Treize didn't need to see him to know that Zechs had just shaken his head, a stubborn frown setting between his pale eyebrows. "Don't play games with me, Doro," he answered sharply. "How can the boy have nothing to do with it when he's stood behind you?"
"This isn't Feliu." Dorothy gestured helplessly, watching as her old friend stared at the back of Treize's head, recognition welling slowly in his eyes. "Milliardo, I don't begin to understand," she started, hoping to get through at least part of an explanation before he made the leap she knew he was going to make, "but…."
"Treize…?" Zechs whispered, interrupting her without a care for it.
Dorothy closed her eyes and bowed her head. "I thought so too," she admitted softly, feeling Treize shiver at Zechs's use of his name, and wondering when she'd become so very certain that the man behind her was, in fact, Treize Khushrenada. The situation was nigh on unbelievable, Dorothy knew, but she couldn't help feeling some very private worries she'd been keeping to herself for some time now start to lift away. If she could just manage the next few minutes….
"Treize? How…?" Milliardo was across the room in a flash, reaching past her as though she weren't there and putting a hand on Treize's shoulder. Dorothy saw the general steel himself and turn as Zechs tugged, his sapphire eyes – unique and never forgotten by anyone who'd ever gotten close enough to look directly into them – alight with a storm of feeling.
Treize ignored the shocked cry Zechs gave, ignored the way the blonde's grip became instantly painfully tight on his shoulder, ignored everything but the man in front of him and the look in his pale blue eyes.
For a half-second, there was nothing but the two of them, as it had always been. Neither man saw anything but the other, and their expressions were mirrors of each other – hope and hunger, unspoken loneliness and undying love. Dorothy flicked a glance at her Godson, her own son's closest friend, and wondered if he understood what he was seeing. There was something in his expression that said he did, and, not for the first time, Dorothy was grateful that there was more of his mother to Aleksander than his amethyst eyes. The Latin passions he'd inherited from Noin were a necessary balance to Zechs's Nordic chill, a match for Dorothy's own Spanish fire. The woman had a feeling she was going to need Aleks to get through what she knew was coming, and she was going to need him reacting from his gut, from the stories he'd heard of the man his father had lost before he was born and with all the Italian love for Romance Lucrezia had ever possessed.
She looked back to the two older men, seeing a world of meaning in the way Treize was clasping Zechs's forearm and watching as they both moved simultaneously to close the gap between them. She willed them to stay under the spell shock had created for them just a little longer, wanting them to yield to their instincts and kiss. Everything that had to follow would be so much easier if they had that indefinable, unmistakeable knowledge of the others' identity the simple, physical exchange would give them.
She bit her lip as the stunned expression began to fade from Zechs's face, wincing as too-familiar shutters slammed down behind crystal blue eyes, fury and pain flooding over everything else and erasing it.
The change jolted Treize enough to look at the rest of the man, the line of his body tensing abruptly as he failed to recognise what he saw.
In a matter of a heartbeat, the air was crackling with anger and mistrust, open hostility and stubborn confusion.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" Zechs hissed suddenly, his voice like a lash. "Do you find this funny?"
Treize jumped as though stung. "Milliardo…?" he whispered, still staring. He was trying to process, Dorothy could see, trying to make what his eyes were seeing and his head was telling him square with what his gut was insisting on and not quite managing it. He simply didn't have the resources.
It was enough to push her past her own blinkered take on things, so that she saw, for the first time, not the perfect officer who'd been her childhood idol, but a bewildered and hurt young man not all that much older than her own son.
The realisation made her move to him before she knew was doing it, her hand coming to rest on his arm as she opened her mouth to defend him.
"Not to you," Zechs answered Treize coldly, at the same moment. "Dorothy, step away from him. Aleks, find Heero and have him call Une." Zechs's eyes still hadn't left Treize, who'd flinched under Dorothy's hands at the icy response. "Who sent you?" he demanded. "When are you people going to realise that this doesn't work!"
"Miri…?" Treize asked again, unconsciously using a nickname for Zechs very few people even knew existed, his voice slipping just slightly from its perfect tutored accent to that of his homelands. Dorothy couldn't help but wonder what he was seeing. Zechs had changed just as she knew she had changed and the smooth faced youth Treize had known had long since faded away in favour of a tall, powerful man who looked fifteen years older than Treize, and more than two decades older than the Zechs Treize had left behind. "What…?" Treize began and stopped.
