Epilogue

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This is it. Thank you to the wonderful karina001 to whom this story is dedicated - your feedback was lovely and much appreciated!

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He was brushing his horse down when Marimaia came into the stable. She watched him until he nodded at her. "She's been lame for a few days, but she's fine now. I'm going to take her outside for a walk before she gets to run around again."

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They were walking at a gentle pace, Zechs watching the horse's gait for irregularities, Marimaia holding on to a thick handful of mane. She looked pale and withdrawn, as if caught in an endless nightmare.

Just as I feel, he thought.

"You look rubbish," she said suddenly.

"What?"

"You look like shit. As if you'd seen a ghost."

It was enough to make him falter, and he leaned heavily against the animal. "Bull," he said roughly.

"You're such a crappy liar. You got to quit grieving sometime, you know."

He swallowed to get rid of the tightness in his throat, and the words came before he could stop them. "Treize was everything to me."

"I am here now," she flung back at him, "what about me?"

It was as if she'd yanked a sheet off the future. It had been too obvious for him to want to see, but now it was there, as clear as the summer morning. And something inside him changed.

Dust flimmered in the air as they turned from the meadow onto the forest road. The heat of summer laced with the scents of drying grass and warm bark. "I couldn't go back," she said, her voice tense and shivery. "Not now. I'd rather die."

Zechs reached into the backpocket of his jeans. He pulled out a carefully folded document on strong, official paper, slightly worn from being carried around like this. "Your visa has come through."

She blinked and scrubbed at her face, a harsh, angry gesture, before taking the document. He watched as she read in silence. He saw a tear glitter on her eyelashes, and then it dripped off as they began to flow, relentless and in silence.

"You won't be able to move out of the area," he said, feeling somewhat helpless and annoyed, "you need me as a guarantor, and it can be revoked. But it's something."

She shook her head. "You don't get it. I don't belong here. I don't belong anywhere. It's all... alien."

"I know a teacher in the village; I've asked her to come to the house for a while until you can go out there. And we'll get rid of your tracker."

She swallowed a few times and turned her face away. "It was easier when I could hate you. Now, I have nothing."

The horse pressed against him; he lightly slapped the animal's neck to steer it back on track. "You have a life if you want one."

"I didn't choose this. The truth is that I'll still have to jump when Une whistles, just like you. It's never going to change."

"You can choose what to make of it."

I've chosen too. Another set of tests, hit and miss trials with new medication, more pain and hope and worry... who knows if it's worth that. But I know what you'd have said. And perhaps I'm not beyond help after all...

The unshod hooves of the horse clopped quietly on the dirt road, and it snorted softly when Zechs ruffled its mane. "Hey, you're fine again..."

"I don't like them. Horses. They're so big."

Zechs laughed. "I'm not mad about them either, but they're easier to keep here than a tractor."

Marimaia wiped her cheek against her raised shoulder before glancing at him. "I've never seen you laugh before. I mean, as if you meant it. I read the letters. There weren't that many – six, over three months, then two more after a few weeks, and another one after a year. They weren't long. He said that he was sorry and asked how she was doing. It sounded like... talking to a friend. No more. He never mentioned me, so perhaps he had no clue. I was an accident."

Zechs halted the horse and stroked its nose, a vague smile on his lips. The animal pushed its soft, velvety nostrils against his palm and gave a low, contented wicker. He kept caressing it. "Did your mother love you?"

Marimaia gazed up into the deep blue sky. A lark was singing, too high to be seen, the sound distant yet clear amid the buzz of summer. "Yes."

He turned the animal back towards the meadow and unhooked the holster. The horse shook itself, then it lowered its head to nose around in the dust and dry grass at the verge, before trotting off towards the fresh green nearer the house.

"There is no past," he said, "and no future. There is now and here."

"I don't get it. Why are you doing this?"

"It's self-serving. Makes me feel better."

"Would it be the same if I wasn't his daughter?"

Zechs shrugged. "Does it matter anymore?" He held out his hand. "Let's go back. There's a lot of work to do. I have to talk with the solicitors, and the books have to be checked."

"So it's all roses now?" she asked, a bitter twang to her tone even as she reluctantly laid her hand in his.

He gripped it firmly. "Yes, all roses."

