The Fairy Tale's Reawakening… a little bruised, scar ridden, tainted and gothic… but sure enough, Peace at last… Early Spring AC197

"I wait for the rain… to wash who I am…" – Infected Mushroom - I Wish

Une was awoken by a strange sound…

She had gone home, had dinner with Mariemaia, wrapped up a few details about the household chores with the Castle's Maid Staff and went to bed.

Trieze had gotten completely wrapped up the last few weeks in working with Sally Po on "The Solution" as it was now referred to ever since they had finally tested enough possibilities to find a "permanent prescription" for his "ailments". Une was more then aware that he would spend as much extra time as he could in the Piloting simulator that had been reconstructed and wouldn't be surprised if he spent all night at the Headquarters even if they'd finished the testing for that day. He was only 26 years old after all.

…the sound however was that of running water.

It was not the deep sopping splashing of a bath tub filling, but the fluctuating disturbance of the cascading rush of a shower head. She cautiously got up sliding her personal sidearm out from between the mattress and box spring and approached the partially open bathroom door. Then gently pushed the door open, standing back, ready to raise and fire.

She was absolutely shocked to see Trieze; fully clothed and wearing a new pair of smaller vaguely blue-tinted lenses with an elegant gold frame that perfectly complemented his hansom angular aristocratic looks capturing them; standing under the shower stream. At least they would have been hansom angular looks if he didn't resemble so much of a drenched, deranged lunatic gazing at his hands as the water cascaded onto and around them.

"What are you ON!"

Une's mouth was hanging open when Trieze turned, finally noticing her.

"I am on nothing at all Midi! It works!"

The Ex-Colonel was so much more animated then she'd ever known him to be, even when he'd been in a Mobile Suit. She followed his glance to a small digital device lying on the back of the toilet with a tiny LED blinking blue. He coughed when he noticed the pistol in her hand, a worried look on his face.

"I woke you didn't I?"

Lady Une looked at the gun and then dropped it into a high basket shelf just inside the door before walking over to stand just outside the stall with her arms crossed.

"How does it work? Should you be getting those wet?"

"I could have the processor on right now too… could even go for a long swim... in theory at least; I did not want to risk damaging it before I really was able to test the systems out properly…"

He was still enjoying the now exhilarating thrill of being able to feel the water rushing over his skin, not the painful bite of every fluctuating pulse of pressure from the falling stream of separating droplets.

"…And that's why you've ruined a 6,000$ suit?"

Trieze frowned at her after looking down at his jacket and pants.

"The shoes cost more; why would the suit matter? It's just water." He laughed freely; a very strange sound that Une had not heard from him, "Just water!" She was further unimpressed when, wrapping her up in a soaking wet hug, he pulled her into the stall with him. He went on over flowing with excitement gently kissing away at Lady Une's face and neck, "That woman is brilliant! We've linked up a few monitoring devices that mimic a Mobile Suit's system check and mapped out individual drives to simulate the same digital schematic as the original Z-PLCs interface! True there are certain things I will have to keep up with to make sure my eyes can take the inevitable stress, but it should be able to extend them to a normal lifespan again!" Trieze's back blocking her from most of the down pour but his already drenched cloths pressed against her were soaking the night gown. "Blood pressure, consistency, glucose/metabolic levels, heart rate, sensory feed-back, kinetic processor, full visual scan and stats… or…" He slipped his hands around to grasp her round ass causing her to arch against him, pulling back to stare gleefully into her eyes, "…I can turn it OFF! …My mind stays within an idling state."

He was waiting for her to be happy for him, he wanted to celebrate and she hardly was going to take that away from him… but some how she didn't feel relieved at all – she felt worse. By the time Trieze had both of them undressed and under the sheets he had finally decided he couldn't ignore the obvious signs that Une wasn't really enjoying herself as much as she was pretending to any longer.

He had hoped she was just tired and now gave a long sigh and a thoughtful review of her features cocking his head to the side,

"It is too late to be doing this isn't it? You do have a lot of work to do tomorrow before the Romefeller Ball, I doubt you want to be running late… and you can not wear your hair up anymore."

He kissed her passionately one last time as he drew away and then pulled her back into a close cradling hug. Une did feel a little bit relieved now, but was also very flustered by the sudden turn around of his attitude. Was he just playing with her?

