Chapter Eighteen

I

He had only one mission left to complete before he could return to the Sanq Kingdom, to his beautiful, lying Relena whom he had left while in an unforgivable rage, to his pregnant Lucrezia. He was eager to fulfill this final task and be done with the whole thing, yet at the same time he half-dreaded returning home. Treize would not be there, he was sure of that. He and Relena had always met on his territory, where he could continue his perpetual drama of chivalry and elegance and beauty for her while she watched on in awe. There was nothing Treize wanted more than to infiltrate the Sanq Kingdom, but he wouldn't go there himself to court Relena. There was too much at stake if he were seen, and it seemed he had begun to realize that the fantasy in which he lived only existed in his own world, not in the countries supporting him, not in Sanq, not yet at least. He would have to drop the charade once within the boundaries of the kingdom, and if he dropped too much of it Relena would realize what was going on.

Zechs leaned over the railing at the edge of the ferry. He looked down into the foamy black water below — so many feet beneath him at this point, and how he would love to be at the depths at it all, weightless and careless and lifeless and free . . .

How could he have left her as he had, fuming and refusing to hear her out? It was Treize at whom his anger had been directed, not Relena, but she was the one who had suffered for it, for he was capable of hurting only her with harsh words spoken only out of outrage and fear but not with sincerity. This was almost as reprehensible as the way he had left Lucrezia in space, and now, thinking of her as well, he wondered if Relena had told Lucrezia when she returned to Sanq, and if she had, what Lucrezia thought of the matter. Was he capable of doing nothing but hurting the two of them, the only ones he had ever really loved, of all but killing them when they needed him?

"What's wrong with me?" he asked of the smooth, calm deep into which he stared, that inviting strait of dark water. He was not alone on the ferry —there were at least two dozen others on it as well — but no one seemed to hear him, as though he didn't exist, still dead after being ripped apart in the explosion of the Epyon. He was just as alone in this as he had ever been.

He suddenly found himself wishing that Lucrezia were there with him. She would know how to go about this next meeting and this next request; she had always known how to get these things done. She would tell him to quit feeling sorry for himself and do what needed be done, just as she had always told him that when he needed to hear it, and it was only her voice that he would listen to. Her voice was what he needed to hear, regardless of what she told him.

He could call her, he supposed. There was a woman only a few yards away from him, also leaning against the railing, whom he had seen with a phone only minutes ago, and he could ask her if he could borrow it. But he decided against it. Lucrezia would probably be asleep now, asleep with his child growing within her, and even as much as he felt he needed to talk to her he did not want to wake her with his incessant weakness.

This mission was the last one Odin had sent him on, and perhaps it, not his completed confrontation with Heero, would prove to be the hardest. This was almost as personal as that one had been, and it was perhaps something Zechs should have done a long time ago. Treize would look at it as an insult, one in return for Relena, and maybe it was partly that, but it was also another step in preventing more unnecessary bloodshed.

"Land, ho!" a child yelled somewhere ahead of him on the ferry, and when he shifted his eyes in that direction he could just barely make out in the pre-dawn darkness the shape of the ports of Morocco. The child laughed and came running down the ferry's deck, so innocent a young boy, and he was followed by an even smaller girl. Laughing, both of them. Laughing as they ran past the killer of his own men, laughing even as their mother called after them, laughing just as the man with the long platinum hair who watched them once had laughed with his own sister when they were of those ages. They collided with each other near the opposite edge of the ferry and fell in a small heap, holding onto each other and still laughing, these children whom he prayed would never endure the pain and separation that he and his sister had.

So innocent, these children.

So innocent.

Relena.

He wondered, even as his mind struggled against the thought, how far Treize had already gone in his maddening quest for power with Relena. Surely he hadn't managed to proceed very far; surely he had not done what he said he had. Relena would never submit to it. Zechs refused to believe she would. This was not just any girl of whom he was thinking, it was not the one he was about to see: it was Relena, innocent Relena who surely could not know much of such matters as he feared Treize would try to involve her in; sweet, young Relena who would forever remain innocent in his eyes. Treize couldn't have done anything to her, for she wouldn't let him. She was too pure for that.

