A Ballad of War

by Phoenix Serapha

Hopeless and lost in their own lives, Zechs and Heero are drawn into a new conflict two years after the Eve Wars. Loosely inspired by John Davidson's A Ballad of Hell. Contains strong references to the Episode Zero manga. COMPLETE

3. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

I

Burning. The entire mansion is engulfed in flames, as though he has died and wakened up in the hell he deserves to be in. Fire shoots up the curtains and spreads to the walls while infernal rivers snake across the floor below, turning it into a molten lake.

The final scream echoes throughout the firelit halls of the Imperial Palace, long and high and thin, piercing in its caliber, tumultuous in its strength, glassy in its fragility. He stops running and covers his ears against the sound but his small hands aren't enough to block it, for already the scream has been burned into his memory and even after it ends it resonates in his brain; it is a sound he will continue to hear until the day he dies, a sound he will hear every time he is lulled into the embrace of sleep, a sound he hears on a night years later when he first meets Lucrezia Noin, a sound he hears in the moment before he offers his life for those of the people of Earth. He falls to his knees, still pressing his hands to his ears, and beneath the echoing scream he can hear his own desperate sobs.

The shriek ends. His hands fall limply to his sides. Huddled on the staircase, he can hear the frantic footsteps of the intruders' exodus, then one of them yells, above the roar of the fire, "I'm going to find the boy!"

Another series of footsteps, these louder and more urgent than those of the assassins who have retreated. They are close to him, leaving the room where his parents were murdered, fast approaching the staircase now, almost upon him with gun—or maybe knife—raised, closer—

"MILLIARDO!"

His sister's cry breaks his paralysis. She has been crying all this time, perhaps ever since the fire was set, but the sound has not registered in his mind until now, and he thinks with something like relief but too tainted by terror to be that at least Relena is alive, thank God, Relena is alive.

"MILLIARDO!"

She was calling for their mother at first, then when her cries went unanswered she reverted to calling for their father—

…but of course he won't answer for he is dead they are all dead…

—and now that he has failed her, too, she cries out for her brother, the only one who has survived the assassins' guns and the fire.

He runs up the stairs, only half aware that he is going farther away from safety and that he is more likely to be cornered by the remaining assassin up here. He must get to Relena.

The fire has just begun to spread to the second story of the mansion. The air is hazy with smoke and he chokes on it with every breath, but he cannot stop. He catches a glimpse out one of the massive windows as he passes it and sees that it is not only the palace that is aflame, the entire kingdom seems to be burning, and if he ever gets out of there he will still be trapped in an inferno, but he cannot stop. Not until he finds her.

There is a sudden crashing sound behind him as part of the grand staircase collapses. It is followed by a muffled scream and a burst of gunfire from an automatic weapon. He does not stop at the sound.

"Milliardo!" his baby sister wails again, her voice cracking. "MMMIIILLLIIIAAARRRDOOOO!"

He can't let her die here, his only sister, his sweet, innocent little Relena. He may be forced to sacrifice his own life in exchange for hers, but by God he will not let her die.

He reaches her bedroom, throws the door open. The room is already filled with smoke but he cannot hear his sister coughing, perhaps because he himself is coughing so loudly.

He staggers toward her bed. If they don't get out of here soon they will both die, smothered by the haze as the flames burn their way to their bodies.

His hand catches the blanket and blinded by the smoke he feels about the bed, searching for the form of his sister. She isn't there.

"Relena!" he yells, choking, turning from the empty bed. "Relena, where are you?"

She calls his name again, crying hysterically now. He runs from the room, back into the corridor. The flames are spreading more quickly now. There is not much time left.

"MILLIARDO!"

He follows the sound of his sister's screams, stumbling, one hand clutching at his parched throat. He can no longer see where he is going, for the flames have caused his eyes to water so badly that he can only make out blurred shapes among the ruins of the fortress.

At last he finds her. She stands in the middle of the hallway leading into the east wing of the mansion, her eyes wide in fear, fat tears spilling over her cheeks. In her plump hand she clutches one of the blankets she pulled from her bed when she fled from it.

"Milliardo!" she cries when she sees him, and she runs to him, throwing her arms around him, nearly knocking him over. He says her name but he can only whisper now, his throat is so closed.

"It's okay, Relena," he says, wrapping her in the blanket to protect her from the sparks and gathering her up into his arms. "It's okay now, don't cry, Relena, it's all going to be okay."

He stumbles onward with his sister in his arms, coughing, crying. He stops once when the choking overwhelms him and blood spurts from his mouth. He does not stop again, though, not even when he can feel the blood trickling down from the corner of his lips. He has to get Relena out of here. The flames are closing in on them and he cannot stop coughing and there is a very good chance he will die soon, but he cannot let that happen to Relena.

He reaches the end of the corridor and starts down the next one. He should have passed the back staircase by now but he has not seen it, should have passed the entrance to the balcony outside but he has not seen it either, and dimly he is aware that he is lost, lost in his own home, lost because he cannot see cannot breathe his legs are beginning to feel heavy he is going to die in here he is going to die with Relena he cannot save her they are going to die going to—

"Zechs."

He turns at the sound of the voice, expecting to see one of his parents' murderers behind him, gun raised. There is nothing.

"Zechs, wake up."

He feels Relena starting to slip from his arms but he cannot catch her, cannot even move now. His eyelids droop and from his throat comes a strange, airy rumbling sound. Had he been a few years older he would have recognized this as a death-rattle.

"Come on, sleeping beauty, quit wasting my time and get up."

Relena falls from his arms, cries out as her small body strikes the floor. He tries to pick her back up but he is unable to do anything more than whisper vain assurances to her even as the fire engulfs them—

"Milliardo Peacecraft."

Groaning softly, he awoke to find himself not in a raging inferno filled with the echoing cries of his sister but in a lamp-lit apartment, not a small, terrified boy of six but a grown man. His icy blue eyes opened and he squinted against the dull light of the room, grimacing at the vile taste that had, as he had slept, arisen in the back of his mouth. He rolled over from his side onto his back, brushing the wild strands of his platinum hair from his eyes then resting his hand on his damp forehead.

There was a low chuckle beside him.

Zechs Marquise, former OZ mercenary under the rule of Treize Kushrenada, former leader of the disillusioned White Fang, former prince of the Sanq Kingdom, now one of the head preventers and forever a killer of his own men, shifted his gaze to the computer on the table across from him. The visual communication device was activated automatically whenever an image was transmitted to the computer, and he was greeted by the smirking image of his comrade —if indeed the man could be called that. The image was being transmitted from the bunker on Earth to Zechs's new home on Mars and was on a nine-second delay, and there were several pauses and an occasional glitch in the picture.

"Have a nice nap, Zechs?" Alsirae asked half-smugly, his face illuminated only by the monitor before him. The rest of the small bunker behind him lay in cold darkness.

Zechs merely looked at him.

"Same dream, I imagine," Alsirae went on, as though he thought Zechs actually wanted to hear this. "Did you make it out of the palace alive or were you caught in the blaze this time? Was Princess Relena in your arms when you realized you were going to die?"

Zechs still did not respond.

Alsirae dropped the subject, having something more important to do than torture him. "I have some information I thought you might be interested in." He held a slim stack of documents in front of the screen. Though Zechs could not make out a single thing on the front page, he knew immediately what this was. He sat up on the couch that had been his bed for the past week, still dressed in the same clothes he had put on yesterday morning.

Alsirae laughed again upon seeing Zechs's rekindled interest. "Thought this would wake you up."

The papers rustled in his hands as he placed them into a slot in a box attached to his computer. A similar device on the table in front of Zechs switched on and minutes later, the printer ejected copies of the papers Alsirae had faxed to his computer on Mars.

Zechs leaned forward, touching the stack of papers almost tentatively at first, then holding them as though handling an ancient relic. "This is it," he affirmed, scarcely able to believe the information he held in his hands.

"It's everything I thought you need to know before you come to Earth," Alsirae said.

"The Gemini."

"Yes."

Zechs met Alsirae's face, brows raised. "What of its system?"

"Similar to Zero, but without temporary, major mind alteration as a direct effect."

"And the reactions of the test pilots?"

"Surprisingly well," Alsirae admitted. Zechs could sense he still begrudged him a bit, for he had wanted Zechs to be the first to test the new mobile suit. "They all seemed to handle the system remarkably well. As a former instructor I believe Miss Noin would have been proud of them." He paused, eyeing Zechs in anticipation of his reaction. "How is Miss Noin, by the way?"

How was Noin . . . that was not a question Zechs had the right to answer. How was she? She was angry, of course, angry with him for not being able to tell her why he had to leave her. She was confused, and confusion was not something Lucrezia dealt with that well. She was a nervous wreck; she would never do it to his face again nor would she let on that she ever did, but he had heard her crying often lately. He had heard her cry herself to sleep so many nights this most recent month, he had heard her sobs from behind the bathroom door that morning. He had seen her looking at him, watching him as though afraid he would leave the moment she looked away even before she had known for a fact that he had to go back to Earth, and he had seen the tears that welled up in her eyes as she watched. And one night, over a week ago now, he had, on his last night in their bed, awakened to the sound of her soft crying and he had, without saying a single word, put his arm around her, and he held her until at last she fell asleep against him.

How was Noin? Some question.

"She's fine," he answered finally.

Alsirae saw through his words but did not pursue the matter. He looked over his shoulder at the man (the young soldier why was it all coming to this again?) who had appeared in the doorway behind him. The two exchanged a few words that Zechs could barely hear, something about having transportation ready for a certain subordinate who would be arriving that evening on Earth.

The soldier offered a salute and departed. Alsirae faced his computer again. "I'm sending the shuttle as we speak."

"I'm assuming that you're sending it to a neutral port."

"It's going to a private port. No preventer surveillance. If all goes well you can slip right under their noses and they will not have a clue what's going on."

"And I will be betraying the organization."

Alsirae laughed quietly and gave him an almost endearing smile. "You will always be betraying something, Zechs, be it your organization, your planet, your kingdom, or maybe only yourself. You will always be betraying something."

With that Alsirae rose from his chair and cut off the visual communication. The screen in front of Zechs went black. You will always be betraying something.

"How true," he mumbled to himself.