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Preventer forensics had released Treize's body, and Zechs had flown back to the old base one more time to watch it being cremated in the big furnace that doubled as an incinerator and heated the whole underground complex.

He was surprised to find the crew of the old base dressed up in their uniforms, and they had one ready for him too. Treize was going with military honours. Zechs went to the officer quarters to put the uniform on. It had the correct insignia for his old rank.

Before I became a traitor. When the world seemed still clear. No, that's a lie...

He tugged the tunic straight and buttoned up the dress jacket. For a moment, he looked at himself in the shiny steel mirror in the shower cubicle. He felt at home and at the same time alien, wearing the cool dark-red cloth, shimmering with braids and ribbons, the buttons polished to a high gloss, the gold of the plaits and epaulets darkened but clean. Slowly he tugged on the knee-high parade boots that looked as ridiculous as ever to him. He pulled on the white dress gloves, and then he stepped out into the steel corridor.

There was no music and no speeches. The lump of plastic and frozen flesh that once had been a living man was encased in a plain wooden casket, ready to be pushed into the flames. They had left the lid off and covered Treize's form with the blue Specials flag instead – perhaps the one, Zechs thought numbly, that had unfurled at the mass funeral after the Lake Victoria attack. Une and the men stood at attention, waiting.

Zechs stepped forward. He couldn't think of anything to say, his mind numb, a strange weakness filling his limbs.

So he did at last what had been unthinkable an eternity ago. In full view of everyone, dressed in his smart uniform that proclaimed him as an elite soldier of the Specials, he drew back the blue cloth and leaned down. Placing one hand on Treize's frozen chest, where his heart had been, Zechs kissed the plastic of the visor where it had melted against Treize's flesh.

And when he stepped back, he saw the crew salute in silence.

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When at last he took the flag, folded into a tight triangle, and the small steel tube that held Treize's ashes from Une, it felt alien to him.

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He flew back to the estate. Relena's call reached him at the airfield. She looked pretty on the small screen of his mobile phone that he had taken so that Marimaia could reach him.

Relena waved at him, then she grew serious. "I wish we'd had more time to talk. I wanted to ask-" She drew a quick, deep breath. "You were right. Peace needs shields. Milliardo, I want you to come to Cinq. The Council has agreed; we'd like you to become Chief Defence Consultant to the Cinq government."

He settled into his jeep. For a moment, he gazed at her hopeful face, before shaking his head. "I can't do that."

"There's nobody I'd trust more."

"You don't know me, Relena."

"You're my brother!"

"You don't know Zechs Marquise, and pray you never will."

There was a small pause, then she said, "It's that girl, isn't it?"

"It's a lot of things."

"Milliardo, please. What about our duty?"

"She's my duty, too. We're the same."

"I'm hardly seeing you anymore, and time is just slipping by..."

"Lena... Lenotchka... There are enough capable people you can trust. Come and visit, you know you're always welcome."

She bit her lip, and for a few heartbeats she reminded him painfully of the little girl of four clutching his hand in the chaos of their burning home, but then she blinked and gave him a slow, wistful smile. "Yes. I love you. I needed to tell you that. Don't be a stranger, brother." And then the call clicked off.

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He wandered out to the Gundanium shard that guarded the driveway. A blinding headache was thumping in his temples, and he thought of the journey to Moscow that awaited him, the tests the specialists had suggested, and that he'd be able to visit his past with Marimaia by his side.

Moscow evenings... you liked the song, and I liked the evenings...

For a while, he just stood there, gazing at the twisted metal, and then he laid back his head and looked up into the blue summer sky. High above circled a bird of prey. Zechs shaded his eyes to watch until it wheeled out of sight, melting into the light.

He unscrewed the lid of the tube and let the ash drift over his palm. The breeze picked it up, and a thin stream of black dust flowed from his hand. It rose gently and then dispersed.

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Marimaia waited for him by the door to the old house. She took his hand, a strange, warm gesture. His first instinct was to pull back, but her grip was strong and firm.

"You're crying," she said.

"I miss him," he said, his voice quiet and hoarse. "And I'm not crying."

Marimaia squeezed his hand, holding on as much as holding fast. "It's a beautiful day."

Zechs swallowed against the tightness in his throat, agains the choking and the pain. "Yes," he said at last, "it is."

Life, he thought, the pain as sharp as ever, It's not so bad, Tre.

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THE END