * *

Treize woke again to the soft blue light of morning-
to that light, and a horrible, searing pain. He
gritted his teeth against it, the fingers of his left
hand brushing clumsily at the bedcovers, trying to
toss them aside. He found himself lying very still-
for any motion at all hurt a great deal -and waiting.
Waiting to die, or waiting to heal. Sometime between
his last conscious moments and these, the tubes had
been pulled. Or, most of them, anyway.

"Good morning," Sally said as she stepped into his
room. "Feeling better? Good. I'd like to get you up
and out of bed today."

Treize closed his eyes, as if by not looking at her,
he could will her away. "No."

"I'm sorry, did I phrase that as a request?" She
moved to the bedside, snapped the sheet down to the
foot of the bed with one quick motion. "You're not
home free, Colonel, and until you walk out of here
under your own power, you'll do as I tell you."

Treize opened his eyes then, slowly. "You're very
good, Doctor. Unfortunately for you, I have faced and
resisted better. I've begun to think that you and
yours did me rather a disservice pulling this
shattered wreck of a body from Tallgeese II."

"Still having those nightmares?" the medic asked,
finally resigned to the fact that she would not get
this particular patient up and about until he was
good and ready to be up and about.

He bit back a sharp reply, knowing that he never
should have told her about the nightmares in the
first place. But he'd woken terrified, vulnerable, in
the dark. And he had thought- she'd already seen him
at his weakest, what could it hurt now? But he'd been
wrong, it had hurt in more ways than he could count.

Mostly it had hurt because she was not, could never
be, his Une. She would not know, as Une did, when to
talk and when to fall silent, when to ask questions
and when to change the subject. And it was Une he
wanted beside him- her and only her.

Treize still cried out for her in his sleep- they'd
told him that. Told him that, and then asked him
again if he wanted to see her. And the usually soft-
spoken Treize had flown into a rage, hurling that
damned palmtop computer at Sally and her nurses,
banishing them from his presence. They had, he
supposed, taken that for a 'no', and rightly so.

He had not wept until the last of them was gone.

"Yes," he said simply, and left it at that. Then:
"God, how it hurts..."

"Let me get you something," she said, disappearing
out the door almost before the last word was spoken.

*What have I to live for?* he wondered after she was
gone, not for the first time since awakening here.
His dreams had been the dreams of a fool. His best
friend had betrayed him, and he could not even hate
the man for it, although Treize still felt he had
done the right things, made the right choices, as
painful as those choices had been, and it was
Milliardo who had been wrong. And his love, his dear,
beloved Lady Une, already believed him several days
dead. She would weep for him, he knew that, but so
too did he know that she was strong. She would go on,
and perhaps she would manage to succeed where he had
failed. In any case he had left her means enough to
try.

His hopes were for her, now, rather than himself- for
her and the others she would be able to gather to her
with what he had left her- with his posthumous nod of
approval cast upon her. Perhaps she could not change
the world, or save it- neither of them believing
anymore that that was possible- but with luck, she
would manage to do some good, somewhere. For him it
would be enough. For her, he could only hope that
she'd be able to accept something perhaps less than
perfection- for she had always been a perfectionist,
a quality he both admired and found to be very
irritating.

"I am sorry I've let you down, my love," he
whispered. "But I know that you will not let *me*
down. That is why I chose you."

Treize had done a bit of research upon the palmtop
before tossing the small computer at his doctor the
other day, and he had learned something interesting.
Namely, that the morphine and other drugs they were
giving him, taken in sufficient doses, could and
often did prove fatal. And he, Treize Khushrenada,
who knew he should have died upon that battlefield
with the countless others- he desperately needed that
number, but the computer didn't seem to have it, or
at least he couldn't get to it, and he'd finally
given up- was now determined that he would die, in
his own time.

And the time he had chosen was now. It might take
several doses more of one thing or another, but soon
enough it would be done, and then at last the pain,
the anguish, the sleepless nights haunted by dreams
of the hundreds of thousands who had died for him,
because of him- all of it would end.

At length Sally returned, and he held himself tense
and still as she pumped the contents of the syringe
through the IV.

"Better?" she asked several long moments later.

"No."

Sally sighed. "I really don't want to increase the
dosage much more than this, but I'll do what I can."

"Thank you."

As soon as Sally's shift ended, he rang for her
relief, counting on the fact that Sally, nearly on
her way out the door when she'd given the second dose
of painkillers, hadn't written it down in his chart.
He may or may not have been right about that, but the
new doctor administered another dose upon request. As
did the one after him, and the one after him- every
hour on the hour, or thereabouts. And in this manner
Treize went through the entire day and night shifts
of this division of the medical facility, exchanging
short greetings with each of them.

As he went through his routine with each of the
newcomers, he found himself filing away names and
faces- as if any of that mattered. Soon enough he
would be dead, and then it would make no difference
who they were or which shifts they worked. Still,
matching names to faces and vice versa helped to pass
the time.

But as the days passed and his condition grew no
worse, Treize was forced to face the fact that his
suicide attempt might have failed. And he found
himself simply too exhausted to formulate and execute
a second plan.

This being the case, he found himself with an
abundance of time, and very little to do other than
rest, and think. At Dr. Po's request, he did a good
bit of resting, but also quite a bit of thinking. And
he found at least one of the conclusions he had
reached very disturbing indeed.

Oddly enough, none of the hospital staff seemed to
have even the slightest flash of recognition upon
seeing him. They all called him "sir" or "colonel";
obviously they were aware of his rank, or part of it,
but they did not seem to have any real idea of who he
was. He was not a terribly vane man, but he was
certain that his picture had appeared numerous
places, certainly often enough for at least some of
them to be able to recognize him. Curious as to why
they did not, he talked one of the nurses into
bringing a mirror and holding it where he could see
his own face.

It took him several very long seconds to realize the
horrible cry splitting the air was his, that it was
emerging from the shattered, bruised, and lacerated
face in his mirror. It could not be him- could not
be! But he moved his left hand, painfully, to touch
his face- and a horridly disfigured, gauze-wrapped
hand caressed the nightmare face in the mirror.

He knocked the mirror from the nurse's hands before
he was aware he'd done it, and then he was holding
his face with burned left hand and shattered right,
tears streaming down his face. "No," he cried, again
and again.

Treize was vaguely aware of the nurse's cry of
surprise, of someone else yelling for the doctor, who
approached quickly and with another needle full of
something. He murmured soothing words until the
sedatives kicked in, sweeping Treize oncemore into
blissful unconsciousness.

* * *

Treize was drifting, weightless, in a strange sea of
light and darkness. There was neither sight nor
sound, and yet there was the light, and the darkness.
He felt little- not the pain, nor the lack of it -and
cared even less. Soon, now. He was certain of that.
Soon. He had thought he'd failed, but knew now that
he'd needed only to be more patient.

Lying still and motionless upon the bed, Treize's
lips moved, though no one was there to hear. "Une..."

At some point Sally returned, to find her patient
sleeping the sleep of the damned, tossing and
turning, gasping in pain even in his dreams. She
sighed, shook her head, and doubled his morphine
dosage. Her face was drawn and pale when she
administered the drug.

He was suddenly eerily still- and Sally knew that
something was horribly, horribly wrong. She snatched
up his chart and flipped pages quickly. "God, oh
God," she muttered as she scanned the documents.
"Damn you," she swore at Treize Khushrenada, and then
she was off, towards the door and already shouting,
beginning the mad race to save his life- once again.

It was perfectly clear, at least to Sally, what he
had done, and she could have kicked herself for not
having seen it coming- for not even really
considering the possibility. There is a certain
depression that usually accompanies severe injuries,
particularly trauma and burns such as Treize had
suffered. Under normal circumstances that depression
might be very mild, but when one is under the
physical and mental strain that pain and slow healing
can bring about, the depressive thoughts and mindset
are much harder to resist. No matter how strong the
individual, for strength has little baring in these
matters.

Sally hadn't given this much thought where this
particular patient was concerned because the front
he'd projected had been so very convincing. And she
was certain now that it had been her own gullible
nature as much as his own depression, which had
brought things to this point. The question, though,
was whether or not her oversight had killed him, or
would.

Treize came to with bright lights and a glaring
whiteness all around him, with a sea of faces
hovering over him. He heard snatches of their
conversation but did not entirely comprehend them.

"...heart rate's still accelerating."

"...respiration- damn! He's not breathing!"

To Treize these words seemed trivial. He was alright,
he was going to be fine, he was-

Dying.

The realization came quickly, hitting him with all
the force of Tallgeese II's impact upon the Earth...
and in that instant he realized his mistake, realized
that the decision he'd thought so logical, so
necessary, *was* a mistake. He had not been dying,
not for certain, but had he now condemned himself to
that fate?

*No!* he thought, struggling, as if swimming upstream
against a great current, to bring himself back from
this ledge. *No...* He had been so certain that it
was the inevitable end he would reach no matter
what... but if it wasn't, if he had had a chance and
had thrown it away...

"...breathe, damn you..."

"He's gone, Doctor."

"No. I'm not giving up on him yet!"

"Wait- pulse is coming back, weak but getting
stronger."

"He's breathing... come on, come on..."

"We did it," someone said.

Sally shook her head. "This one is a fighter, that's
why he's still here. Because *he* decided he wanted
to live."

She snagged a bottle of some dark liquid from the
nearby shelf, and poured a liberal dose of it into a
Styrofoam cup. "I want you to drink this. It's going
to taste terrible, and it's going to make you vomit."

"And why on Earth," Treize asked weakly, "do I want
to do that?"

"Because." Sally leaned over her patient, seeming
more than slightly annoyed. "More than two-thirds of
the drugs my associates gave you were administered by
mouth. We need to get those out of your system before
they kill you. And," she added none too kindly, "it's
this or the stomach pump."

Treize shuddered and held out his hand for the cup.
Sally shook her head. "No. We need to get you sitting
up first, sir."

"Very well." She and the nurses moved to help him,
but he waved them off with his good arm. Using the
burned arm alone, he pushed himself up into a less
than comfortable sitting position. "I don't suppose I
could have something for this pain?"

"Yes, sir," Sally said. "I'll give you something, as
soon as you-"

"I get the picture, thank you." Treize held out his
hand for the cup, but was unable to grasp it in his
bandaged hand. He tried to keep the disappointment
from his face, but it was close to impossible. One of
the nurses held the cup to his lips as he drank. When
he had finished, she quickly replaced the cup with a
basin.

Several very long and awful moments later, it was
done. Treize lay back against his pillows, exhausted.

Sally held a pair of pills out to him. "Would you
like these?"

"Very much, yes."

"Then swear to me you won't try anything as foolish
as that ever again."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me, Colonel. Noin, Dr. Miller, and I
risked our lives to save yours. If you want to throw
that away it's your own business- but you won't do it
here or on my watch. Understand?"

Treize nodded. "Very well, Doctor. I swear I will not
do that again. Now, about those pills..."

* * *

"Lady Une?"

Une keyed the intercom in Treize's office- her
office, now, she supposed. "Yes?" she asked her aid,
whose existence she still found to be rather strange.
She had served Treize for so many years that she had
never thought of anyone serving her in this manner.
And she already knew that this young woman would
never have the sort of connection she'd shared with
Treize. They did not know each other even nearly well
enough, and they never would. They had in common all
that they needed to- the shared goals of Une's
Preventers.

"Preventer Wind is here, ma'am."

"Excellent," Une said. "Send him in, please."

"Yes, ma'am."

A moment later, the man who these days called himself
Wind stepped through the door. Une looked him over
and nodded gravely in greeting. "Lady Une," he said
at length. "I was told about Treize..."

She waved him into silence, Treize's death being the
last thing she wanted to discuss, even with the man
who had once been his closest friend. "Preventer
Wind."

"Yes, ma'am."

"How goes the Cinq Kingdom operation?"

"We've just about finished up there. Relena seems to
have things well enough in hand."

"I am glad to hear that." She lifted a file folder
from the table beside her and opened it, glancing
down at the pages it contained. Not looking at him,
she said, "I have a new assignment for you,
Milliardo."

He winced at the mention of the name to which he had
been born. "Lady Une-"

She did look up then, something raw and painful
showing in her eyes, before she took a moment to
compose herself, and then it was gone. "You're going
to Lake Victoria."

"I certainly am not," he said quietly but firmly.

Something in Une's eyes glimmered as lightening on a
summer night would, and it struck him then that she
resembled Treize in one of his rare but rather
stellar furies. Perhaps it had something to do with
the amount of time she'd spent in Treize's company...
but in any case he realized that he did not want to
cross her, as he would not have wanted to cross
Treize in one of those moods.

"You are going," Une said flatly. "And you will also
be getting a new partner."

"I prefer to work alone."

Une ignored this last statement, dropping the folder
into his startled hands. "We call her Fire. But she,
too, has another name. One I think you might
recognize."

He opened the file, glancing briefly at a photograph
clipped to the file jacket; a photograph of the woman
whom the Preventers called Fire. "No. Lady Une, I
can't-"

"You can," she said, stepping closer to him. "You
can, and you will."

"Lady Une, she-"

"-wants more than anything in the universe to see you
again, Milliardo. I have kept your secret long
enough. You've been to Cinq, you've done what you
needed to for your sister, and now you will do what
*I* need you to do- and yes, what Noin needs, too."

"I can't," he said again.

Une removed her glasses and sighed. "You have a
chance I would kill for, do you realize that?" she
asked very, very softly. The weight of that
statement, it not being spoken in her military
persona, which no longer quite existed as it once
had, was not lost on him. "No one, nothing in all the
world, can give Treize back to me. I wish that
someone could. But what I can do, and what I *will*
do, is give you back to Lucrezia, and her back to
you. You've both waited long enough. Do you
understand that, Wind?"

He nodded. "Yes, ma'am. And I- I am so very sorry..."

Une shook her head, hardly able to hold back her
tears now. Unable to bear his sympathy, all she could
do was see him gone before her mask shattered
entirely.

"Go to her, Milliardo. Go to her, and be thankful for
what you have."

* * *

Treize was watching the sunset through his hospital
room window, when he heard the door click open and
then close again.

"Sir?" Sally's voice called.

"Yes, Doctor."

"Do you need anything, sir?"

"No," he said. Then, as she started to turn to go, he
called after her, "Wait. I'd like you to make a call
for me."

"Are you certain, sir?"

"I have never been more certain of anything in my
life, Doctor. Call her."

When he turned his head to look at her, he saw that
she had a pen poised over a pad of paper. He spoke
the contact number from memory, watched her write it
down, and then asked her to read it back to him. She
did so, and he nodded, giving her a second number-
that of his family's mansion, on the chance that
she'd gone there -before sending her out to make the
call.

After she had gone, Treize lay very still. *Have I
done the right thing?* he wondered. *Or is it that
I've been doing all of the wrong things, and this is
perhaps the only right one? So help me, I don't know.
But what I do know is that I am not going to die
today, and that I need to see her. I *must* see
her...*

Shortly thereafter, he drifted off to sleep, but it
was a sleep untroubled by frightening dreams or
nightmares.

* * *

It was just after sunset on the tenth day following
Treize's death when Lady Une received the call. She
found it very unusual, and wondered why it was that
Sally Po looked so strange- as if she were both
excited and nervous about something.

Even more odd was Sally's request, that Une herself
journey to the Cinq facility. Sally would give no
reason for the request, and though she was extremely
busy, and would be for the days and weeks to come,
Une felt obligated to go. Sally had asked her for so
little, after all, and Une felt she owed the doctor
this strange bit of trust. She promised that she
would be there at once. Sally nodded and saluted her
before ending the transmission.

* * *

"I made the call," Sally said quietly to the still-
sleeping Treize. "I was able to reach her at the
second number. She's coming."

His eyes still closed in sleep, Treize smiled.

