Gundam Wing is property of Sotsu Agency, Bandai Studios, and TV Asahi. Sainan no Kekka and all original characters and plot copyright 2000 by Quicksilver and Gerald Tarrant. Please ask permission before reposting.


SHIN KIDOU SENKI GUNDAM WING

SAINAN NO KEKKA
Navidad

III. STILL STILL STILL
[Weil's Kindlein schlafen will
Maria tut es niedersingen
Ihre ganze Lieb' darbringen]

Love imposes impossible tasks // Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Though not more than any heart asks // And I must know she's a true love of mine


The night was cold and she had bundled an extra set of wraps around her, prepared for the worst. It wouldn't be the first time that it had started snowing in the middle of the night, and who knew when she would get home?

A knock on the door and she paused, the hand holding her powder brush poised on midmotion. "Come," she called.

She saw the butler's form in the mirror. "Excuse me, Lady Emily, but you have a call."

"From León? Tell him just one second."

"No, Madame…I do not know who it is from. But it is marked as urgent."

Emily Khushrenada Catalonia gave a delicate cough. "Antoine, I don't care who it is from, tell them I am busy and will be there in a minute."

"Yes, my lady." The door closed, and she sat staring at it in the mirror's reflection, wondering how people could be so dense. Really! Interrupting a lady in the middle of delicate work…anyone should know better than that.

Patting her ornate golden curls one more time and tucking a stray strand of hair back into place, she put down the powder brush, ran the lipstick over her mouth, and checked her eye makeup in the mirror before standing up and adjusting the fur stole on her shoulders. The third party of the Christmas season…only the third! Honestly, she'd expected to have been invited to quite a few more, and she supposed it was all because León was gone for the holidays that she hadn't been. It was bad form to invite a woman to a party without her husband, but Emily had been sure to make it quite clear to several people that there would be dire consequences if she was not invited to some of the gatherings of the season. Tonight's party being one of them.

Picking up her fur coat and outer wrap from where it was draped over a velvet couch, she considered calling the maid to have her dress, then decided against it, throwing the garments around herself. The maids were so slow these days. She had asked León to look into hiring some new ones, and he'd promised to look into it as soon as possible, but he was always away. Busy with some Federation business or other.

She'd been lucky to land León. Her first husband she'd divorced two years before she had met the Comte d'Alsace, and even the fact that she was marrying twice was frowned upon by her family. Pick one and stick to it, they said. Her sister Marie had been especially righteous about that, going on about León. How he was the only one for her.

The only one for her he had been, because barely six months into their marriage, Marie was dead. She'd always been a sickly child, and the family had known it. They'd pushed up the wedding date to make sure that she would at least be a married woman when she died. Emily had seen León at the funeral in the appropriate role of grieving husband, but she didn't know what there was to grieve about. He had hardly known Marie, and it was a well known fact that he hadn't married for love.

Emily took the chance.

It was a simple matter to divorce Jalbert, who didn't put up much of a fight. They had never really gotten along anyway. And Emily had used her charms on León, and they had worked. It might have just been his grief over his sister Alicia, who had died less than half a year after Marie, but Emily wasn't about to let that slow her down. She hadn't really liked Alicia anyway.

León loved her, that she was certain. She was pretty sure she loved him as well, though the definition of love was a shady one at best, but there was no doubt that he at least had fallen hard for her. He'd never leave her, that was for sure. Not with his precious daughter's happiness at stake. Dorothy took after her, the fair complexion and the eyes, but she had her father's Spanish features. Emily had been slightly upset that it hadn't been a male when the doctor had come for gender testing, but León had told her a firm no when she had asked to abort it and try again.

It's a child, Emily. It's our child. We can always have more children, but we're going to let all of them live, no matter if they are male or female.

There had been something shadowed and desperate behind his eyes as he had said that, and she was quite certain that she could see the ghost of his dead sister there. He had never quite gotten over Alicia's death. Emily knew that León saw Alicia in his young daughter, but she had never cared enough to bring it up. It was a male thing, she supposed.

"Lady Emily!"

She swept down the grand staircase, making sure to take her time. "I'm coming, Antoine."

"In the comm room, Madame," he said, bowing as she passed and entered the comm room through the glass doors. She recognized the dark-skinned man on the screen at once: Tamirat Kambon, the Federation's Head Foreign Affairs Minister and the man who had been Heero Yuy's right hand while he had been alive.

"Monsieur Kambon," she said, nodding her head and lapsing into the French accented English that made her sound like a true noblewoman. "A pleasure." The clock read five minutes to ten o' clock, and if she didn't leave soon, she'd be late…

"Madame Catalonia," he said, nodding back at her, his deep voice grave, and suddenly she caught the scent of something amiss.

"What's going on?" she asked sharply, discarding the accent.

"Madame…I…" he appeared to choke, then blinked and looked at her, continued. "Madame, your husband was aboard one of the civilian shuttles from L3 to Earth this afternoon. The shuttle exploded in midflight. There…were no survivors."