But, he reminded himself against his own will, Lucrezia had been so innocent at one time, hadn't she? And now, even as she carried his child, she was still innocent, still as pure as she was the day he had met her, before the wars, before Relena's missions and the Prevention Organization, still pure even as Relena was.

He would not think of this any longer.

The ferry docked at the port. Zechs was the last to depart, lingering until all others were out of sight and the laughing children had been gathered up by their amused mother.

The hospital where the boy and his guardian stayed was near the shore. It could not be seen from the port but the walk would not be long, and Zechs decided that if he could not have Lucrezia there with him, he did not want anybody and that the solitary walk would be beneficial to him.

The hospital's name was printed in five different languages on the sign outside. English was one of those, thankfully, but nevertheless his eyes went over the other four titles. He could understand none of them. It was Lucrezia who could translate almost every language she encountered, not he.

This hospital was perhaps the best in the region, maybe in all of Africa now, mostly because the necessary funds had been properly directed to it. He supposed this was because of how many wealthy families in Europe and Africa and the Middle East had had loved ones critically injured in the wars and how much those families were willing to pay to see that their victims received the absolute best treatment. Some of the patients were here were locals injured recently, but most were spillovers from the Spanish hospitals, spillovers who had to be transferred because the medical facilities in Spain could no longer afford the care and upkeep of patients who were no longer capable of feeding themselves, of those whom the wars and the acts of terrorism that followed had left unable to do anything but stare up at the ceiling with vacant, unseeing eyes.

There was much speculation in regard to what had caused the explosion of Quatre Winner's shuttle in outer space six months ago. Some believed it was a terrorist act; some said it was merely a technical mishap. Zechs had not formed an opinion on the matter and, considering that it was not the comatose Quatre he had come here to see, he had no intention of doing so tonight.

Visiting hours were so long past they were about to begin again, but, even as reputable as this hospital was, such trivial things were not strictly enforced here. He would most likely not have any problem getting in, and if one arose, all he had to do was to tell whatever person of authority was here this morning who he was. There were certain times, he conceded, that his name (either one of them, in fact), regardless of what tragedy was connected to it, came as a useful advantage.

He stopped for a moment before entering the hospital. This was one of the best medical facilities within all of Southern Europe and Northern Africa combined — the best for patients in much more critical and longer-lasting conditions —, the second best on the continent being the former military hospital in Lake Victoria, but even so it could still stand some improvements. That much was evident from the outside.

The best hospitals in Europe were those in the Sanq Kingdom. Relena had seen to that, and this was one of the more biased actions she had taken that he could condone with pride in her. It was probably the first intelligent action she had taken since her coronation, deciding that she could not begin to improve conditions of neighboring nations and the colonies that relied partly on the support of Sanq until she first worked to improve her own country. The reasons that so many people were not in physical therapy or lying in comas in Sanq varied. Some felt against the Sanq for political reasons, some felt they would be taking a horrible advantage of the kingdom's generosity because of their own or their loved one's opposition to total pacifism, and for some it was simply too far away.