* * *

Moving mostly upon instinct, as she was still deeply
in shock over Treize's death, Lady Une shed her
glasses, her Preventers uniform, and the clasp
holding back her hair. She was going, as much because
Sally had asked her as because she felt strangely
*compelled* to go.

*What could be so important in Cinq?* she wondered as
she dressed, simply, in black jeans and a navy blue
blouse. She hardly knew the answer to that, but she
knew that she was going, that she *had* to go, and
that nothing could be allowed to stand in her way.
Une shook her head as she searched for her shoes. "I
need a break, isn't that reason enough?" she asked
herself.

In place of the heels that went with her Preventers
uniform, or the boots that had gone with her OZ one,
she tied on a pair of tennis shoes. She packed a
small bag; a few changes of clothes, her Preventers
jacket, and, almost as an afterthought, her glasses.
She ran a brush quickly through her hair, then tossed
it into the bag and closed it. She took her car keys
from the bureau, and then was ready to go.

Une stepped out of her room and eased the door shut
behind her. It had not been an easy decision to
return to Treize's home, a place so filled with
memories- but she was certain that that decision was
the right one. In any case it was hers, now, this
place- a shocking fact which Treize's lawyers had
relayed to her when at last they caught up with her.
Even more shocking had been the full contents of his
will, which left nearly everything he had, save a
small fund for Dorothy's continued education, (and
save also a certain-case provision with very specific
instructions for its use) to her.

To her, he had left it all. This house- actually,
mansion might better suit -with its extensive
grounds, its paths weaving through gardens, circling
the lake, and twisting through the large expanse of
wilderness preserve, this place filled with gold and
crystal and silk curtains, all the finer things of a
life which Lady Une had truly only come to know after
her fateful meeting with Treize.

She'd kept a room there for years, but had rarely
even seen it, as their duties carried them to all
corners of the world and, more than once, into the
vast reaches of space. Still, for all that she'd been
long absent from this place, it was home, much as
anything could be these days. Her first few steps
back onto the estate's grounds had been painful, but
soon enough she'd worked up the courage to walk along
each of the halls and into each of the rooms save
one, and, feeling herself the lingering presence of
Treize around her, had been slightly comforted by
that.

Une had thought to at the least linger for a time in
Treize's own room, for surely that presence which
enveloped her with its warmth must be strongest
there, but as she placed her hand, trembling, upon
the doorknob, she knew that she could not, that she
could not face that room with its overwhelming
memories, including the memory of the birthday he had
been able to turn into an evening of beauty and magic
and even passion...

But no. Une shook her head as she strode quickly down
the corridor. She would not think of Treize- she had
told herself this time and again, despite the fact
that it was incredibly difficult, if not impossible,
not to think of him there, in what had once been his
home and was now hers.

It was all hers, now, which was surprise enough- but
what she found equally amazing was the house staff,
who treated her as if she were their own much revered
daughter, as they had viewed Treize as their much
revered son. A perfect example of this was Treize's
butler, an elderly gentleman named Marcus, who was
waiting for her upon the porch, as if he'd known she
would be going out. How he had such an accurate sense
for such things, she had yet to determine.

"Good evening, my lady," Marcus said.

"Good evening," Une said. "Marcus, I'm going away for
a few days, to a place near the Cinq Kingdom."

"Ah, Cinq," Marcus said. "A beautiful place, once."

"It will be again," Une told him softly. "Relena and
her brother will see to that."

Marcus nodded. "If I may ask, my lady, why-?"

"Why am I going? I hardly know myself. I only know
that Sally asked me to go. She would not say why,
but... Marcus, I must go. I must, I know not why."

"Then go you will, my lady," Marcus said. "I'll bring
the car around."

"Thank you," Une said. "I'd like to drive myself,
however."

"As you wish, Lady Une."

As Marcus started off, Une called after him, "Wait!"

He turned slowly. "Yes, milady?"

"Bring my scooter, if you would."

"The scooter, Ma'am?"

"Yes. If Treize hasn't gotten rid of the old thing
yet-" She clapped a hand over her mouth, and stood
there trembling upon the porch. "Oh... Treize..."

"Milady, I-"

"The scooter, Marcus. Please."

"I'm fairly certain it's still here," Marcus said.
"Mister Treize-" Even he appeared a bit choked up at
the mention of his deceased employer. "-Mister Treize
always used to smile when he saw it. He said... He
said that you'd never part with the shabby old thing.
But the way he said it..." Marcus shook his head, and
Une nodded. "He truly loved you, Lady."

"Yes. I know."

Marcus pulled out the scooter. Une hesitantly put the
key into the ignition, and turned. To her surprise,
it started immediately. She hadn't used it in perhaps
a year or more, not since she and Treize had begun to
travel to places where it would be an impractical
mode of transportation. Une still held great
affection for her old scooter, hence its place
amongst Treize's motor pool, but she had not been
about to embarrass him by riding around on it at
inopportune moments.

Une tossed her bag onto the small cargo compartment,
and stepped up upon the scooter. She nodded a goodbye
to Marcus, who nodded back.

"Are you sure about this, Lady? It's an awfully long
way to Cinq from here."

"Not as far as you might think," she answered softly.
"When you have been to the stars and back, it does
not seem very far at all."

"Will you be alright, Lady?" he asked.

Une sighed. "I truly hope so, Marcus. But please
don't fret- I am going to Sally, after all."

Marcus smiled, holding out her helmet. "Drive safely,
my lady."

"I will," Une promised, taking the helmet and putting
it on. She kicked the scooter into gear and started
off down the drive, her hands gripping the steering
bars curiously hard as she wondered what might await
her at the end of this journey, and why exactly it
was that Sally had wanted her to come.

Perhaps, she thought as she departed the mansion's
grounds, she'd agreed to go as much out of curiosity
as anything else. That, and because this trip might
distract her, if only a little, from the shattering
grief which seemed to cling to her like a shadow
these days. She missed Treize greatly, and a part of
her knew that she always would, that there could be,
would be, no help for it. And yet... and yet she felt
a need to distance herself from that pain, to think
of something else, if only for a very short time.

"Alright, Sally," she said to the silence and the
wind tossing her hair back as she drove. "I will go
to Cinq, and we shall see what we shall see. Perhaps
the change of scenery will do me good, if nothing
else."

The wind tore her words away and carried them off
towards the sea, but even so she could not help but
go on. "Oh, Treize, how I wish that you were going
with me. I have sent Milliardo back to Noin- but who
will send you back to me? Of course they can't- you
are dead, I know that. But I love you, and so I
cannot stop hoping..."

Une shook her head. "No more of this, Une. You will
go to Cinq and see what Sally wants of you, and you
will live one day at a time...one day at a time
without Treize. Life must go on."

*Even if,* she added silently, *you would rather put
an end to it all than admit that.*

* * *

Une rode onward, into the ever-darkening sky, her
thoughts focused upon tracing out the route before
her, plotting every turn and crossroads she'd need to
navigate in order to get herself to Cinq.

She'd of course had no intention of mentioning this
to Marcus, but Une intended to ride straight onward
towards Cinq. On the roads she would take- roads she
would take because she wished to avoid extensive
contact with other people- there were few, if any,
places to stop for the night. And the same mysterious
thing that compelled her onward towards the Cinq
Kingdom and Sally, also compelled her to continue on
without stopping until she reached both of those
goals.

It was ridiculous, of course, as anyone would have
told her had she told them of her plans. Which is why
she had *not* told them. But even so, Une wondered-
or the small corner of her mind directed entirely to
reason, the small part of her which did not share in
her terrible, wracking grief, but rather observed it
dispassionately -if she might not belong back in her
room at the estate, where the staff would surely have
had her in short order.

But this- this strange trip -was the only thing she
had truly felt anything about in over a week, a week
that could have been forever so far as Une was
concerned. She had been numb when she gave the order
for OZ to surrender, numb when she had returned to
the burned-out shell of her apartment, numb when she
had formed the Preventers, numb when she'd recruited
Sally and Noin and Milliardo Peacecraft- and numb,
too, when she had sent Milliardo back to Noin. When
Sally had spoken to her, however, something within
Lady Une had woken up. And now, that something would
not rest until Une reached the sanctuary of Cinq
Kingdom.

And Une, who had lived a fragmented life for many
years now, was not about to argue with that part of
her Sally's call had woken. For now, that part was
the strongest of her, the toughest. And Une needed
that strength. Needed it very badly in fact.

*I'm coming,* she found herself thinking, over and
over. *I'm coming.* And then, as she leaned into a
curve with the scooter, speeding 'round it, *Is this
what you would have wanted of me, Treize? To go along
with intuition and instinct because I have so very
little else left? To follow my heart, or some portion
thereof, even though it cannot lead me to you anymore
because you are dead?*

There was, of course, no answer. Several days ago she
might have expected one, but now she did not, and
that thought almost made her vision blur and cloud
with tears again, before she managed to grasp it and
hold it back.

*You always had the answers for me, Treize,* she
thought, *or near enough to always, although I don't
think you had the answers for yourself. The answers
must come from within me, now, and I do not think
that I have them, either.*

* * *

Treize's eyes opened slowly, and he stared up at the
ceiling of his darkened hospital room. Muscles stiff
from hours of lying still, he slowly shrugged his
shoulders, experimentally. Treize winced. This simply
was not going to do, not at all. His left hand
reached out for the palmtop which had reappeared
sometime while he was asleep, its casing scratched
and dented, but otherwise undamaged, and hit the
'enter' key.

Moments later, the door opened a crack, and one of
the facility's young volunteers stuck her head in.
"Can I help you, Mr. Khushrenada?" she asked.

Treize sighed quietly. This girl- little older than
his cousin Dorothy, perhaps even of an age with her -
was not quite what he'd had in mind. He had hoped, if
it were a woman who answered his call, that it would
at least be Sally- she at least had an air of
professionalism, and the clinical detachment he so
desperately needed right now.

"Is Doctor Po on duty?" he asked the girl.

"No, sir. She's long since gone home- it's after
midnight, you know."

"No," Treize said. "I don't. I seem to have misplaced
my watch, and I haven't a clock, either."

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Well. Would you like one?"

"Perhaps later. What I would like, instead, is to go
for a walk. Doctor Po said she thought I should do
that, and I'm feeling up to it now- there isn't much
pain, but I can't sleep, and so I thought..." He
smiled at her, gave her the smile he knew was still
brilliant despite the nightmarish features that
surrounded it.

She nodded. "Of course, of course..." She approached
the bed. "Can I help you stand, maybe?"

"That would probably help, yes." He fumbled at the
rail on the side of his bed, and she lowered it for
him. "Thank you. Now, what I'm going to do is swing
my legs around like so," he said, demonstrating, "and
I'd like you to take my arm- yes, the left; right
would be easier, of course, but it's in a bit worse
shape..." A few moments and several quietly muttered
curses later, he was standing- well, leaning heavily
against his mobile IV stand, really, but that was
still a marked improvement.

"Thank you, dear," he said kindly. "Might I have the
pleasure of knowing your name?"

She smiled. "Jennifer, sir."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Jennifer," he said,
regarding the IV stand cautiously. "Hmm. I think...
yes, that should work." He propped his right elbow,
which was thankfully more or less unscathed, against
the stand, and offered his left arm to the young
woman. "Shall we?"

She took his arm, and though she tried to hide it,
Treize did not miss the look of horror and revulsion
that flickered across her young, pretty face. While
it was bundled thickly in bandages, there was
something about his left arm which still felt quite
unnatural- something she had obviously taken note of.

"I- I'm sorry..." she stammered.

"Think nothing of it. It's rather bad, and there are
things a young woman your age should not have to look
at. I may be one of them."

Jennifer sighed. "I've offended you, haven't I?"

For a long moment Treize didn't answer. At last he
said, "How do I look to you?"

"Sir?" she asked.

"They haven't let me near a mirror since I- well, my
reflection as it was several days ago rather upset
me. Let's just leave it at that, shall we?"

She nodded shakily. "Oh... Well. The bruising is
starting to fade, I guess... lots of yellow, and some
green..."

"That's good," Treize mused. "It was a rather
colorful shade of eggplant when I saw it last. Go
on."

"Um... your cuts-"

"They call them lacerations, dear."

"Right. Your lacerations are healing, sort of.
There's some dried blood you could probably wash off,
that'd help..."

Treize nodded. "Good. Which way to the restroom?"

"Uh-"

Treize shook his head. "Never mind." Pushing the IV
stand now with his good arm and hand, he nudged the
door open with his toes, trailing the IV stand out
into the hall. He nodded in greeting to the pair of
nurses walking towards him along the hall. "Good
evening, ladies."

One of the nurses smiled back; the other muttered
something to her companion and started back the way
she'd come. The nurse who'd smiled at Treize turned
to glare after her.

"Well," she said. "It's good to see you out of bed,
Colonel. Can I help you find something, or are you
just out for a stroll?"

"I was attempting to get directions to the restroom
from one of your young volunteers, Jennifer I believe
she said her name was-"

The nurse shook her head, shoving open the door to
Treize's room with one hand. "Jennifer!"

"Yes, Nurse Martin?" the girl asked.

"Come here."

Jennifer crept out of Treize's room. "What did I-?"

"You're supposed to be helping in the laundry, child,
not causing trouble here."

"I-"

"Go on, now," Nurse Martin told her firmly.

"Mister Khushrenada, I'm *sorry*," the girl said,
sobbing now.

"Go!" Treize told her, in the voice he'd once used to
chastise insubordinate junior officers- and the voice
he'd used more than once to keep Dorothy in line.

She went.

"I'm sorry about that," the nurse said as she began
walking Treize along the hall. "Did she-?"

Treize waved his right hand feebly. "She knew my
name." He paused. "How many people would you say know
I'm here?"

"I- I'm not sure, sir. Why?"

"I ask because many people believe me to be dead at
present. And I'm not yet quite ready- Look at me," he
said quietly. "I'm not surprised the girl didn't
recognized me."

The nurse simply patted his lesser-injured shoulder.
"Any particular reason you're up and about now?" she
asked.

"I should have a visitor soon. She is-" Treize shook
his head, at a loss to explain Une, and his
relationship with her, to Nurse Martin.

"Ahh," said the nurse, with a gleam in her eye. "So
you *do* have a lady friend. Pay up, girls!" she
added to a group of nurses from the unit who were
just arriving for the start of their shift. "I was
right."

Treize simply looked at her. "'Lady friend'," he
said, "is a term of which I am not particularly fond.
She isn't yet aware I even survived the battle..."

Nurse Martin shook her head. "We can certainly get
you cleaned up, but I'm afraid when the lady arrives,
you're going to be on your own, sir."

Treize smiled wryly. "Yes. That's what I was afraid
of. But-" He sighed and shook his head. "I don't know
that I can- no one's seen me bathe since I was a
child..." *Well,* he amended silently, *no one save
Une, and none of them need to know anything about
that.*

The nurse patted his shoulder again. "Child, I have
four boys grown now- the youngest is about your age,
I'd guess. Don't trouble yourself over it. Come along
this way..."

An hour and several milligrams of painkillers later,
Nurse Martin held up a mirror, and Treize gazed into
it with no small amount of trepidation. What he saw
reflected there surprised him. He had looked better,
true, but he had also looked far worse, and the
important thing in his mind was that he seemed
himself oncemore. An injured version of himself,
true, but unmistakably Treize Khushrenada. He nodded,
and the nurse wrapped a warm, soft blanket around
him. Unable to speak, he smiled his thanks. Treize
held the blanket closed over his hospital gown, and
it trailed him back towards his room, along with the
IV stand.

