SHIN KIDOU SENKI GUNDAM WING
SAINAN NO KEKKA
ACT ZERO, PART III
Nagasu namida itami ga
Sekai o tsuranuki daichi o nurasu
Kono kanashimi o tometai
I believe your love
Akiramenai
Kizutsuita tsubasa hirogete
Habataku sora kagiri no nai
Yume o egaku haruka
The pain of tears shed
For those held dear
Pierces the world and drenches the earth
I want to end this sorrow
I believe your love
Never give up
Spread open your wounded wings
Flying up to the sky, you sketch
A boundless dream, so far away
--Gundam Wing, Last Impression
[Endless Waltz]
Scene IX: They Say Lucifer was the Lightbringer
son of the morning! How art thou cut down to
the ground which didst weaken the nations!"
--Isaiah 14:12
Sally Po stood in front of her new office, trying to assimilate her surroundings. She hated to admit it, but she was impressed. It had taken less than six months for them to complete construction on this massive compound which was to house the heart of the Preventers base.
"What do you think?" Une asked, coming in without waiting for an invitation. She craned her head around as she tried to take in the immense office, studying the attention to detail with a hint of satisfaction lurking around her lips.
"I think that if all my guests come in without knocking that I'm going to have some serious discipline problems."
Une smiled a bit. "We're still not officially in. The ribbon cutting is tomorrow," she said. "Until then, I can roam around, sticking my nose where I please claiming inspections."
"You're too noisy for your own good," Sally said accusingly.
"Maybe. Maybe not," Une replied. "I get my own way more often than not - if I wasn't the way I am, we'd never have gotten where we were and the politicians would have slapped us with a second-rate budget in make-shift buildings." She sighed as she studied the new desk sitting on the pristine navy carpet. "It was expensive, but our headquarters had to be new, not relics of the war. It's symbolism, but we speak to ourselves and to the world with those symbols."
"It's politics," Sally said with a hint of disgust. She looked down at her new uniform, and although the colors were not so different than what she had worn when she had fought during the war, she felt distinctly uncomfortable in them after six months.
"Everything in life is politics," Une replied. "Trying to cross the street is about the politics of traffic; you versus the car."
"That's an unpleasant way of thinking," Sally replied sourly, knowing her face had to look like she had just sucked on a lemon. "I would have avoided it if I could have, these politics on this grand-world scale."
"It chose you, Sally. You're one of the people who is destined to shape the world, and you're going to live up to that potential."
"We've been over this before, haven't we?" Sally murmured.
"Yes, when I hired you..." Une murmured.
"You mean conned me," Sally accused. She still blamed Une for the major guilt trip she had laid down on her.
"You did what you thought was right... after all, we're still waiting for the dawn," Une said softly before going over to the curtains to throw them open to let light spill into the room. Sally was pushed into her memories of that day, nearly six months before. She'd arrived back on Earth on January 1. It was an auspicious day, the first day of a new year, and hopefully a new era. An era without war, an era of peace.
As she stepped off of the shuttle onto the ground, she tilted her head back and breathed in the sweet air of the planet she had fought so hard to protect, almost unable to believe that they had won. Together she and her allies had succeeded in freeing the world to face a new destiny.
Why did she feel so empty, though?
The shuttle had, like most of the shuttles that had come off from Peacemillion, landed in Geneva so soldiers could join the celebrations. Sally intended to book a flight out to Beijing as soon as possible, wanting to get back to China as soon as possible. China was her home, and she missed it deeply.
She looked down at her scuffed shoes, wondering what stories they could tell. She hadn't replaced them since she had gone AWOL, and she could see a hole on the top. The soles were thin, and one of the first things she intended on doing was buying a new pair - that was after she had a good meal, slept for a week, and had a shower. Not necessarily in that order, either.
Sally sighed a bit, realizing the extent of her fatigue if she was fixating on her shoes.
She turned towards the gate, ready to get moving. It would be hard to find a hotel room, but she still had a few friends who would probably let her crash on a couch until she was able to arrange a flight. Failing that, she could always sleep in the terminal. She considered her options and funds, sighing a bit more. Being a rebel fighter did not lend itself to financial success. She was a world hero, but dead broke.
Oh, how her mother would scold her. Her parents had always warned her that she would come to this end, if she took a military career. She hated proving them right.
"Sally?"
The sound of someone calling her name pulled her out of her sleep- deprived funk. From the insistent tone, the person had called her a few times without receiving a reply.
"Yes?" Sally said, trying to find the source. The airport was full of people trying to find loved ones still streaming back from the war. It would be weeks until all the soldiers managed to find come back Earthside, and months before they were properly repatriated.