Dorothy saw Treize glance between Zechs and Aleks as the boy came to stand just behind his father. Everyone commented on how much alike father and son looked but Dorothy had never considered just how similar Aleks was to his father at the same age. How must it feel for Treize to be seeing the face of his lover in a stranger he knew only was called Aleks? The younger Peacecraft was a twisted ghost, with his red sweater and amethyst eyes, of a boy Treize had been willing to die to protect and had loved more than anything else in the world. His gaze flicked between the two men again, still trying to understand, and he reached out to the elder without thinking. "Miri?" he asked again, plaintive and pleading for answers to questions Dorothy wasn't sure he knew he was asking.
Zechs hit his hand away with enough force that Treize staggered, his newly found balance vanishing as bewilderment turned to dizziness. "Don't you fucking dare call me that!" he growled, raising a hand.
"Milliardo, stop!" Dorothy cried, steadying Treize as he stumbled into her. "I don't think he's an impostor!" she protested.
"What the hell else could he be?" Zechs snarled at her. "Get away from him!" He reached to pull her away from Treize, and she dug her heels into the smooth floor and set herself defiantly.
"He called me Dors," she spat. "He called you Miri. Who else knew those names?" There was nothing but stony silence in reply and she gestured sharply at the floor and the bloody mess marring it. "That came from him," she told Zechs flatly. "Even if he is a plant, he's hurt, and badly."
"Ask me if I care," Zechs snarled. He glared at Treize again. "What are you, anyway?" he challenged. "Spy? Assassin?"
Treize shook his head. "I don't understand… I'm not…."
"Where are you from?" Zechs demanded.
"I don't know what you mean," the general protested.
"Whose orders are you under? Balliol's? Chen's?"
"I'm not under anyone's orders!"
Zechs shook his head angrily. "Who sent you?" he snarled.
"No-one sent me!"
Dorothy jumped at the words; she'd never heard Treize raise his voice.
There was a moment of silence as Treize coughed, the force of his shout having wrenched both his throat and his lungs. "No-one sent me," he repeated, more quietly. "I don't even know where I am!"
"Sanc," Dorothy said softly. "You're in Sanc. In the Palace."
"So you say," Treize replied and Dorothy cringed at the doubt in his eyes. The steel that had put the world at his feet at the age of twenty-four was coming to the fore now, and his sharply logical mind was rejecting the impossible truth for a far more believable lie. She watched as he squared his shoulders. "The last thing I remember was pressing the self-destruct in the Tallgeese 2," he explained softly. "That was the 24th of December, AC 195."
"We know when it was!" Zechs hissed. "We were there!" He levelled a look at Treize that promised bloody murder. "Unlike you. The pilot of the Tallgeese that day was General Treize Khushrenada. He died when Chang Wufei pierced his suit with his Gundam's beam-trident and ignited the power-pile."
Dorothy felt sudden tremors wrack Treize and realised he was ruthlessly suppressing the urge to laugh. She scowled, recognising it as the first sign of incipient hysteria. Not that she could blame him – the poor boy was not having a good day. "Are we arguing over how I died?" he asked, conversationally, bringing one hand to rest it on his hip. "Or how I tried to die?" he corrected, frowning. "Since Dorothy assures me I'm still alive."
Aleks choked, joining Treize in the laughter-suppressing game. "My God! He sounds just like all the recordings!" he exclaimed.
"I would hope I do," Treize returned softly.
"We're not arguing over anything," Zechs spat, interrupting the exchange. "You'll have to try harder than that if you wish to ruin the reputation of my friend!"
"I have a reputation to ruin?" Treize asked wonderingly and Dorothy winced at his tone. He was playing with them now. Clearly, he'd decided that the whole situation was beyond ridiculous. In his place, she'd have been telling herself that the self-destruct had failed – and wasn't that a frightening bit of information for her to fret about later? – that she'd been captured and that this was all some ruse to extract information. "I was under the impression I shot that completely, for family at least, the night Dors caught us in her father's rose garden."
Dorothy gasped; Zechs paled. "Where did you pick that bit of information up from?" he demanded.
"By being there," Treize replied, shrugging lightly. "You cut your finger trying to hand me a red rose and then insisted that I kiss it better." The look he shot Zechs was coy, taunting, and absolutely fake. "You were still young enough to be… playful," he murmured. "Or, rather, Zechs was."