Treize once again lay back against his pillows,
exhausted and hurting more than a little, but feeling
better than he had in days. Not only was he clean
again after having the blood and dirt scrubbed from
his body, and dead skin washed from his burns, but
after a rather long soak in the medical facility's
whirlpool, he'd regained a great deal of movement in
his injured limbs. They had lost much of their
stiffness, and with that, some of the pain went as
well, for which he was grateful. And with Nurse
Martin's good humor and professional attitude, he had
not found the experience nearly as embarrassing as
he'd thought he would.

It was not long before he'd fallen into a deep and
restful sleep. When Sally and the morning staff
arrived for work the next day, that was how they
found him. Sally exchanged a nod with Nurse Martin as
the latter went off-duty.

As soon as she read the nurse's report, Sally knew
that her patient was out of the woods. He still had
quite a ways to go before he would be considered
recovered, but now that he had expressed concern over
his physical appearance, even going as far as to do
something about it, she was certain he would be fine.
Of course, Sally thought, it did help that they'd
finally gotten him up and walking, and that they'd
been able to coax him into the whirlpool for a time.
He'd been a bit skeptical about that, as had every
other burn patient Sally had ever seen, but in the
end, he seemed to appreciate its ability to aid in
his recovery, as did most of them after having given
it a try.

*Yes,* Sally mused to herself as she closed the
chart, *this one's going to make it, now.*

* * *

Une drove on into the night, a strange sense of need
and urgency pushing her onward. She was committed now
to this trip, odd as it was. Une had gone too far to
turn back now, even if she were of a mind to. And as
she traveled along her carefully planned route, she
drew ever closer to Cinq, and was over halfway there
now. She had forgotten how many miles to the gallon
the scooter could manage- and of course, Marcus being
Marcus, the tank was full and had very recently been
filled, despite the fact that no one had used the
scooter in what felt to Une like ages.

There had been a time when she would have considered
that a terrible waste of money. But it had hardly
been a secret that Treize was well-off, and Treize
had always liked to see such things taken care of, if
only because they had been important to her, because
they held sentimental value for her.

*It is so very typical of him,* she thought. *I
hadn't touched the scooter in ages, but on the off
chance that I might, he must have specifically asked
Marcus or one of the others to have it taken care of.
He could have replaced it with a new one; it might
even have been cheaper for him to do that. But he
wouldn't have dreamed of it. Just because this one
was mine. Oh, Treize... you were always so kind to
me, even before- How will I ever manage without you?
How?*

The sound of a car horn blaring behind her startled
Une out of her reverie, and she jerked the scooter
over towards the shoulder, narrowly avoiding being
flattened by a speeding truck.

"Watch where you're going, you-!" the driver shouted
out his window.

Without thinking Une shook her fist, then raised her
middle finger at the retreating truck, though the
detached part of her mind noted it was very unlikely
the driver would see it at this distance.

*Doesn't he have any *idea* of who I am?* she
wondered, dazed and shaken. *I am Lady Une, adjutant
to His Excellency, Colonel Treize Khushrenada... my
title, if not my family's lands, restored because of
him, because of the power he wields in this world..."

"Oh," she gasped quietly. "Oh." *He's gone... he's
really, truly gone... I have to remember that, I
*must* remember that.*

Furiously she wiped the tears from her eyes and began
fishing in the bag for her glasses. Again Une paused,
startled at what she had nearly done.

"What am I doing?" she asked herself. "I don't need
those, and I *know* I don't need them..." She shook
her head. "Lady Une, you aren't getting anywhere here
like this."

With that, she kicked the scooter into gear again and
continued on, trailing the back roads upon the map,
on towards Cinq Kingdom.

* * *

It was nearing dawn when Une arrived in Cinq, and she
was yawning as she braked the scooter to a stop
across from the medical center. Retrieving her bag,
she fished out the lock and chain beneath it in the
cargo basket, and chained the scooter to a nearby
lamp post. This done, she took hold of the bag's
carry strap and dashed across the street, running
almost entirely on adrenaline now. She eased open one
of the medical center's doors and strode towards the
front desk.

She explained her business to the man standing bored
duty there, and he lifted a phone, paging Sally Po
downstairs.

Sally herself appeared with a tired smile. "I'm glad
you made it. We weren't expecting you so soon."

"I- I had to do something, Sally. Something,
anything, to take my mind off of things..."

Sally nodded and took her arm. "Come with me, please,
Lady Une. There's something I'd like to show you."

"Alright," said Une as they started towards the
elevators. "Do you mind if I ask what's going on? You
explained very little when you called."

But Sally shook her head. "It would really be a lot
easier if you saw for yourself, believe me."

Une raised an eyebrow at the pair of armed Preventers
guarding the bank of elevators. "Is all of this
security really necessary?" she asked.

"For you, it is."

"I never intended the Preventers to serve as armed
guards," Une said.

"I know. But in light of the recent threats, we
decided that we'd all feel better if someone was
watching your back."

Une sighed. "I didn't think anyone knew about the
threats."

"Noin told me," was Sally's reply, as she saluted the
two men. "Gentlemen, this is Lady Une. We're going up
to Six."

"Yes, ma'am," said one of them, returning her salute.

Une and Sally stepped into the elevator.

"How was the drive up?" Sally asked, punching the
button labeled '6'.

"Actually, I rode up, on my scooter."

Sally sighed deeply. "Lady Une, with all due
respect..."

"Yes?"

"Perhaps it's because you are so used to protecting
someone else, or it may be that in light of recent
events-" *Recent events meaning Treize's death,* Une
thought rather emotionlessly, *Nothing else has
*happened* recently, but none of them will talk about
it, none of them will say those words* "-you aren't
thinking as clearly as you otherwise might, but you
really should be more careful. Anyone could have-"

"But no one did," Une said, having already decided
not to mention her close call upon the highway. "I
*was* careful, Sally- I even wore a helmet." She held
up the helmet as if to demonstrate that she had, in
fact, worn it. "I took the back roads, and I hardly
saw anyone at all."

"Even better," Sally said with another sigh. "Do you
realize how many things could have happened, Lady,
and how lucky you are that they didn't-?"

"Yes, yes," Une said. "Please, Doctor..."

Sally nodded, and said nothing more until the doors
opened onto the sixth floor. She took Une's arm again
and drew her out of the elevator, along the hall
towards the nurses' station.

"Good morning, Doctor," said one of the nurses. "You
know visiting hours don't start until-"

Sally waved her to silence. "Nurse Martin, I would
like you to meet Lady Une, of the Preventers."

The nurse smiled. "Pleasure to meet you, milady."

"Likewise," Une said, sounding perhaps a bit
distracted, wondering what in the world was going on.

Sally propelled her onward, past the curious stares
of other nurses and doctors, and a few yawning
youngsters dressed in the pink and white striped
smocks of the volunteers. At last they reached what
seemed to be Sally's destination, for she knocked
twice upon the door, then opened it and stepped into
the room.

"This way," Sally said to Une, who followed.

"What-?" she asked, abruptly cutting herself off as
Sally flicked on the lights.

"Good morning, sir," Sally said cheerfully.

*Sir?* Une wondered silently. *What on *earth*...?*

Cautiously, she took one step, then another, towards
the bed and the man lying upon it. What she could see
of him was covered in bandages, although not as many
as she had seen upon the severely injured in the
aftermaths of countless battles. Walking amongst the
beds and along the wards, gathering names of the dead
and adding up their numbers... No, it was not this
man's injuries which made her tremble with a mixture
of amazement and horror.

*No,* she thought quite furiously. *No, it can't be.
He is dead. I watched him die.* Tears sprang to her
eyes, for she did not understand- or perhaps it was
Sally who did not. She had found, Une decided at
last, some long-lost relation of Treize, and had
thought that for Une to meet him and to share her
grief might perhaps lessen it. *I watched him die!*
Une thought again. *I watched him die, and in that
moment my heart shattered- and she makes a mockery
now of all of that.*

"Lady," said Sally, sounding surprised, as if she had
expected an altogether different reaction. "Lady-
this is Colonel Treize."

Une whirled on the medic then, furious. "No! Treize
is dead. He is dead." She felt her legs give way
beneath her, felt herself slide to the ground as if
her body had simply folded and let go, and Une buried
her face in her hands, catching tears between her
fingers. "How dare you," she gasped out between her
sobs. "How dare you? Is it not enough that I am in
love with a dead man, that I watched him die,
powerless to help him? I don't know why you have
brought me here, but I should never have come."

"My dear, beloved lady," said a voice heartbreakingly
familiar in its intimacy. "Une, don't cry. Don't weep
for me, Lady; I still live."

Slowly, ever so slowly, she lowered her hands, and
rose to her feet. "Do you hate me so, Sally?" she
asked the medic, purposely not looking at the man
upon the bed. "What have I ever done, that you would
hurt me so?"

Sally shook her head. "Lady Une, *listen* to me.
Moreover, listen to *him*." With that she turned and
departed the room, leaving Une and the man- *the
pretender,* she thought furiously -alone.

Une sighed and turned away. "I am going now. If I
ever see you again, and you claim to be who I know
you are not, I swear I will-"

"Come back to me, Lady."

She gasped. Those words were so familiar. But she
could not, dared not, believe. "Treize... No. No.
No!"

"Look upon me, that is all I ask. Come here, stand
beside me, and look. Look past these scars and
bandages, and if you do not see the one you loved,
you may do as you will with me."

Almost mechanically, she moved slowly forward, one
small step at a time. All the way her legs shook
violently beneath her, and tears streamed down her
face.

At last she reached the man's bedside, and, steeling
herself for what she might find there, turned her
gaze to him. A hideous mass of shrapnel wounds formed
a livid latticework of lines upon his face, about his
neck and shoulders, and all along one arm, bandages
protected burnt skin- second degree burns, Une
thought dispassionately, not deep enough to have
destroyed the nerves, and thus quite painful. But
beneath those gruesome decorations, she glimpsed
something which tugged at her senses, her memory, and
pleaded with her to remember. Something which she
could not deny, for this man's identity was to her
absolutely unmistakable.

"Forgive me," she whispered, reaching out gently to
touch his cheek.

He caught her hand and held it as best he could. "I
don't have anything to forgive. I can't blame you for
not believing, my love."

Wonder in her expression now, Une stood at the side
of the bed, gazing down, into the deep crystal depths
of Treize Khushrenada's blue eyes. "How?" she
whispered. "How?"

"I'll explain that soon."

Une nodded, hardly aware he had spoken to her. She
reached out towards him again, hesitating this time.
"Can I...?" she asked softly.

"Yes. But gently."

"I'll be gentle, don't worry."

"When you say that, my dear, I always worry."

"Hush, sir." With that she leaned towards him,
bracing her hands against the bedrails to either side
of him. Grasping the rails tightly, she gently
touched her lips to his.

"I realized something the day you died," she said,
having drawn back, but still remaining close.

"What was that?" Treize asked.

"In all the years we've known each other, you've said
often that you loved me. I've never said that to
you."

"You never had to. I knew."

"I regretted never saying it," Une went on. "Because
I do love you, Treize. I have always loved you."

"Always?" he asked.

"When I was thirteen, my mother died. My father had
died many years before that, so with my mother's
death, I was an orphan. I had no other family living,
and no friends to whom I might have gone. But soon
after Mother died, a family of the aristocracy took
me in. They had many daughters still living with
them, and older children away. They sent me to
boarding school, and I rarely, if ever, saw my foster
parents. But I was happy at the school."

"I know this story," Treize said quietly.

"You should," she replied before going on.
"Sometimes, I would catch the faintest glimpse of a
handsome, blue-eyed stranger. He was never there when
I turned to look, and yet he was always there in a
way, always with me. There was not a place I could go
to where he would not be able to find me.

"That day when I was a senior cadet at Victoria, when
you came to see me, dashing and lovely in your OZ
uniform- you were only there two days, but in that
time we spoke so much, that I- I had to realize I'd
fallen in love with you."

"Those two days were difficult for me," Treize said
as he looked upon her. "I found myself viewing you
less as the girl my influence had helped to rescue,
and more as the woman you'd grown into. Do you
remember that second night?"

Une nodded. "You asked me to dinner so that we could
finish getting caught up before you had to go away
again. I've never forgotten how beautiful the stars
were that night, when you walked me home."

Treize smiled. "You said you would give anything to
see the stars up close, you were so enchanted by
them. And I promised you that the sight of the Earth
from among the stars was far grander, and that
someday I'd show it to you."

"And you did." Une returned his smile. "But what I
remember most is how the wind took your papers and
sent them flying, and how I laughed while you chased
them down." The tone of her voice changed then,
growing from soft to hard in the instants between
words. "And I remember the group of senior cadets, at
least five of them-"

"Six," he corrected, his voice nearly a whisper.

"-and how silently they came up on me. How they said
they'd show me who was strongest, who was best of the
class, how all of my perfect scores couldn't save me
then, weren't worth anything then, and how they were
going to prove it. They said I was nothing but some
aristocrat's whore, and that was how I'd gotten into
the academy in the first place. They said I wasn't
any good for anything, except..." The tears which had
been brimming in her eyes now spilled over, falling
down her cheeks like rainwater flowing along into a
mountain stream.

"Shhh," Treize said, reaching up to her, heedless of
the pain, which was more than slight, drawing her
into the protective circle of his arms. "Shhh, Une. I
know. You told me then, afterwards, because I needed
to know. But you don't have to say any of it again
now."

"I know." She buried her head against his shoulder
for a moment, and his lesser-injured hand moved up to
stroke her hair, as one might do to comfort a
terrified child. There were those who would have been
quite shocked to see the dispassionate, militaristic
Lady Une in such condition, but Treize was not. He
had known her well, and for years, in all her guises,
in all the roles she played, the masks she wore, and
the personas her own shattered psyche created for
her. He had in the past held her as she sobbed, and
held her as she screamed, in fear, in rage, in anger,
and, occasionally, in pure frustration. He had always
so hated to see her like this, but had always been
determined that he would help her however he could.
For he had loved her in each of her many facets, no
one more or less than any other. He knew and loved
them all.

"And I remember," she said, quite softly now, "how
suddenly, when I was certain the worst was about to
begin- how suddenly you were *there*, and I knew I
had nothing to fear. They wouldn't hurt me then; they
didn't dare. You held your sword in your gloved hand,
and with the moonlight glinting off the blade, and
the wind tossing your cape around, you looked like
the Angel of Death. And I so wanted you to kill them
all, for the humiliation of what they'd done, and
almost done- but I knew that it was better for them
to live, and in the end it would hurt them more." She
paused. "I thought- though perhaps it was nothing
more than a schoolgirl's fantasy- that you would have
died before a single one of them harmed me."

"I would have," Treize replied. "You thought rightly-
because I adored you even then, and, too, because I
never draw steel on a man I am not fully prepared to
kill."

Une nodded. "My friends used to talk about you, about
what a master swordsman you were, how none could best
you. Were they afraid of you, I wonder, those boys?"

"Maybe. They might not have feared my reputation-
perhaps they didn't know it- but they were
intelligent enough to fear a man with a sword who
looked more than willing to use it. Do you know what
became of them?" Treize asked.

"No. I never heard."

"I went to the Chief Instructor the next morning,
with the names of those six. You must not have
noticed that they were absent from your graduation. I
wanted to tell you goodbye before I left, but you
were asleep in the Infirmary, and I didn't want to
wake you. I kissed your forehead, left you a red rose
and a note, and took my leave."

Une lifted her head, smiling. "I was awake. I thought
if I'd opened my eyes I would have scared you off."

"You would have," Treize said.

"I kept the rose, you know."

"No. I didn't know that. All these years?"

"Yes. The note, too."

Une seemed to realize where she was then, and she
started to pull away, but Treize did as best he could
to draw her back.

"Damn these useless hands," he said quietly.

Une smiled. "You don't need them." She leaned in and
kissed him gently, lingeringly. "Alive," she
whispered. "You're alive..."

Treize returned her smile as she drew back. "Yes. I
certainly am. You aren't angry, are you?" he asked.