"You look like hell," an amused voice said. "They were keeping you busy up there, weren't they?"
Sally finally managed to fix red-rimmed eyes on the source of the voice, and she almost gurgled in shock. Lady Une was standing there, her arms tucked neatly behind her back as she studied Sally's ragged, drawn-out appearance. It was only through the training she'd had as a doctor, the training to always stay calm and in control of the situation, that let her raise and inquiring eyebrow. "There weren't enough doctors to go around to care for the war wounded," she said. "Besides, taking care of Heero Yuy and Quatre Winner required a certain discretion that many people didn't have."
"I heard Heero went missing almost immediately after," Une said softly.
"He did." Sally's eyes went dark as she remembered. "But he was pretty banged up, and I took care of what I could. I knew he'd take off - that's Heero for you. Ride off into the sunset when things are done, the classic hero, if you'll pardon the pun."
"We could have used him," Une said. "And Maxwell and Chang... They're gone as well. Only Barton and Winner are left, and Winner has to go back to his company, and I'm not wagering on Barton staying for long. He's always been the one to vanish into thin air, even more easily than Yuy."
"He's staying until Quatre's well enough to travel," Sally agreed. "After... Well, I have my theories where he'll go, but if he wants to live his own life, I say let him."
Une nodded a bit. "He deserves a childhood. I think they all do."
Sally had to stifle a yawn. "Sorry. But I'm exhausted. You obviously didn't come here to discuss the pilots, so what do you want? You should be consolidating power. Or something productive like that, not looking me up. It's a big date. The charter for the world nation is being signed, along with the provisions for your... Peacekeepers or whatever you're calling them. You need to be working on that. It's important."
"The Preventers," Une corrected her. "And I am doing something right now," she informed the doctor, a slight gleam in her brown eyes.
It was a measure of how tired Sally was that she didn't recognize what Une was getting at immediately. "Oh? What are - oh. Oh, no," she said. She shook her head as what Une was hinting at sank in. "I'm not getting involved. I've had enough of the military to last me a lifetime."
Une tilted her head. "Really? I thought you were a soldier by blood, fighting for what you believed in."
"Une... I'm a doctor. I help people, and I haven't been able to practice medicine since the war began. Not really - a bit of field medicine, but that's not the same thing. I was thinking about setting up a clinic in a poorer part of China, and getting back to my people. There aren't enough doctors in the world..."
Une's arms fell out of the parade rest she had been holding the entire conversation. "Follow me," she said softly.
Sally was confused. Une wasn't one of her favorite people in the world; she had never understood the ruthless, "ends justify the means" personality of the colonel, or the sweet, loyal nature she had adopted when she had become the delegate to the colonies on Treize's behalf. Still, Une had been loyal to Treize above all, and that deserved respect. Without her speech at the close of the war, Sally doubted that this peace would ever have been obtained. Une was one of the key players in the world and deserved to be heard.
Then I'll tell her no, Sally decided, lifting the traveling bag and slinging it over her shoulder so she could follow Une.
The two women made their way through the airport, and despite all the recent coverage of both of them on the news, neither was recognized. No one expects a god to walk among mortals, Sally thought with heavy amusement, as they wove through the crowds. Une had a clear destination in mind, not speaking as they made their way between the concourses before stopping on a bridge between the two.
Sally's breath caught at the beauty of the city as they stood in a glass walkway. Under their feet stretched a four-lane highway, but no cars raced under it. Instead, it had been blocked off, and people spilled out into the street, dressed in colorful clothing and throwing confetti, dancing and laughing. She watched their gyrations and could see their joy - it had a wild, almost tangible quality to it.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Une said, touching the glass longingly. "This is what we fought for, for people to know this joy, instead of sorrow."
"Indeed." Sally found herself touching the glass as well, unable to stop herself from reaching out. "Why do you want me so badly?" she asked. "To keep this peace, we need ordinary people to lead good lives. I want to be one of them."
"You can't," Une said bluntly. "You've danced the razor's edge during the war - you know how it cuts. You know what price your fame is. People admire and respect you, but you have a duty to it now. You can't sink back into obscurity, because the world won't let you."
"I'll show people my way," Sally said stubbornly.
Une was quiet as she thought on it for a moment. "I want to give you a chance to save people, Sally. You have the drive and ability, and the position. You're unique... You're one of the rebel leaders I need to bring into the fold to heal the schisms that the war caused. The pilots may have been people's demons, but they were heroes as well, and many people know you were their ally. Since I can't have them, I'll take you instead. I want you, both on your merits and as a representative of the pilots."
"I'll endorse you."