"Colonel, I have never been late to anything. You really mean to tell me that you're going to just fall asleep like that?"

It was obvious that she wasn't referring to the glasses he was still wearing – they had a considerable wireless range. Trieze nuzzled her,

"Hmmmm…. You are right. I think I need a shower… that is unless …you would like one right here?"

Lady Une squirmed around and stared at the evilly grinning man incredulously.

"Your EXCELLENCY! How can you SAY that?"

He laughed and kissed her again as he started to slide out of the bed,

"You should be thankful you never met my father…"

He disappeared into the bathroom and the sound of the raining water came filtering out once more.

(The next day…)

Une was startled while she was reviewing her presentation notes before the general administrative meeting they were having that day when someone came up behind and wrapped their arms around her depositing a folder of paperwork in front of her. It could only be one person, of course, when Trieze Khushrenada leaned around to put a kiss on her cheek; the scent of rose permeating off of him. Lady Une couldn't help blushing as Noin, Heero and a few other Preventor members were already in the room.

"You're more then 5 minutes early."

"Is it not wonderful? I would have been earlier but I stopped by your office and did these reports for you."

Une gave an exasperated sigh looking through the bundle of paperwork before turning to give him a dry look. She knew he would hardly make an error on such a simple task: that wasn't what was irking her.

"Trieze… You really don't need to show off."

Trieze looked puzzled; he had meant to make up for the night before and thought she would appreciate the extra time he just bought her for that afternoon.

Sally Po arrived just then and he figured it was best to leave the woman alone if she was being bothered so obviously by some intangible thing. He excused himself and went over to sit next to the former Alliance Major – at least she was concerned to know how well their plan was working out.

...Drama Bomb, Exploding...Part 1

"Midi! What has gotten into you? Do you not want to marry me at all?"

The two of them had just gotten home and were still in the expansive entrance hall.

"Trieze, what I'm trying to tell you is that I don't know what I want!" She turned away as he took a few steps towards her trying to reach out to her.

"But Midi... don't you see? That's the beauty of it, you don't have to know what you want! You will be able to have anything you want, everything! What could possibly be wrong with that?"

Trieze started laughing in disbelief that this was even happening right now. He'd come back from the dead, he'd reclaimed his daughter and he'd still stuck to his word to remain faithful to Lady Une in return for all her loyalty – Yet, he could swear he was about to get dumped. He powered down the external processor and removed the gold frame and blue-crystal interface lenses to put them away in there protective case with a sigh; Some times it was better to be a little inhuman.

"Right, anything I want. Just like you." She glared at him over her shoulder.

"It is not my fault that I know what I want and have the means to get it. Perhaps if you were not so indecisive we would not be having this conversation right now."

"Indecisive! Trieze I'm the head minister of the Preventors Crime Bureau, its my job to make decisions!" Une turned to face him fully now; finally deciding to make a decision, "What I don't know is if I want to be married to a man who's likely to continue cheating on me the rest of my life!"

Trieze's jaw dropped.

"CHEATING? What do you mean~!" With both hands he directed attention to his prized (comfort-sized) glory sleeping in its crotch. "THIS has not been anywhere you are unaware of!"

It was her turn to start laughing at that,

"Oh what a perfectly diplomatic lie."

"Midi Une your being absurd!"

"Am I? Am I really, Trieze Khushrenada? I mean sure you told me you were close to Noin when she was your student, but you NEVER told me that you slept with her! You never said a word about having been MARRIED before, or having a daughter, just 'oh sorry about all that, actually I'm not dead, by the way...will you marry me?' What sane female would actually say yes to that?"

Trieze genuinely looked hurt now and couldn't meet her eye,

"...I thought it was romantic."

"In the middle of the wreckage of the president's mansion, with a man you killed still twitching less then 5 feet away? I bet you did. In fact I bet you thought fucking me the first time in a Leo cockpit was romantic." she scoffed.

"Of course I do! It was the archetype for the pinnacle of military technology! Your acting like it was some cheap motel I took you to!"

"Like you know anything about cheap motels!"

Trieze's eyes narrowed, her impossible attitude was starting to make him angry,

"Forgive me, I forgot I was speaking to the expert on fucking in cheap motels," She flushed red as her old uniform, but he continued on keeping his voice level. "Besides if you will remember Une, my uncle hired you, it is not as if I would go telling you every little secret of mine. Leia is dead now, and Lucrezia is to marry Milliardo Peacecraft; I do not see how I could be cheating on you with either of them."

