Bishi Pile Challenge: Challenge response to Shadow, Anger Minor to Rescue, Retribution Word count: 1,275

Series: Friends 25/??

Author: Karina

Pairings:

Ratings: M 15[In Australia Rated in the event of bad language and violence.

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the characters. That's the way it is.

Warnings: Not a death fic despite how it starts.

Challenge Characters: Quatre, Duo and Zechs

Chapter 25

He was too far away.

Staring into the darkness above the lights of the city, blue eyes intense, unblinking and unseeing. The menace filled him, the shadowy danger not exactly unfamiliar to him. He had felt its like before, years ago and more recently. He could not place a name to it though he knew it.

He had felt it the first time during the battle over the Earth, fighting the White Fang and particularly at the battle over Libra. It had been there, in the darkness. A shadowy presence emanating menace and…

Despair?

Was it despair he caught, buried deep within the shadow?

Was he reading too much into this distant awareness? He thought it was despair, intermingled with something else… something far more dangerous. Was Marquise, or Peacecraft or whoever this shadowy reflection of him was, despairing of hope?

There was a pulse beat intermingled in the darkness, a rising beat his own heart lurching in his chest sought to match. He had felt this before, but distraction had thrust it from his attention, demanding he concentrate on affairs of business.

The more it grew in his awareness the more it reminded him of another time, another awareness. Another time of despair and grief and anger. Hatred and sorrow, confusion and determination. Emotions he had been submerged in all too often but this time, this time he knew it was more than a pale echo of daily lives interacting with his own.

He had been inundated with these negative emotions when at his most vulnerable point. Grief and insanity had been the centre of his existence; his own grief, his anger at the fickleness of human nature. Betrayal, abandonment; a growing desire for retribution. A need for revenge and a despairing wail of solitary misunderstanding.

No one reacted well to war.

He had been vulnerable to the emotions of others and there had been no one he could turn to. He had been force fed the anger and upset and confusion of the Colonists and Zero had taken those emotions and mingled them with his grief and rage.

His father's actions at the betrayal of the colonists; at their fickleness in turning to Oz and accusing him of grasping for power. They had turned on his father, accused him of greed and corruption and terrible things, driving the pacifist to the ultimate stupidity of exploding the resource satellite. The man he remembered had been a hardnosed business man with a heart bigger than the colony itself. He had worked tirelessly to better the living conditions for the people and they had turned on him.

Grief and despair had driven him insane. It had not been initially Zero, but that system had fed on his roiling emotions and created the darkness he found so familiar now.

//This is not good.//

With the recognition Quatre felt understanding dawn. He struggled to divorce himself from the shadows, to strive for awareness and place welcome distance between himself and Marquise.

//No. I think it is Milliardo Peacecraft.//

It was the Peacecraft who had commanded White Fang. It was the Peacecraft who had risen from the ashes of the twice fallen Sanc to pilot Epyon and have his soul ripped out and birthed anew. It was Milliardo Peacecraft who took the leap of faith and become the most hated and feared man in the Earth Sphere.

//It was… horrible.// He stared into the darkness, fists clenched at his sides. //It is because of what he did we now enjoy peace but… horrible. To live the nightmare day after day…//

He dared not say it aloud, not even to himself. Refusing to speak of it did not smother the truth he recognized. He knew what had been done all those years ago. He knew and he both admired and pitied the man for having the hard cold nerve to carry the plan through to completion.

Quatre knew what it was to have Zero rip your soul out and bare to you the darkness of despair.

Lifting a hand to cover his eyes, Quatre plunged his world into darkness, depriving himself of light. Could he live in this darkness without going insane? Could he cut himself off from the world so completely, make himself anathema and know there was no turning back? Could he do that and live with the consequences?

//No.//

The answer brought with it a spear of pain and certain understanding.

//He did not expect to survive.//

He had to remember the background; the breeding and training that went into shaping the man once known as Zechs Marquise and who was born Milliardo Peacecraft. Quatre did not know a great deal about his childhood, only that he was the heir to Sanc's throne and he had been taken in by the Khushrenada's after the massacre.

His military records spoke of dedication and brilliance and suggested a great deal about the young man. There were oddities about his record, but that was for later, when he had the time to investigate.

The Khushrenada's had been traditionalists, as much if not more so than Quatre's family and Marquise would have been reared as befitted his station as a Prince, though a Prince in hiding. He would have been taught to revere and respect honour and traditional values and, above all, he would have been taught his duty.

Duty to his people would have been the backbone of his education.

There was more though. Quatre was sure he would need to check the military records before he could be sure. It would not take a great deal of time to do so with the resources at his disposal. He needed to be certain, but he was sure he had felt this same shadowed awareness before.

Recently. Then he had sensed a companion darkness, not merely despair but also the determination for retribution.

It was there, brooding, hovering, and he shuddered. It made no threatening moves, not as yet, but it was there, waiting. Leashed, he suspected, but by what? What stayed it? What held it? What saved Duo from it for a second time in a matter of hours?

He was safe, Quatre realized, surprised by his certainty. Though he could feel the fear in Duo he could also feel the sudden certainty of safety. It was as though a switch had been flicked and the threat subsided. There was still the brooding presence but the immediate threat was banked, watchful and waiting.

That control surprised him and firmed a vague notion into something a little more substantial. He was afraid to think it, but it would be far worse to ignore the possibility.

"You can control it to a degree?" He pressed his forehead to the cool glass, his breath misting on the surface. "You at least have enough control to ensure Duo is safe from you."

Turning from the window Quatre gathered his files and marched determinedly out of the boardroom. Enough was enough and he needed to look into the matter of Zechs Marquise, or Milliardo Peacecraft, whichever name the man chose to use. He had had enough, and he wanted answers.

Pulling the phone from his pocket he hit speed dial and waited.

"Yes?"

There was never any nonsense with this woman and he needed that now. She would not like his interference, but it was his lover up on the mountain. He was as determined as she and he would have answers and she would be only one of those he questioned this night. Just one of perhaps four individuals from whom he must gain some answers.

"Une. We need to talk. Tonight."

End

Karina Robertson 2008