"Words are meaningless. Actions speak louder than words, you know that."
"I'm a doctor, not a politician!"
"You're a fighter above all, Sally," Une replied. "You fight for what you believe in, and you use whatever skills you have. You're a born leader, and I need you to realize that your abilities are better spent on the grand scale. You can save one life as a doctor, or you can save thousands by working for the Preventers. What's the greater good, Sally? There are may people who can become doctors, but there's only one Sally Po, and I need her in my organization."
Sally looked down at the revelers, wanting to deny the truth in Une's words, but finding herself unable to. "I hated Treize, you know," she said softly.
"What?" Une said, startled by the sudden change of pace.
"I hated Treize. I blame him for all of this, for beginning a war based on power. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely, and he became the embodiment of that truth to my mind." She watched as a child lost a balloon, a red balloon the color of blood. The balloon drifted past the window, and up into the air, which was starting to darken with the colors of summer twilight. "I thought you should know, if we're to work together."
"You didn't understand him," Une said in response. Her voice was neutral as she kept from looking at the other window. "Treize was locked into a role which he felt he had to fulfill, because no one else would. He saw things on a grand scheme which I couldn't begin to grasp. Maybe the only people who did see things on that scale were those who piloted the Gundams; he held a special love for them. Maybe not. But everything he did, I believe he did because he loved this world and its people."
"Vision. You claim he had that. So? Many people do, but they don't try to impose it on the rest of the world by destroying governments and sinking us into world war. If not for the pilots..."
"...But they were there," Une replied. "Treize knew they were there, and he knew they would win."
Sally stared at the woman who gazed serenely out the window, her face a mask. Who was Lady Une? She wondered. Who had she become, now that her lord was gone?
"He had that much faith in them?"
"Didn't you?"
Sally sighed a bit, raking a hand through her hair. "You know how to win an argument, don't you?" she asked a bit bitterly.
"Treize taught me to win, even in defeat." Her eyes became distant as she studied something only she could see, a memory of the past and a man who had shaped the world according to his dreams. "I loved him, but he's gone. We're going to pick up the torch for him, and finish bringing the light to the world."
Sally nodded warily. "I'm in. But... What do you mean, finish? Aren't we done?"
Une shook her head, the long tendrils of her hair brushing against her cheeks. "They say the darkest hour is always before the dawn... And we've just come through that. We're entering that moment when the light is just starting to break the horizon, but it's not quite bright enough to see without fear of stumbling."
"I wonder," Sally murmured, coming out of her reflections.
"Hmm?" Une turned back to her, smiling a bit as the sunlight lit her hair from behind, creating a halo-effect which Sally found at one ironic and amusing. "Something on your mind?"
"Are we moving too fast?" Sally said softly. "Are we trying to forget about the things that matter most, and replace the old paradigm with something that lacks substance?"
Une turned to her second in command with steady eyes. "Here's where I'm supposed to give you a rallying cry, about how everything we do is for the common good… but I'm not perfect. I don't know. All that I do know is that things are better now than they were six months ago, and better than they were a year prior to that. We're making steps, Sally. We need to look at the big picture."
"Like Treize?"
Une smiled. "I don't think any of us have that kind of vision. But… we need to pretend we do."
Scene X: Ballade pour Adeline, Part II
-- Bruce Springsteen, Streets of Philadelphia
It had been almost six months, but sometimes when Catherine looked at her brother, it seemed that he had just come home. That he was still the same exhausted, bedraggled boy who had shown up at the entrance to the circus camp one winter night a week after the Eve Wars, who she had stared at for those few frozen seconds before gathering him tightly in her arms and sobbing silently.
She had thought she would never see him again. It was a given, really, with the Gundam pilots. She hadn't even dared to think about him after the panic of the Eve Wars had subsided. He was better off where he was, she had told herself. She knew he wasn't dead, because if he had died, she would have felt it somehow. But she had thought he wasn't coming back.
He didn't tell her where he had been and why he looked so sad. There was something weighing on him other than the fact that he had survived through a war. He and four of the most brilliant boys in the world. They had survived, but sometimes she wondered if it was any more than that.
He never smiled.
The Ringmaster had planned an L3 tour long before the war had ever happened, and they had cancelled their plans when Operation Nova had started, much to the disappointment of the entire troupe. It wasn't that L3 was a particularly friendly colony, but it was the chance to go offplanet that was the main attraction - the chance to ride through space, through the stars, and to be able to tell the tale.
Two weeks after Trowa had come home and started tending the lions again like he always had as if he had never left, the Ringmaster brought up the topic of going back to L3.