The reason that Quatre Winner was in Morocco instead of Sanq was a bit of a combination of the three. In his life as a Gundam pilot, an independent soldier, age and guardianship had not mattered, nor had it when he reunited the scattered assets of the Winner family estate and took over the business that had once belonged to his father. He was young, yes, but still of age and undeniably intelligent and competent, and as long as he remained that way there had been no need for anyone to claim responsibility of him. However, as it so often seemed in situations like this, after he had been left a human vegetable by the shuttle explosion, someone had had to step forward and claim guardianship of the boy, and because of family difficulties, none of his siblings had been able to sign for custody. Quatre had been a ward of the state for a month — which was, Zechs knew, merely a more tasteful way of saying that a member of the Council had paid for him to be properly fed, cleaned, and hooked up to whatever machines the hospital wanted — until someone had come forward to claim him, and that someone had not been a member of the family at all but none other than Miss Dorothy Catalonia. She had signed every document the hospital board could thrust in her face and had been awarded legal guardianship of the boy after only the briefest skirmish with a distant member of the Winner family, and had then signed for her beloved Quatre to be transferred to a hospital in her native Spain. The medical facilities in Spain were good but their resources were limited, and Dorothy had known that if the hospital's funds ever became too insufficient they would have no problem in cutting back how much care was given to patients in conditions such as Quatre's. She was no longer so well-off herself — in fact, Zechs had heard rumors that she was rather poor compared to what she had once been — but she had managed to petition a wealthy relative in Madrid for the money to send Quatre elsewhere and her petition had been granted. A month after being moved to Spain, Quatre Raberba Winner was transferred across the Strait of Gibraltar to Morocco.

Zechs let out a heavy sigh and continued up the walkway to the hospital's main entrance. He had dawdled long enough. He still was not looking forward to this reunion for he did not know how she would react to his proposition, but there was no going back now, not after coming this far.

He cast one final glance to the desert around him, to the sand hills that were still dyed black in the early morning, to the sky that would in only an hour or so more lighten as the sun began its ascension. He had once said while on the battleship Libra that Earth could only look beautiful from the cold darkness of outer space. That had been one of only two things he had said to Relena in that confrontation that had not been a lie, the other being how strong and how generous she had become over the years. He truly had believed that then, but now, looking over his shoulder at the star- and moonlit desert, he realized how very wrong he had been.

He smiled faintly and pushed open the glass door.

The lights were low inside the hospital; the corridors were dim and silent as the chambers of the newly dead. The only sound as he crossed the corridor that would eventually end at the nurses' station was the echoing of his footfalls, and he was reminded of the walk from the shuttle to the hospital on Mars, of how very terrified he had been as he followed the doctor, who had refused to tell him anything about Lucrezia's condition. He felt none of that fear now but he did feel a strange kind of dread as he walked, a dread that made his every step heavier and made him wish once more that Lucrezia were with him.

There were three women at the nurses' station, all young, all looking in dire need of rest. The one who seemed of higher authority stepped forward as Zechs approached, her eyes sweet and expectant. Just by looking at her Zechs could tell she had not been witness to much involving the wars of the previous years, not even the one that had resulted in the expansion of the Moroccan borders to include this locale, and the darkness of her skin, much darker than was characteristic of a native of Morocco, led him further to believe that she was originally from a much more southern region of Africa.

"May I help you, sir?" she asked when he reached the desk. There was no apprehension in her voice. She did not, by looking, recognize whom he was.

"I'm here to see Quatre Raberba Winner."

Her eyes brightened at the boy's name (another one of his adoring caretakers, it seemed) but her smile faltered. "I'm sorry, sir," she said in her heavily accented English. "Visiting hours do not begin until another hour but if you want you can wait in–"

"My name is Milliardo Peacecraft. If I'm not mistaken, there is a young lady who stays by his bed constantly. Ring her and give her that name. I'm sure she will not be bothered by my early visit. Please ring her."

The nurse's eyes widened slightly when he told her who he was, but still she displayed no signs of apprehension toward him. She went to the phone in the corner of the desk and dialed in the code for a specific room, then when the phone in that room was answered she said warmly, "Good morning, Miss Catalonia. I hope I've not disturbed you. I'm fine, thank you, and you? Good. Miss Catalonia, there is a man here, a Mr. Milliardo Peacecraft, and he…yes, I'll send him right away." She hung up the phone and walked around the desk, out into the open, to his side. "Miss Catalonia says you may come up. The room is #403." She paused for a moment, still looking directly into his eyes. When she spoke again her voice was lower as to prevent the other two nurses from hearing, though they didn't seem to be paying any attention to them. "What you did was a good thing, Mr. Milliardo. Others may not have seen it, but there are some who did and they hold a great admiration for you."