He looked down at the documents with an almost dumb sense of wonder. It was very similar to the wonder that had overcome him the first time he had seen a mobile suit and the first time he found himself in the cockpit of one, but this was not quite as innocent as that old feeling had been. It was stained somehow, tainted by the years he had spent in combat with these suits, tainted by the blood that had been spilled upon his trembling hands.

Finally he paged through the stack, skimming it briefly then returning to the front and reading every word.

The mobile suit Gemini, named after yet another sign of the zodiac either in keeping with OZ's standards or in mock of them, was being built by Alsirae Trecais and his small legion of soldiers in an underground base outside the Sanq Kingdom. Such weaponry—any weaponry—was illegal within the boundaries of Sanq, but several of the outlying territories were either neutral on the weapons issue or supported it for private and basic militaristic—but not exactly combative—purposes. And the production of the suit was kept as clandestine as possible; few people outside of the small but steadily growing organization knew of its existence, and Zechs had just received the very first written report on it. The production of any new mobile suits, either as copies of older models or completely new ones altogether, for any organization had halted after the brief skirmish with Treize Kushrenada's dangerously misguided daughter a few months over a year ago now. There had been no efforts to restore any of the suits damaged in battle; those had all been properly destroyed. Not all of the old suits had been destructed, though, for—as unappealing as this seemed to Zechs—a good many people who were known as being connoisseurs of relics of warfare had paid enormous sums of money to purchase suits that had either been hardly damaged or not used in battle at all. So even as peace seemed to be prevailing on the Earth and in the colonies, a mobile suit was still present somewhere, unused and gradually weakening from immobility, but there nonetheless.

He had hoped to never have to see another one of the wretched things again. Now, even before this new possibility of war had become clear, those hopes were to be fruitless.

Another war. It was still just a possibility, but that was enough to keep him awake at night, to keep him dead on his feet in the morning, to keep him half-drunken throughout the day. They had all done everything within their power to prevent such a thing from happening, from the disarmament and reestablishment of a handful of pacifist nations to the destruction of damaged mobile suits and the abortion of cockpit systems in those sold to collectors; from the establishment of the Prevention Organization to the advocation of peace on both the Earth and the colonies. Even the leaders of militaristic countries had hoped that the Eve Wars would be the last great ones and that the incident with Mariemaia Kushrenada was the last minor one. The people were finally growing accustomed to lives without the constant threat of warfare looming over their shoulders, and now this . . .

The possibility of war was not something of which Zechs was just learning, however. He had known about this for more than a year now, even before he had become a Preventer. But he was one of the only people in space who did possess knowledge that the Earth's period of peace might be coming to an end soon; he was certain he was the only person on the Mars colony who knew—not even Lucrezia did—and there were a few others who knew on the colonies, but almost everyone involved was on Earth.

In so many hours, he would be joining them.

He had all but sworn he would never become involved in another war, should one ever break out. His mask had broken for the final time and he had not had another one made for him. He had destroyed the Tallgeese III shortly before leaving Earth for Mars and Lucrezia had been there with him when he did it, witness to his self-destruction of the symbol of his career as a soldier. He could not be called to fight; all records containing the name Zechs Marquise and listing him as a soldier, a lieutenant, a baron, whatever the title, had been destroyed, all the way back to the records of his existence at Lake Victoria. He had worked so hard to erase his old life yet, as always, it seemed, that life would not be erased; it would merely lie dormant for so much time as to convince him of its death before rearing its hideous head at him again.

He had no desire to fight again. He had fulfilled his vow to bring vengeance upon those responsible for his parents' deaths and the fall of his kingdom. But if the information contained in the document he held in his hands did lead to another war, he would have to, regardless of consequence.

It had ceased to seem real, the way all this had begun. He often tried to convince himself that none of it was real, that nothing in the world outside of himself and Lucrezia really existed. There had been a time when the two of them had lived safe within this illusion and not even potential mission memos from Lady Une or memories of the past could break it. But duty, like memories, is rarely able to keep silent, and slowly, slowly as a sadist's knife pressed against flesh, that sweet illusion had been broken, by reports sent to him from Earth even when he did not request them, from messages left on his computer by two opposing people who refused to be ignored.

He did not have time to think about this. He would be leaving soon and once on Earth he would have to be much more careful in communicating with his other contacts.

He leaned over the table and his hands fell into place over the keyboard. He reengaged the outbound communication system but did not open the private line to Alsirae Trecais's computer. As Alsirae had said, Zechs would always be betraying something, and it was not with the creator of the MS Gemini that his loyalty lay.

He accessed a second encrypted communication line —there were three such lines embedded within his computer— and entered the entrance code to send an outgoing visual that would establish the link between his system and another one on Earth.

The system that received the message was much different than the one to which Zechs had been connected earlier, for the people behind this operation were forced to take more drastic precautions than Alsirae and all those under his employ. The visual would not be provided on either computer until someone on the one opposite Zechs's typed in their own access code. This precaution —unlike some others used by this second and more obscure organization— was entirely necessary, for a face can be very incriminating, especially when the owner of that face was supposed to be working for the opposite side. If anyone really knew this, it was he.

He sat back for a moment, looked up at the clock on the wall. The Martian colony went by Earth time for now; in a few years, he supposed, it would have to have its own time system.

He did not know how long Lucrezia would be gone. For all he knew, she could be on her way up to their apartment this very moment, perhaps now only yards away from their door. He had to be prepared to cut off all the communication devices at a split second's notice. She could not know any of this, especially not now. He had tried so hard all these months to protect her from this thing that threatened to engulf him, and he could not fail in that at this point.

From the computer he heard a faint buzzing sound. This sound came not from his own system but was being relayed from the one to which he had just connected, and it acted as an alarm to alert that system's owner that a visual message was being transmitted.

Staring into the darkness that spread across the screen, he heard a chair scrape against a faraway floor. Footsteps echoed in a near-silent room, and another chair was pulled out, this one audibly closer to the computer. A series of keys were typed in rapid succession by fingers that still had yet to master the controls of a mobile suit but were well-trained on a keyboard, and within moments the screen began to yield from black to the image of the room on Earth.

They simply stared at each other for a few moments, these two men who had for so long been involved in an organization that might, should their involvement be discovered, soon result in their deaths; one who had tried to die and the other who had forced him to live. One was merely a soldier —one of high rank, but a soldier nonetheless, with no official title— and the other was the leader of the aforementioned organization, the one who had discovered the plans of an uprising opposing force while it was still nothing more than the subject of rumors.

Zechs had always found this man's face to be startling, though he was seeing it quite often these days and would be seeing it even more once he reached the Earth. There was nothing wrong with his countenance; he was, quite undeniably, a rather handsome man. Yet he was darkly handsome, the very antithesis of how many people saw Zechs, as a cherubic prince. His was a commanding appearance, the very physical form of dominance, and yet he was the one who would be fighting against tyranny.

"Zechs Marquise," he said quietly, his voice deep as the faraway thunder preceding the storm. "I had a feeling it would be you."

"Good morning, Odin."

Odin Lowe, the man who had, one year before the birth of Milliardo Peacecraft, gunned down the pacifist leader Heero Yuy, smiled faintly. His was always a cynical smile, even when there was no cynicism present in his words. "Is it morning on Mars?"

He glanced up at the clock again. "I believe so."

"Good morning to you too, then. I trust Miss Noin isn't there?"

"She had a meeting with the organization's president. I don't know when she'll be back."

"We'd best make this quick, then, hadn't we?" Again, his smile, made even more devilish by his black mustache.

Zechs, ever the dutiful soldier, nodded.

"You are coming to Earth soon, am I right?" Odin asked, leaning back in his chair.

"Alsirae's shuttle is being sent as we speak."

"He's going out of his way for you, Zechs. Are you aware of that? How many others would he have bothered to send a private shuttle for? It may not be a luxurious thing, perhaps even a used one with visible damage from a battle, but the gesture is uplifting, if not empowering as well, is it not?"

He didn't respond to this. "He sent me something today, which I believe you are interested in."

Odin raised an eyebrow. "The MS report," he said, "on the newly completed Gemini."

Zechs blinked. "How did you know that?"

"I've received a report from one of my field officers, for lack of a better term, that a battalion of mobile suits has been sighted in a remote area of northern Germany. Their first real test run, I believe it was. Weren't you supposed to receive the honor of being the first pilot of the Gemini?"

That smile. Those eyes. How was it possible that this man was actually working for good?

"Alsirae was disappointed that I could not got to Earth in time to see the mobile suit and its system fully completed. But he has assured me that I will get a chance to fight in one of what he calls 'a most excellent combative suit.'" He paused, and this time it was he who smiled cynically at the thought of Alsirae's endearments toward the suit he had created. "How did the test run go?"

"Very well, I've been told. Only two of the new soldiers managed to shoot themselves."

"I wasn't told there had been any casualties."

Odin laughed quietly. "No casualties. Even that would have been too glorious, dying while testing a new —and might I add illegal— mobile suit. No, these two pathetic imbeciles are now holed up in Alsirae's private hospital, both quite bruised and one with a bandaged leg from where a bullet pierced his suit and nicked him, but otherwise fine."

Zechs smiled tightly and shook his head. "Did the same 'field officer' provide this information as well?"

"Of course not. I can see you're already making a dire mistake here, Marquise."

"And what mistake would that be?"

"You are beginning to think that you're the only one working for the counteroffensive who is also employed under Alsirae. You may not know the others, you may not ever see them, but don't ever doubt that they are there. One of them just happens to be working in that hospital. He said that even the staff devoted to Lord Trecais had to stifle a laugh when they saw the poor invalids and heard what had happened."

"I'm sure they did," Zechs said, and gave no response to Odin's accusation of error on his part.

Odin regarded him silently. He had to know that his words had struck Zechs on some level, for even when he had been the masked child of a pacifist king beginning his training in a military academy he had been reprimanded a precious few times and it was something he would never be able to take lightly.

"Do you want the report?" Zechs asked finally, flatly. He held the documents up in front of the monitor.

Odin simply nodded, apparently deciding not to chide him for asking something that should be obvious.

Zechs fed the slim stack of papers into the machine beside the one from whence they had come. One by one, taking around a minute-and-a-half each, they were pulled into a slot in the machine, processed, and pushed back out, each one with a small crease in the upper right corner from hitting a wall inside the device.