"I've kept the plans for this tour in the drawer ever since, and it's a shame to waste them," he told Catherine one day at lunch. "Especially since Trowa's back, I think we can do an explosive show. No pun intended," he added hastily when Catherine looked sideways at him.
The date of the show had been set and she'd gone back to the tent that night to see Trowa standing in the doorway waiting for her. She could see he was upset about something, which was in itself a bit startling, because when he was upset, he rarely showed it. Except for those very few breakdowns during the war when he'd lost his memory, she had never seen Trowa anything but calm, serene, quiet. Far away.
"Are we really going to L3?" he said.
She looked at him for a long time before answering. She wanted to hug him, but something about the way he was standing told her to keep her arms to herself.
"We are," she said softly. "You don't want to go?"
He looked at her for a moment more and then shook his head ever so slightly, then was gone.
The memory of that night haunted her the entire shuttle trip to the colony, but when she looked at the boy sitting next to her in the seat, sleeping peacefully, she wondered if her fears were unfounded. There was something about L3 that he hadn't told her, but if it bothered him this much, she would be able to feel it…or so she told herself.
He didn't wake up till they had docked at the spaceport and the pressure door had been opened. It was uncanny how brilliant his green eyes were even through sleepy rims as he stretched like a cat and stood up from his chair, looking out the window.
"Interesting," he said, a surprised tone in his voice. "They usually don't keep visitor shuttles in this docking bay."
She blinked. "What do you mean?"
He shook himself, as if he hadn't realized he had spoken out loud, and turned to get his bags out of the overhead compartment. She waited for an answer, but after watching him busy himself with slinging bags over his shoulder, she realized he was deliberately ignoring her.
Fine. If he wanted to do that, she'd just ignore him also.
The show that night was in a rather suburban area of the colony, and she was surprised when they actually drew a larger crowd than they had hoped. Reports in the latest business journals had shown that the L3 economy was down because of the post-war sluggish economic growth, but the many small children in the audience surprised her. She mentioned this to the Ringmaster backstage, and he had smiled.
"Well," he said. "A circus is kind of like a…ray of sunshine on a cloudy day, isn't it? We're not made of much substance, if you think of us in terms of politics or world economy. But I think we're much more substance than most people put faith in. A circus represents children, hope and families and love - everything that people need right now after the war."
Families and hope. She thought of Trowa, and she knew the Ringmaster saw her glance at where he was kneeling by the lion cages, petting one of the great beasts on the head, scratching through the long mane. The lion was gazing at him with a sort of fondness in its lidded eyes, and as if Trowa had sensed her gaze on him, he gave the big cat a final pat on the head and rose, disappearing behind the cage into the storage tent.
"Frustrating, isn't it?" the Ringmaster said softly.
She shook her head partly in puzzlement, partly in a sort of bemused sorrow. "I don't understand him. I never have. I've tried so hard…he's mercurial. I'm always afraid he'll get up and leave…that one morning I'll wake up and he won't be there." Her voice was trembling, she knew, and she stopped, tried to swallow.
"It is hard," he said, placing one big hand on her shoulder and giving her a gentle pat. "I know you love him very much…he has someone special in you, Catherine. Trust me. I believe he loves you, though he tries not to show it."
Catherine nodded slowly. "I…I know that. But Trowa isn't like most people. He's not tied to the ones he loves - not me, not the pilots, not even Heavyarms. I don't understand him and I wish I did. To him, love means love, but it doesn't mean staying with the person that you care about."
"I wonder if that's a better way of loving, then?" he murmured. "There are few people who can be sure of the love of someone who won't stay with them. It takes a lot of courage, you know, to love someone who isn't with you."
"It does," she replied. "I don't know if I have that courage."
The Ringmaster looked over to where Trowa had gone back behind the cages and nodded slightly. "You should probably go after him," he suggested softly. "I think it's about time you two had a talk."
She frowned at him, but he only gave her a slight smile and made his exit. The cheering in the main show tent was subsiding, and she could hear the drums that signaled the last act of the day. Sighing, she trotted back to her dressing room, hurriedly throwing off her costume and donning a t-shirt, a pair of long pants, and comfortable walking shoes. She heard the outer door open and then shut, and hurried out to see who had come in.
There was no one there.
She glanced around and realized that the tent was empty. That must have been Trowa. He must have also finished changing out of costume and slipped outside. Her curiosity piqued, she exited the tent, glancing around for him in the fading false twilight of the colony's environment control system. It was a brisk wintery day, not too cold, just right for what the weather would be on a nice winter day in France or Germany. She suddenly missed home very much.
It's just a trip, she reminded herself. A couple of days on L3 and then we'll be on our way back to Earth.
A movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention and she whirled around to see a familiar form disappearing down the road towards the train station. She blinked at it for a few seconds before she realized that Trowa was intending to take the train.
To where?
She broke into a jog, glad she was wearing appropriate clothes for it, and swung into the station just as one of the bullet trains pulled in. Spotting Trowa's familiar head of hair, she wove her way through the sparse crowd towards him as he disappeared into one of the cars. She fumbled in her purse for her train pass and managed to hurry aboard just as the whistle blew and the doors began to shut.
The inside of the train, for some reason, was cooler than it was outside, and Catherine shivered as the train began to move. She didn't know which compartment Trowa had vanished into, and the thought struck her that she wouldn't be able to know where he got off.
Berating herself for being stupid, she stared absently out the window. Maybe she would be able to see him get off if she looked hard enough. Or if she didn't, she'd just ride the train back around to the station near the circus. Trowa didn't need anyone looking after him - that much she'd realized after he had gone off to fight even through his amnesia. Trowa was, first and foremost, his own person, no matter how hard she tried to deny it. All she could do was love him and support him as best as she could.
They'd gone through about seven stops and she hadn't seen him get off. Wondering if she'd missed him, she'd just settled herself in resignedly for a long, cold ride home, when the train pulled into the next station and she saw him appear from the next compartment, heading up towards the stairs. She jumped up from her seat, narrowly missing being crushed by the train doors as they shut.
She was careful to keep her distance from him, but apparently he didn't have far to go. The scenery at the surface of this train station was dismally bleak - crumbling buildings and broken archways. The air here seemed even colder than it had been on the train, and the sun had mostly set, casting an eerie purplish-black glow over the broken buildings and empty, leering windows.
He stopped a short distance away, pausing at some indefinable point, seeming to be waiting. She stopped too, but after a few minutes when he didn't seem to have any intention of moving, she cautiously crept up behind him.
"You could have asked me if you could have come with me," he said, not turning around. "I wouldn't have stopped you."
"Would you?" Catherine said. "I don't know about that."
There was the faintest trace of a smile on his face when he finally looked at her. "Have more faith in me than that, dear sister," he said.
She closed her eyes. "I'm trying," she whispered. "It's very hard, you know? You…come back from the dead like you've never been gone, almost as if you're expecting me to just welcome you back into my life. But it's hard. I can't…I can't just do that."
He looked faintly sad. "I don't expect you to," he returned. "My life is my own…your life is your own."
"But people touch each other through their lives!" she snapped. "Look, Trowa, you may be independent, but people need each other! We can't just go through life pretending that human presence doesn't matter!"
He started to say something, but she cut him off with a sharp gesture. "Trowa. I love you. I don't know how many times I have to say it before you realize that. I know you might not love me the same way I love you, but I want you to know how deeply I care for you - just as I would a real brother. And…it's hard for me to watch you appear and disappear out of my life."
This time when he looked at her, he was smiling. She blinked. "I know, Cat," he said. "I know that very well. I…after this, I'm home to stay."
"After this?"
He gestured around him. "After this tour. After L3. I just wanted…to pay my final respects to a place that I once loved."
"Here?" She tried to keep the incredulousness from her voice. "You mean…this part of L3?"
He didn't answer. The sun was almost entirely gone now, and there were no lights. She shivered.
"It's cold," he said, without emotion in his voice, but she felt a jacket drape around her and she clutched it gratefully. He continued talking, his voice far away, as if he were addressing someone - not her, but someone else, someone who might hear even though she couldn't sense anyone around but the two of them. "If I go a couple more steps, I'll be home…but I can't. Not anymore. I just wish I could once again see those who had done so much for me…and thank them. I've found my place now. And in order for me to keep that place, I have to forgo those extra few steps and come back the way I came."
"Trowa?" she whispered, confused.
She saw him fumble in one pocket and take out a small square package. "Here," he said. "Open it."
Still confused, she took the box in numbed hands and managed to until the ribbon holding the top shut. The object tumbled out into her palms - a small, gilded metal box.
"Trowa?"
"Open the lid," he said. "It's wound already."
She slowly opened the delicate top lid of the box, and gasped in delight as the melody began to play - a tumbling trickle of tinkling notes that seemed to permeate the darkness around them and light up the cracked concrete sidewalk where they stood. "It's beautiful," she whispered.
"It was given to me by an old friend," he said, and by the tone in his voice, she sensed somehow that they were related: the music box, this crumbling landscape of dead buildings, the vacant look in his eyes and the tone in his voice when he talked about L3.
"An old friend? How…where…?"