"Excuse me?" Zechs spluttered. "You doubt who I am?"
"Well, of course I do. Wouldn't you, in my place?" he asked and if Dorothy hadn't been able to feel the way he was shaking and the tension in his muscles, she knew she would have been utterly fooled by his act. It was a beautiful performance. "Milliardo Peacecraft is nineteen years old. Dorothy Catalonia is sixteen." He canted an eyebrow at the younger blond man. "Who are you supposed to be?" he asked lightly.
Aleks started at being addressed directly and then smiled. "I'm supposed to be the Crown Prince of the Sanc Kingdom," he replied, offering Treize a perfect bow. "Aleksander Stephan Peacecraft, General." He grinned at Treize suddenly. "Did Aunt Doro really catch you and my father…?" he quizzed and Dorothy could have kissed him for his attempt to break the tension. He knew nothing about Treize beyond what he'd learned at school and what he'd been told by family, but he'd read the man perfectly and reacted accordingly.
"Aleksander!" Zechs snapped. He shot the younger man a look that promised a world of trouble and turned back to Treize, who was looking at him with a certain amount of fond sadness. Dorothy raised an eyebrow as the expression made him falter and doubt for a moment, then shook her head as he visibly steeled himself. "What?" he snarled.
"Noin's child?" Treize asked softly, forgetting that he was convincing himself it was all a trick.
"Yes, he's Noin's son," Zechs replied coldly.
Treize nodded. "Where is the lovely Lucrezia?" he asked and Dorothy flinched. That was not a question he should have raised at this moment.
"Dead," Zechs said flatly. "Just like Treize. I have that effect on people." He folded his arms and stared. "You're good, I'll give you that, and I'll be thrilled when we learn where your information came from. But you should have followed the trend. Most people stopped using the 'last thing I remember is Tallgeese' ploy decades ago. And most have the sense to send a double of creditable age, and not a boy too young to have been born during the Eve Wars."
Something about Zechs's little speech rattled Treize, making him lose his cool composure. "I'm sorry, what?" he asked, uncertainly.
"How old are you, supposedly, anyway?"
Treize shook his head. "Taking whatever you want me to believe the date is now, or the last date I remember?" he countered, rallying.
"Oh, yours, of course."
Dorothy ran the math in her head swiftly, sighing when she heard his answer before she could figure it out for herself. Had he really been so young?
"In that case," Treize replied, "I'm 24 years, 10 months, 3 weeks and some odd number of days. My Birthday is February 1st."
"Very good," Zechs sneered. "You can count."
"Would I have made it through the Academy if I couldn't?" Treize retorted, beginning to lose his patience. Dorothy could feel the strain he was under. "Certainly I'd have difficulty designing mobile suits!"
Something flashed in Zechs's eyes and he turned to look at Dorothy angrily. "Still think he's the real thing?" he demanded.
"Now, more than ever," she replied. "I can feel it. And so can you!"
"Can I? Shall we find out?" Without warning, Zechs reached out and seized Treize by the arm, dragging him away from Dorothy and across the room they were in. "Treize Khushrenada was a unique individual," he said conversationally, "the whole world knows that. A leader willing to die for his cause. A hero. A martyr. A visionary and a genius. It's in all the textbooks."
He reached the door to the room and hauled Treize through it and down a narrow, beautifully appointed corridor. The grip on he had on the younger man's arm must have hurt. Dorothy pushed herself past her shock and ran after them, having a sudden sinking feeling about where this was going. Treize was struggling but he was tired and hurt and Zechs, now, was four inches taller and probably a fair bit heavier.
At the end of the corridor, Zechs hit the button on a little elevator control panel and turned to look down at Treize as they waited. Running footsteps told Dorothy that Aleks had followed them, too, and she shot him a grateful glance as he drew level.
"Most people, though, don't know just how unique he was," Zechs carried on, his face twisted with something Dorothy didn't want to think about too closely. "Treize created something in the last few months of his life that only four people in the world ever experienced. One of them couldn't make it work, one of them used it only in stripped down form, and one of them it drove mad. Only one man ever used it as it had been intended – it's creator."
Dorothy gasped and reached for Zechs, her expression horrified as she realised what he was about. "Milliardo, no!" she protested. "You can't do this!"
"Why not?" he answered her. "If he is Treize Khushrenada, then there won't be a problem, will there?"
