Hope you like it...standards disclaimers apply

There was a warning that there was to be an attack on the peace conference one day and Abdul convinced Zariach to stay in the security room where he could keep an eye on her. The invading numbers were huge and he was not taking any chances.

Zariach had nothing better to do anyway so she went without much protest. She was not really excited about spending her day looking on a peace conference but she had to overlook the conference, as that was the reason she came to earth in the first place.

The security room was filled with many televisions, which showed various places in the fortress. She chose a place where she could get a good view of the conference itself. Quatre was giving the opening speech of the day. The screen she had chosen gave a stunning view of the man who haunted her dreams now.

On some nights, she had been having dreams about him. Slightly naughty dreams. They had shocked her to the core and left her mortified. She had been so used to having nightmares these few years that she had no idea when faced with such dreams.

She never looked at him closely as it was impolite to stare at him with his knowledge. Since everyone in the room was busily working, she settled in a comfortable spot to admire Quatre dashing looks.

He attracted her in some mysterious way. Maybe it was the way his chest pressed against his shirt or the way his broad shoulders filled up the sleeves. He looked a lot like Yu-e. They both had platinum blonde hair although Yu-e looked more like an albino due to his faint skin color. Quatre on the other hand, had a creamy complexion that made him look more human.

She did not realize that when she was looking at him, she was smiling to herself. Abdul, who was keeping an eye on her, was delighted to see that she was smiling. He was silently grinning at her obvious liking of Quatre. The other men also noticed this and were silently coming a plan to bring them together. They were a most fitting pair.

The skirmish turned out to be quite manageable so the men situated in the security saw no need to aid those who had already subdued the enemy. Instead they stayed in the room overlooking the peace conference. Zariach kept a close eye on the proceedings.

Quatre was trying his best to convince the other delegates to agree on a total peace policy but there was a particular delegate who firmly refused. He was the delegate Rubert Polar, from Colony L5. He was a small compact man in his late fifties. He was obviously a former soldier as there was a scar sketching across his face. His eyes were like cold hard steel and he was almost deaf to Quatre's words of peace.

'This is not good. This peace conference must succeed if my mission is to be a success.' Thought Zariach, as she looked coldly at the delegate in question. 'I must have a talk with him. I have come too far to fail.'

She sat down to plan how to change the stubborn man's mindset while she saw Lady Une and Dorothy help Quatre in vain.

Later on, after the meeting, Zariach invited the delegate to dinner with her. He was very pleased with invitation and agreed immediately. They ate a simple dinner of steak and potatoes in his room.

"What do you think of the peace we are enjoying now?" asked Rubert.

"Which peace? The environment or the peace after the war?" replied Zariach shrewdly.

"The one after the war."

"I think I prefer the war. The danger that threatens you is in front of your face. Now, it hides in the dark like a shadow ready to pounce on you anytime."

"My sentiments exactly. Your lover Quatre, however seems to disagree."

Zariach cringed inwardly at Quatre being called her lover but did not let it show. "Quatre is not my lover. We are but mere acquaintances. He was a different point of view on such things probably because he has inherited many things from his peace-loving father. The former Mr. Winner was a great advocator of peace. Some of it must have rubbed off," she finished smoothly.

"I agree. The war took away what I loved most of all." Rubert said with a sad look on his face.

"Oh? What did it snatch away from you?" asked a very curious Zariach.

"My wife. I loved her more than I loved my life."

"If so, why do you object to peace?"

"Frankly, I hate the peace. I hate it for taking away what I treasured most. Why did the peace have to come at the price of her life? I want to go to war again because only then can I find and kill them."

"You are a selfish person, Rubert. You want war so that you can place your justice on the people you hate yet you do not think for others. There are many people who have lost their love ones like you. They do not wish for war. They wish for peace because they do not want others to go through the pain that they suffered during the war."

"This peace is too costly. I lost the one thing that I had of any value. It's not worth the price I paid."

"I too lost some one I treasured. I know how it feels to have a void inside you, how it fees like you will never be happy again. The world never seems bleaker than when he died. Most of all, I hate him. He promised me that he would come back. But he did not. He broke his promise, so I hate him more."

"What is your opinion of peace?"

"Peace? I know no such word, Rubert. There is no word peace in my vocabulary. I was born to fight. To destroy. A world of peace has no place for me. Every night I look up at space asking myself the same question he asked me. Who do you hate? Colonies or Earth?"

"Why do you hate the colonies? You grew up on one." Rubert asked disbelievingly.