He took one of her hands gently. "It doesn't matter," he said. "Just trust that I won't leave you. Not this time."
"I want to trust you, Trowa," she said. "You're my brother…no matter what anyone says." She felt him shift slightly, then put tentative arms around her. The melody from the music box was still playing, and she felt herself smiling as she hugged him tightly.
"I promise you," he said. "I'll be here with you."
Scene XI: Echoes Out of Time
And no one forces down our eyes
And no one speaks and no one tries
And no one flies around the sun."
-- Pink Floyd, Echoes
"Hilde!" a voice called, and Hilde jerked upright from under the car she had been examining, forcing a pleasant smile to her face. She slid out carefully, because she'd bumped her head on the underside of vehicles so many times that she'd lost count. The person who'd been calling her had been the cause of more than half of those accidents, much to her exasperation. Since Duo had left, she'd found herself constantly the subject of former soldiers' attentions, and of all of them, Brent Adams was undoubtedly the most persistent. "Not interested" and "no" didn't seemed to be in his vocabulary.
The man who stood before her was handsome, in a bland sort of way, but nothing compared to Duo. He had brown hair - but not hair long enough that it made you want to drown in - and sweet eyes - but not eyes that seemed to hold the secrets of the universe - and while he shared Duo's ability to laugh readily, he wasn't fascinating to her. He was insipid, and she wondered if all men were going to be, after having known Duo Maxwell as a lover.
"Yes, Mr. Adams?" she said, trying to keep from sounding as frustrated with him as she felt. It was a hard thing, being a former female soldier. She was pretty and bright, and owning her own business made her quite an attractive commodity to all comers.
"I was wondering if you'd be interested in-"
She put her hands on her hips, the way she had used on Duo when she had truly been pissed with him. Her glare was formidable as she looked down her nose at the man who stood a good foot taller than she was. "Haven't I made myself clear? I am not interested in dating a man who is a decade older than I am! I just broke off a serious relationship a few months ago, and I'm not getting involved with anyone else!" she snapped. "I've tried being polite, but I want you to get it through your thick skull that I'm not going to date you!"
Brent was calm when he replied, "I know."
"I-" she began, ready to rip into him again, but pausing when his words sank in. "What do you want, then?" she asked.
"You were OZ military, weren't you?"
She almost laughed. It was a good thing that her service record had never gotten out, and a very good thing that Duo's identity had never been revealed, or else she'd have some serious problems on her hands. "For a while," she answered neutrally.
"They're holding a memorial tonight, in honor of Treize Khushrenada. I was wondering if you'd like to come."
Hilde opened her mouth to refuse, but instead found a question tripping off of her lips. "Why now? He's been dead seven months."
Brent looked at her face, but she had the impression he wasn't seeing her. "It's August first. He would have been twenty-five today."
She had to admit she was curious. She had never met Treize, but anyone who had ever served with OZ learned to admire the man. "What time?" she found herself asking.
"Nine o'clock, the Shea Auditorium. I'll pick you up at eight, if you want to go." He held out a ticket in front of her face, a white slip of paper encoded with a computer code along the side.
It was a bad idea, dredging up these memories, but she found herself agreeing. "Sure." It would be interesting, to see a memorial to Treize. She had always been interested in him.
"If you want to meet earlier, I'll take you-"
"Don't push it," she warned.
The stadium was packed, and she was a bit surprised. Around her, people of all walks of life gathered, their faces solemn and intent as they filed through the doors, presenting tickets to the ushers. Beside her, Brent was uncharacteristically restrained as he let her take in her surroundings without pushing himself on her.
"Wow," she murmured. "I'm amazed there's so many people here," she said, unable to keep from speaking her mind.
"There's similar events going on throughout the colonies and on Earth. A group is working on getting today declared a holiday to remember Treize," Brent said.
She stiffened a bit in surprised. "That's a bit hasty, isn't it?" she said. "He's only been dead for seven months. Surely we need to wait a little longer before we go around trying to declare…"
Brent held a finger to his lips. "Quiet. Just look and listen tonight, and you'll see why people feel that he was the greatest man of the age. You can argue later."
She nodded, realizing that arguing against Treize wouldn't be such a bright idea around here. People who were going to this kind of event would be among his most loyal followers, and rocking the boat would be a bad move. "What did you do during the war?" she asked, suddenly realizing she didn't know very much about Brent Adams.
"I was part of the changing tide," he said. "In the end, though, I was in the Treize faction."
Ouch, she thought. He's definitely not one to argue about Treize with. The Treize faction had gained a reputation for being somewhat fanatical since the war, picking up his philosophies to develop its own political parties both on Earth and in the colonies. Some of the more extreme members even denied that Treize was dead. "Oh," was all she could think of to say.