"Angry? That you're alive?" Une asked. "Don't be
foolish."

"Well. That's alright, then, isn't it?" He paused, as
if uncertain whether or not to go on. "I have thought
of you often, Lady."

"And I of you."

"I have dreamed of you... was certain I had seen you
there, when I thought that I was dying. And I wanted
you to know, I wanted to tell you that I..."

"I know," Une said. And she was certain that she did.
Somehow what words and gestures over the years had
never quite been able to convince her of, because she
was so certain she did not deserve his love...
Somehow when she had thought him dead it had become
painfully clear that he *had* loved her. She had
recalled that night when he'd rushed to her rescue,
pure fury barely hidden by his icy expression, and
the tender way he'd held her, afterwards. Recalled,
too, the touch of his lips on her brow the morning
after, and then she had known. Just when she had
thought herself done with tears, these realizations
hit her, and she wept again, for love lost.

"Be that as it may, I would like you to hear me out."

"As you wish."

"I love you, Lady Anne."

"Une," she corrected softly. "Not Anne."

Treize shook his head. "No. To me you will always be
Anne."

"But-"

"Anne," he said again. "Always Anne."

*Of course,* Une though, understanding at last. *He
alone knows why I am Une today rather than Anne-
because I was alone so very long, and because I
thought that I always would be. And, too, he knew me
as Anne, once; I was Anne the first time he came to
my rescue.*

"Perhaps," she said aloud. "Perhaps. Many things have
changed. I have changed also. I am not the same young
woman you met all those years ago."

"I know," Treize replied. "And I am sorry for that,
truly I am. I would have liked to have kept you
innocent of things, untouched by this wretched
darkness of my world, my existence, my life."

"Well," she said, "I am glad that you never tried.
You would not have been able to do it, and I would
have hated you for having made the attempt."

He smiled at that. "Yes, I suppose you would have."

"I am not a child," she said, her voice quiet but
insistent. "I have done things I am not proud of- not
proud of anymore, I suppose I should say -but it was
my choice to walk this road. My choice, not yours."

"Yes, but would you have even known that road existed
without my being there to show it to you?"

"I am not *blind*," she said, "any more than I am a
child, or a fool. Someday I would have seen it for
myself, of that I've no doubt."

*True,* he mused, *she is neither truly young
anymore, nor blind. And certainly she is no Relena
Darlian. For years I cursed myself because I thought
I had made her this, because I thought I had stolen
her innocence. But she has always been determined,
some might even say stubborn. Perhaps it is her
nature to choose as she has, and perhaps nothing
could have changed that.*

"I will grant you that point," Treize said. "But you
know, it always pained me to have to put you in
harm's way."

Une shook her head. "It was my duty to place *myself*
in harm's way, if that was what was required of me,
to serve you, or to keep you safe. I cannot regret
those things."

"But sometimes, *I* do." Treize paused. "I never
meant to fall in love with you, you know. I never
expected that my second would be so beautiful, or so
brilliant, or..." *Or,* he thought, *that she would
be, a woman grown, the girl I once thought of as my
little sister. Although why I was surprised, I don't
know. I asked for the best, and they sent her to me.*

Une smiled. "If it is any consolation, I had not
expected you, either. I figured you for a snobbish
aristocrat who would look down upon me for what I had
lost- someone in love with his money, his titles, and
himself. An arrogant bastard whom I would serve only
because it was my duty, and because I did believe in,
as someone once said, fighting for the soldiers of
the future."

Treize laughed. "An unappealing, if somewhat
accurate, portrait of myself, in my reckless youth,
shall we say?"

Une shook her head. "They failed to mention, of
course, that that snobbish aristocrat was *you*." She
paused. "And that description was not as accurate as
you think- at least not in my estimation. You *were*
a bit snobbish, but I decided that you had earned
your arrogance. And you never flaunted your wealth
the way so many others of the Romafeller Foundation
did."

"Meaning my uncle, His Excellency Duke Dermail,"
Treize said with a small smile.

"Yes, well- him, and others, too."

"Anne, Anne... You know that the money was nothing to
me, that to me it never mattered."

She sighed. "Only someone born to wealth and
privilege could say such a thing."

"You, too, were born to it," he said. "Your mother
*was* a Countess, after all."

"Yes," Une agreed. "But that title was taken away
from her, and it would have been far beyond my means
to get it back, if not for you."

Treize waved this off as if it were of no
consequence. "It was yours by rights. And those self-
same individuals who took your mother's title and her
lands, I have always suspected, also killed the elder
Peacecrafts, destroyed Cinq, and..." Treize sighed.
"Well. Numerous other things. You know I spent a
great deal of my childhood in Cinq; my father served
the king..."

Une nodded. "I understand. It was one more thing they
had done which hurt someone you- cared for."

"No. Someone I love. Do you understand?"

"Yes." She paused, drew a deep breath. "Those
people..."

"Most are dead, now, I should think. There may be a
few still hanging onto what is left of the
Foundation, but they were bit players at best. Those
who pulled the others' strings, who directed their
actions... Milliardo got his revenge, at last. I
wonder at times if he finds it as empty a thing as I
do."

Une nodded, her expression thoughtful. "He is one of
us now- my Preventers, I mean."

"Yes, I have heard tale of your Preventers. Quite the
ambitious beginning, I think- but a good one. What of
Milliardo, these days?"

"I've sent him to Victoria- to Victoria, and to
Noin."

Treize laughed. "Did you, truly?"

"I did."

"Good, good. Those two... Those two have always
belonged together. The war got in the way, of course,
as it tends to do..."

"Tended."

"Hmm?"

"Past tense. The war is over."

"Is it really now?"

"Yes. I- We surrendered. OZ is mostly gone, phasing
itself out now, and many of those Foundation men you
spoke of- and the women too, of course -are most
likely running now, the guilty along with the
innocent."

"I see I have missed quite a bit as I languished here
alone."

"It was your choice, to be alone. Sir."

Treize shook his head. "If OZ is no more, then I am
no longer your lawful superior."

Une smiled. "No, I suppose you are not. But I could
be yours- a thought which appeals to me, I admit."

"Do your Preventers need one more added to their
ranks so very badly?"

"No. But I think you would make a good one."

"Why?"

"Because you see what many of my Preventers may not
be able to- that it may still be necessary to fight
for peace."

"It was always necessary to fight for peace," he
replied.

"You see? You understand."

"And what would you call me, dear lady?"

Une considered that for a moment. "Spirit, perhaps."

Treize smiled. "We'll see."

Une nodded. "Yes." She held a hand to her mouth to
cover a yawn. "Excuse me."

"No, no.. you've had rather a long night, as have I."

"I'm sorry, I didn't think-"

"I hardly mind the time spent with you, believe me.
But..."

Une nodded. "Of course. I shouldn't have kept you up
so long..."

"Anne."

"Yes?"

"Come here."

Obediently she rose from her chair and approached his
bedside. "Milord sent for me?" she asked softly.

"Yes, milady, he did." He drew her closer, bandaged
arms holding her against him. "Stay with me."

She raised an eyebrow. "What will the others say?"

"I don't care. Stay."

"I don't want to hurt you..."

Treize laughed. "Anne, I've already been hurt as
badly as one can be and manage to survive. If you
truly wish to spare me pain, then stay."

Her eyes narrowed.

"The pain is no worse, does that satisfy you?"

"Yes."

"Don't make me ask you again."

Une shook her head. "No. I'll stay." She raised her
voice. "Lights: Off."

Treize settled him arms around Une and closed his
eyes. "Good night."

"Good night," she replied. She lay her head upon his
shoulder, and, exhausted from her long journey and
the day's events, slept.

And though both had been plagued by nightmares since
the battle many still believed to have taken his
life, neither Treize nor Lady Une dreamed that night,
instead sleeping the sleep of the innocent.

* * *

Une woke sometime around midday, lifting her head to
find Treize looking down upon her, a slight smile
upon his face.

"Good morning," she said. "What time is it?"

Treize glanced to the table at his right, where at
some point during the night a clock had been set. He
wondered what thoughts had gone through the head of
whomever had placed it there. "Quarter past noon," he
replied.

"That late?" Une asked.

"You did have a late night. I thought I'd let you
sleep."

"Thanks." She paused. "How are you feeling?"

"Better," he replied. "Better, I think, just since
you've been here. I'm glad you've come, Anne. It's
rather lonely here, surrounded by all of these
medical personnel. Sally is kind, compassionate... I
like her. But she isn't you."

Une smiled. "Should I take that as a compliment?"

"I think you should."

"I shall, then."

Une climbed carefully out of bed, her sleep-fogged
mind noticing belatedly, as her feet hit the floor,
that someone had draped a blanket over the two of
them sometime during the night. She smiled.

"When was the last time you ate something, Anne?"

She blinked. "I'm not sure. I've been so busy..."

Treize shook his head. "You were going to let
yourself grieve to death. Quickly."

"Your point being?"

"Breakfast," he said.

Une nodded. "As you wish." She bowed deeply, sweeping
her arm across to touch her shoulder, and moved
towards the door.

She made her way towards the nurses' station.

"Can I help you?" one of them asked.

"Cafeteria?" Une asked. "We've probably missed
breakfast, but..."

"He's eating?" the nurse asked, sounding quite
excited. "That's wonderful! I'll have a tray sent
up."

Une's eyes narrowed. "We're speaking of Mister
Treize?"

"In 613, yes."

"Hypocrite," Une said quietly under her breath.

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing," Une said aloud. "If it isn't any
trouble..."

"Not at all."

"Thank you," she said.

Back in Treize's room, Une stood beside the bed, arms
crossed over her chest, looking rather annoyed.
"We're more alike than I thought," she said.

"Really?"

"Yes." Une reached for the chart in its place at the
foot of the bed. She opened it and flipped through
pages of notation, medical terms and vital statistics
she did not entirely understand. She understood
enough, though, to know what had gone on before she'd
arrived in Cinq.

"You," she said quietly and dangerously, "tried to
kill yourself."

"Not exactly."

Une simply glared at him. "Why would you do that?"

"Because I- Do you remember when I asked you for the
numbers, and you gave them to me?"

Une fought the urge to swear, something she was not
all that prone to doing. *The numbers,* she thought.
*Again the numbers which have obsessed him so.* "I
remember telling you quite often that dwelling on
them wasn't healthy."

"I needed to know. I always needed to know."

Une nodded. "Mm. Yes."

"Anne- Can you even imagine? So many souls, giving
their lives because *you* had ordered them to it,
because *they* had chosen to fight, and you'd all but
told them when and where and how and why they were
going to give their lives? Can you?"

She snapped closed the chart, a look of raw fury
crossing her face. "In this world, peace was a thing
we had to fight for. You said as much last night, and
you were not wrong about that. Those who died, chose
to risk their lives. Chose to! And you- At least you
didn't waste them, at least you gave them a chance,
gave their deaths meaning."

"Did I? Or did so many die for so little, for my
arrogance and my foolish ambition? I thought of them
all, each of those people and the lives they could
have lived, and I couldn't stand it."

"Do you still count the ones I killed for you among
your numbers?" Une asked.

"Yes."

"Even the ones who would have killed you if I
hadn't-"

"Even them."

Une shook her head. "There were always things you
could not do, and I never questioned that. I would do
anything for you, and I have- and are you telling me
now that you blame yourself, that you feel guilt even
for the evil men I destroyed, men who threatened your
life?"

"Were they evil?" Treize asked. "I'm not sure they
were."

"And I," said Une, "don't care. My duties were
simple- to follow your orders, and to protect you.
They threatened you; they died. It is that simple."

"I see now why they called you heartless and
bloodthirsty, Lady."

"I'm neither, as you know well. Do you think I find
it easy now, existing whole instead of as a series of
fragments, to recall all those times I pulled the
trigger, ending someone's life? It haunts me every
day. But I would do it again. A hundred, a million,
times, I would do it again. *I would do it again.*"
With a flick of her wrist she sent the chart flying
towards him, and only quick reflex saved him from
being struck by it. "And I won't let you say that
*you* regret those deaths, that they weigh upon
*your* conscience."

"Lady, I-"

"Let me finish. Have I done things that were wrong?
Yes. Have I done things which I regret? God, yes. But
do I regret a single thing I was ever asked to do for
you? I don't. And do you know why? Because I believed
in you, believed in your goals, even when you doubted
them."

"Even though those goals may have been flawed?"

"No. They weren't. The methods we used to reach them
might have been, but the goals themselves? No. They
were not." She drew a deep breath before going on.
"And must I tell you how it pains me to know that you
would have died for things I did? For things I did
because I considered them my duty? It *was* my duty,
to kill for you, to die for you if necessary, not
yours to die for me."

Treize nodded silently. Then, very quietly he asked,
"Don't you ever feel any guilt?"

"Of course I do. But what would my death, or yours,
possibly change?"

"No one else would have died for me then."

"They don't need to, now; you can take care that no
one does again, if that is your wish. But if you ever
think to attempt this again-" She gestured towards
the fallen chart, a sharp, jerky motion.

"No. No, I won't-"

"Damn right you won't," Une snapped, at last giving
in to her urge to curse. "How dare you? You managed
to survive the battle, only to try to kill yourself
as soon as you'd regained a bit of your strength.
While I cried for you, you were preparing to die
again- as if once weren't enough."

She stormed around the bed, snatching up the chart
from where it had landed upon the floor. Then,
calmly, she returned it to its proper place.

The breakfast tray arrived then, and both lapsed into
silence, Treize reflecting upon everything Une had
said, finding her words full of a truth which left
him reeling. Une, meanwhile, did as best she could to
calm herself down, knowing that she had said her
piece, and now must give Treize time to digest what
she had said. She lifted a sandwich from the tray,
and examined it cautiously before taking the first
bite.

"After you've been here a day or two," Treize said
teasingly, "you'll learn not to look too closely at
any of the food."

Une laughed softly.

"I'll leave the things you have done to your
conscience, instead of mine," he said, getting back
to the matter they had been discussing earlier. "And
you are right. My actions were- unwise."

"Selfish," Une corrected, without so much as a hint
of reproach. Rather than being as unkind of a
statement as it could have been, what she said was a
simple statement of fact.

"Yes. Selfish is the right word." Then he said, very
softly, "Anne." The subject of his suicide attempt
had been discussed, and now, so far as he was
concerned, it was a thing of the past. Now came time
to change the subject and discuss something else he
had been meaning to get to.

"Yes?"

"Someday, one would hope sooner rather than later, I
am going to be getting out of here."

"Of course," Une said, as if this fact were totally
obvious. That he might *not* leave the hospital was a
thought she had dismissed with his promise that his
first suicide attempt had also been his last.

"And it occurs to me that we haven't discussed what
will happen after."

"I had assumed that we would go back home. That is, I
mean-"

"No, 'home' is a very apt term, and I don't mind that
you use it. I left you the estate, didn't I?"

"You did. I was quite shocked by that, by the way."

"Of course you were. But, Lady Anne..."

"You're thinking of something, aren't you?" she
asked.

Treize smiled. "Perceptive, Lady. I'm sorry that this
is offered in this manner- I had wanted to do things
very differently. But lying here as I am has given me
time to think, and among other things I've realized
that it is my intentions that matter more than
anything else. And so..."

She simply listened, hands clasped tightly together
in her lap. She was uncertain if, truth be told, she
would be able to form any words if she tried to
speak. She, too, considered the matter of his near-
death to be closed. What she had said, had needed to
be said, but now that it had been, Une was more than
willing to let it go, and she focused now on his
words, and what he could possibly mean by them.

"I have thought of you constantly these past years-
both when you were with me and when you were far
away. You never left my thoughts, you know that. As
you know that I love you, that I do not think I could
exist without you..."

She did speak, then, very, very softly. "Treize..."

"Oh, I *could*," he went on, "but it would not be a
life I would enjoy."