"Where will you be staying?" Odin asked, his tone more conversational now, the cynical smile gone from his face, as he waited to receive the report.

Zechs thought for a moment. He was not considering the answer to the question as he appeared to be, for he knew where he would go after he had met personally with Alsirae. He really was not considering anything, save for what he would have to tell Odin if asked for an explanation of this choice that many months ago would have been rational but was now a bit lacking in logic.

Fortunately —or perhaps unfortunately— he did not have to answer.

"You're going to her, aren't you?" Odin said knowingly, as if he understood how Zechs felt about this. "You're going back to Sanq. To Relena."

He could only nod.

"Be honest with me, Zechs: have you told your sister of what we are doing? Of what others around her are doing?"

"No. Lucrezia knows more about it than Relena."

"And Miss Noin knows nothing."

"Exactly."

"Relena will take you in, even without explanation. That is unquestionable. But are you sure that she won't view your sudden appearance in Sanq as a threat to her power?"

Zechs met Odin's eyes. There was no condescension in the man's voice; every word of this he meant seriously.

"I cannot say how she will perceive it," Zechs replied. Relena. "But I'm not threatening her or her kingdom. I'm going home."

"Will Miss Noin be accompanying you?" Odin, given the name of the Norse god, this man of unbreakable stone, of critical cynicism, often of harshness and shrouded by some darkness that lacked definition, for once seemed to eager to change the subject. Relena touched something in everyone, it seemed. Even those who thought her ridiculous.

Mention of Lucrezia jarred him out of his thoughts of his sister, the Queen of Sanq, the one who had tried too hard to accomplish too much and was almost sure to fall. "Miss Noin will be staying here," he said, without bothering to conceal the note of regret in his voice.

"Are you sure she will be safe?"

"She can take care of herself. She always could." He felt an endearing smile touch at the corners of his mouth.

She always could take care of herself, always, and when he had needed it, she had taken care of him too.

"If Alsirae were to discover your association with the counteroffensive, if he were even to suspect it--"

"She'll be fine," he broke in, too loudly, too harshly, to maintain the stoicism he had been projecting all through this conversation.

If Alsirae were to find out—

Odin raised a brow again, his eyes slightly wider, as if he were studying a rare specimen under close scrutiny, which might well be all that he saw Zechs as. A rare specimen of soldier that could always be counted on whenever sacrifice was a great possibility.

If Alsirae were to even suspect—

"She'll be fine," he repeated, regaining his composure. "She's safest here anyway. The farther away she is from me, the safer she'll be."

But do you really believe that?

"Perhaps you're right," Odin said. He glanced to his left; the document had been digitally recopied and sent to his computer system. He picked up the stack of papers and skimmed through them briefly, just as Zechs had done when Alsirae had first sent it to him.

"Marquise," Odin said after a few more moments of silent study, "I do believe that you're the first to ever see this report."

"What makes you think that?"

He smiled; the smile of a mischievous dark imp, the smile of a demon. "It's full of errors. Typing errors, grammatical errors, mistakes that Alsirae--" he stressed the name with a tight, knowing smile "--would never allow under normal circumstances. He was in a great rush to get this to you."

"Then I suppose I should be flattered," Zechs said bitterly.

"It is an honor that goes to so few." Odin returned his attention to the report. He narrowed his eyes occasionally as he read, and every so often something caused him to raise an eyebrow or give an amused smirk. His eyes traveled over the words on the paper with the same expression as they would if watching young children at play, as though he found something strangely comical about what he read.

Zechs would not have been surprised if he did. After all, didn't he himself think the whole situation almost hilarious? The minute the last war ended, preparations were made for another one, and the never-ending cycle repeated.

Between strands of light hair, he watched the assassin, his gaze as passive as ever it was. How ironic, that the man once known as Prince Milliardo Peacecraft should become an ally to the one who had —unwittingly or not— helped to bring about his own father's death. Of course, people changed over the years: the prince of a pacifist nation forsook his name and donned the mask of a soldier; the hardened assassin of the peace-minded leader turned his back on his past and from thereon spent his life trying to rectify his transgressions. The beautiful young daughter of nobility chopped off her locks and trained men who were really still children to kill. The beloved princess who commanded the hearts of all her people became the Queen who did not know how to control what she was given if there was no one against whom to be proven right.

People did change. They changed so much.

If anyone really knew this, it was Zechs.

He had owed his very life to Odin Lowe before they had even officially met. He had been told how Odin had found him, unconscious, drifting through the dark infinity of outer space in the mangled remains of the Gundam Epyon, but he had never known why the former assassin had chosen to rescue him, and after Odin had neglected to answer him the first time he had asked, he had decided that sometimes not knowing was best.

Ironic it was, yes, ironic and yet somehow fitting. And the story was long as it was ironic, with two simultaneous beginnings, both painful yet also redeeming in some indefinable way.

For Zechs, it had begun with his own death.

II

"Until we meet again, Heero," he said, feeling his sanity leaving him still. With the last of his strength he reached forward, touched the button that would end his life. He pressed it, held it down until a delirious ache surged up into his shoulder before releasing it.

The machine imploded around him, shrieking, flaming.

He caught one final fleeting glimpse of her face as he felt the cockpit being ripped apart, his sweet sister, the very embodiment of innocence.

Relena, I love you. Please understand.

He was torn from the shelter of the cockpit. Something —something hot, something on fire— rammed into the top of his head. He fell slack, disoriented, dying.

Another face before him. Lucrezia. Would she cry for him, for the death of the crazed monster he had become?

Luca, I do love you. I always did, even if I never knew how to say it. I love you.

The seat is shredded around him, and he is bent back into its flaming mass.

There is pain beyond the world, pain beyond the universe, beyond all that was ever created. Pain beyond the agonized howl that erupts from his throat.

This is the way the world ends: not with a bang, but a whimper.

This is the way the prince dies: not with a bow, but a scream.

There is pain and nothing beyond the pain.

Then there is darkness.

All is darkness.

All is darkness for some immeasurable amount of time, and then there at last is light.

He is dead, yet there is light before him. Gradually it spreads around him.

He is truly dead then. Did the Earth survive, or is it dead with him? And what of the others?

"Don't worry about that now," a voice, cool, soft, feminine, says to him. "All that is passed."

He tries to move in the direction of the voice, cannot. There is nothing but the light.

The Light.

Is this it? The light that visionaries and those who had returned from death spoke of? The light at the edge of death. Will he be brought closer into the light until he is a part of it himself? No, that cannot be, there is still something he has not done.

He is dead and there is light, and indeed he has a soul, and this light must be the Light, the Light of God, and he must go to Him now, and plead mercy for his own pathetic soul. Will he be accepted into that final light, into the eternal embrace of God, Whom he had sometimes doubted but had always hoped for, or were his sins too much, too many; were his hands too stained by blood to allow him entrance to the Heaven of his God?

Ah, God, why this fear? Is this light like unto my savior or my damnation?

"It is not yours to wonder," the voice responds gently. "It is not time for you to take on such contemplation."

He tries to find her, the one who speaks, but can see nothing but the light.

"Who are you?" he calls, perhaps futilely, into the void of light and darkness. "Where is God in all this?" He has said this before, at some other time in some other place, as the light surrounded him.

"He is here," she replies, and her voice, her words, are beginning to sound hauntingly familiar, "and He is everywhere. Waiting. Watching."

So familiar. He knows he has heard this before, uttered from the same sweet voice.

Click click of the beads, glimmer of silver in the candlelight.

Her voice, soft and whispered.

Our Father, Who art in Heaven…

…pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death…

Ave Maria…gratia plena…Dominus tecum…

She falls silent, moves close to him, presses the beads into his hand.

My prince, please.

He knows, yet the moment he grasps it, it eludes him.

"Where is my father?" he asks of the voice. His father, who had tried so hard to save him from the foul bloodiness of warfare; his father, whom he had countless times betrayed. "Is he here?"

"Where is my father?" she counters, but her tone is not one of mockery. "Where is he? What did they do to him?"

Yes, what did they do?

My prince, my love, my orphaned prince.

There is light and there is darkness, and he is somewhere between the two. He is merely another shade of gray, pale amongst the masses.

There is light and there is darkness, and he tries to go forward into one yet cannot, yet he cannot stay within the other. The light is engulfing him.

He draws yet closer to it and whatever lies beyond it, be it God and salvation or Hell and its fury.

I commend my soul…

My prince. My angel.

…unto Thee…

Please, my prince, do this for me if you won't do it for your own sake.

Click click of the beads, glimmer of silver in the candlelight.

This is all too much!

Oh, God, this is Hell, isn't it?

Into the light, into the light, O Hell where art thy flames?

Her voice, soft and sweet, whispered in the silence.

My prince.

Lucrezia's voice.

Is she here? He is dead and yet he hears her, she speaks to him…is she here with him, dead and lost as he is?

Dead, yes, my love, we are dead, don't speak don't breathe I am dead you are dead and we are here together eternally together in death.

Lucrezia?

I am young Malespina's bride, has he come hither yet?

Lucrezia, where are you?

At midnight with my dagger keen…

Glimmer of silver; he knows what this is now, this vision of candles and whispered prayers.

Luca?

I am young Marquise's bride, has he come hither yet?

This is the way the prince dies.

It must be so, meet me in Hell tonight, my queen…

This is the way the prince dies.

In pace requiescat.

Not with a bow, but a scream.

The light the light THE LIGHT OH GOD PLEASE MY EYES THE LIGHT—

The light. He was ripped from whatever visions played beyond his closed eyes, and for one moment his eyes opened just enough to allow him to see the light above him. Dim, focused, dead like a light in Hell's waiting room.

He was lying on some kind of bed, his limbs straightened and seemingly intact, his arms at his sides. It did not hurt as much as he had thought it would to move, meaning that he had not been lying completely immobile for all this time. However long that might be. He could not shake the idea that a great amount of time had passed since he had last opened his eyes or possessed even the slightest bit of awareness.

I am young Marquise's bride, has he come hither yet?

Where was he? Slowly, groaning softly under his breath, he pushed himself up into a sitting position and scanned the room. It was small, clean, with smooth walls and floors that gleamed in the overhead light. The bed was the only furnishing aside from a set of drawers on the western wall. It strangely reminded him of the technicians' quarters on Libra, perhaps for its simplicity and size.