"What is the use of bringing me into this world to suffer. I rather be non-existent than suffer what I went through to survive. You say that you suffered? What about me? I spent the past decade or so slave to a man without a heart.

You are only thinking about yourself. What about the others like me who suffered from the war of your doing?"

"I was right. You are here to convince me about peace." Rubert concluded with a smug look on his face.

"You are wrong." Zariach said this dangerously soft. "I'm here so that you will not disgrace those who were really affect by the price of peace. You lost your wife. I lost my entire family and the only person who ever mattered. If there were some one who is allowed to go to war for vengeance, that person would be me. Look into my eyes Rubert. See the pain that I went through. You will see how stupid your self pity is."

Rubert looked into the bitterest eyes he will ever see in his whole life. Zariach eyes were dead. Not only that, they held a grief, which was so unbearable to look at it, it seemed surreal. Her spirit had been broken once; it was obvious now that she open her soul through her eyes. He took a step back, taken back by the sadness shown in Zariach's eyes. The magnitude of her grief was immeasurable, over whelming. No matter how sad he felt, it could never, measure up to hers.

"Before you think about using your grief as an excuse against peace, think about me. Who has more right to declare war? Me or you?" with those parting words, Zariach exited the room, leaving a shaken Rubert stumped on his favorite armchair.

Quatre on the other hand, had made plans with Dorothy and Lady Une to pay Rubert a private visit to see if they could smooth things along. They were very surprised to see Zariach exit from his room.

"What are you doing here?" asked Lady Une.

Zariach merely looked at her and answered calmly, "Rubert invited me for dinner." Then, she left.

When they were refused entrance, Quatre, Lady Une and Dorothy went to seek Zariach out in hopes she knew why he refused them entrance. They found her drinking at one of the balconies, which offered a sweeping view of the desert.

"May we talk to you?" asked Quatre.

Zariach did not reply but gestured to the chairs surrounding the table, which she was sitting at. They took the invitation. They sat in a tense silence and Zariach drank glass after glass of wine.

"What happened when you visited Mr. Polar?" asked Dorothy.

"We ate dinner," came the curt reply.

"Anything else?" asked Lady Une.

"No."

Are you sure?" asked Quatre.

"We share the same view on peace if that is what you want to know."

"You still think this peace is false, don't you?" asked a disappointed Quatre. Zariach talking to another non-believer was not how he wanted to prove peace to her.

"Yes. That is the one point we seemed to agree upon."

"Why?" asked sad looking Quatre.

Zariach made no reply. She just stared into the unforgiving space, which had been her home for the past fourteen years. The desert held warm which she had been lacking throughout her life but none of it could warm her already frozen heart. She smiled sadly at her glass of wine. A glass of this will knock out a man twice her size had no effect on her. She was not human. She was a freak of nature.

"Leave me alone." She added silently, "So that I can grieve in peace."

"We are not leaving until we get some answers," Lady Une replied firmly.

"Prepare to wait for a long time."

They never got their answer as Zariach spent the rest of the night dead to the world.

Much to their surprise, Rubert was more open to peace the next day and the talks were much smoother. Quatre was pleasantly surprised by the change of heart and suspected the Zariach was behind it.

He went in search of her at night to offer his thanks. He never found her as she had gone out drinking again. He never got to offer his thanks as she spent the next few days avoiding him.

Trouble was brewing. The enemy was getting impatient that the peace talks were working and decided to take more desperate measures. They wanted to hurt Quatre. Not only that, they wanted to get rid of him for good. And they all knew how painfully the wanted him to suffer.

Quatre had just finished another exhausting meeting. The talks were finally moving along. The progress was slow but better than nothing. The threats were getting more frequent and violent. Quatre was worried that if it continued, there would be a civil war inside the town, something that he wanted very much to avoid. He had to find the root of the problem.

He was lost in his thoughts when a voice screamed behind him. "Watch out!"

It was too late. The poison knife had already struck his shoulder and he dropped like a sack of bricks.

Zariach looked on from the back in horror. She had been too late to prevent it. She ran up to him and pulled out the knife. "Quatre! Can you hear me? Quatre please, wake up!" she asked him frantically as she tried to shake him into consciousness.

He made no response. His complexion was getting paler by the second. Whatever the poison was, it was spreading very quickly in his body.

Zariach was at her wits end. She could not let him die. Ripping open his shirt, she saw the ugly slash on his shoulder, which held the poison. It was blue-black and she could see the poison spreading.

"Forgive me, Quatre, " muttered Zariach as she brought the wound to her mouth.

pls R&R