"But I-" Une began, uncertain even before he
interrupted, what she meant to say or how she'd
intended to finish that sentence.

"Hush, Lady. Let me go on at my own good speed." She
nodded silently. "I should have done this long ago,
but I had obligations I felt I needed to meet first,
and then there were promises I had to keep. I wanted
to be able to offer you the same amount of attention
I devoted to those obligations, before I even dared
to think of... But now, my lady, my beloved lady
Anne, it would do me great honor if you would consent
to be my wife."

She gasped. "Treize!"

"Is that a yes?"

"Of course it's a yes, but, are you certain-?"

"Anne, I've been certain for years." He paused, and
his smile faded. "I only regret that I have no ring
to give you now."

"I don't need-"

"I *had* a ring, my mother's, in fact, which I
carried with me for months, waiting for the perfect
opportunity, the perfect chance to give it to you.
But that day never came, and somehow in the chaos of
the battle, I-" He trembled, and she wrapped her arms
around him gently. "I lost it," he whispered. "I had
wanted you to have it, Anne..."

"Shh, it's alright. It's alright. Maybe it is gone-
or maybe we'll find it someday. It doesn't matter.
What matters is that you are alive- that you've come
back to me."

"Even dead, I would never leave you."

"But you did." The words slipped out before she could
stop them. Perhaps, while the issue of the suicide
attempt had been dealt with, his simple failure to
contact her had not. "Treize, I'm sorry, I didn't
mean-"

"Please, I beg of you- forgive me now. Forgive me
now, and marry me- this summer, I think, at that site
upon my- our -lands you love so much."

She smiled, and kissed him passionately, but with
infinite gentleness. "Yes," she whispered against his
lips.

"God," he said, as they held each other as best they
could, she being careful not to hurt him, he careful
with his numerous injuries. "God, Anne..."

"I love you," Anne said.

Before Treize could answer, the door opened smoothly
upon its well-oiled hinges, and Dr. Sally Po stepped
into the room.

"Oh," she said, startled, and started to return the
way she'd come.

With great reluctance Anne drew away from Treize.
"No, it's alright, Sally."

Treize nodded. "I don't suppose you've come to
release me from this prison?"

Sally shook her head. "Not just yet, I'm afraid. I
did want to say, though, that you seem to be doing
much better, and that perhaps in under a week, you
*can* go home."

"Wonderful," Treize said with a smile. "Anne, my
dear... you seem a bit flushed. Why don't you go and
take some air?"

"I believe I will," Anne said. "A walk sounds nice. I
think there's a park not far from here..."

Sally nodded. "Yes. It's pretty this time of year,
with the roses in bloom."

"I'll bring you back one," Anne promised Treize.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "That may not be
entirely legal..."

Anne shrugged. "As Noin once told me, everything is
legal until you get caught."

Treize smiled. "Enjoy yourself, Anne."

"I will."

Sally busied herself with Treize's chart until Anne
had left the room, and until the door closed behind
her. Then she replaced the chart, and turned to her
patient. "So," Sally said. "Was there something in
particular you wanted to discuss with me while she's
gone?"

"You don't miss much, do you, Doctor?" Treize nodded,
almost as if confirming this fact to himself. "I
wanted to talk to you about one of the hospital's
volunteers, a girl by the name of Jennifer."

Sally sighed. "What's she done now?"

"There's something about her I don't trust, for one
thing," Treize explained. "She seems a little too
interested in me, and while she claims to have had a
crush on me since my first television appearance..."

Sally shook her head slowly. "I don't know. There
*is* something off about her, that much I'm sure of.
Lady Une- Lady Anne, I suppose I should say -seems to
feel the same way about her, from what I hear. And,
well... The Preventers exist for a reason, sir."

Treize nodded. "Perhaps it's nothing. But since I
can't convince myself of that..."

"I'll keep an eye on her," Sally promised. "Or see
that someone does, anyway. If we turn up anything
interesting, I'll pass it along."

"Thank you, Sally."

"You're welcome, sir."

* * *

Anne stepped from the building with her Preventer
escort in tow. She had tried and failed to convince
them to stay behind, and so was determined to act as
if they were not there at all. The two Preventers,
for their part, seemed glad to be allowed to trail
behind her, as she was not always so accommodating to
them.

She found herself quickly lost in reverie as she
moved along the sidewalk, her thoughts returning
again and again to the words Treize had spoken back
in his hospital room. The past two days had been so
shocking to her that she was amazed to find herself
coping as well as she was.

Anne felt a hand grasp her elbow and draw her back,
and she turned her head to glare at whichever of the
two Preventers had done it, only catching sight of
the car that would have struck her out of the corner
of her eye.

"Oh," said Anne quietly. "Thank you. I suppose I
wasn't watching where I was going."

She looked very carefully both ways before crossing
the street. *That was really quite stupid of you,
Anne,* she told herself, amazed at the fact that
yesterday she'd been Une, and today, suddenly, she
was Anne again. *You could have been killed. And,
think, what would Treize do then?*

Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, or the strangeness
of the past few days. But whatever the reason, Anne
burst out laughing, and found it nearly impossible to
stop.

"Oh, my," she said, gasping for breath. "Wouldn't it
just serve him right, too?"

"Ma'am?" asked one of the Preventers, looking a bit
concerned. It was the same one who had pulled her
back from the curb, and she felt a brief bit of guilt
because she did not know his name, or his partner's,
either. She would just have to learn them, Anne
decided. Perhaps she would pull their files when she
returned to the medical center.

"Never mind," she told him. "I'm just thinking out
loud, that's all." Weather he accepted this
explanation or not, he said nothing more of it, and
nor did his partner.

The sidewalks were somewhat crowded this time of day,
and she sensed rather than saw the Preventers
struggling to keep her in sight. Anne briefly toyed
with the idea of dropping back to where they wouldn't
loose her again, but tossed that thought aside almost
as quickly as she'd come upon it. No, she needed to
be alone, to walk and to think, and it was impossible
to do that with her two shadows a half-step behind.

She understood their concern for her safety, of
course; it was their duty to be concerned, and if
they were a bit overprotective at times, well, a
slight case of paranoia had saved many a protectee's
life- including that of Treize Khushrenada. *Which
means,* she told herself, *you were once as bad as
these two. Though of course the times were
different...*

Anne lowered her head and allowed herself to blend
into the crowd. It helped immensely that most of
those surrounding her were near enough to her own
age, young people heading to work or school, running
errands, or simply out with their friends.

But for all that she was able to blend into this mix,
Anne had never felt herself quite so alone- not since
her days at Victoria, the last of them taking place a
year or so before Noin and Zechs arrived there. She
had been the best of her class, but Noin had beaten
her scores, and Zechs had beaten hers, and if Anne
still held the third-highest marks of all time, it
was of little consequence, and no one remembered it,
save Treize, who knew everything, or so it seemed,
and perhaps her instructors, who had rather liked
her.

The same could not have been said for her fellow
students. Many of them hated her because she was
smart and capable, skilled at piloting and
marksmanship both, and certainly the best of them
all. But mostly, they had hated her because she was
smart, capable, and *female*. Through those four
years she had told herself that she did not care what
they thought of her- but she did, very much. And
after a time, all she wanted was to prove herself to
them, to make something of herself and to show them
that she was not any of the horrible things they'd
shouted anonymously from the marching lines, or the
ones they'd scrawled on her locker.

And in the end she *had* made something of herself,
though she had not done as well as Noin, or Zechs, in
the eyes of many. People might have resented or
disliked Zechs, but he was awarded a grudging sort of
respect which Anne, in the days when she had been
Une, had hardly ever seen the slightest bit of, for
if they had considered Zechs to be only Treize's
pawn, by comparison she had been something far worse.

And Noin! Oh, how Anne was tired of finding herself
compared to Noin. She had rather disliked the woman
the first time they'd been required to work together,
but had discovered the hard way that continuing to
hate her would do no good in the end. Apparently Noin
had come to a similar decision where Une was
concerned. And so Une had come to find at the last
that, loath though she was to admit it, she rather
liked Noin. And it had been rather nice to be able to
consider one of the few other women of reasonably
high rank within OZ a friend, rather than an enemy.
It had seemed to Anne that the female cadets during
her days at Victoria, save those few who had by some
odd miracle become her friends, had hated her twice
as much as the males did. She wondered often if
Noin's own years at Victoria had been similar, but
she had never asked the other young woman about them.
Perhaps someday now, she would.

Anne sighed. *We all of us, but particularly Zechs,
Noin, and I... We all grew up so very fast. I know
how it was for Zechs, or at least part of that, and I
have vague ideas of the way it was for Noin. But for
me it began when I was thirteen, when Mother died. I
didn't know then that Treize was watching me, that he
knew whose daughter I was, or that my mother's name
actually meant something to him. I didn't know that
he was the one who called those who finally came to
try and take care of me- the ones who hardly seemed
to notice I existed amongst their sea of daughters,
the ones who packed me off to boarding school at the
end of that summer... But it was not a bad life, it
truly wasn't. And every so often out of the corner of
my eye I would see that handsome young man with the
brilliant blue eyes. My roommates over those years
called him Anne's ghost- or Une's ghost, when I made
them start calling me that, but he was real, more
real than I could ever have imagined...*

She shook her head as if in attempt to clear it,
glancing back over her shoulder at the medical
facility as if to assure herself that it did in fact
exist, that she had just been there. Sunlight glinted
off its many windows, and she thought that perhaps
Treize was looking out of one of those.

She reached the fingers of one hand over to the
other, grasped hold of a small patch of skin, and
pinched. As she watched a small spot of red rise up,
felt the sharp but quickly gone pain as her fingers
caught that skin between them, the world nearly spun
before her, and she had to catch herself quickly,
stumbling into a young girl zipping past on roller
skates.

"I'm sorry," Anne said to the girl. "Are you
alright?"

The girl nodded before skating onward. Anne looked
up, watching her depart, and was relieved to see a
large expanse of green a block or so up along the
street. She had become so very lost in her thoughts
that she hadn't paid all that much attention to where
she was going, but it seemed despite that, her feet
were carrying her in the right direction.

Anne drew in a deep breath, as a breeze brought the
scent of roses towards her. She smiled. Now, as
always, sight or scent of roses made her think of
Treize- fondly, as she always thought of him. She
wished, not for the first time since departing his
room, that he could have accompanied her on this
walk. How he would have loved to see these gardens,
the very sight of which, even from a distance,
reminded Anne of home.

Home. She smiled again. Such a simple word, and yet
it could have a thousand meanings. It meant to Anne
only one thing now, only one thing that was of any
importance. Treize. Treize, who though injured in
battle less than two weeks ago, was, Sally said, most
likely going to make a full recovery; Treize, who had
looked into her eyes all those years ago and known,
without her ever having to say a word, that she loved
him, and always had; Treize, who had done it again
only moments ago, and who had this time, with no
other duties to stand in his way, with no battles
left to fight or promises yet to be kept, had asked
her to marry him.

The enormity of that hit her as she made her way into
the park, as her feet slipped from cracked pavement
to soft yet solid grass-covered ground. And for a
moment she stood still, surprise, shock, amazement,
wonder, all sweeping over her, each giving way to the
next. Then she smiled, and continued on.

Almost absentmindedly, Anne glanced back over her
shoulder as she walked, searching the park for the
two Preventers. She was relieved when she didn't find
them. She supposed they were capable enough at their
tasks, but she felt, as she always had, that she was
more than able to look after herself. They would be
furious, of course, that she had managed to elude
them yet again, but the fault was really theirs for
allowing that to happen in the first place. She made
a brief mental note to discuss that with Noin-
perhaps there was a way they could be better trained
in that area -and then promptly let the issue go, as
if it had never crossed her mind at all. When next
she spoke to Noin she would recall it, and it would
not trouble her in the meantime.

Anne walked amongst the roses- red, pink, yellow, and
white, along with several rare varieties of peach,
and a deep pink that was nearly a purple. But it was
the reds which drew her eye again and again. She
smiled at that. Yes, it would be the reds.

"They're pretty, aren't they?" a child's voice asked
from somewhere beside her.

Anne turned to smile at the girl. "Yes, they are.
Which one is your favorite?"

The child seemed to consider that for a moment or
two. "I think I like the red best. It's not the same
red as my hair," she added, running her fingers
through her hair, which was, indeed, red of a
different sort, "but it's pretty anyway."

Anne smiled again. "The red is my favorite, too."

The girl nodded. "I thought so. I saw you looking at
them."

*Observant child,* Anne thought. *Perhaps that is
what seems so very odd about her. But no, it's more
than that, I know it is. Almost as if she were
familiar to me somehow.*

Anne looked around then, eyes scanning those nearby
for a parent to whom this beautiful child might
belong. For she was beautiful- that lovely red hair,
and blue eyes like crystal, set into a face which was
pretty now, and would be far beyond that by the time
she was Anne's age.

To her surprise, she saw no one who resembled the
girl, and no one who appeared to be watching her
as if she were their charge, either.

"Where's your mother?" Anne asked.

"She died, when I was younger," the girl said.

"I'm so sorry," Anne said.

The girl looked up at her, a line of confusion
appearing upon her brow. "Why? You couldn't have
known that."

Anne paused before answering her, rather taken aback.
Clearly the girl was not only well-spoken, but very
intelligent for her age as well. "You're right. I
suppose what I should have asked is where the person
watching you has wandered off to."

The girl shrugged her small shoulders. "I don't know.
I guess they haven't missed me yet."

Anne laughed despite herself. "I'm afraid there are
people looking for me, who very probably *have*
missed me by now. I'm really not supposed to be here
by myself..."

"Why?" asked the girl.

"They think I'm important, I suppose," Anne said at
last.

The girl nodded. "People think I'm important, too. My
grandfather says that I am. Sometimes he says it too
much. I'm not supposed to go out of sight of the
guards, but sometimes I do anyway."

Anne nodded, realizing quickly that this child was
even more unusual than she had first thought.
"Sometimes you need to be by yourself, I think," she
said. "Even if people tell you it's unsafe, or
dangerous, or..."

The girl nodded.

"But at your age-" Anne began.

"Please don't say that," the girl interrupted
quickly. "I have heard that so often that I never
want to hear it again."

Anne nodded. "I can understand that. But don't you
think your grandfather will be worried about you by
now?"

The girl thought for a moment. "No, I don't think so.
Eventually he will notice I'm gone, and then he'll
yell at someone, and they'll try to come and find me.
But it will take them a long time to figure out where
I've gone, because they really aren't very bright,
and until then I can do what I want and none of them
will bother me."

Before Anne could answer, an elderly man dressed in a
military uniform, one she was not familiar with,
stormed into the clearing. A beret with an equally
unfamiliar emblem sat slightly askew upon his head.

"Where is that damned girl?" he said, to himself,
probably, Anne thought, but his voice was both loud
and deep, and the sound of it carried.

Beside her the child cringed, and Anne felt a sudden
urge to sweep her up into her arms and carry her away
before this man got hold of her. She felt the girl
slip into hiding between herself and the rosebush,
her small hands holding tightly to the backs of
Anne's legs. Anne held very still so as not to give
the child away.

At last the old man's gaze turned to drill into her,
for there was no one else in the clearing that he
could see, and of course, already being here, he
couldn't simply turn and walk away. He would have to
speak to her first, to maintain his image and to
avoid looking a fool, even if only to someone whom he
would never see again.

His eyes were cold and dead, reminding her of a shark
she'd once seen on a childhood visit to an aquarium.
There was something harsh and unkind about his
features which once would have scared her, or one of
her personalities at any rate, into doing nothing at
all- but the Lady Anne of today simply met that dark
gaze and held it, as if it took little to no effort
at all.