My poppet, welcome to your bed.

The door across the room from the bed opened. A young woman entered, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand. She wore civilian clothes but the tag pinned to her shirt identified her as an RN.

Her head was turned away from him, and she laughed softly as someone called to her. "Not if you keep that up!" she replied. She turned and halted when she saw him. Her eyes widened; her mouth fell open as if her jaw had suddenly come unhinged. "M-Mr. Marquise," she stammered, her hand grasping blindly for the doorknob behind her.

Zechs opened his mouth to speak but before he could say a word she pivoted on her heels and fled the room, yelling into the corridor for someone to 'get Odin.' He stared after her, feeling only slightly shocked by his first encounter with another person in whatever amount of time he had been unconscious.

Less than a full minute later, it seemed, the door swung open again. He sat up, expecting to see the nurse or perhaps a physician. He was only slightly surprised when the devil himself entered.

The man was tall, slightly over Zechs's own height, and he walked toward the bed with an easy confidence that Zechs found both regal and intimidating.

The devil started at her side, comely, tall, black as jet.

He was much older than Zechs, but despite this, his age could not be determined from his brooding face. His entire body was clad in black, from the long coat he wore to the toes of his boots. His head was crowned by a smooth cap of black hair, and his demonic smirk was bordered by a dark mustache. He might as well have been the devil incarnate but nonetheless he was undeniably handsome, possessed of the same darkness that drove tragic artists to their graves and drove mad the ladies who followed them.

"Zechs Marquise," the man said with an amused grin. He stepped closer to the bed. "Milliardo Peacecraft. You stole my redemption, you princely bastard."

Before Zechs could protest, he was silenced by the man's first being driven into his face.

The unexpected blow knocked him back into the wall. The back of his head slammed into it and something exploded behind his eyes. For a moment he felt the flaming sheet of gundanium alloy being propelled into his head and the disorientation returned. Blinded, he drew his knees up against his chest and shielded his face with his arms.

The devil gave no further assault. He laughed quietly as though at a weak joke, and as Zechs's vision cleared he saw that the man had backed away from the bed.

"Stop acting like a child, Marquise," he said, grinning still. "I'm not going to harm you. If I'd wanted that I would have left you to rot in space. There are some who would gladly put a price on your head, but you can rest assured that I am not one of them. Even if I were, it wouldn't be worth it to find you and keep your body fed and mobile until you regained consciousness just to kill you. You're worth the fortune of a kingdom, but your death is not worth your upkeep."

He waited.

The man crossed the room and took the chair from the corner. He sat by the side of the bed, clasping his scarred hands and leaning forward as though in great interest.

Zechs kicked the blankets down to the foot of the bed. The room was cold, but a return from Hell —whether it had been dream or hallucination or the beginning of some delirious reality— could make anyone grateful for the chill. "Who are you?" he ventured.

"Straight to the point, I see," he laughed. "We'll get to that soon enough, as well as a few other things you may find of interest. As you wait for an explanation, though, let me be the first to welcome you back to Earth. It was not easy to get you here, and I expect only a slight amount of respect if not gratitude for my efforts."

Zechs merely looked at him.

"I know you're wondering how you got here and how the hell you lived in the first place," the man continued. "To answer the second of these, I can only accredit that to the grace of God. My crew and I found you in space for reasons we will come to later, and you were brought here. You've been comatose for going on three months. You've missed quite a lot, Prince."

Zechs fended off a shudder at the title.

"And now we come to another answer. My name is Odin Lowe. Does that name mean anything to you?"

He shook his head.

Odin smiled. "Good. And it shouldn't, at least not now. Maybe there will come a time when its significance will be of use to you, but not now."

Zechs raised up in the bed again. It did not seem that Odin would decide to launch another attack on him. "You're not a prince given to vain words and paltry speeches, are you, Zechs? I only call you that because you seemed to prefer it when you were alive. I don't imagine that your birthname carries many pleasant associations for you."

Zechs nodded, respectfully ingratiated to this man of whom he knew nothing. "What do you mean 'when I was alive?'"

The smirk again. "You're dead, don't you know that? Even at this moment, you are dead. To the entire world, Zechs Marquise died the moment his Gundam self-destructed."

He thought in silence for a few minutes. Dead to the world. How many times had the world held his funeral now? "What happened?" he asked finally. "After I…"

The smile faded from Odin's face. He leaned back in the chair, suddenly too solemn, too grave. "Your sacrifice wasn't enough, Zechs," he said after a moment.

"What do you mean?"

"It wasn't enough. Most of the Libra block was destroyed but the explosion also sent another piece of it toward Earth."

He felt his eyes close. Oh, God, please no.

Odin seemed to notice the change in him and he continued. "But your opponent, the pilot of the Wing Zero Gundam, I believe, did manage to destroy it as it reached the atmosphere. It almost cost him his life as it was supposed to cost you yours, but he withheld and made it out alive. So you see, Mr. Marquise, the Earth was not condemned to the destruction you tried to convince it you would bestow upon it." He paused, watching Zechs. "You look surprised by what I said, Marquise. Did you not think that some would see your true intentions behind all the ceremonious excrement you spouted about the necessity for destruction?"

"I knew some would," Zechs said lowly. "The others, the Gundam pilots, they all knew. I think Heero understood what I was doing most of all."

Odin's eyes changed at the mention of 01's name, and an almost proud light came into his smile. Zechs was a bit confused by this, but he made no mention of it.

"And obviously Earth has survived," Odin continued. "Let me be the first to welcome you back to it. Many changes have taken place, but as yet they have been beneficial."

"And what of the others?"

"The Gundam pilots? Scattered to the winds. No one is sure where they all are. It seems they are no longer needed. OZ was dissolved. Your former comrade, I'm not sure of her name but she was a countess–"

"Lady Une," he said, musing more to himself than to Odin.

"She is, at this moment, working to form some kind of non-militaristic peacekeeping organization. Next, I'm sure you're wondering about your sister, and I'll save you the breath of asking. Relena has gained the position of Vice Foreign Minister. She's quite an industrious young lady, it seems, a very good person for the world at this time. She mourns for you openly, Zechs. She dedicates many of her treaties and plans to the memory of her beloved brother Milliardo."

Relena, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I did this for you, please understand.

"What about the soldiers of the White Fang?"

"All dead," Odin replied mirthlessly. "Most killed in battle. One-hundred percent casualties in the end. Even Quinze didn't make it out alive when the battle fortress was destroyed."

"Dorothy," he whispered, bowing his head for a moment.

"Are you talking about Miss Catalonia?"

He nodded.

"She wasn't included among the list of soldiers under White Fang, and she is alive. The last the public —or I myself— heard of her, she was returning home to Spain."

Zechs considered this. They had all made it through the Eve Wars then, miraculously, the people of Earth, the Gundam pilots, all those who had been involved in that great circle of enemies who, in the end, had truly been allies, all working for the same ideal.

There was, however, one more person who remained unaccounted for.

"Was anything ever said about a woman named Lucrezia Noin?" he asked, strangely half-dreading the answer. "She was once a lieutenant under OZ."

"What was her name again?"

"Noin. Lucrezia Noin."

Odin thought for what seemed like an eternity, his eyes cast upward. He seemed to know that this one was especially important to him.

"No," he said finally. "I don't believe her name was ever mentioned. That is not necessarily a bad thing, though, Zechs. Quite often, no knowledge leads to something good."

This did little to quell his fear for her. The only one of those whom he knew who had not been heard from since the final battle . . . this couldn't be. His mind raged against the possibility that something had happened to her, that he had lived when she had not. Please, God, this could not be.

He became aware of Odin watching him again, studying him closely for some kind of reaction. "Who was this last one to you?"

Zechs grunted a reply.

"News of her —or should I say lack of news— seems to disturb you greatly. Who was this lieutenant to you?"

"Who was Heero Yuy to you?" he retorted, thinking back on the man's reaction to the name.

"Touché," Odin said, offering another devilish smile. "That does not concern you now. I didn't come in here to entertain you or to tell you a story before you go to bed, Prince. I've told you what I know of your comrades because if I didn't, you would concern yourself over them so badly that your recovery would be hindered. I have given you my name because it is something you will need to know. I respect you greatly, Marquise, else I wouldn't have gone to such great lengths to preserve your life, but I am warning you: do not attempt to spar with me. I am in charge here and you'll do well to remember that." He rose from the chair and started toward the door. "Welcome back to life, Mr. Marquise. You'll find after you recover that there will be much for you to do."

With that he took his leave, easing the door shut behind him.

"What was that," Zechs mumbled to himself as he fell back against the bed. The back of his head ached fiercely, as did the entire left side of his face where Odin had punched him, but he found the pain strangely comforting.

You stole my redemption.

What had that meant? And why had Odin not mentioned the abrupt assault afterward?

He was suddenly reconsidering the possibility that this might indeed be Hell, and his dark benefactor who claimed to have saved his life in space none other than the devil himself.

III

It was not for another two days that Odin revisited him. During that time Zechs was attended by three nurses in separate shifts and was allowed to take a hot shower and change into clothes other than the loose garments in which he had been dressed for the duration of his three-month slumber.

He was not the least surprised when he saw the majority of the uniform he was given was black.

These two days were spent mostly in idleness. The nurses talked to him some but too often they seemed to regard him as too much of an object of reverence to truly tell him anything. He wondered how much of their respect had been influenced by Odin and how much, if any, had existed prior to his awakening.

Odin Lowe did not begin their second meeting with an assault or even a wicked glare. He entered the room silently, and said not a single word until he had taken his place in the chair beside Zechs's bed.

"How do you feel today, Marquise?" he asked.

Such a question on his well-being surprised Zechs, but he gave no sign of it. "How would you feel if you were in my place?" he retorted.

"First of all, I wouldn't be in your place. If I were going to sacrifice my life, I would do it in such a way that would insure that I died. That seems to be a problem with the exceptional soldiers these days, you can't kill yourselves. You try —and in some damn good ways, I'll give you that much— but none of you seem able to relinquish yourselves to death. You and the pilot Heero Yuy are the worst at this." He paused, waited for Zechs's reaction, and when he gave none Odin went on. " 'How do you feel today; ' it's basically a multiple choice question. Choose an adjective that best describes your physical health, and if you want to, throw in an emotion that describes your disposition. It's not that difficult."

