Title: A Peace to Replace Justice

Author: Something Like Human

Rating: T

Pairings: 2x5, past 5xM

Warnings: Nothing that I can think of yet.

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing. Right now, I've been taken prisoner by Long Meilan and she is demanding that I write her.

POV: Wu Fei

"Nataku," the name seemed almost foreign on my lips. She looked at me curiously when I said it. Duo had perked up from talking to the little girl to look between the two of us. His mouth dropped open as the realization dawned on him as to what I had said. I watched him for a moment until he looked down at the child holding his hand. He then looked at me and I could see the thought he was having when he looked at me.

"All the words that you used to use and that's all that you can say?" The young woman said with a smirk on her face.

Shaken from my stupor, I looked back at her, "There are too many things that I want to say but I think right now, you are the one who needs to do the talking. Not that you ever had a problem with that either."

We stared at each other. Duo then broke the silence by addressing the little girl, "I think these two grownups need to talk for a bit. How about we go find a snack? I think I have some cookies at my desk. Would you like to help me go get them?"

The little girl looked back to the woman who just nodded at her. "I would like some cookies."

He led the little girl past me to leave the conference room. His office was several floors down so it would take them a while to get there and back. We had some time to talk. I looked at the child as she walked by though. I don't know what I was expecting to see though. She seemed healthy.

"So what did you want me to talk about?" Even after all this time, her smirk was still infuriating.

"Can we start with how you're not dead and then move on to why I wasn't told that you were alive?"

"Let me sit down first," she said. I watched as she glanced around her to where she had been sitting before. She reached out and grabbed a cane that I had not noticed leaning against the chair before. I watched dumbfounded as she walked over to the empty chair opposite of me. She leaned heavily on the cane and strongly favored her right leg as she walked. "Are you sure she is safe with that other man?"

"The girl? They only thing you have to worry about with her being with Preventer Maxwell is the number of cookies she will eat. He'll return her safe and sound but probably on a sugar rush."

"Figures," she said sitting down gently. She kept the cane in her hands though. She played with it nervously. "I was dead. They resuscitated me after the battle. My heart had stopped for a few minutes but they were able to bring me back. As you can see, my pelvis was crushed as well. Recovery was a hellish experience."

"But why did they tell me that you had died? I went to your funeral!"

"I was told later that they thought my death would motivate you to fight in a way that they had not been able to otherwise," she said dismissively. She tucked her loose hair behind her ear. I had rarely seen it loose when we were yonger. It was really only the few times we had spent the night together to consumate our marriage as the elders wanted that I had seen her not have her hair up in pigtails. "I told them that they were full of it but I guess that they were right."

"They manipulated me!" I said angrily. I wanted to be angry at her since she was there in front of me but I knew that it was not her fault. Judging from the extent of her injuries, she was in no way able to defy them or to get a message to me. Within days of her death, I was fully immersed into training with the mobile suit.

"You're shocked by this? After they forced us to marry just so you had enough standing in the Clan to pilot the suit because they thought you were the most suited for it. Then they blew up the entire colony just so you would keep fighting? Well, it was supposed to be because they didn't want to be used against you but I'm pretty sure it was because they wanted to be used against you in the way they wanted to."

I shook my head. I was angry at them for everything that they had done to me. "Where were you when the war was going on then, since you obviously weren't on colony when it was destroyed."

"Oh, I had been recovering on a different colony by that time," she replied tapping the table with her cane. "They couldn't have the Heir of the Dragon Clan put in danger by being on the same colony. I was with the other refugees the entire time. My grandmother kept the community together on L5-C0497 and controlled every part of my recovery."

"I didn't see her name on the list that Preventer Po had of all of the refugees," I stated.

"She died several weeks ago," was the only response that I got. She looked down then at her hands resting on the cane. I remembered distinctly how much she had fought against her very traditional grandmother. As a child, she had wanted to be as strong as the men in the while her grandmother had wanted her to take on the more tradition female role.

"I'm sorry for your loss," I stated hollowly.

"Meh, I'm just glad that she's gone," she replied wryly. "With her still in charge of the Clan, we would have been hidden until An could take the leadership role. Where I had thought she had controlled my life, she was even more controlling of my daughter's."

"An? So she is your daughter," I stated. I had suspected as much but I had not wanted to dwell on the thought of the child.

"Heh, the worst part of my recovery was that I was pregnant," she actually grimaced at the memory. "They were too afraid to operate on my mangled pelvis for fear that I would lose the baby. It was the new heir to the Dragon Clan and all that. I didn't matter any more, only the child. The most control I got over her or myself at that time was naming her."

"An," I stated testing the name out. "It means 'peace', doesn't it?"

"Well, I figured taking the name of Nataku when the world was on the brink of war had brought me nothing but pain. I wanted my daughter to not be burdened with such things as justice and war and battle."

It was a surprisingly deep and introspective statement coming from the girl who denied her entire existence as a female to take up an ideal. She really had gone through hell after she had 'died'. I couldn't imagine what she had experienced recovering from near death with such a broken body only to learn that she was pregnant and they wouldn't help her with her injuries as much as they could because that child was more important than her.

"So, An is my daughter, then?" I finally let myself make that logical leap that I had not allowed myself to make earlier.

For that question, I received a whack to my head with her cane. She was quick with it and I had not expected her to strike me. Needless to say, it hurt.

"That's for even questioning her parentage," she said snidely. "And any child as difficult as her, has to be yours."

tbc.