"You, there, have you seen a little girl?" the old
man snarled. Even before he spoke to her, there had
been something about him that made her more than a
little uneasy, which might explain why she had
reacted so instinctively when the girl had hidden
behind her. But not until he addressed her directly
did Anne realize what sort of man she was dealing
with. There was something *not right* about him, as
there had been something not right about the cadet
she had known back at Victoria- a cadet who had been
among her few friends there before the Psych
department's medics had come for her. Anne did not
often allow herself to think of that friend, as she
had found the instance of her departure from the
academy greatly disturbing.

"I've seen any number of little girls today, sir,"
Anne said, "Some on the swings, others near the
sandbox-"

"Alright, alright," he growled. "Think you're funny,
don't you? The girl I'm looking for is about this
tall-" He held a hand above the ground, at a height
significantly lower than that of the child hiding
behind Anne "-red hair, green eyes-"

"Her eyes are blue, sir," said a voice from somewhere
behind him. "Like her-" Anne's eyes flicked in the
direction of that voice only long enough to note four
men with the look of hired soldiers about them, and
then she returned her gaze to the old man. The four
were obviously well-armed, but it was the old man
whom she sensed would be the greatest danger.

"What?" snapped the old man, waving a hand to cut off
whatever the other man might have gone on to say.
"Fine, whatever- red hair, blue eyes... What was she
wearing? Oh yes, a pink dress..."

Anne shook her head, pleased that she could now say
quiet honestly she had not seen this girl. The child
she'd met, and the one crouched behind her now, was
wearing black. "I'm sorry," she said, sounding quite
apologetic. "I'm afraid I haven't seen her. I do hope
you find her, though," she added.

His reply was an unintelligible grunt. "Damn that
girl!" the man swore as he stormed away, with the
others following.

When she was certain they were out of earshot, Anne
knelt beside the girl, who, although trying her best
to be brave, was trembling with fear.

"Your grandfather?" Anne asked.

The girl gave a shaky nod, and Anne shuddered. "I
can't imagine why a child like you should have to
live with someone like that. You said your mother has
died, but what of your father? Couldn't he-?"

"Oh," whispered the child, "I keep hoping he will,
but I don't think he knows I exist. I don't know
where to find him..."

"Well," said Anne, "can you tell me his name? I-
well, to be frank, I am a person of some importance
these days, and if he is alive anywhere in the world
or on any of the colonies, I can find him."

"Could you?" Tears filling her blue eyes, the girl
looked so hopeful that Anne thought her heart would
break. "His name is..." She looked around quickly, as
if to make certain she would not be overheard. "His
name is Treize Khushrenada."

Anne gasped, suddenly realizing why the child had
looked so very familiar to her. *Treize's daughter.
She's Treize's daughter.* They had known for years
that the child existed, and had tried very hard to
find him or her, but had been unsuccessful. If only
there was a way she could get the girl away from here
before the old man and his soldiers came back...

Then she thought, quite shocked: *Her eyes are blue.
Like her father's*. That was what the soldier had
been about to say before the old man had stopped him,
she was certain of it.

"And what's your name?" Anne asked, surprised that
there was no tremor in her voice. For though her
voice was calm, her thoughts were racing. *Treize,
I've found her. After all these years, I've found
her. And I will help her somehow, I must.*

"Mariemaia. Mariemaia Khushrenada. My grandfather
says I'm not supposed to tell people that, that I
should say my name is Barton, like his." Mariemaia
trembled. "But I know who my father is, and I admire
him so! I am proud to be his daughter. I've seen my
father, on television, and he looks like me. He looks
like me."

"Yes," Anne said, finding her voice again at last,
"He does."

"Grandfather hates him," Mariemaia told her. "But I
don't. He is my father, and when he speaks, what he
says makes so much sense. What my grandfather says is
different. I wonder sometimes if Grandfather is mad."
Somehow Anne knew by the tone of her voice that
Mariemaia meant not angry, but rather insane. And
after her brief exchange with Barton, she wondered it
as well.

"Mariemaia," Anne said, "you've seen your father on
television. Do you know who I am?"

Mariemaia studied her features. "You look quite a bit
like- Lady Une! I thought I recognized you, but I
wasn't sure. You're Lady Une?" She sounded as if she
had just found something amazing and wondrous,
thought by many to be only myth, but which she had
always known existed.

Anne smiled. "Close enough. My name is Anne; the
world knows me as Lady Une."

"Can you-?" Mariemaia started, but was never able to
finish, for just then her grandfather returned to the
clearing, his small knot of soldiers in tow. Anne was
uncertain what had drawn him back, but she cursed his
untimely arrival.

"There she is!" the old man exclaimed, pointing at
Mariemaia with the fingers of one thick hand.

Anne clutched Mariemaia to her, turning only her head
to face the old man and his men, having to look up at
them but somehow managing not to seem as if she were
doing it from even a slightly inferior position. "I
don't know who you think you are, or what you're
doing here," she said very, very coldly, "but you're
scaring this poor child to death, and I won't stand
for it."

"She's my granddaughter, and I'm taking her home,
now."

"No, I don't think you are," Anne told him.

"Listen to me, you arrogant twit. My name is Dekim
Barton. This is Mariemaia Barton-"

"Mariemaia Khushrenada!" the girl exclaimed. "Don't
you know who she is? Don't you?"

"I don't care-" Dekim Barton started.

"Shut up, Grandfather! Her name is Lady Une. She
works with my father. My *father*!"

Barton growled. "Your father is worse than useless,
girl, as is anyone he works with. Now come *here*."

"No. My father is a great man." She turned to Anne.
"I want to meet him."

"Enough of this," the old man said to one of his men.
"Get her."

Anne stood then, with Mariemaia in her arms. "Little
one, your father has been looking for you since the
day you were born. Did you know that?"

As the soldier drew closer, Anne straightened,
holding her head high. The man reached out for
Mariemaia, and she cringed away, while Anne swung a
delicate-looking fist into the man's face in an
anything but delicate blow.

"I've heard enough of this nonsense," Barton said
before Mariemaia could answer. He withdrew a pistol
from his coat and aimed it at Anne and the girl.
"Give her to me now, or-"

"Don't, Grandfather!" Mariemaia exclaimed.

"Be quiet, girl!" Barton said sharply. "Just shut up,
and this will all be over soon. Then we're going
home, and you're going to help me, just like we
talked about-"

Anne felt Mariemaia stiffen in her arms. "No!" the
girl told him. "I don't want to help you take over
the world, Grandfather."

"Now listen here, child. You're *going* to help me-"

"Grandfather!" Mariemaia exclaimed, pointing.

Anne saw immediately what had drawn the girl's
attention- her Preventers had found her at last, just
in time to see Barton draw his gun on the woman they
were assigned to protect. As she held Treize's child
in her arms, as she stared down the barrel of
Barton's gun, and as she considered the exchange of a
few instants ago, Anne made a split-second decision.
Slowly and deliberately she nodded, then whirled so
that her back was to Barton and the Preventers,
shielding Mariemaia from both the sight of what was
to come, as well as from any stray bullets.

Two shots rang out, and then a third. Anne heard a
loud thump- Barton, most likely -and a few more
shots, then the sound of footsteps retreating at a
run, as Barton's surviving soldiers fled. One of the
Preventers approached Anne and Mariemaia, while the
other retrieved the weapons carried by Barton and his
soldiers.

"Lady Une?" asked the Preventer, beside her now.

"I'm alright," she told him.

"You killed my grandfather," Mariemaia said very
frankly to the Preventer. "Thank you. If you hadn't
done that, he would have killed Lady Une, maybe both
of us."

He seemed more than a bit taken aback by this. "Who
is she?" he asked Anne.

"Her name is Mariemaia," Anne told him, "and she is
Colonel Treize's daughter. That is all you need to
know here and now."

He nodded. "Alright. Is she coming with us?"

Anne simply looked at him, shifting Mariemaia's
weight in her arms.

"I think that's a yes," said Mariemaia helpfully.

"These are all dead, ma'am," the second Preventer
said as he approached them. "Should we search them
for ID?"

Anne shook her head. "No. Call the local Preventers
and ask them to investigate this. They will need to
move fast, make certain they understand that."

"Yes, ma'am," the second Preventer said, then went to
make the call.

Anne, still holding Mariemaia in her arms, turned to
the first. "We'll be heading back now," she told him.
"You know where to find me. Please report as soon as
you learn anything at all."

He shook his head. "No, ma'am. We left you alone for
under an hour, and in that time, you were nearly
killed by the old man and his friends. I think it's a
very good idea for you to go back, but I'm going with
you."

Mariemaia was nodding slowly. "His logic is sound,"
she pointed out.

Anne nodded, one hand moving to stroke Mariemaia's
hair. "All of this must be quite a shock to you," she
said.

"Not really," Mariemaia told her. "It was hardly the
most horrible thing I've ever seen. Grandfather truly
meant to rule the world- he said that I would rule
it, and not him, but it was obvious from the
beginning what he meant to do. I never wanted to help
him, but he left me little choice. And my mother,
when she was alive, was almost as bad. She said I
could make up for the deficiencies in my lineage by
aiding in Grandfather's schemes... But there was
nothing *wrong* with my lineage, and I knew it even
if she didn't." Mariemaia sighed. "Mothers aren't
supposed to be like that, are they?"

"No," said Anne, "they are not."

* * *

Anne found Treize walking alone about the floor,
bandaged hands pushing the IV stand before him. She
started to hand Mariemaia off to Sally, who stood
nearby, but the girl did not seem to want anyone else
holding her, and so Anne followed Treize along the
hall, Mariemaia still in her arms.

"Treize?" Anne called.

Mariemaia's head jerked up at that. Her blue eyes
gazed at the man who stood, paused now in his walk,
with his back to him. His hair was more of an auburn,
while hers was a flaming red, but there was something
in the set of his shoulders that reminded her of what
she saw when she glanced into the mirror.

Treize turned, his eyes seeking Anne- and Mariemaia
gasped, for the eyes were the same, nearly identical
to her own in fact.

He smiled. "Ah, there you are. The fresh air seems to
have done you good- And who is this?"

Anne said softly, "Treize. Come here, please."

He raised an eyebrow, but asked no questions, only
turned the IV stand and made his way to where she
stood, rather quickly in fact, considering the shape
he was in.

"Anne?" Treize asked.

Mariemaia was still gazing at him, tears now filling
her eyes. "I never thought I would see you," she
whispered.

"Her name is Mariemaia," Anne said. "Mariemaia
Khushrenada. She's the one we've been searching for-
your daughter."

*My daughter,* Treize thought in wonder. *At last, my
daughter. She's beautiful. I had never thought she
would be so beautiful.*

"Hello," Mariemaia said. "Is it true what she says?
Have you really been searching for me?"

"Yes," Treize told her. "I never thought I'd see you
either, your mother and grandfather tried so very
hard to keep me from you..."

Mariemaia nodded. "Grandfather saw me talking to Lady
Anne. He was angry." She shivered at the all-too-
recent memory. "He was going to hurt us."

Treize's eyes narrowed at this. "Mariemaia, Anne...
are you two alright? If he has harmed you at all-"

Anne was shaking her head. "He very nearly did, but
my Preventers-" She sighed. "I never should have left
them. I'm only thankful they found me in time.
Barton's dead, but a few of his men got away."

"There are more, besides," Mariemaia said. "Lots
more. They'll be coming after me soon."

"Oh?" asked Treize.

"Yes. They'll still want me to play my part in
Grandfather's little scheme. But I won't do it, I
won't."

Anne smiled. She looked so much like Treize then, the
way her eyes turned to steel and the way her brow
furrowed, even the way she held herself.

Treize simply looked at her, still quite amazed by
the very sight of her. "Answer this for me: Do you
want to go with them?"

She shook her head emphatically. "No! I want to stay
with you. That is, if you... If you want me."

Treize swiped at his eyes with one bandaged hand.
"Little one, I have always wanted you."

Mariemaia leapt down from Anne's arms then, quickly
bridging the gap between herself and her father.
Treize, steadying himself against the IV stand, knelt
before her, and Mariemaia put her arms very gently
around his neck. He was touched by her obvious
concern for his injuries, and held her tightly as he
could.

"Hold on, now," Treize told her as he stood.
"Wouldn't want you to fall."

"I'm not hurting you, am I?" Mariemaia asked.

Treize smiled. "No, you're not."

"Alright." She was silent for a moment. "Do you
think- when I go to live with you, I could see Lady
Anne sometimes? She was very kind to me today, her
people saved my life, and I think that she did, too,
and I rather like her."

"Do you? Good. Because just this morning, I asked
Anne to marry me."

"Did she say yes?" the child asked.

"Yes, she did," Treize told her.

"That was very sensible of her," Mariemaia said.

Anne laughed. "She is very definitely her father's
daughter."

"I would like to be your daughter, too," Mariemaia
said very softly. "I never really had a mother,
and..."

"Oh, little one," Anne said. "Was she so cruel to
you?"

"Yes," the girl said. She burst into tears, sobbing
against Treize's shoulder. "I'm sorry," she said.
"I'm sorry..."

"No, no," Treize told her as he patted her shoulder.
"It's alright."

Anne produced a handkerchief, which she passed to
Mariemaia.

"Thank you," Mariemaia said, and blew her nose.

Sally approached them then, a chart in her hands. She
leaned up against the wall nearest them. "Good,
you're back. I've heard there was a bit of trouble in
the park..."

Mariemaia turned her tear-stained face towards Sally.
"She knows. We were directly involved with that."

"Which reminds me," said Anne, "Dr. Sally Po, meet
Mariemaia Khushrenada. I'd rather not discuss the
situation in great detail here, but suffice it to say
that the child may be in some danger. I think she
will stay close to us-" Mariemaia nodded "-but I'd
appreciate it if you would keep an eye on her, and
spread the word that she isn't to go anywhere, least
of all with anyone you don't recognize."

Sally nodded. "Pleasure to meet you, Mariemaia."

"Are you my father's doctor?" she asked.

"Yes, I am," Sally said, seeming hardly taken aback
by Mariemaia's question. If the girl's last name had
not told her anything, her resemblance to Treize
certainly did. And of course, it would not be just
any child the former commander of OZ would hold in
his arms.

"Are you taking good care of him?"

Sally smiled. "The best."

"Sally saved my life, you know," Treize told his
daughter.

"Thank you," said Mariemaia to Sally.

Treize shifted Mariemaia in his arms, and gasped in
pain.

"I'm sorry," Mariemaia said quickly as Anne moved to
take her from Treize.

"It's alright," Treize said. "It happens sometimes."

Sally's eyes narrowed. "Alright, I think you've had
your exercise for the morning. Back to bed with you."

"Doctor-"

"Now," Sally said.

Treize glanced at Anne, but she somehow managed to
appear very disapproving indeed, even while holding a
seven year old child in her arms, and the child
herself looked none too pleased. He sighed.

"Majority rules, it seems. As you wish, ladies."

Anne and Mariemaia nodded to one another; Sally
nodded her approval, and trailed the trio back
towards Treize's room, where Anne helped him into
bed.

"When do you think he will be able to come home?"
Mariemaia asked Sally.

"I'm not sure yet," Sally told her. "But soon. Within
the week, is what I told him, and I still think
that's likely."

Mariemaia nodded. She then turned to Treize, seeming
suddenly very concerned. "Do you- have room for me,
where you live?"

Treize burst out laughing. "I'm sorry, my dear- Yes,
I most certainly do. You'll have your choice of
rooms, in fact, and if the decor isn't entirely
appropriate for a little girl, well, we can fix
that."

Mariemaia smiled. "Alright."

Treize kissed Mariemaia's forehead. "I hope you don't
mind staying with Anne for a while, though, little
one."

"No, not at all," Mariemaia said. "We'll be fine,
won't we, Anne?"

"Yes," Anne said, as she took Mariemaia's hand and
led her from the room. Sally followed.