" 'Weak' and 'I want to know what the hell is going on,' then."

Odin smiled. "You're very much like your father, Marquise, whether you know it or not. A monarch who gets straight to the point, doesn't waste his time or mine. That's a very good quality to have but too few others who share your position seem to see it that way."

The reference to his father put to silence the questions that had formed in his mind. "Did you know my father?"

Odin shook his head. "No, not personally. I was a great admirer of his, though, even despite some of my actions during that time."

Zechs did not question this last cryptic remark.

The rest of the conversation was without explanation. Odin left him still not knowing why he had been rescued and brought here, and what Odin's intentions for him were. The only thing he knew of Odin Lowe himself was his name, but who he was and what he was doing remained an enigma. The purpose of the people who worked around Odin was still unknown to Zechs, as was their insistence on his full recovery.

Odin came to his room every day, but these visitations were all brief and non-explanatory.

A week after his 'reawakening into life', as Odin called it, he was allowed to leave the room he had begun to think of as a prison cell. Odin stopped in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest, his dark eyes narrowed in contemplation.

Zechs returned his stare, meeting his studious patience with patience of his own.

"Come on, Marquise," Odin said finally. He turned and took a step into the corridor. "And bring a coat and some gloves. I've often found that if prisoners are not given fresh air they become sluggish and useless."

Zechs looked at him, and Odin glanced back at him over his shoulder, laughing softly under his breath.

"You take everything too seriously, Marquise. Perhaps that's why you just can't let go when you're dying." He waited until Zechs joined him in the hall. The corridor was dark and empty, and when Odin spoke again his deep voice echoed throughout it.

"But I forget how young you are," he said, speaking now as if to a misguided son. "The young are allowed the vice of taking everything in life seriously. They believe that solemnity is a virtue and that displaying their pain for all the world to see makes them a stronger person. The young are misled by the older ones who are wrong and are terrified of opposition. Age, however, does not make a right or a wrong."

"But experience does."

"No, not always. Experience helps you to confirm certain conclusions, but those conclusions are not necessarily right. Take, for example, your sister Relena. She has lived in the lap of luxury as long as she can remember, knowing nothing of warfare or murder, then she witnesses one battle and in a split second she comes to the conclusion that all battles are meaningless. Do you agree with your sister's philosophy, Marquise?"

Zechs could not answer this for a few moments. They reached the end of the corridor. Another one lay to their left, this one illuminated by the lights pouring through open doorways, and ahead of them lay a staircase, leading only upward. They ascended the stairs.

"I do expect an answer to my question," Odin said once they had reached the landing at the top, which ended not in another flight but in a heavily locked door. "And be honest about it. I'll know if you aren't. It wouldn't be an insult to her if you disagree. She disagreed with you quite often in the past, but she still respected you. She would not be offended if your opinion differed from hers."

He considered still, then with a shrug he gave the answer. "No. I don't agree with her."

"Then that will suffice," Odin replied. He stepped forward, withdrew a set of keys from the pocket of his overcoat. Three of those were used to unlock the door.

The black-clad pair stepped through the doorway and out into a world bathed in darkness.

It had been too long since Zechs had seen this, and the sight of it overwhelmed him. This was Earth as it should have been, as his family had fought for it to be for so many years, as Relena would have it if she only knew how to fight for it.

The world beyond the facility in which he had been held did not lay completely in darkness, as he had initially thought; rather, it was drowned in pale silver, a light so clear and powerful that it seemed alive, spreading its nebulous tendrils over all that rose to return its bloodless kiss. The moonlight washed over the trees around them in smooth silken waves, caressing them all as gently as would a lover. Beyond the orb of the moon, where its light began to fade, the darkness of space was pierced by millions upon millions of stars, tiny glimmering specks, like the eyes of angels.

He had once said to Relena that the Earth could only be beautiful from space. It had hurt him to tell such a blatant lie, but the pain of telling it was nothing compared to what he felt now, as he stood transfixed by the crystalline beauty of the night.

His eyes traveled around the spot where they stood drinking in the scene like wine. The building they had just left appeared to be an abandoned military base, simple in design, exquisite in location. A ruined landing platform lay beneath their feet and spread about ten yards before them, ending in jagged broken upturn. This base had been deserted long ago, it seemed, for an entire forest had sprung up around it.

Beside him, Odin laughed quietly. "Missed the Earth, have you?"

Zechs knew a response was not required, and he did not attempt to give one. His actions were evidence enough of what he felt.

Odin began to walk toward the woods. After a brief hesitation Zechs followed him.

The light scarcely penetrated the dense evergreens, and Zechs saw Odin only as a black figure in the patches of light that shone through the leafless branches of the other trees. Odin's face —the only part of him that was not covered in black, as even his hands were gloved— seemed inhumanly pale in the shadows, and Zechs was vaguely aware of how strange he himself must appear: a disembodied head and a flowing mantle of near-white hair floating silently across the darkened forest.

At last they came to a single-lane road, which looked about as dilapidated and unused as the base. They walked alongside the road at Odin's lead for a mile or so, then the trees fell away and they found themselves before another landing platform, desolate and empty but otherwise intact.

Beyond the platform lay the ocean. Zechs could see the glistening of the waves as they neared the shore of the drop-off to which the platform gave way, could hear the night tide breaking against the rocks below.

Without a word, the dark pair proceeded to the opposite edge of the platform. There was a cement wall at its end and Zechs leaned against it, staring at the engulfing sea and the starry sky above it.

Was she somewhere out there right now, looking up at these same stars and wondering why he had been taken from her? Or perhaps she was sleeping under this sky now, safe finally from war, her head with that soft violet hair resting upon a pillow of feathers from the wings of angels, her body covered by sheets of silk? Was it him she saw in her dreams? And if so, were they finally together as he knew she had so desired them to be for so long?

Where was she now, his Lucrezia, who seemed to have disappeared from Earth and space at the moment of his death? Was she close enough to hear the waves breaking upon this shore, or was she instead making her bed this evening underground, eternally still and never to hear such things again?

"What are you thinking about, Marquise?" Odin asked, drawing Zechs out of his reverie. He had lit a cigarette and now stood by the waist-high wall, his own eyes fixated on the ocean. "Is it the Earth that holds your mind right now, or is it something more personal than that?"

"Perhaps it's both," he answered, and returned his gaze to the icy waters.

"Do you know where you are?"

Zechs shook his head.

"Vólos."

This pulled him away from thoughts of Lucrezia. "Vólos, as in Greece?"

"As in Greece, yes, also as in thirty miles from the Sanq Kingdom's borders."

Relena, he thought, and his eyes actually drifted behind him, in the direction of the kingdom he had fought, all his life, to protect.

"Why are we here?" he asked.

"In this specific location, we're here because I've decided you're ready to hear what you need to know and I will not have any kind of interruption. As for why we are near Sanq, it's because this territory and this base properly suited my purposes."

"Which are?"

"I'm beginning to see this as another of your faults, Marquise: with every battle, be it personal or between the Earth and the colonies, you had to be in the front lines, even when you didn't know which side was standing behind you. To lead the life of a warrior and step up to such challenges is one thing, but to naively accept a position to fight simply because it's an opportunity to do so is hardly anything more than ridiculous. There is a difference, Prince, to getting to the point and offering yourself automatically as either an ally or an opponent. You just came very close to crossing the boundary between the two."

When Zechs didn't speak, Odin went on. "It occurs to me that in the time since you've reawakened, you haven't inquired about your native land. You are standing very near to it indeed, so close that the very ground you now walk on is often thought of as being under Sanq's rule, and have you yet wondered how your kingdom has fared since the death of its rightful monarch and desertion by its child princess?"

Zechs looked up at him, no longer quite the chastened prisoner. "Desertion?"

"I wasn't sure how you would respond to this, so I have withheld it until I thought you were strong enough mentally to deal with it, if indeed it disturbs you. Relena has returned to Sanq to live, but she has voiced no aspirations to take the throne. Perhaps she believes it would dishonor your memory. And recently she has begun to go by the name 'Darlian' rather than 'Peacecraft.'"

This did not surprise him even half as much as Odin had apparently believed it would. The Peacecraft monarchy would die, it seemed, both of its children hiding their names and faces, and to blame Relena for not preserving the throne would be to accuse himself of the same crime. And it all seemed fitting, somehow.

How does it feel, my darling sister, he thought, to put on that mask and become somebody else?

He was half-convinced he knew what her answer would be.

In the shadows, Odin regarded him with a smile. "Not so disturbed after all, I see. Forgive my misjudgment of your character. And don't think that I have merely led you off on this subject to avert you from your question about my intentions. That subject, as I explained, simply cannot be rushed into. Miss Darlian is a small part of it, and I could not proceed to answer your hasty inquiry until I had first acknowledged for you some of the recent changes that do tie in to my purpose. All circles do eventually close, Mr. Marquise."

Zechs returned his eyes to the moonlit sea, waiting.

"The world seems to be moving toward a time of peace," Odin began, taking another drag off the cigarette before flicking it onto the rocky shore below them. "All military organizations have been dissolved and entire armies crushed. The Gundam pilots —defenders of Earth and space and menace to the military— have disappeared along with their weapons. An organization is in the making right now that will work to maintain such peace. Governmental transformations took place all across the globe. The intermediary between space and the Earth is a young princess who pulls at the hearts of all who see her. War is no longer a necessary thing, in the minds of the people, nor is it even wanted. The ideal of total pacifism appears to finally have been achieved."

Zechs did not have to hear his next words to know what the world seemed set up for. Every cloud has its silver lining, the phrase went, and to counter that, almost everything that seemed too good to be true quite often had a dark underbelly. "I don't know what will prove to be the worst," Odin continued, "how close the world will have come to true peace when the rug is ripped out from under us all, or all the people who believe that this peace will last when they realize that it won't." He paused briefly to light another cigarette. "Just slightly over three months have passed since that great final war, and already I can tell as a certainty that another one is going to break out, beginning either in the north or in the east and inching its way here."

At the very mention of another war, Zechs paled visibly. He had known Odin was going to say something like this but no amount of foreknowledge could prepare him to hear those words spoken again.

Another war.