"Oh and what about Susan? You do spend a lot of time with her now that she's gotten that divorce."

"Yes, because I like spending time with my daughter and Susan's daughter happens to be a very good friend for her to have. Just because she came to me for help with a restraining order does not mean I'm making her pay for it. Besides, she's nearly a decade older then me."

"Right, and how about all those nights you spent over at the headquarters with Sally Po? Kind of a familiar scenario when she was caring for you in the Sank Kingdom, wasn't it? Are you sure it doesn't count just because I was in a coma?"

Trieze threw his hands up and then raked them back through his hair as he dropped heavily into one of the ornate couches arrayed for guests waiting to be greeted upon entrance to the mighty castle.

"For the love of my ancestors, Une! That woman still hates me for the New Edwards incident! She gives Wu Fei a run for his money when it comes to holding grudges against a person! The only reason we were working late nights at the headquarters, is because she had other responsibilities to see to during the day, you know this!"

Une crossed her arms over her chest,

"I was the one who ordered the nukes set off. I'm sure you've set her quite straight on that."

Trieze would have been in tears by now if he hadn't disconnected from the system, he dropped his head into his hands,

"Une... Midi... I need you. I still need you. You can not really expect me to be able to raise Mari all on my own?"

"Why not? It's not like you don't go and over rule every decision I make about the girl. She is your daughter, not mine! I have a very important job now, you know? Its not like how things USED to be; where my only responsibility was looking after you and Dermail could go run the world any way he wants! The fairy tale is over, people actually have to put in hard work to make things happen now! Also, are you crazy or something? I have absolutely no nurturing instincts in me! Several years experience in espionage and military tactics does not exactly qualify me to be ANYONES mother!"

"So that's it then. Your job title is the only thing that is important to you. Fine, I can live with that, I just don't see whats so bad about us getting married. For gods sakes my father grew up with his mother in the West wing and father in the East – they hated each other but they still made it work! Are you really going to force all this embarrassment on me just because your having bridal anxiety!"

"Force all this embarrassment on you? Do you even listen to yourself when you talk Trieze! From my first impression I had you summed up to a cue, ever since then it's like I've just let myself fall further and further into your lie. Maybe I just want to be free now too? Could you ever even think of that?"

"I thought we were going to be free together, Lady Une." Une snapped, she wrenched the diamond and blue sapphire ring from her finger and hurled it at his feet and stormed to the door. "Wait! Une! Don't –!" Trieze ran after her and grabbed onto her arm just as she threw open the massive hardwood front door.

The last thing he saw before being knocked out cold was her fist flying at his face. He awoke some time later still on the floor with Mari sitting over him, looking concerned and holding Une's ring in her hand.

...The next day...

For Lady Une to be in 'a mood' was nothing out of the ordinary.

The real tell tale sign that something was terribly amiss was the fact that Milliardo was horribly hung over on a Wednesday. He spent the first half of the day with the lights off and his head plastered to the desk under a pillow he kept in his office for just such occasions. Lunch was the first time anyone spotted him out of his office wearing a pair of aviators, coat collar turned up, sipping at a black triple espresso.

"Whoa, you look like shit man!" Duo flipped a chair around across from Milliardo, who winced at the sound of his high-energy voice. "Ms. Noin get feeling feisty last night or what?"

"I wish..." Milliardo groaned, "Une broke off the wedding."

"So whats that got to do with you?"

"Nothing. Trieze called Noin. She babysat Mari while I had to keep him 'company'."

"Better then the other way around right?" Duo was trying to be cheerful and, as usual, his huge grin was making things worse.

Milliardo only gave him a dead stare behind the tinted shades. A shadow fell across the table and even with the dark glasses on he was squinting at the back-lit form towering above the table.

"Where is Trieze." it was Lady Une.

"Staying home probably." Milliardo replied with a bite to his tone.

She let out a frustrated growl and stalked off.

"Oh boy... I really don't know how you Ozzies managed before with her like that all the time..."