"He was a great man, Hilde," Brent said. "He impacted all of our lives… didn't he touch yours, in some way?"
She opened her mouth to deny it, but remembered her box of keepsakes at home. "I - yes," she murmured after a moment. "Yes… as a matter of fact, he did."
And that was a fact. She'd been a good soldier, knowing how to follow orders, but she wasn't cut out for it. Her problem was that she thought too much. A truly great foot soldier, the kind of foot soldiers OZ wanted in its ranks, were the ones who always followed orders, but Hilde couldn't do anything without thinking it over. She would have done better as an officer, but she was enlisted personnel.
OZ didn't want colonists in its officers program, and she didn't want to be there. She just wanted to be a pilot, believing it the best place for her talents.
She had been bright, eager, and ready to do what she ever was needed to protect the colonies she loved. When push came to shove, that had been her downfall - the fact that she loved the colonies, instead of her organization. In the end, it had worked out for her, but there had been times she had wondered if thinking was a good idea. Sometimes it would have been easier to be one of the mindless drones who simply followed orders without question.
But Hilde always questioned.
It had been hard being a female OZ pilot. While the legendary Lucrezia Noin had shown it was possible to be among the best even as a woman, female pilots were rare. Most women were relegated to support positions, and that was something Hilde had not wanted and would not have accepted for herself. Hilde needed to be in the thick of the action, feeling her adrenaline pumping and knowing her actions would directly have an impact on the world around her. She was a doer by nature.
The first week had been the hardest. After the call had gone out through the colonies for recruits, she had answered, despite her mother's protests. She had abandoned her schooling to take what had been offered, knowing that her engineering background would get her foot in the door and once there, she would be able to get her hands on a mobile suit. She wanted to be a pilot, because she knew that while they had the highest casualty rate, they also had the best chance of seeing action.
And seeing action meant making that difference.
Hilde knew she'd be able to pilot. She never had any doubts she'd pass whatever tests they threw at her, because she'd always been something of a prodigy when it came to machines. She had an instinct, knowing that this button would do that, and by tweaking this switch that way, the machine would do this for her. Her aunt had teased Hilde about machines being better lovers for Schbeiker women then men, but for Hilde, it was almost the truth.
Hilde had anticipated the resentment for her skills. The men in her class of 126 outnumbered the women six to one, and the competition for the coveted pilot slots was fierce. She knew that only 10 of them would be selected for advanced training, and it soon became clear that she was on the fast track to one of those positions. Instead of accepting it gracefully, the others turned vicious, subtly seeking to scare her away through bullying and sabotage. The professors did nothing. She had to fight through on her own, for they believed it built character.
Hilde would be damned if they scared her away. She fought back, studying harder to throw the grading curve off and making sure the worst of them never managed to corner her alone. It would only be a week of assessments, but it would be a week that would show them all what Hilde Schbeiker was made of.
She did. She graduated first in her class, and was offered that position she so prized. And with it came an official commission from OZ, signed with the neat, crisp handwriting of Treize Khushrenada.
She was smart enough to realize that it was a stamp. Important people like Treize had stamps of their signatures made, and secretaries used them for this kind of thing. Still, it was thrilling to see that she had some form of acknowledgement from the leader of her organization, second-hand though it was. It meant that she was well on her way to becoming a soldier.
Three months later, she would be helping to blow up a moon base and letting a Gundam pilot escape. Loyalties changed, she discovered.
But she kept that letter of commission, to remember.
Brent waited as she reflected. He was polite about it, though after a minute he cleared his throat. "Hilde, we have to take our seats. The ceremony's about to start."
She agreed distractedly, wondering how Brent could have known about the letter. The only other person who had ever found out about it was Duo, and he had been more amused than annoyed to see her keeping a letter from a man who had been his worst enemy.
"Treize was Treize. I never tried to understand him, because it simply would have given me a headache - never tried to understand Zechs for that matter, either. Zechs was a major yo-yo, on this side one day, on another the next. Treize though…. Treize had consistency, you just couldn't see it. It was like he was seeing something I couldn't. I left the thinking up to the others - I just wanted to blow things up."
Hilde rather thought Duo was underestimating himself, but she hadn't called him on it. It had been one of his better days when he said that, and she had simply fallen back, laughing. Calling Zechs Merquise a yo-yo wasn't something most people would do… it was disrespectful to the dead.