"You certainly know how to liven things up around
here," Sally said teasingly to Anne.

"Yes, and just think- if you hadn't called me, I
wouldn't be here."

"I *had* to call you," Sally replied. "I wanted to do
it sooner, but..."

"Treize has explained his reasons to me," Anne said,
with a glance at Mariemaia which said clearly that
she did not wish to speak farther of this in front of
the girl. Certainly Mariemaia was above average for a
child of her age; that much Anne could see clearly
even having only known her a short time. But even so
there were things which she hardly thought the girl
ready for.

Aside from which was the fact that Mariemaia had
already seen and heard far more than anyone her age
should have to, and she did not need to know how
close to death her father had come, let alone that
Anne and many others had thought him dead. In Anne's
mind, the less was said about that, the better.

Taking Mariemaia by the hand, Anne led her to the
sixth floor visitor's lounge. She was surprised to
note that neither of the Preventers was anywhere in
sight, and after a moment's thought, decided they
were most likely availing themselves of the room's
coffee maker.

"I'm afraid this is home for now," Anne said
apologetically. "It really isn't much, but..."

Mariemaia shrugged. "I'm sure it's fine. Where are
your Preventers?"

"I don't know," said Anne, carefully pushing the door
open. "Stay back."

She stepped cautiously into the room, and found
herself looking down the barrel of a gun.

"Bang," said Lucrezia Noin. "You're dead." She turned
to Milliardo Peacecraft, standing beside her, and
said as she holstered the gun, "I told you she could
use our help."

Anne sighed. "Where are my Preventers?"

"Right here, Lady," Milliardo said with a bow. "Wind
and Fire, at your service."

"I sent you to Victoria."

"We finished there," Noin explained. "And rumor has
it you've had some trouble here."

"I've never cared for rumors," Anne said with a small
sigh.

"Neither have I," Milliardo told her. "But
occasionally there's some truth to them."

"And there was truth to the rumors that brought us
here, wasn't there?" Noin asked.

"You might say that," Anne said.

"Now, Lady," Noin said, "tell us what you did wrong."

Anne sighed again. "I walked straight into the room,
despite the fact that in the absence of the
Preventers, something could have been very wrong.
And- I'm sure you'll both be quite pleased to hear
this -I'm unarmed."

The pair exchanged looks, and Noin shook her head.
"Lady, that was none too bright."

"Thank you," Anne said. "I believe I did do one thing
right, though. Mariemaia?" she called out. "It's
alright. Come here, please."

Mariemaia obediently appeared in the doorway.
"Hello," she said.

"Hi," Noin said, smiling at her. "She's lovely, Lady.
Yours?"

Anne smiled. "Not quite. This is Mariemaia
Khushrenada, Treize's daughter."

Noin's jaw dropped. "What?"

"So you found her at last," Milliardo said. "Treize
would have been...pleased, I think."

"He is," Anne told him. "Believe me, he is."

Milliardo looked at her in shock. "You can't possibly
mean what I think you mean." *I thought she seemed
different, somehow, but I never would have guessed
she would end up like this...*

"Sit down," Anne told the pair, motioning them to one
of the cots, and Mariemaia to the other. "A lot has
happened..."

* * *

After Lady Une- Lady Anne, he reminded himself -
finished telling her story, which took some time,
Milliardo left Noin with Anne and Mariemaia, and
walked towards room 613.

He knocked upon the door, and waited until he heard
Treize's voice call out, "Come in." Then he took a
deep breath, pushed the door open, and stepped
through.

"Hello, old friend," Milliardo said. "Mind if I come
in?"

Treize shook his head slowly. "Milliardo! No, of
course not. Here." He gestured towards the chair at
his bedside. "Sit down, please. What on Earth are you
doing here?"

"Visiting my sister," Milliardo said, quite
seriously. "No, actually, the Preventers' grapevine
is only second to that of OZ and, that being the
case, Lucrezia and I heard there might be some
trouble in Cinq. We came as soon as we could."

Treize nodded. "You've spoken with Anne?"

"Yes, and also met Mariemaia. Charming girl."

"Isn't she?" Treize asked. "And, I take it, you and
Ms. Noin were surprised to hear I was alive?"

"Frankly, for a minute or so I thought Une- Anne,
that is -had really lost it. But both your daughter
and Sally Po said you were here, and I am glad that
you are."

"Admit it, you missed me," Treize said teasingly.

"I did *not*."

"Of course you did," Treize told him. "You wouldn't
know what to do without me."

Milliardo shook his head. "Such ego, old friend."

"Ah, but I'm entitled. Here I sit, wrapped in yards
of gauze and bandages, endlessly suffering. And, of
course, having a bright and beautiful woman by my
side throughout..."

Milliardo laughed. "No one who knows us will ever in
a million years believe that you were the prankster
when we were children, but anyone who sees that
devilish gleam in your eye would believe that now."

"But I am a handsome devil, you must admit."

"You, Treize, are going to be fine in no time at all,
with *that* sense of humor," Milliardo said, clapping
him on the shoulder. "I'll let you rest now. I only
wanted to stop in and say hello."

"Thanks," Treize said. He paused. "Milliardo?"

"Yes?"

"Guard them well for me, you and Noin."

"We will."

"And, Milliardo? Anne has her pride, you know that-
I've known her without it, and I wouldn't have it
taken from her for all the world. You shouldn't let
what you're doing be too obvious, or she'll object.
She has Mariemaia to think of, but even so..."

Milliardo nodded. "I don't know that I can deal with
Anne as well as you, but that's why I brought Noin."

"Who, of course, would say that she *insisted* on
coming, and there wasn't a damn thing you could do to
stop her."

"And if she does say that, I won't argue with her,"
Milliardo said.

"That's wise of you, Milliardo."

* * *

"-And we happened to stop by the castle to see Relena
yesterday," Noin was explaining to Anne as they
walked into the lobby. "Seeing as how we're so close,
and all. And Milliardo just *happened* to mention
that we could maybe use a little backup..."

Anne sighed. "Noin-"

"So," Noin went on, "You'll have a half-dozen Cinq
protectors here within the hour. Oh, and Relena says
there's absolutely no reason for you to camp out here
until Treize is released. You're more than welcome to
stay with her, both you and Mariemaia."

"Thank Relena for me, please, and tell her I'll
consider it."

"Anne."

"Yes?"

"I spoke to Treize about this, and he said we were to
drag you there if you wouldn't go willingly."

"He said that? Well. We'll see-"

"Momma!" a voice exclaimed, an instant or so before
the red-haired mass of energy that was Mariemaia
threw herself into Anne's arms. Anne caught her, and
spun her 'round the room with a smile.

"Miss me, little one?" Anne asked softly, her voice
catching in her throat. *Momma. She called me
'Momma'. It's only been a week since she asked me
about the roses in the park, and now, already, this.
It's like a dream, to be a mother to Treize's
daughter. And if she isn't mine biologically, no one
would ever know it.*

"Yes," Mariemaia said. "Are you keeping her out of
trouble, Miss Noin?"

Noin laughed. "I'm trying, Mariemaia."

Mariemaia nodded. "Good."

Anne smiled, hugged the girl, and set her down.
"Let's go upstairs, shall we?"

"Yes!" Mariemaia exclaimed. "We have a surprise for
you, Momma."

"A surprise?" Anne asked.

"Yes," Mariemaia said. "But you have to come upstairs
to see."

"Alright," Anne said. She took Mariemaia's hand, and
led the way towards the elevator, with Noin following
a step behind.

When they left the elevator upon the sixth floor,
Mariemaia pulled away from Anne and skipped off down
the hall. Anne dashed after her.

"Mariemaia!" she called. They'd neither seen nor
heard anything from Barton's army, but were all still
quite wary of that. Anne and the others tended to be
a bit more protective of Mariemaia than might have
been strictly necessary- but none of them wanted to
take chances with the life of the little girl they
had only so recently met.

"It's okay," Mariemaia called over her shoulder. She
slowed, and walked up to Milliardo, who was standing
guard outside the visitors' lounge. She gave him a
crisp salute, which he returned with a smile.
Mariemaia pulled open the door, and gestured Anne and
Noin to precede her inside.

Anne smiled at the girl's enthusiasm, and her
strange, child-like seriousness. Then she stepped
through the door.

She gasped, and Noin was beside her in an instant,
her gun drawn. "What-?" She cut herself off as Anne
stepped forward, as she quickened her pace, until she
was running towards the man who stood across the
room, leaning against the wall beside the window. His
hospital gown and robe were gone, and in their place
he wore simple, if well-tailored, civilian clothes.
To Anne, the sight of him was wonderful.

"Treize," Anne said as she went to him. "Your
bandages-"

"Gone." He smiled. "We took them off while you were
out. Sally pulled the IV."

"Well, go *on*," Mariemaia said, giving Anne a gentle
push forward.

She kissed his cheek. Behind her, Mariemaia pouted.

Treize shook his head. "That will never do," he said,
before wrapping his arms 'round Anne. She returned
the embrace gently, wanting to be careful not to hurt
him. "It's alright," he told her quietly. "I'm much
better now."

"Are you?" Anne asked with a smile.

Noin turned to Milliardo. "What do you say we wait
outside, huh?"

Milliardo nodded. "Good idea. Mariemaia, you coming?"

"No," said Mariemaia, who was standing beside the
sink. "I'm getting a glass of water. Would anyone
else like one?"

Several "No, thank you"s answered her, and Noin and
Milliardo departed the room, closing the door behind
them.

"I'm getting out of here today," Treize said. He'd
gone from leaning up against the wall to sitting upon
the couch, his arms still around Anne.

"What wonderful news," she said, and meant it.

"Yes." Treize drew her closer. "Have I mentioned how
glad I am you're here?"

"Once or twice, I think."

He took her face between his hands, the right still
in its cast, but the other bare now save for a small
patch of gauze. Anne reached up to place her own
hands over his, fingers tracing the new scarring of
his burns, and she trembled.

"If you ever," she whispered, "do something so
foolish, so stupid, so reckless again, I will kill
you myself, I swear it!" Her final words, while
neither harsh nor loud, struck him as a slap would
have, and a tear sprang to his eye. She kissed it
away, then drew back, still holding his hands upon
her face. "Understand?" she whispered.

"Yes." He kissed her then, gently, deeply. "Anne..."

"Father!"

Mariemaia's shout startled them both, and their heads
snapped up as one. The girl, a look of pure terror
upon her face, ran to them, clutching Anne's shoulder
with a trembling hand. "Father... Grandfather's men!"

"Where?" Treize asked, his eyes, a moment ago dark
with passion, searched sharply now, as a bird of prey
might survey its hunting grounds.

Before Mariemaia could answer, the first hail of
bullets shattered through the glass of the window.
Anne fumbled for the sidearm she no longer wore, fury
sparking in her eyes.

Treize folded his body over his fiancée and daughter,
holding them down, one arm clutching Mariemaia, the
other Anne. And, being himself unarmed- *Stupid,
that,* he thought, *and I won't make that mistake
again* -he did the only thing he *could* do, which
was to call for help. "Preventers! Quickly!"

By the time he had shouted the first words, Lucrezia
Noin and Milliardo Peacecraft had already burst
through the door, guns drawn.

Mariemaia's quiet sobbing could be heard faintly, as
could Anne's attempts to hush her. But neither
Preventer spared them a glance.

"Stay down!" Noin advised, sighting through what
little remained of the window. She fired off three
shots in rapid succession, then waved Milliardo out
the door. "Go! They're on the roof of the next
building. Call the Cinq."

"Are you sure-?" Milliardo began.

"I can handle this. Go, now."

Milliardo went. Noin took several more shots, then
ducked beside the counter to reload. In the interim,
those who had survived Noin's last volley returned
fire. Treize cried out softly, and Noin glanced
towards him quickly, dismayed to see blood spreading
across his shirt, near the right shoulder.

The door opened slowly, and Jennifer, the volunteer,
stuck her head in. "What's going on? I heard noise-"

"Get DOWN!" Noin snapped. "Stupid girl," she muttered
to herself, raising the gun again. "Get down and
*stay* down."

Jennifer dove for the carpet, but immediately raised
her head. "Oh my God- Mr. Khushrenada, are you
alright? I'd better get the doctor..."

Treize didn't bother to answer her, instead glancing
over at Noin. "I'm alright. How're you doing?"

"Never been better, thanks," Noin replied. "I think I
got them all-" In the distance there was the sound of
more gunfire. Noin sighed. "Or not."

They all heard the shout, then: "Freeze! Cinq
Protectors!" Noin peered out the window, cautiously,
and saw the surviving shooters dropping their weapons
and raising their arms in surrender. Standing amidst
the Protectors, mopping sweat from his brow, was
Milliardo.

"Yes!" Noin exclaimed. She glanced at her watch. "He
could've run a little faster, though..."

Treize shook his head as he sat up, reaching out his
good hand first to help Anne, then again to help
Mariemaia. "Personally... I think he did well
enough."

Noin nodded, holstering her pistol, as she approached
Jennifer. "Hey. You alright, Jennifer? Jennifer."

"She seems to have fainted," Mariemaia said.

"Well, then," said Noin. "*I'll* get the doctor."

"Alright," Treize said. Then: "Wait. Lucrezia...
Thank you."

Noin inclined her head slightly to indicate she had
heard, and stepped out into the hall.

Treize sat back and drew a deep breath. "Is everyone
okay?"

"I think so," Mariemaia said. "Father- they shot
you."

"Yes, but it's not bad. Anne?"

She shuddered. "I'm okay. I just- never realized how
horrible it could be to have people shooting at you.
At you, and at your family."

The three were huddled close together when Noin
returned with Sally Po, and Mariemaia seemed
reluctant to let go.

Sally shook her head and sighed. "Where were you
hit?"

"Shoulder," Treize said, turning to show her.

"Alright. It's back to the room for you, I'm afraid.
It's not too far in, and I think I ought to pull it.
It *could* work its way out on its own, but it'll
hurt more if it does."

"Pull it, then. Please."

Sally nodded, stepping over Jennifer to help Treize
and the others stand. She looked back over her
shoulder at the volunteer. "Is she alright?"

"Fainted," Mariemaia explained for the second time.

"I'm not surprised," Sally replied. "Alright- let's
go."

* * *

Mariemaia dropped herself into the chair in Treize's
room, while Sally and Anne sat her father upon the
bed. Sally went to fetch her instruments, shooing
Noin out as she did so. She tried to gather Mariemaia
with her eyes and expel her from the room as well,
but Mariemaia was having none of it, and she simply
ignored the doctor until she was gone.

Anne, meanwhile, was helping Treize out of his shirt.
"It doesn't look too bad," she said.

"It's not, really," he replied. "Just bad enough to
keep me here a bit longer than I'd have liked."

Mariemaia sighed.

"So," said Treize as he leaned back against the
pillows, waiting for Sally's return, "were those the
gentlemen you two made the acquaintance of in the
park?"

Anne nodded. "Yes. Well, I met them there, at least.
Mariemaia had already had the dubious honor."

"I see. Mariemaia, how many of them are there? Just a
rough estimate will do for now."

Mariemaia appeared thoughtful for a moment. "I'm not
sure. A few hundred, at least."

"Hmm. And we've accounted for maybe a dozen." He
turned his gaze to Anne. "Lady, I would like you to
take Mariemaia and go to see Relena. I'd like the two
of you to stay with her until this is over."

Anne nodded. "Under the circumstances, I don't think
I have much room to argue. But what about you?"

Treize smiled. "How quickly we forget, Lady. My
safety is no longer your responsibility."

"Yes, it is," Anne said. "It is no longer my *duty*,
but I still consider it my responsibility."

Treize nodded. "Granted. But I would like you to take
both of the Preventers with you when you go."

