Toy Soldiers

Sorry for taking so long with this! Had trouble with Treize. Then I realised that like most men, he's most compliant when drunk... *grin* Well, enjoy!

Toy Soldiers

by Ashura

disclaimer: I don't own GW. Surprise, surprise.

pairings: non-conventional and subject to change. Ooh, and one actually gets revealed in this chapter! But it's not a major one...and it's a surprise. Sorry, it's kinda important to be a surprise.

warnings/notes: AU, because playing fast and loose with the timeline and actual events. Yaoi, het, drama, angst, violence, sap--um, how about just "everything"?

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Book I: Sweet Bells Jangled Out of Tune

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Chapter Four

"Act when advantageous, halt when not advantageous."

-Sun Tzu (The Art of War)

"Y'r leavin' me...." Duo's petulant, semi-coherent moan grated accusingly in Une's ears. "An' 'ere we were gettin' on s'well, too...."

She favoured him with an arched eyebrow and a wry look, half-bent over her bag as she tossed toiletries into it. "You're very comfortable for a prisoner."

He tried to shrug, but winced with the sharp pain that broke through his feigned nonchalance. "Cause you got a nice place 'ere....better'n the holes I usually getta sleep in...." She didn't answer, and he watched her pack for a few more silent minutes before adding, "Sides...y' know how t' play the game by th' rules. 'Fyou go 'way, whose gonna keep me from endin' up in the closet 'gain...?"

"That," Une answered firmly, zipping the pack shut, "is not an issue. Dr. Blythe is going to be keeping a close eye on you, and for an entire list of reasons. He," she added thoughtfully, her head cocked as she regarded the frail boy in her bed, "plays the game at least as well as I do."

Duo slumped into the pillows, but it was relief as much as resignation that relaxed his battered body. His lips moved, but his voice was so faint that Une had to abandon her duffel and perch on the edge of the bed before she could adequately hear him.

"...wonder s'mtimes," he whispered, "'f there coulda been a way for us all t' be on th' same side...."

A sad, wistful smile flickered across Nicole Une's face for an instant before it disappeared. "That's what makes war a game," she explained softly, as glazed violet eyes blinked dazedly up at her. "The sides are never so black and white as we'd like to be able to believe...sometimes it's hard even to know who all the players are."

Duo shook his head feebly, his pale, sallow face surrounded by damp, tangled wisps of chestnut hair. "Not a game, Nic...not when people're gettin' killed."

Une's hazel eyes softened, however briefly--then it was as if a shutter had slammed closed behind them. "I have to go," she said, all business and orders again, standing abruptly and slipping on her jacket.

"Jus' minute," Duo murmured sleepily from the bed. "Want'd t' tell you, see...ev'n in war, there's some things people jus' shouldn' do. A lot'v soldiers...f'rget that. I do, sometimes...s'I jus' wanted to thank you f'r stoppin' him...honest...."

"I was obeying an order," Une reminded him coldly, swinging her bag over her shoulder. Mr. Treize needed her, had requested her presence, and she would not keep him waiting. "As I am doing now by leaving."

Still, she couldn't help turning back, just once, before she let the door close after her.

"I forget sometimes, too," she admitted reflectively, unsure whether she only imagined that the blue-violet eyes flickered open once at the sound of her voice. "The longer we play the game, the less real it becomes--and the more acquainted we are with the rules. But I think sometimes we all need to be reminded."

And then she locked the door behind her.

Duo lay staring at the ceiling for a long time after Une disappeared--not that he could really do anything but lie there in her bed, but even had he been able to move without pain, every time he tried to bestir himself to move, he found he couldn't find the motivation. While still fuzzy in the head and covered with injuries he was sure would be agonising if deprived of Dr. Blythe's regular doses of pensycolene, he was not /quite/ so incoherent as he had led them to believe. He had a high tolerance for drugs, and he had felt the steadily declining effect of the painkillers as the hours--had it been days?--progressed. But he knew that the only way he would escape Fortress Barge would be to lull his captors into believing he was an invalid.

His captors. They confused him. At least Une did. Nathan Blythe was an easy enough person to figure out; he was a doctor, and doctors tended to see people as patients before considering them enemies or allies. But Une...in the space of a few encounters, his preconceived ideas about the notorious Oz colonel had been dissolved. He remembered her as the one who gave the order to destroy New Edwards, who was willing to sacrifice her own men--how could he reconcile that Une with this one, who gave up her own bed for a captured enemy and spoon-fed him soup?

There was one explanation, of course. He'd heard the rumours before--Lady Une, it was said, had split personalities. There were two completely different women residing in that delicate face, and he was simply being privileged to see the side few others were ever exposed to. He recalled how her face could close in a matter of heartbeats, and how she had shut herself off when he'd asked her name. 'Nobody else knows,' she'd said. He still wasn't sure, if it was such a closely guarded secret, what had possessed her to answer when he'd asked.

Oh, he had one idea, but he wasn't sure if it was something he ought to dwell on--after all, these were still his enemies.

But he had a feeling--a nagging, sneaking suspicion that tickled at the back of his brain--that Nicole Une was desperately lonely.

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"Lady...I'm so glad you're here." Treize Khushrenada let out a long sigh, his regal posture wilting in near-exhaustion as he let the door to his suite close behind them at last. It had been a long day, full of the usual tedious meetings and backstabbing politicians, but unlike most days, business had seemed to revolve around the merits of Tsuberov's Mobile Doll units. Treize hated Tsuberov /and/ his toys with a passion that bordered on religious fervour, and even he found it increasingly difficult to keep his composure after the third straight hour of being told how the unmanned suits would revolutionise war. War was only worth anything when real people were fighting for noble values, otherwise it was just a lot of innocent people getting killed, and where was the merit in that?