The crowd was thick and intense and she wanted to get through them as quickly as possible. The atmosphere wasn't anything she was thrilled with - it was like entering one of the religious revivals her mother had been so fond of. What did all these people see in Treize? She wondered, looking around. The demographics of the crowd were interesting: many of them were probably former soldiers, like herself, but there were just as many people who were likely civilians.
"Who are all these people?" she wondered aloud.
"They're people Treize gave hope to," Brent replied softly. "Treize was the one who stopped the war, with his sacrifice. He never forgot the common soldier; he never turned us into mere machines. When he died… he took a part of us with him."
She shivered. Something about Brent's tone struck her as frightening. "People die, Brent, even the greatest men. Death is the great equalizer."
Brent looked over the audience. "Sometimes I wonder if he's really dead - how can that have happened? How can he have been killed by a Gundam pilot?"
"The pilot was the better fighter," Hilde said, though she, too, had wondered. Wufei wasn't the most skilled of all the pilots, from what little Duo had told her. She wondered if Treize had let himself die, knowing his death was more important than his life.
Their seats were in the middle of the second tier, and they made their way over the row, careful to avoid stepping on the feet of those who were already seated. "Was he?" Brent asked. "Or did he know something we didn't?"
Hilde couldn't answer that one. She shook her jacket off, using it to pad her seat. The seats were notoriously uncomfortable. Brent smiled a bit at her, and handed her a candle as she settled in. "Here. You're going to need this."
She stared at it a bit at the white votive candle. "Why?"
"The ceremony will end with a candlelight vigil, with hopes of peace."
She nodded, feeling even more out of place. What would these people do, if they knew that a Gundam pilot's ex-girlfriend sat among them? She wondered.
Glancing around at the crowd, Hilde suddenly felt the intense sense of community these people were trying to share. On a face there, grief, but determination. Another, wistfulness… One looked hopefully, while another seemed almost glad. There were quiet murmurs and people sharing stories of the war, working on healing the damage which had been done.
Oh my… It's not about Treize anymore… It's about the new era he was trying to bring in… these people want to carry on that legacy.
Had Treize known that by dying, he would become the symbol of that new age?
The lights flicked, and the audience was plunged into darkness, but inside, Hilde felt warm for the first time in months. There's a new age coming, the people around her seemed to say.
"He was a hero to us all," Brent murmured from beside her, and she looked over to see tears running down his cheeks. She blinked and licked her lips, not quite sure how to do with a crying man. Duo she could have handled, but Brent was no Duo.
"Brent?"
"I remember when I first joined OZ…I was so young, and naïve. I'd been selected as test pilot, and my best friend James and I would talk about how we'd be heroes, you know, fighting to defend the people and all of that. It was only after he was killed that I began to realize how wrong we were. And how messed up the world was. And how something had to give."
She reached over and placed a hand on his arm, soothing. "How did he die?" Hilde asked, sensing he wanted to talk about it.
"He was killed by a Gundam," he said. "At Lake Victoria base. He was a flight instructor there, and he was there the night of the attack. It took me almost an entire month to accept the news."
Her heart clenched. A Gundam…that had been Wufei. It had been early in the war, and Wufei had always been a hothead, but that did nothing to justify still the many young men and women who had been killed in their sleep there. A thought struck her, and she felt chills up and down her spine when she realized that Treize had also been killed by Wufei.
It would not be a good idea to tell Brent that. She squashed down the part of her that begged to defend the name of the Gundams and nodded sympathetically instead.
"I'm sorry," she said, not knowing what else to say.
"I realize now, of course," Brent continued, "that James died in the line of duty and that he had expected something like this to happen. He was a very intelligent young man - brave, strong, one of the best up and coming young officers we had. The pilots he trained won't ever forget him, I promise you that."
"What happened after that?" Hilde questioned.
"I realized that Treize was right. His rhetoric…many people believed that he was advocating endless war. But that's not it, Hilde. Treize believed in peace. That's why he fought. Because he had a true vision of the world, you know? Treize was…almost like a savior."
Hilde nodded absently, mulling over his words in her head and wondering how much he had actually known about Treize. Some of that had been Treize, yes, but not all of it. In the end, Treize had been just a man, like the rest of them.
"Treize was a great man," she said. "It's a shame we lost him."
"I can't believe he's dead," Brent said, choking, and she realized he was crying again. She leaned over to him, tugging on his shirt.
"Treize isn't dead, Brent," she whispered.
His sorrowful eyes turned to her. "What?" he asked. There seemed to be a tremulous hope to his words, and she suddenly realized exactly how important the leader of OZ had been to him.
"Look around. As long as people carry his dream, Treize lives…"
Act 0 Part II | Act 0 Part IV | Back to Sainan no Kekka