She gripped the table until her fingers hurt. "What?"

"I'm sorry, I-"

"You liar," she hissed. "I don't know what kind of sick joke you're trying to play, but this is unacceptable!"

"It's not a joke, Madame. I wish it was."

"Liar!" she screamed at the screen, hand grasping for something, anything to throw at it. Her fingers grazed an ivory statue of an elephant that León had brought back from his travels to Africa and she raised it, hurled it at the vidscreen just as Kambon put his hands up, shouting "Wait-!"

The screen shattered.

Emily found herself shaking, and Antoine was rushing through the door with two other servants in tow shouting something that she couldn't make out. It was a horrible joke…León wasn't dead. He couldn't be dead.

"I'll see those bastards brought to justice," she grated. "I'll-"

"Lady Emily, please!" Antoine's hands on her arms brought her back to the room, and she pushed him away.

"How dare you touch me!" she cried. "I am a lady!"

Antoine backed away rapidly. "Madame…sorry, Madame…only trying to help…" The two other servants were gingerly sweeping up the remnants of the screen. The elephant, she noted distractedly, was ironically still intact except for a piece of its trunk, which had fallen off and skittered to rest near the bookcase by the wall.

She swept out of the room, ignoring him and his offers of assistance, went back up the stairs in a daze. León…dead? Surely, he couldn't be. Not her León, the proud, strong, noble man she had seen off to the spaceport only a week before, who had kissed her and promised to be home in time for Christmas.

He would have been home tonight.

Surely there was a note…something…she dashed back to the bedroom, threw open the door and threw aside the bedspread, began dumping out the drawers, searching for something, anything, a sign that he was still alive. Jewelry jingled as she threw the box against the wall, sending pearls and silver flying, and she didn't even realize when she settled slowly back on her heels and just felt the tears slide down her cheek.

"Madame?"

"Leave me alone," she choked.

"Madame…you will not be going to the ball, then?"

Where had he gotten that notion? "Of course I will! In five minutes."

"Very well," Antoine said softly, and she heard the door close. Gazing at the shambles of the room around her, it slowly dawned on her that he wouldn't be coming back.

"You bastard," she whispered fiercely. "You fucking bastard!" Stumbling into the bathroom to her vanity mirror, picking up a bottle of perfume. "YOU!" the perfume smashed against the wall and she grabbed a jar of cream- "FUCKING!" - the jar shattered on the counter and the pink cream began to drip slowly down the front, and she found another bottle of perfume - "BASTARD!" The perfume bottle exploded against the mirror, which cracked, and she whimpered, crumpling to her knees again and wrapping her arms around herself.

After what seemed like an eternity, her heart slowed and she pushed herself to her feet, not letting herself look at the wreckage of the bathroom and she made her way slowly back into the bedroom, attempting to pick up some of the clothes. The maids would clean it…but this was embarrassing. It would be all over the gossip columns by tomorrow, she just knew it.

Her fingers brushed something silken through the pile of León's discarded underwear and she paused, then picked it up. It was a silken scarf decorated with whirling, colorfully blinding patterns that were at once elegant and gaudy at the same time. Interesting…León had never showed this to her before. Had he gotten it from a woman?

That was nonsense. León loved her and only her. He'd never even have eyes for another woman. She had been his whole universe.

At least she could console herself with that.

She went back into the bathroom, brushing aside the broken glass and touching up her makeup before once again going back into the main room. The scarf caught her eye again and on a whim she picked it up as she closed the doors behind her, heading down the hallway to the nursery.

The night nurse looked up, surprised, as she came into the room. "Madame! The baby is asleep…would you like to see her?"

Emily nodded. "Yes, just for a few minutes."

The nurse looked even more surprised, probably due to the fact that Emily's visits to the nursery were rare, and her asking to see her daughter was even rarer. She gestured to Emily to be very quiet, then opened the door and allowed them both to enter.

Dorothy was asleep, one thumb in her mouth. The nurse made a noise of disapproval and made to remove the offending digit, but Emily stopped her with a motion of her hand. Slowly she crossed to the crib's side, noting how the dim light gleamed on her daughter's short, wispy, almost white hair.

"Hello, angel," she said softly, resting one hand on the little girl's head. Dorothy did not stir. Emily suddenly felt foolish, a mother who had no words to say to a daughter, but the nurse had gone back into the other room and they were alone.

"Your father's gone," she said quietly to the sleeping child. "I…I guess that it's the two of us now. I can't keep you here, you know…I'm sorry, but it's better for us both." Remembering the scarf she held in her hand, she shook it out gently, draped it over her daughter's chubby form. "This was your father's…I don't know what will happen from now on, but…" she trailed off, again at a loss for words.

"Good night," she finally said, and left the room. Antoine was waiting outside.

"Madame…your car is here…?"

She smiled at him, enjoying how the range of emotions from confused to surprised to resignation crossed over his face, and then nodded at him.

"I'm ready now, Antoine. We may go."

To Part 3 | To Part 4 | Back to Sainan no Kekka