Anne shook her head. "Absolutely not. Mariemaia and I
will have a castle full of Cinq Protectors with us;
you will have only Sally and hospital security, which
is, I'm sorry to say, worse than useless. I will take
*one* of the Preventers, and you have my word that I
will keep that one with me at all times. The other,
however, stays with you."

Mariemaia was nodding. "That sounds more than fair to
me. Which of them is he more likely to listen to?"

"Milliardo," Anne said at once.

Treize sighed. "So be it, then. But you, Anne, and
Mariemaia will go with Noin to Relena, and *stay
there*."

Anne nodded, saluting sharply. "Sir."

Sally returned then, with Noin and Milliardo trailing
behind, looking cross. She turned around to glare at
the two Preventers, neither of whom seemed to be
paying the slightest bit of attention to her.

"They refuse to wait in the hall," Sally explained,
"and so they'd best keep out of my way." She opened a
small case and withdrew a few instruments. "On second
thought- Noin, hold this."

Treize watched Sally work for a few moments, then
turned his attention to the Preventers. "Lucrezia,
Milliardo. As soon as Sally finishes up here, Anne
and Mariemaia are going to see Relena."

"And stay there, I hope?" Sally asked.

"So Anne has promised me, yes."

Sally nodded. "Good."

"Lucrezia, you'll be going with them," Treize went
on, "and Milliardo will stay with me."

* * *

Relena Peacecraft paced her way along a balcony, her
eyes constantly scanning the mountain road which was
the only possible means of approaching the castle
where she herself had lived as a child, though she
had little if any memory of it.

"Do you think they'll come?" asked the voice of
Dorothy Catalonia from somewhere behind her.

Relena turned to face her. "I think they'd better.
They obviously aren't safe where they are."

Dorothy nodded. "I don't know if you heard or not-
there was another 'incident' earlier this morning."

"Oh no," Relena said. "Is everyone okay?"

"As far as I know," Dorothy replied. She sighed. "Do
you think Lady Une will listen to Noin, and come
here?"

Relena shrugged. "Who can say? Your cousin's death
has hit her very hard."

"I know. I think if anything she was probably closer
to him than I was." Dorothy shook her head, sending
her long blonde hair swinging over her back and
shoulders. "I should probably talk to her, if she'll
let me, but..."

Relena nodded. "It's almost like you knew and cared
for two different people, isn't it?"

The other young woman nodded. "Yeah."

They watched in silence as the car pulled to a stop
at the front gates and three figures, two of them
women slightly older than Dorothy and Relena, and the
third very young, stepped through the gates.

"Oh," said Relena. "Good, they're here. Let's go,
Dorothy."

Dorothy nodded, and they made their way quickly
through the halls towards the castle's main entrance,
where they met Noin, Lady Une, and a very pretty
little girl neither of them recognized.

Relena smiled softly at her guests. "Hello, everyone.
I'm glad you could make it." She stepped forward and
took Une's hands. "Lady Une, words cannot express my
sorrow at your loss."

Une simply smiled, bemused, and turned to regard
Relena's companion. "Dorothy!" She gave Relena's
shoulder a quick pat, then turned to embrace Treize's
cousin.

"Lady, my condolences," murmured Dorothy.

Une laughed, a rich, joyous sound. "Oh, Dorothy..."
She smiled and shook her head. "I think we had best
go inside. I've got news, and you'll want to hear it
sitting down. Come, Mariemaia."

Dorothy and Relena exchanged looks of concern before
following Une and the little girl, and Relena glanced
questioningly at Noin.

"What's going on?" Relena asked her softly. "And
where's my brother?"

"There was something we needed him to take care of,"
Noin said at last. "As for the rest- you'll have to
hear it from Lady Anne."

"Lady Anne?" Relena asked.

Noin gestured to Une.

"Oh." Relena paused. "I would dearly love for someone
to explain what's going on here..."

"Anne will do it," Noin told her, "as soon as we get
inside. She's right about your needing to hear this
sitting down."

"Alright," Relena said.

Noin seemed to sense her impatience to hear Une's-
Anne's- news, for she added, "I'll tell you this,
though. No matter how it may seem, she isn't crazy."

Relena's expression seemed to indicate that she had
her doubts about that, but if that was the case, she
kept those doubts to herself as she followed her
guests inside.

* * *

"Oh," Dorothy gasped. Then she turned the full force
of her glare upon Anne. "I'm quite surprised that
you, of all people, would play such a cruel trick,
Lady. I know that you loved my cousin, and I can't
believe he'd think well of you for this."

Anne shook her head. "Dorothy, I can assure you-"

"My father's not dead," Mariemaia interrupted.
"Everyone seems to think he is, but he was just hurt
badly, not killed. He sent us here; I don't think
she'd have agreed to come otherwise." The child
gestured to Anne.

"Noin?" asked Dorothy.

Noin nodded slightly. "About a month ago now, Sally
Po and I were working with the medical teams
searching for survivors in the battle we all believed
that Treize died in. We found him, fairly bad off,
but still breathing, in what was left of Tallgeese
II. We didn't know who he was at first, but he kept
muttering something that sounded like 'Une', and the
more I looked at him, the more I thought he could be-
But of course he couldn't, and we all knew that. So
Sally ran his retinal prints."

Silence filled the room, a thick, impatient silence,
waiting for Noin to finish her tale. Although every
person in the room knew how it was going to end, now.
May have known it in fact from Lady Anne's first
words, but had not been able to accept it until now.

"By the time he regained consciousness, I'd already
left Cinq for Victoria." Noin smiled. "Lady Anne
ordered me there shortly after the battle. Then she
sent me my new partner."

Relena laughed softly. "Not Milliardo."

"The very same," said Noin. "Then, Lady Anne here
decides to go for a walk in the park-"

"After Treize proposed to her, don't leave that part
out," said Dorothy.

"Right. After that, Anne takes her walk, meets up
with Mariemaia, and even we heard about it down in
Victoria when Barton's people attacked them. We, ah,
very quickly finished our work at Lake Victoria..."

"Yes, and you're going to have to go back and clean
up your, ah, quickly finished work, unless I miss my
guess," Mariemaia said.

Dorothy smiled. "Ah, there's no doubt now, is there?
You are *certainly* Treize's daughter."

"Thank you," said Mariemaia.

"As I was saying," Noin went on. "It seemed like Lady
Anne could use the two of us to watch her back, so we
came here to Cinq, and heard more or less what you
just did."

"Except," Anne said, "there have been a few more
developments since then."

"Yes," said Mariemaia. "My grandfather's men tried to
kill us." She placed no special emphasis on the word
'tried', and yet most of them sensed it anyway.
"Shortly thereafter, Father convinced us we'd be
safer here. We left the other Preventer, Relena's
brother?" At Anne's nod she went on. "We left
Relena's brother to look after Father, and here we
are."

"I want to see him," Dorothy said. "It's not that I
don't believe any of you- of course I do. I just-
want to see him. Can I?"

"Of course," Anne told her. "You can come with me the
next time I go to see him."

"Thanks," Dorothy replied. She then gave Anne a
rather long, searching look. "He'll be alright, won't
he?" she asked, concern clearly evident in her eyes
although she tried to hide it.

"Yes," Anne promised her. "He'll be alright, Dorothy.
He should, in fact, be able to leave the hospital
fairly soon."

"He was *going* to be able to come home," said
Mariemaia sullenly. "Till he got shot, anyway."

Dorothy nodded. "Your grandfather's soldiers, little
sister, have lousy aim."

"Thank God," said Mariemaia.

One of Relena's retainers stepped into the room then,
a rather serious expression upon his face.

"What is it?" Relena asked.

"Miss Relena, there are some...people at the gate who
insist that they have urgent business with one of
your guests."

"Who are they?" Relena asked.

"They're soldiers, miss."

Mariemaia sighed. "They're never going to go away,
are they?"

"Oh, yes they are," Anne said.

Dorothy reached out to touch her arm. "You stay here.
We'll take care of this. Come with me, Mariemaia."

"What are you going to do?" the girl asked.

"You'll see." She held out her arms to Mariemaia, and
she nodded seriously. Dorothy picked her up and
carried her from the room.

Anne raised an eyebrow at her companions.

"If Dorothy says she can take care of it, she can,"
Relena said.

Anne was not convinced, however. Treize's cousin
Dorothy might have been, but when last she had spoken
to her, Anne and Dorothy had not exactly shared the
same ideals. "Relena-"

Relena shook her head. "Anne, I wouldn't ask Dorothy
to speak for Cinq on the topics of war and peace, but
I can and do trust her to fight for the right things,
if she must fight at all."

"I'm sorry," Anne said. "Perhaps I shouldn't judge
her. We've all of us been judged wrongly a time or
two, haven't we?"

"A few times too often, yes," Relena agreed.

* * *

Dorothy carried Mariemaia towards the gate, her step
determined.

"Are you sure about this?" Mariemaia asked quietly.
She was, Dorothy thought, doing her best to present a
brave front, but quite clearly she was frightened of
these men and what they might do.

"Absolutely," Dorothy told her. "To be honest with
you, kid, I've just about had it with other people's
armies harassing my friends. Not to mention my
relations. Just follow my lead, alright?"

The girl nodded. They reached the gates then, and the
Cinq Protectors lined up behind the gates parted
smoothly to allow Dorothy and Mariemaia to pass.

"Hello," Dorothy called out to the soldiers.

"You will give us the child Mariemaia Barton at
once," said the soldier in the lead.

"Oh, I don't think so," Dorothy said.

"We have our orders, miss."

"And I have mine. Aside from which, I don't know of
anyone by that name. My companion here is Mariemaia
Khushrenada. She is my cousin's daughter, and we are
looking after him until such time as he's released
from the hospital."

"Where, might I add," Mariemaia put in, "you put
him."

"Us, child?" the man asked with rather badly feigned
innocence.

Mariemaia sighed. "Not you personally, no. But
despite my youth I'm hardly stupid; I remember you.
And I was also in the room when your friends decided
to use my father for target practice."

"Speaking of which," said Dorothy, "might I suggest
perhaps a bit *more* practice? Your aim is simply
dreadful."

"Listen, miss-"

"No," Dorothy said sharply. "*You* listen. The old
man is dead. Mariemaia is with us now, and that's
where she's going to stay."

"You can't keep her," the soldier said.

"Oh really?" Dorothy asked. "How interesting. I've
got a small army of Protectors here, not to mention
eight inches of good solid steel, that says I can.
That says, in fact, I can do a lot of things."

"But you are pacifists."

Dorothy laughed softly. "No. The Peacecrafts are
pacifists, and my friends within the Preventers wish
to see as little blood shed in the near future as is
possible. I, however, think that there are things
still worth fighting for, and I will fight for those.
I will fight for those! So let me give you a word of
advice- leave now, leave Mariemaia in the hands of
people who actually give a damn about what happens to
her, and never show your faces here again. If you do,
I will personally kill every last one of you."

"You can't possibly-"

"Try me," Dorothy snapped. She met the soldier's eyes
and proceeded to stare him down, blue eyes hard as
diamonds and as cold as ice. Some time later, when
that eye contact was broken, it was the solider who
looked away.

He snapped out an order to his men, who grumbled
amongst themselves. The leader repeated the order,
and then led the march away from the Cinq Castle
gates.

"Thank you," Mariemaia said.

"You're welcome."

"Would you really have-?" the girl began.

"Oh yes. I most certainly would have."

Mariemaia nodded. "Somehow I thought so." She paused.
"Do you think we've really seen the last of them?"

"Somehow I kind of doubt it. I didn't even have to
hurt anyone, and that's usually a good sign they
haven't been convinced to see things my way yet.
But," and here Dorothy smiled, "by the time they get
up the courage to come back, I'd be willing to bet
that your father will be home. And I would really
like to see them try and take you from Treize."

As they headed back inside, they found Anne waiting
for them upon the walk. Dorothy sighed when she saw
her. "Lady, I asked you-"

"I know, Dorothy. And you're very good, better than I
remembered. But I didn't want anything to happen, to
you or to Mariemaia."

Dorothy nodded. "A little good backup never hurt
anyone."

Anne smiled. "Indeed. Are they gone, do you think?"

"For now, at least," Mariemaia said. She then shared
Dorothy's thought about Treize, and Anne threw back
her head and laughed before gathering the two of them
into her arms and hugging them.

"Oh, my dears, I think that one way or another, our
troubles with the Barton armies are over."

* * *

Approximately six months later...

Anne Khushrenada stood upon the grounds of the
estate, watching as her husband chased their
daughter, Mariemaia, across the great expanse of
lawn, both of them laughing and clearly enjoying the
game.

"Tag!" Treize announced gleefully as he at last
caught up with the girl and tapped her lightly on the
head. "You're it." He then collapsed into the grass
with feigned exhaustion. He was in fact hardly even
winded, but wanted the opportunity to watch his
daughter, still amazed by the very sight of her even
after all this time. So he lay there on the grass and
watched as Mariemaia ran to Anne, who held out her
arms to the child.

"Momma!" she exclaimed. From his place in the grass,
Treize saw Anne smile. She still seemed to find sight
and sound of Mariemaia as amazing as Treize himself
did, and Anne's own wonder at this was ever a sight
to behold.

Treize raised a hand and waved it at his wife and
daughter. "Help an old man up?" he asked.

Anne laughed. "Old? Not a chance." She set Mariemaia
down, and the two of them approached Treize. Anne
held out a hand, but Mariemaia was faster, reaching
out to tap her father on the shoulder.

"Tag," the little girl said with a mischievous grin.

Treize sighed mock-tragically. "You're going to run
me into the ground yet, Mariemaia."

"Didn't I just?" she asked.

Treize laughed and shook his head. "Yes. You did." He
reached out a hand to Anne, and, as she started to
help him to his feet, drew her, instead, into the
grass beside him.

Mariemaia watched them for a moment, but looked up at
the sound of a car door slamming. "They're here,
they're here!" she exclaimed.

Anne smiled. "Go on. We'll be along soon."

Mariemaia dashed off to greet her parents' guests,
including 'Uncle' Milliardo and 'Auntie' Lucrezia.
Treize and Anne, meanwhile, remained where they were.

"Tag," Treize said quietly.

"How is-?" Anne started to ask.

"My leg is fine, my arm is fine, my shoulder is fine.
My hands are fine, as is everything else."

She laughed softly. "Alright. I suppose Sally was
right- you *have* made a more or less full recovery."

"More or less," he agreed. "I still have occasion to
regret eating so much hospital food, though."

"Which, I think, only goes to show that you've
recovered mentally as well."

"I think I have that, as much as I ever will."

Anne nodded slowly. "Have you given any more thought
to the Preventers?"

"Yes. And I'm afraid the answer's still no. I admire
you, Anne, you and your organization both. Those are
lofty goals you have set- and I'd like to believe
that you can reach them. But I... I'm tired. I have
more than earned my peace."

"Yes," she agreed, "you have. And it suits you. I
wasn't sure it would, but it does."

"Which may be thanks to you and Mariemaia."

"In part, I think." She smiled. "What do you say we
go and greet our guests?"

"I say, let's give them a few more moments to spoil
her ridiculously before we make our appearance and
they have to stop. Besides, it is lovely here, and I
thought I'd take a moment or two to enjoy the
view..."

"Treize," Anne said, a blush creeping across her
cheeks. "Really..."

"I still fail to understand why comments like that
embarrass you, my dear."

Anne shook her head. "Men," was all she said.

He laughed. "You do look lovely, my dear."

"I have grass in my hair," she protested. "And-"

"Enough," Treize said, drawing her into his arms and
brushing her lips lightly with his. They remained
still, each savoring that moment for a time before
they drew away from each other. Treize offered his
hand to Anne; she took it, and they stood together.

"My lady." Treize bowed over her hand and kissed it
gently. "Shall we?" he asked, gesturing.

"Certainly," was Anne's reply.