"Where in the north or east will it begin?" he asked, speaking slowly to prevent himself from stammering the words. Odin shrugged; such an unsure gesture didn't seem fitting of the man. "The first evidence of this war will occur in Germany, however. I'm almost completely certain of that."

Zechs grunted some weak response that not even he himself understood. When he was finally able to speak again —which may well have been half an hour later— he asked the only one thing he really could ask now: "What the hell is going on?"

Odin smiled tightly at his crassness. "Now you're asking the right thing at the right time. 'What the hell is going on'? I wish I knew that myself. I see, I hear, and then I act accordingly, but as far as the actual knowing goes, I'm as lost as are you. But I can tell you what I have seen and heard of what the hell is going on, and once I'm done there is a proposition I will present to you."

Zechs nodded gravely, and Odin began this darker narrative of the past months and what had not been known to the people of Earth and probably would not be until it was far too late.

The morose conversation instantly became a monologue. Zechs would have, in the beginning at least, interjected with a series of questions, but as Odin spoke and the words entered his mind, his mouth was suddenly dry. An outraged tremor wracked his hands as Odin talked of the formation of a force such as the one now in question, and that tremor spread throughout his entire body as Odin spoke of the manpower involved even this early in the chain of events. The thick, dark clothing and the coat and gloves were suddenly not enough to ward off the wintry air when Odin described a message he had intercepted from the fledgling military's leader to one of his subordinates.

Monstrosity, all of it, but his worst reaction came when finally told the identity of this leader.

"Wh-whom did you say?"

Odin repeated the name.

"But–"

"As I said, Marquise," Odin stated with utmost seriousness, "some of you simply will not die."

He whispered the name under his breath, and that same disorientation that had taken him as the Epyon exploded around him fell over him again. He felt his lips moving but they made no sound, and then he was collapsing against the cement wall. Odin leapt forward and caught him, and —perhaps by request; Zechs never would remember this clearly— held him up as he vomited over the side. Then, just as it had been within the fiery confines of the Epyon, all fell into darkness.

IV

He awoke the next morning in a different bed in a much larger room; apparently, it was decided he should be moved out of the cell. The sun's light shone into the room dimly through the curtained window, and the small heater beneath it actually seemed sufficient to warm these quarters.

Odin came to the room about an hour before noon. They discussed all that Odin had said the night before, and this time, miraculously, Zechs remained calm and passive.

"How do you know about this?" he asked, leaving the bed to stand by the window. He opened the curtains as he waited for Odin to reply.

"I know the fearless leader in question, for one."

"Alsirae," Zechs acknowledged, and not without an uncharacteristic note of disdain for the name.

Odin nodded. "And I have kept a close watch on him over the many years. I didn't know it when he resurfaced because I, in my naivete, assumed that he was indeed dead. I discovered differently by accident; in fact it was through a transmission interception of a message sent from a computer that was once the property of military personnel. I always have found those rather easy to infiltrate. And when I stumbled upon the discovery, I sent two allies who knew better than to cross me to the location specified in the transmission, and they confirmed what the message had pointed to. Then I went to Germany to see it for myself."

Zechs lowered his eyes, thinking. It was gradually becoming easier for him to step into the stoic front he had lived behind as though it were a mask for almost all his life. "Last night you mentioned something about a proposition," he said.

"Yes, I did, and now that you don't seem to be suffering any violent reactions to such knowledge, I will make that proposition."

Zechs looked at him, reminded of the time Quinze had tracked him down with an offer that he had not wanted to hear but accepted anyway.

The proposition of which Odin spoke was much longer than anything a member of White Fang could have come up with, and the risks he outlined were so much greater that when Zechs had heard it out there was no way he could have turned it down.

V

He was still treated like a patient for the next few weeks. The same three nurses visited him daily; the two who did not wear wedding bands began to flirt him occasionally. They were all part of Odin's plan as well as he was now, they probably more knowledgeable than he on the situation.

He was allowed to walk about the facility freely, but most of the others he knew who worked for Odin were in another building connected to this one by an underground corridor, and he had not yet decided to immerse himself in people.

Two weeks after Zechs had accepted the offer to be part of this clandestine operation referred to solely as the 'counteroffensive,' he and Odin left the base again. Zechs had learned his way through the woods by then and did not need to take so much as a glance at Odin to get through them.

It was during the conversation that followed that Zechs learned who Odin Lowe was. He knew that only a very select few —if there was indeed anyone— knew anything about the man personally, and he did not understand why he chose to bestow such well-kept knowledge upon him. He did not ask, either.

Odin left out several parts of his story, saying only what he felt Zechs should or deserved to know. Nonetheless, Zechs was left speechless.

Before him stood the man who had changed the course of life in outer space and on Earth with a single bullet. Before him was the man who had killed the pacifist leader Heero Yuy, and in doing so had facilitated the assassination of Zechs's own family. This was the man who had —for reasons he omitted in this narrative— taken in the orphaned child who would one day become the pilot of the Gundam 01, perhaps the strongest of the pilots, Zechs's greatest opponent who was also one of his greatest allies. This was the one responsible for the elimination of the Cosmos Arm. This dark-eyed man who seemed in all simplicity to be a living, breathing enigma in himself.

And Zechs listened to all this silently and solemnly, and he strangely was not surprised at all. He did not feel anything, not even when Odin proceeded to tell why he had rescued him in space, and how Zechs's 'death' had stolen his redemption.

"You wanted to know who I am," Odin said once he finished. "So I told you. I do regret a great many of the things I've done with every ounce of every emotion I possess, but it is not you to whom I must make those apologies, or anyone else." He stopped, and the silence that fell between the two of them seemed almost palpable.

"This information is not free, however," he went on, staring out at the sea just as Zechs was doing, watching the sun rather than the pale sphere of Apollo dance across the waves. "I have given you a story that spans my lifetime, and from you I ask only two details."

Zechs cast him an expectant glance, eyebrows raised in interest.

"The first detail regards a person; the second, something you said once. Be honest, Marquise, for I have been so with you. I know a great deal about your life already, so these two details will suffice for a condensed story of your life. One for one, Mr. Marquise."

Zechs nodded.

"Who is this lieutenant you eventually ask everyone you come into contact with if they have heard of? I ask this because this person seems of great importance to you, and I'm curious as to why they seem to be placed above even your sister at times."

He gave no hesitation in responding. He saw no use to do so. "Her name is Lucrezia Noin," he said quietly, his eyes averted t the side. "I attended the Lake Victoria Academy with her. She was at the top of the class, would have been the top student if she hadn't intentionally lost to me. She could defeat anyone there in an MS, because she didn't know how to stop. Others could only fight so long before they got tired, and she couldn't feel a thing when she fought."

"I'm assuming she even told you this."

"She did. She was recruited as an instructor there and joined OZ as a soldier when the Gundams were still relatively new threats."

"And afterward?"

"She worked with me for a while, then she returned to Sanq as a Commander and a guard of the princess."

Odin waited to be sure he was finished, then said, "I truly am sorry that you have been unable to find news of her, then. She seems to command your heart in a way no one else, not even the Princess Relena, does."

Zechs looked up at him too quickly to conceal the half-shocked expression on his face.

"You didn't have to say it," Odin assured him, seeming to read his thoughts. "You could have refrained from answering the question and I still would have known. It's in your eyes when you ask about her. You're very clever at hiding your expressions, Marquise, but it's impossible to hide one's eyes."

"What was the second detail?"

Odin grinned. Even now, all these days after they had first met, his smile still made Zechs uneasy.

"The second detail," he said, "is the meaning of something you said when we first tried to dig your body out of the wreckage of your Gundam. You were unconscious then but when one of us tried to move you, you cried out and started whispering something almost like a chant to yourself."

"As you said, I was unconscious. I don't remember anything like that."

"I didn't expect you to. You were whispering about silver 'glimmering in candlelight' and the 'clicking of beads' and the beads then being placed into your hand."

There was no need for Odin to list three specific things that Zechs had said. He knew from the word 'silver' what Odin meant, and the memory assaulted him from years in which he had either failed to recall it or had simply never thought back to that day. How could he have in years past desecrated that memory by half-convincing himself that it had never actually happened? Had Lucrezia remembered it all this time? Of course she had. She remembered everything that had ever happened between them, probably down to the expressions on their faces at the precise moment they first saw each other.

"One for one," Odin reminded him.

He sighed wearily. And he was weary, sick of it all already. Odin had told him more and more with each visit about what was happening and what he knew of the why of it all, and Zechs, though he could never resist the call to fight for peace, already wanted to slink away into the night, leaving this battle in the hands of someone who cared. He did not know where he would go if indeed he managed to both escape the facility and get past the guards at the end of the road leading here, but what did that matter? Perhaps he would go to Sanq and ask Relena's forgiveness. Perhaps she would take him in, and he would live there with her as she played the part of the constant misunderstanding princess, reminding him always of his own darkness that became blacker still against her light.

Or perhaps he would travel the Earth seeking news of Lucrezia, and if by God he found her, would he be able to approach her? No, he knew he would not. He would go to her in the night as she slept, appearing at her bedside as a lost specter would, and what then when she awakened? Would she accept him again?

Perhaps she would not.

He wanted to leave here, and he sensed Odin knew that. He could leave here if he so chose; the others there, all except Odin, left or at least disappeared into their own quarters at some time, and he could find a way out of there that would not take him past anyone else. He was not truly a prisoner, yet he could not leave.

He was a captive of his own making, a prisoner not of Odin Lowe and his organization but of his own desire to wage this battle, to, if God allowed him, bring it to an end. The blood on his hands had freed him from his own sister's naïve ideals, but at the same time had chained him to war and ultimately, to peace.

"Are you going to give me an answer?" Odin asked. As it always did, his voice sounded slightly amused at something only he could see.

Zechs shrugged.

"You pretend it doesn't matter," Odin said. "You use every gesture or action you've ever seen someone else use when they try to hide whatever it is they feel, but the mechanical manner in which you perform them gives you away. Whatever it means, it's greatly personal to you, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Would I be correct in assuming that it has something to do with your dear lieutenant?"

"Yes."

"Then, since you do not seem eager to tell me, it must suffice to say that the 'glimmer of silver' is a memory of your beloved Miss Noin that you hold too dearly to impart. You hold everything sacred, don't you, Marquise?"