"You asked me to come," Une answered neutrally. Always careful, that one. But he could see the sparkle in her eyes, when she turned away, and for a moment he regretted his decision. There was too much baggage between them to ever make them good lovers, yet he was well aware that she had loved him practically since they were children. It wasn't fair, he realised, to take advantage of her devotion when all he would ever want from her was friendship.

But she was so willing to take whatever he offered, and she and Zechs were the only true old friends he had.

So he stifled his regret, and smiled warmly at her, and drew her inside. "Will you share a bottle of wine with me, Lady?" he asked, and she nodded, following him gracefully into the room. He guided her to a chair, but she pre-empted him with the bottle, motioning him to sit while she poured.

"Your Excellency looks tired," she observed, almost crisply--it made sense, he knew. Her harsher self tended to take over when she was nervous about anything; it was easier for her. Well, he could remedy that.

"Please, Nicole." Her hazel eyes widened and the glasses clinked together as she came very near to dropping one. "None of that tonight--I am too tired to be His Excellency. Truly I would rather only be Treize, sharing good wine with a dear friend."

Her gaze lowered and she slid his glass to him across the small round table that separated their chairs. "Very well...Treize. You still look tired."

"I am," he admitted, shedding gloves and jacket before raising his glass to touch against hers. "To both our good health, my dear...and yes, it has been an exceedingly long day. You will have to back me up, you know--I've been trying to talk the Foundation out of using mobile dolls til I'm nearly hoarse with it, and still they aren't listening. You may have methods I have yet to discover."

A glint of steel flashed in Une's eyes--perhaps there was more shared between her two halves than he'd been led to believe. "I assure you, Yo--Treize...anything I can do to help you, I will."

"I know you will." He reached out to squeeze her hand briefly. "But that's not really what I want to talk about, Nic...I am intensely tired of that subject. Why don't you tell me instead about that Gundam pilot you captured? Is he faring better?"

She nodded, but her expression was guarded and noncommittal. "Nathan is keeping him barely conscious on painkillers. He's healing, slowly. I think he's delirious a good portion of the time," she added, a twitch of her lips /almost/ becoming a smile.

That was rare indeed, and Treize seized on it. "Delirious? How so?"

Her soft eyes fixed on her hands, twisting around the stem of her glass. "Just some of the things he says," she admitted after a moment. "Not the sort of things you expect people to tell their enemies--certainly not their captors."

"Such as..?" Treize prompted. Somewhere during the course of the conversation his glass had run empty, and Une reached across the table to fill it.

"Well, he complained that I was leaving him, for one thing," she confessed, and Treize failed utterly in his attempt to not laugh aloud. "Thank you, that's what I thought. Yesterday he told me I had pretty eyes, and--well, things like that," she finally amended, stumbling to an awkward halt.

Treize nodded sagely. "They're a surprising lot, those Gundam pilots," he agreed.

"But you respect them," she interjected, eyeing him thoughtfully. Once again she was reading his face without the need for explanation, and he nodded again.

"They would never approve of mobile dolls either."

Une shifted in her chair--presumably to reach for the bottle again, and refill the glass that had once again become empty. Treize thought it was odd that he was already beginning to feel lightheaded--three glasses of wine was hardly enough to make him tipsy!

Then he remembered--there had been cocktails at the evening meeting...wine at dinner...spritzers previous and champagne for brunch...come to think of it, he'd been drinking all day.

"That's why you don't want them tortured," Une said, pulling him back from his contemplation of the day's alcohol intake with another serious statement. This one, however, was not /completely/ accurate.

"That's part of it," he affirmed. "And the rest--I made a promise."

Confusion spread plainly across her features. "A promise, sir?" she repeated, too startled to correct herself from the formal address.

As Treize nodded, he realised abruptly that what he /really/ wanted to tell someone had finally reached a window of opportunity. He had--well, he supposed it would be considered a problem, and he desperately wanted to get it off his chest, and one of the only two people in the world he would /ever/ consider revealing such a secret to was right here with him in the room.

"Yes. A promise. I must confess, Nic, that I haven't been completely honest with you...or for that matter with anybody. But you have to swear, on everything you hold most dear to you, that you'll never tell."

If she had been bewildered before, now she was very close to simply suspending reality and being done with it. "I promise," she said automatically, still toying with the stem of her barely-empty glass.

Treize leaned toward her, his tone lowered conspiratorially. "I've met a Gundam pilot too," he explained, his normally adept mental faculties straining to determine the best way of imparting this revelation. "You've seen him--the one I dueled with."

Now Une was merely puzzled--this hardly seemed like the sort of secret she should be sworn to keep. Everyone in Oz knew that Treize had dueled the pilot of Gundam 05. "Yes, I know him."

It was Treize' turn, as he leaned back into his chair, to look surprised and bemused and unsure. "It's the most bizarre thing, Nic...truly. I would never have thought it--just something right in the chemistry, I suppose, because under normal circumstances I don't think it would have happened--"

"Sir." She interrupted gently, depositing her glass on the floor near her chair and leaning across the table to silence him with her finger. "Treize. You're babbling. What are you trying to say?"

"Yes. What am I trying to say." He was discovering this was harder than he'd anticipated, but still the words burned to be shared. "What I'm trying to say, Nic, is that I promised him we wouldn't torture any pilots we captured because--because I think I'm in love with him."

Her eyes widened, and she snatched back her hand as if he'd burned her. "I--I see--"

He might have noticed her trembling, had he not felt so lightheaded with the release of his awful secret, let his eyes close and his head fall back. "God, you have no idea how good it felt to get that out."

There was barely even a moment of silence before she answered. "Then I am glad to have been here to help," she said.

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