"If he is Treize Khushrenada," she countered frantically, "then he's just been through the explosion of his mobile suit and God only knows what else! He was vomiting blood on your floor half an hour ago! You'll kill him!"
"Possibly. But then, he isn't Treize."
Aleks was frowning deeply. "Father, whatever you're thinking of, I'm not sure you should…"
Zechs turned on him, eyes flashing. "I am." He turned his gaze back to Treize, who was still struggling futilely. "It took me years to work out why that was. The answer came to me last year, when one small boy did something I'd only ever seen one other person do before. Treize Khushrenada was unique. He had talents that no-one, not even I, his supposed closest friend, his lover, knew he had."
Dorothy watched Treize pale as the lift arrived and Zechs dragged him into it. She followed, her eyes flicking between the two men frantically as she calculated.
"Did you know Treize dabbled with psycho-active drugs?" Zechs asked softly and she saw Treize flinch in acknowledgement. "No? Not many people did. He played with them for years. Different drugs, different mixes, different strengths. Some of the best nights of my life came from him when he hit a combination that worked. Some of the worst, when he hit one that re-bounded on him. Eventually he gave up on drugs and turned to technology."
Dorothy forced herself past the surprise and curiosity rising in herself and glared at her friend. "You are not doing this, Milliardo," she insisted.
When she was met with a blank stare, she turned to the younger Peacecraft. "Aleks, when this lift stops I want you to run and get Heero and your Uncle Quatre. Somebody needs to talk some sense into your Father!" He nodded and she offered him a reassuring smile. All of this must be almost as bewildering to him as it was for Treize.
Zechs ignored the two of them completely. "Treize saw things; flashes, glimpses, snippets. If he concentrated, he could touch people and know what they would do next; touch objects and know what would happen to them in the end. Sometimes, with help, he saw more than one thing, one person. But he wasn't strong enough alone."
The lift door opened and Zechs stalked into a darkened workshop, pulling Treize with him. Dorothy noted that the redhead had stopped struggling and she hoped he'd worked out what was coming – for his sake.
"Lights!" Zechs snapped. "When the drugs weren't enough, he built himself something else. And when he was done with it, the bastard gave it to me."
Treize flinched again at that, and then Dorothy saw his eyes flick around the room. He froze at what he must have seen – standing in an alcove, illuminated by the lights much as it had been in his house in Luxembourg, was the remains of the Epyon suit. "No," he breathed.
"That monster has a lot to answer for," Zechs snarled. "The man who created it, even more." He tightened his grip and leant down. "If you are Treize Khushrenada, as Doro obviously believes, then you're the only person in the world who can get into that suit and not be driven mad, so I think we should try it and find out. If you're sane when the program shuts down, I'll believe you are whom you say you are and we can talk about what you were thinking. If you aren't Treize, then you won't be talking to anyone, ever again, most likely."
Dorothy caught Zechs's arm and dug her sharp nails in hard. "You are not doing this!" she insisted, looking across at the younger man. "Look at him! Doesn't his reaction tell you what you need to know?" Treize was staring across at the suit in obvious horror, clearly frightened half out of his mind. "There are other ways; better ways!"
"None nearly as conclusive," Zechs answered shortly. "None that will give us an answer in less than ten minutes."
"You cannot do this, Milliardo!" Dorothy repeated, but she knew there was little else she could do to stop him.
"Yes, I can," Zechs replied coldly. "And I'm going to. One way or another, he deserves it."
"Miri, no," Treize begged suddenly, still looking at the suit. "You don't understand…"
"I understand perfectly."
"No, you don't! Epyon worked for me, but it showed me everything! I can't use it again. I can't! Why do you think I gave it to you?"
Zechs looked at him mercilessly. "You can tell me that when you come out of the suit." He hauled on the arm he still had hold of and dragged Treize across to the suit, catching hold of the hoist line and letting it take both of them up. Treize fought, but within seconds, he was forced to grab onto his friend for fear of falling to the concrete floor below. Dorothy watched, helpless and praying Aleks would be swift in his running for help, as Zechs stepped off onto the hatch platform and threw Treize into the damaged pilot's seat.
"Miri, please. Please, don't do this!"
"Shut up!" The taller man hit a button on the console and stepped back as the suit began to activate.
As he caught the hoist line and disappeared, the Epyon system came to life and caught Treize in its grip.
