Title: This Road I Tread

Author: Karina

Rating: PG

Pairing: Zechs

Notes: Challenge 22. Baby Series 2 #12. Takes place approximately 30 minutes after Of Tea and Memories.

Spoilers: None

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the Characters from the series but the baby is mine.

Many thanks to Dulin for her work as beta.

This Road I Tread

A long road.

I have walked much of it solitary, though I have met others from time to time. We nod in passing, rarely speaking. There are fewer soldiers. They are falling by the wayside to start new lives. For me there was Treize, until a turn in the road took him, and there was Lu but her death, like his, placed my feet back on the road.

A long and solitary road.

I first set foot there when I still believed in fairytales. Back before fairytales became nightmares and the world became a place to fear.

The snowfall will become a blizzard. Falling asleep in the snow might be the best way to die, if I could bring myself to leave Stephan.

I'm not insane, just depressed. I bury myself in work and there is Stephen to hold and drive the darkness back. Some days are darker than others. I know they think I was insane. I never have been. Or is it insanity to remember the laughter and the magic of a winter's night, with snow on the ground and candles burning in the trees?

She was beautiful in her crimson gown with the ermine trim.

You were beautiful Mother. That is how I prefer to remember you, resplendent and laughing with Relena in your arms, and Father at your side. That is how I will remember you to Stephen. I will not tell him of the last time I saw you, how you screamed Father's name. How they …

Some things are better left unsaid and not knowing is better.

Children should remain innocent of the past, free from the sins committed. Untouched. That would be an ideal world, and we don't live in an ideal. There will be those who want to bring him down, and they will use the past. My past. The days when I was steeped in blood.

That day when I ran in fear through falling snow. It was a lovely day, so full of the magic of Christmas. Who knew the murder that would be done? Who knew the terror? It must never be allowed to come again.

Father was a good King, and yet he seemed unprepared for what happened. Why did he allow it? Why did he stand there and let them kill him? Let them kill her. Them. I don't want to remember but I can't forget.

I can't forget their screams. I can't forget the sight and smell of blood and smoke.

It always ends in fire. A storm of flame and smothering snow. The fire would have been worse if not for the snow, but I can't forget looking back at the flames leaping into the night. I will never forget the screams, and the thunder of flames.

I remember the sound of snow. That whispering. I remember the butchery fading into the whisper.

I can hear the echo of death in the whisper of snow on this road I tread.

End

Karina Robertson 2005