He looked at her quizzically, though he knew what she meant.

"Many people did not know what you were trying to accomplish when you became the leader of the White Fang," she explained. "Many others believed you were indeed going to permit the complete destruction of the Earth. But as I've said, there are others, myself included, who saw what was going on. There were others who saw that you were trying to achieve the peace you had been raised believing in, and that the only way you could do that was to stage that one final battle in which people of Earth fought for space and people of space fought for the Earth. There may have been another battle after that one, but it never even compared to those of the past and Earth and space have been at peace ever since, so you did indeed achieve what you set out to accomplish, Mr. Milliardo."

But how long is that peace going to last? he thought, but maintained his silence.

"Go on now," she said, motioning him forward with one slender hand. "Miss Catalonia is waiting for you." When he turned toward the next hall, placing his back to her, she added, "May God bless you, Milliardo Peacecraft."

He halted and his eyes went back to her, then he mumbled a pathetically inadequate 'thank you.'

He crossed the hall thoughtlessly, his mind a complete void, and when he reached the elevator he pressed the button marked '4' automatically. It ascended quickly and Quatre's room was only two doors down from it, and this still inspired no mental action in his brain. He hesitated once outside the door but only for a moment, then he drew a deep breath and rapped his knuckles against it.

"Please come in, Mr. Milliardo."

Without taking a moment to consider what he was going to say to the girl, he did.

The room was lit only by a lamp on the short table in the corner, and when Zechs glanced up he saw there was no bulb in the light socket. It was cold inside but the heater against the wall opposite the door was off regardless. He was sure that this was the way Dorothy wanted it, not the physicians in charge of the Winner boy's care.

She had not looked up when he entered, nor did she when he eased the door shut behind him. There was a single chair pulled up close to the bed and it was here that she remained as he studied her, her eyes lowered to the floor and half-closed as if in prayer, one hand resting above her knee and the other in the slack grip of the boy.

She had changed so much since he had last seen her, so much that it at first stunned him to the point of speechlessness. She no longer wore clothes resembling military uniforms as she had so loved to wear even when they were children; instead she was dressed in a simple black skirt with a simple white blouse. Her hair was still long and light but it looked rather uncared for now: it hung limp around her face, falling in a lifeless heap to her waist. And her face…here was perhaps the most profound change. Gone was the mischievous grin and the sparkle of her eyes; her mouth was set, her skin pale and grainy, her eyes dull and sorrowful.

But there was something else about her as well, wasn't there? Something that had perhaps come with age or maybe living on to see the aftermath of a war. When they were young, Zechs had always found her rather awkward-looking, but now he saw that over the past year, even despite her unkempt appearance, she had become a strangely beautiful woman.

"Welcome back to Earth, Milliardo," she said finally, her voice still soft and almost whispered at so low a volume. "For a while I believed you would never return. May I ask why you did?"

"I have business to attend to here."

She gave a weak smile. "Would that business involve my cousin?"

He blinked, unable to speak.

She looked up at him. "Is it really so strange that I should know about Treize's survival? He informed me of it shortly after what I believed was your death, Milliardo."

"Are you aware then of what he is doing?"

Her eyes returned to the boy and she, almost absently, began stroking his hand. "Yes. He doesn't know it, though."

"Have you–"

"Known about it the entire time? Yes. I became aware of it in Spain. Tell me, Milliardo, is it my cousin or his adversary who has sent you here?"

"The latter."

"You want me to petition the Council, don't you?" She never glanced up; these words left her lips as she continued to watch the boy as if he might blink and she would miss it.

Strangely, her foreknowledge of this did not surprise him. Not after all that he had seen within these past two nights, not after what had happened, what had happened with Relena—

"Yes," he said, taking another step toward her. "As Duke Dermail's direct heir, you are the only one with the influence the counteroffensive needs over the Council."

She sighed. How pained she sounded, how weak and how very tired.