He shook his head. "No. But I do think there is something sacred in all things. God did create it all, didn't He?"

For the first time since they had met, Odin Lowe lost his composure. His dark eyes widened and he took a step backward, staring at Zechs as though at a ghost.

He smiled then, that same damnable smile that was becoming so familiar to Zechs, and regained his signature strong, unchanging front.

"Do you really believe in God?" he asked. "Even after all that's been done to you, all you've seen?"

"In the past I doubted His existence," he said quietly. "On the battlefield, as you watch everyone around you being murdered for some ideal you yourself do not understand and all the while knowing that by all rights you should be the next to lose your life, that can make it hard to maintain such beliefs. But just as I have seen things that made me question the existence of God, so have I also seen things that make it impossible for me to dismiss his presence." He paused, remembering the night of the 'glimmer of silver' Odin had spoken of. This was perhaps the most Zechs had ever said to him at one time. "Yes, I do believe in Him, and I do so willingly. Are you denying your own beliefs, Odin?"

Odin regarded him with great interest. "And what beliefs would those be, Mr. Marquise?"

"You said that it was not me nor any other man you needed to make apologies to. I made the assumption you were talking about a power beyond that of man."

Not another word was spoken between them for some time.

"You're a perceptive devil, aren't you, Marquise?" Odin said finally. "Yes, your assumption is correct, just as many of mine about you have been. But my belief is not something I deny or hide. I simply guard it."

"Very well then," Zechs said. "You guard your faith just I guard certain ones of my memories."

Odin chuckled under his breath. That chuckle metamorphosed into a true laugh, and that true laugh became a hysterical one.

Thus had concluded their final explanatory conversation before Zechs had left the base. The two of them had shrugged deeper into their thick overcoats and walked back to the former base, made discreet by the cover of the night that had freshly fallen.

A few more narratives had followed this, but they were all brief, made simply so that Zechs understood what action would be taken, or perhaps the motives behind the actions. He wondered how many other of his fellow subordinates Odin bothered to keep so informed.

"They are all informed of something," Odin replied when Zechs had asked him. "I tell each one what I think they will most understand. Some things I've told you, many of those around you are completely in the dark about, just as they know certain things you're not aware of. But I have told you quite a bit more than I have anybody else, save, of course, for my highest subordinate, and even he doesn't know everything about me. I prefer to keep some anonymity, even if my name was never associated with all the sins of my past. I'm sure you know exactly how I feel, Prince."

Zechs had spent quite a lot of time wondering who Odin's highest subordinate was. He never asked, however. He had his suspicions, and they were all but completely confirmed during that time.

He was given freedom to leave the base as he wished, but he declined this privilege, save for the occasional walks he would take through the woods in late evening or at night, to the deserted landing platform that overlooked the ocean. He always went alone now, and he spent these solitary walks thinking of Lucrezia. Where was she now? If she was still alive, would not some mention of her been made by now? Surely it would have, though Zechs fought with all his soul not to believe that.

Meanwhile, he had much work to do here, as promised, as he learned more about the counteroffensive and its opponents with each day.

Would he never be done with warfare? Would the Earth never be done with it?

Three months after he had awakened from his death to find himself in this base (ironic it should be him Odin had thought to rescue), he heard news of Relena, something about a project she hoped to soon get underway on the planet Mars. He managed to hear only the final minutes or so of her global broadcast, but those few moments were enough to further inspire his efforts in the counteroffensive.

Even greater news had come to him a month following that. The former OZ Countess Midii Une (whom some still referred to as 'Lady') had officially established her Prevention Organization. He had felt a tight smile cross his face as he watched her take the podium, then briefly, as the camera swerved to follow her movement through the crowd, he caught a glimpse of something that made his blood run cold.

It couldn't be…

But it was, he saw, and the emotion that overcame him then was one that could not and should not be described.

Two other people trailed Une, taking their places on either side of her as she delivered the Prevention Organization's first public address. The first person was the organization's president, an old man whose name Zechs had long since forgotten who had never been much for public speaking.

The second was Lucrezia Noin.

She was still beautiful, just as she always would be to him, her lovely Florentine face solemn yet not stern-looking in the least. Her dark violet hair was a bit longer than it had been, making her look almost more like the young girl he had met and by whom he had been so fascinated (had fallen in love with why don't you just admit it?) at Lake Victoria. She wore the apparent uniform of the preventers but unlike Une's, hers ended in pants rather than a skirt. His tight grin widened into a true smile as he remembered how hard it was to get her into a dress.

She stood placidly to the left of her superior, her dark eyes flowing under the conference room's lights as though holding within them a living fire, her slender form that of an angel amidst the crowd of mere mortals who were infuriatingly incapable of comprehending how wondrous and beautiful she was.

He did love her, always had, always would, despite wherever life took the two of them. He could not deny that now. Had she known how he felt when he had made his fiery exit from her life? Probably not, he realized, horrified suddenly at the thought of it. He had always believed she knew, but had she really? So many times in the past she had confessed her constant love for him, but had he ever allowed her to know that those feelings were requited?

The answer was not one he had to search for: no. No, he had not.

He found he could no longer listen to what Une was saying. His eyes were transfixed on Lucrezia's face; his ears hearing her voice in all the memories he held of her, all of which were utterly sacred to him. At the end of the announcement, Une introduced her partner in the organization, and Lucrezia looking every bit as dignified and regal as life would have had her be if not for the wars, stepped forward.

"The efforts of this organization and any successes thereof are dedicated to the memory of our beloved Prince Milliardo Peacecraft," she said, and the audience before her rose, some members clapping proudly, others yelling at the top of their lungs, and as she witnessed their reaction, she smiled.

"Luca," he whispered, bowing his head.

She was alive; she had made it out of the Eve Wars along with the rest of them. They had all survived then, and for what reason? Perhaps there was no reason, save that they all learned from each other in some way. Did reasons always have to be complex? No, they did not. God was both complex and simple in His purposes, and perhaps reasons really were not primarily necessary but rather it was action. They had all lived and still, just as did every other human being, they each owed both a death and a life.

And would their lives be intertwined again? Oh, God, he hoped so.

Meanwhile, in the north, the forces of their enemy were growing in power.

And Zechs was finally given his role in this great scheme of war and peace. It was one of the most dangerous ones he could possibly play, but that did not disturb him in the least.

He revealed the obvious fact of his survival to Alsirae Trecais in Germany, under the cover of naivete and hopelessness, and he was instantly accepted as a high member of Alsirae's military.

The irony of it all was enough to make him smirk even now.

This was exactly what Odin had hoped for. Zechs was hardly the only member of the counteroffensive employed under Alsirae as well, but because of his old connections to Alsirae, he was the one placed in the greatest danger.

In winter that year, something happened that temporarily put on hold the plans of both clandestine organizations. Vice Foreign Minister Relena Darlian was kidnapped and her captor, the disillusioned Mariemaia Kushrenada, the young daughter of Treize, had tried, through military force, to assume the title of queen of the earth. The Prevention Organization had been called into the matter and the Gundam pilots —along with their remodeled weapons— had reemerged to fight Mariemaia's soldiers.

Zechs had been given leave from both of his superiors to fight this battle, and this time he took the opportunity.

Dekim Barton (who truly was the mastermind behind the tyrannical incident) had been vanquished, assassinated by one of his own soldiers. His seemed to be the only death that mattered in that impromptu war.

They had all been reunited then, the Gundam pilots and their formerly militaristic allies (if indeed they could be called that), and ultimately, he and Lucrezia. He had not been able to return to either base; instead, he had accepted Relena's proposition regarding the Martian terraforming project, and he had asked Lucrezia to come with him.

His beloved Lucrezia.

They had lived happily and in peace for a while, and in that time Zechs had not cared about Alsirae Trecais and what he planned to do, or Odin Lowe and his counteroffensive. They had even gone as far as to ignore their duties to the Prevention Organization. They had had only each other in those days, and for the first time they had both begun to know happiness, if that were even possible for two people such as themselves.

But war had found them again, just as it always had in the past, and soon the messages from Odin and Alsirae could no longer be ignored.

So many months had passed since then; fourteen months had elapsed since he and Lucrezia's arrival on Mars. He could not even drink away the thoughts of how quickly everything around them had changed anymore.

And now he was leaving her again. He had made a promise to her once years ago that he would never leave her, and this would be the third time he had broken it.

Perhaps it would ease her pain some if he told her what was going on, why he had to go. But he could not do that, not if he wanted to protect her from it.

Odin dropped the MS report on the desk and looked up at Zechs, smiling. "He's not trying to be impressive this time, is he?"

"What do you mean?"

"There are no modifications or specialized weaponry on the Gemini suits. He's using the system to push the pilots beyond their own natural limitations in battle, but other than that, this suit is nothing more than a larger, better-looking Leo."

Zechs acknowledged this with a nod. "Perhaps it is simplicity that he wants."

"He's not going to modify it or specialize it in any way because he doesn't believe he's going to have a worthy opponent. But I wouldn't dismiss these suits as being weak, not yet at least. I'm assuming you read where the report stated that the outer walls of each suit are constructed of reinforced metals."

"Do you think it could be gundanium?"

Odin shook his head. "No. It's too expensive to use gundanium alloy in mass production. He's done something else to them."

Zechs considered this for a moment, then inquired about the counteroffensive's own mobile suits.

For some reason beyond him, Odin laughed. "We've decided upon a name for our resident suit," he said, laughing softly still. "Sagittarius."

Zechs blinked. "Why Sagittarius?"

"Must you induce another admonishment from me with Miss Noin expected to return at any moment, Marquise?"

Zechs simply watched the screen. After all these months in which they had had been involved in the counteroffensive together, Odin was accustomed to his passive lack of response.

"You take everything so seriously, Prince," Odin explained, sounding very much as he had when he'd said it to Zechs the first time. "There are some things in life that can only be taken seriously, and this entire matter we find laying at our feet is something you had damn well take seriously, but you should allow yourself the indulgence of looking into something serious and finding the underlying humor of it all." He paused, giving Zechs enough time to absorb his words before continuing. "The suit will be named Sagittarius because of how utterly ridiculous it sounds. 'MS Sagittarius.' Can you think of an astrological sign that sounds more ridiculous than that? It does not hurt, either, that the month under Sagittarius was not the one in which the MS's production began."