Milliardo pushed the coffee in front of him further away on the table as he put his forehead down, giving out a long sigh in the process,

"Remember New Edwards? Siberia? Trust me, we have no idea how we survived that woman either." He finally decide to drain the rest of his drink and got up, tossing his white blond locks back into place with a shake of his head.

"Yeash! This can't be good... hey where are you going?"

Milliardo threw up a dismissive hand as he started walking away,

"Evidence room to watch Trieze scream for awhile before the afternoon meeting... I think I need the moral boost."

Duo was stuck twitching in a somewhat disturbed shock,

"Glad I don't have friends like that..."

The master bedroom of the East wing...

Trieze heard the alarming beeping noise of his bedside vid-screen through the fog of unconsciousness.

He knew what the sound was. He could guess what time it was. He KNEW who it was, but he also knew there was no way in hell he was going to answer it.

Not the first time she called at least. By that point it was just too easy to listen to it complain in it's rhythmic chiming way... he could have even passed back into a dream before he finally... turned over.

He could see the clock now. The text on the screen detailing the caller, the number of times they'd called – the number of times they'd attempted to override the lock and activate his screen directly. That brought a haphazard drowsy grin to Trieze's face; Mobile Doll AI structure was at least good for something, as his external processor's blue LED lights blinked away on the nightstand and another attempt was logged.

It was time, he thought, to consider actually answering the phone...

...maybe.

Trieze let out a long sigh as he dragged himself with one arm to the edge of his large silken-sheet bed to retrieve his interface lenses from the night stand. Putting them on he closed down the defense protocols and activated 'voice only' on the vid-unit before just...

Waiting...not saying anything.

"Trieze?" There was a pause. "TRIEZE! KHUSHRENADA! Jesus Christ! Will you just answer your FUCKING PHONE!" she sounded almost on the verge of tears.

"Elegance, as usual, is not your strong point today; is it Midi Une? You should know you would have better luck trying a number in Nazareth then my bed chamber if that's who your desperate for." He got up and stretched letting out a low grunt. The thought hardly had to be formed before his system activated the bath faucets as he crossed to his window to pull the heavy curtains back and blink through the sting of the full noon sun.

"Isn't that just hilarious. Now exactly WHAT do you think your doing?"

"I beg your pardon?" He flipped the latch up and opened the door-like glass enjoying the early spell of warm weather.

"There's a Administrative Analysis meeting in an hour to collate the proposed procedures for local level jurisdiction overlap; how do you expect us to achieve YOUR proposal without YOUR report?"

"It's in my outbox, on my desk, where you always find my reports."

"It is not my job to retrieve things from your outbox, Trieze. It IS your job to be here to put things in my in-box! Are you coming in or NOT?"

Trieze leaned back to look beyond the billowing curtains to the side to see his reflection in the mirror. Chuckling silently, despite affirming the ruined state of his appearance, he thought; 'Sorry Une... You said it wasn't my job to be coming in your in-box anymore.'

What he actually said was;

"No, I don't really think that would be possible. I've already altered my schedule for the next week or –"

"Yes, I can SEE that! Are you REALLY going to be THIS ridicules? Your an adult Trieze, you don't have to stay home moping for a week just because I'm breaking up with you!"

Trieze coughed at the interruption as he crossed to the bathroom now that the tub was full dropping his silken pants before entering,

"If your going to be that forward about it... I do not think I will be staying home moping, but I do not think it would be a good idea for me to come in. For one, you obviously need the space –" she cut him off again.

"You do not know what I need, Trieze Khushrenada, nor should you assume to tell me! What I want, and what WILL happen, is you will get yourself into your office and hand deliver that report to that meeting in an hour! Then you will proceed to correct your schedule back the way it was and get your work done LIKE YOUR SUPPOSED TO!"

Trieze sighed sliding down further into the hot water closing his eyes,

"Does that mean the wedding is back on darling?" If he had been in front of the Vid-screen she would have seen the twisted snarl behind his sweet, sugar-drop tone.

"NO!" The phone line disconnected.

"Worth a try..." He yawned and stretched again setting the glasses on the floor. Submerging completely he wished he could stay in that muffled lucid world forever, but sure enough he had been given a direct order by the Lieutenant Colonel herself...

He got out eventually and did his best, with one eye swollen and badly bruised, to look good for work.

It was going to be one hell of a Jurisdiction Overlap Analysis Meeting.