"Whose idea was this?" he asked, and despite himself he did feel a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

"The christening of the mobile suit Sagittarius is the work of one of your fellow traitors to Alsirae."

Zechs fended off a shudder at the word 'traitor.'

"How was your dear superior this morning?" Odin asked. Such a question on Alsirae's well-being was a rarity, usually leading up to some insulting comment.

Zechs shrugged. "He told me I would always be betraying something," he said.

Odin lowered his head for a moment in consideration. His dark eyes fell closed, and for the next minute he remained like that, the only sound his deep, meditative breathing. "Perhaps you shall."

Nothing more was said for some time.

"Thank you for the report," Odin said finally, guiding the conversation to an end. "There are some pages I could send you, general information on Sagittarius, but with less errors than Alsirae's. I'll send them to your computer in a few minutes."

Such hasty closings were a characteristic part of their conversations over the computer, and all Zechs could do —all that he was expected to do— was mumble some ingratiating remark and turn off the outgoing communications device. He fell back against the sofa, tried to doze off again. He had almost succeeded in doing so when one of the devices hooked up to the computer was activated and, humming steadily, began to eject on page after another of the construction report for the MS Sagittarius.

Zechs read through the report in the same manner in which he'd read Alsirae's. When he was done, having abandoned all hope of sleep, he went into the small kitchen, searching for anything alcoholic and settling for a beer. There was no reason for him to look into the cabinet —he had finished the last of the bourbon up the previous night, the last of the gin two nights before that. He was vaguely aware that his drinking was starting to get out of hand, but it did not concern him. He half-hoped that one of his superiors —either Alsirae or Odin Lowe, it didn't matter which one but preferably both —would contact him when he was drunk and he would tell them he wanted nothing more to do with either of their plans. That hope was probably futile these days, though, since Zechs seemed to be having a harder time in getting drunk. It was rare for him to get so much as a buzz anymore.

He was halfway through the beer when he heard a set of keys rattling outside the door and the solid 'click' of the right one being forced into the slot. On any other day he would have scrambled to conceal both the printouts he had received from Alsirae and the ones from Odin and to get rid of the beer. Not today. He wanted her to see them, wanted her to stop him from doing this. She could stop him if she really tried, if she put up as much of an argument as she had last night before Zechs had polished off the bourbon. If anything was left to stop him, it was she.

Lucrezia entered the apartment without speaking to him, eyes averted to the floor as though she was afraid of him. She had every right to be afraid, he knew, shamed by the fact. He had hurt her enough in the past even despite her obvious love for him. He had hurt her so much, not physically for he could never bring himself to that, but emotionally; it was no wonder to him at all that she should be afraid of him, in terror of which promise he would break next.

She finally glanced up and saw him watching her. "I have to leave tomorrow," she said quietly. "Une's given me a new mission."

He fought the urge to apologize to her again for all that he had done. If she were to stop him from going to Earth, he would have to put up the same strong front that had come so naturally to him last night. "Where are you going?" he asked, his voice not quite as rough and monotonous as he would have liked.

She took another step into the room. "The L3 colony. Sally and Wufei are going too. We're to meet with Trowa Barton once we land." She paused. "Une wanted you to go. I told her you couldn't."

He nodded.

She glanced over his shoulder, at the cluttered mess on the table. "You've been drinking again," she said flatly, gesturing toward the half-empty beer bottle. "You're going to kill yourself if you keep this up, Zechs. Maybe that's what you want."

He shrugged, pretending to be unaffected by the pained expression on her face. Indifference was both a weapon and defense he had mastered quite well over the years.

"I suppose you'll be leaving soon, won't you, Zechs?" she asked.

"Yes. The shuttle's on its way now."

She looked stung and for a moment she lowered her head, but she offered no argument. "Do you know when you'll be coming back?" Before he could answer her eyes flashed with an emotion he had never seen cross her face and, enraged, her voice choked with bitterness, she cried, "Or are you planning to die down there? Is that it? You're going to leave me here and go to Earth and get yourself killed in whatever it is you're involved in! Zechs Marquise, the great Lightning Count, finally gets the honorable death that Treize Kushrenada tried to give you!"

He rose from the sofa. "I'm not going to die, Lucrezia." But he did not know that, did he? There was a strong possibility that he would die on Earth, especially if his association with Odin Lowe were ever discovered.

"You don't know that!" she yelled, walking toward him until she could look directly into his eyes. "You could die down there, just like I could die on one of these missions. But at least I'll know what I'm dying for, and that it's right. Zechs, in the end, what are you going to be dying for?"

He started to reply, could not. The only thing he could think of to say to her was that he was sorry, that he was wrong, that if she could still stand him he would accompany her again on this prevention mission, that if she could still stand him when they returned home he would stay with her.

"That's what I thought," she said when he failed to respond, her face streaked with tears now. Without warning her hand came up and she struck him. She was a strong woman but the punch was weak and ineffective because of how hard she was crying, perhaps also because it was he whom she was hitting.

Her eyes fell to the stack of papers on the table, those closest to her. She reached down and picked them up.

"Is this it?" she asked. "What you've been working on with those men all this time?"

He nodded. This was it. She would look through the reports, realize what was going on, and she would tell him he couldn't do this. She would beg him not to. And this time he would listen.

"No," she said, shaking her head and throwing the report back down. "I don't want to know. I don't care what it is." No. "Lucrezia–"

"Who are you?" she asked, sobbing.

"What do you mean, Lucrezia?"

"You heard me. Who are you? I can handle Zechs Marquise despite some of the things he believes in and I love him, and I can handle Milliardo Peacecraft despite some of the things he's done and I can even love him, but I don't think I can handle you."

"Lucrezia…" He placed a hand on her shoulder and she wrenched away from him.

"Don't touch me," she snapped.

He started to realize that maybe she had already resigned herself to the fact that he was leaving and was not going to try to stop him and that if this were true, he would not be able to find the strength to back out of Alsirae's bloodthirsty plot, Odin's sacrificial counteroffensive. "Lucrezia–"

"Don't," she said softly, and she offered him a tight smile. "I love you, Zechs. I love you even if I don't know how to live with what you are. But if this is how it's going to be, I can't do this anymore. I would rather end it all like this than fight with you. I'm not as strong as I used to be, or maybe I'm stronger, and that's why I can say this." She smiled again, but this time her lips trembled. "You're supposed to leave me. Do it if you must." She raised up and kissed him. "Goodbye, Zechs."

She started toward their bedroom. He realized what was happening, that she was not going to stop him after all, and he tried to protest but found that the words would not come. All he could do was watch her enter the next room and close the door behind her, and when the door closed he knew it was not only himself that she was shutting it on. It was everything the two of them had tried so hard to do together, everything they had worked to accomplish, and every one of the shattered promises he had made to her.

VI

She stayed in the bedroom until she heard him leave. Where he would go to wait for the shuttle's arrival she did not know, and she almost did not care, either. She had thought she was going to cry some more once out of his sight; in fact, she had gone to the room with every intention of bawling her eyes out. But she did not. A few more tears came, yes, but nothing more, and she was unsure of whether they were for herself or for him.

She went to the bureau while she waited for him to leave and dug under a pile of her shirts until she felt something cold and metallic under her fingertips. She withdrew the framed picture from the drawer and sat on the edge of the bed. The picture was one of several she had of him from their days at Lake Victoria, but it was the only one in which he was not wearing that accursed mask. She had taken it herself, knowing he would never remove the mask for any of those photographs the instructors took for the profiles. The two of them had been sitting on the short wall surrounding the platform outside the student dormitories, and he had had his arm around her. Her forehead and the tops of both eyes were visible in the corner of the picture. She had withdrawn the camera from her coat pocket and positioned it before he could protest, but the expression on his face was one she would always remember even without the photograph. His eyes were wide and alarmed, his platinum bangs had flown up when he raised his head and his entire forehead was exposed, and his mouth hung open in shock. He had been so startled when she raised the camera and so stunned by the flash that he had fallen off the wall and into the bushes beyond, knocking the mask off the wall with him. She had hoped it would break.

She laid the picture face-up across her legs, feeling a smile spread across her face, and absently, remembering those days, she traced the line of his face with her fingertip.

An hour after she had retreated to their bedroom Zechs knocked on the door. Lucrezia continued looking at the picture and pretended she did not hear him.

Author's Notes: I was very surprised that this chapter became so long, but I had to get so much of the exposition out of the way in it. At last I'm done with Noin for a while, and if anyone thinks she's being a bit moody (although she always did seem a little moody in the series, no?), you might be on the right track. With so much of the exposition done, the story really picks up in the next chapter.

Odin Lowe obviously does not look like he did in the Episode Zero manga. Why is this? I knew the backstory of Heero Yuy before I had ever acquired the manga from a quaint little Japanese bookshop in New York City, and had always envisioned him being very dark and brooding. I do explain the difference in his appearance later, but I do not remember if that explanation is somewhere in Ballad, or if it does not come until Remnants. As nothing is said about Odin's life in the manga, I have taken uncountable liberties with his character, and one chapter of Ballad (as well as several chapters of Remnants) go over the little story I concocted for him, detailing his connection to Heero Yuy.

Obviously, "Alsirae Trecais" is not the character's real name. Pat yourselves on the back if you've already figured who he really is; I think it's rather obvious, but I was determined to work him into this story.

I feel the need to make a note regarding the religious nature of certain parts of this chapter. Zechs's abstract near-death scene is meant to be rather psychedelic, if not vaguely classical. The memory he keeps alluding to is one of himself and Lucrezia when they were very young that I meant to turn into a small story, but I'm not sure if I'll ever finish it. Despite some of the things that are said in this chapter, I always had the feeling that Zechs was an atheist, or at least an agnostic. His scene with Odin is a reflection of what he was raised to believe before the Sanq Kingdom was destroyed, and what he still hopes for, despite everything that has happened in his life. Simultaneously, I think that Noin, as is obvious from this chapter, is a sometimes-practicing Roman Catholic. And if anyone really wants to know, Odin is something of a Taoist, with several Buddhist influences as well. All that will show up later, though. I'm horribly fascinated by all religions, so my characters' faiths are of great importance to me, even if they never matter in the actual story.