After several minutes he realized that she had no response for him.

He went to the bed, looked down at the pale, blonde boy. "How is he, Dorothy?"

"There hasn't been a change in him for almost two weeks now. His pulse quickened once, but since then, there's been nothing. They"— she hesitated, and he saw that her eyes were moist —"They don't believe he's ever going to recover."

"Do you agree with them?"

"No. I don't know. They came to me again a month ago and asked me to consider having the machines turned off."

"Did you consider it?"

"No."

"Letting him live on like this is no mercy to him, Dorothy. If you can even call this living."

"Do you think I don't know that, Milliardo?"

"Then why will you not consider letting him go?"

She glared at him. "If it were Miss Noin laying here, would you still say the same?"

He was silent.

"It's ironic, isn't it," she said after some time, "that I should finally decide I want nothing more to do with war ever again, and now I'm being called into one because of my family connections."

"You're the only one who can do this, Dorothy. And it is your own decision. I will not…none of them will force you into doing this."

"But if I don't, my cousin will become the next Dekim Barton."

"Quite possibly, yes."

"Why is he doing this, Milliardo? Has he told you? Why is he trying to start another war?"

"I don't know, Dorothy. I think he's the only one who can answer that."

She sighed again; her head fell against the bed, resting beside the boy's limp, useless arm.

It was not right, he knew, that she should be called into this, that she should be all but forced to leave the boy's side and travel with him to Luxembourg, to address the Supreme Earthsphere Council on a matter she wanted nothing to do with. She had spent so many years of her life nurturing a passion for warfare and yet at the same time a loathing for it, and now that she had at last turned her back on it, content to spend her life ignorant of the world and waiting upon a miracle that would never come, she was being asked to espouse it again, even if only for a brief time. But there was truly no one else who could do this.

Not all, not even most of the civilians of Earth had opposed the Romefeller Foundation, and despite some of the Foundation's actions during Earth and space's time of war, there were still many, government officials and those who lived in blissful aristocracy particularly, who held an admiration for the Foundation's late Duke Dermail. Those who had first organized and designated positions of the Supreme Earthsphere Council had been among this number and, partially out of their admiration and partially as an attempt to symbolize clemency upon the mistakes and transgressions committed in the battles of the past, a seat of power amongst the Council's higher members was designated to the heir of Dermail's estate, granting this heir honorary membership within the Council as well as a certain amount of power in the Council's affairs.

Despite her age and her own actions in the past, there had been, to Zechs's knowledge, no qualms about granting this seat to Dorothy. It was well-known, particularly in such high ranks, that she was fully competent when it came to such matters.

"I never thought I would use it," she said quietly. Her lips brushed against the boy's wrist. "My position on the Council…I never intended on using it."

"You don't have to, Dorothy."

"And you didn't have to come here, Mr. Milliardo."

He moved behind her chair, placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Must I decide tonight?" she asked, raising up from the bed where the boy lay. How strange it was to see this young man he had once fought so fiercely against lying so helplessly upon this immaculate bed, unmoving, unaware, unable to truly live.

"Preferably, yes," he said, knowing that this answer would only distress her more.

"Then may I ask something?"

"Of course, Dorothy."

"How many men on the Council are supporting my cousin?"

"One that we know of. Possibly others."

"Is this one the man who funded him?"

"Yes." He did not question how she knew all of this. Ultimately it did not matter to him, and he feared such questions would do nothing but upset her.

She nodded in consideration. "How is Miss Noin?" she asked finally, and for the first time since he had come here she sounded almost like the girl he had last seen her as, the intelligent, militant, and terribly troubled granddaughter of the leader of the Romefeller Foundation.

Somehow, this off-subject question seemed to lighten the atmosphere that had fallen upon the room. He cleared his throat and said simply, "She is well."

"And with your child if I'm not mistaken." She glanced back at him, offered a weak smile. "Trowa Barton informed me of it. He and I have kept in close touch after…"—she gestured at Quatre's lifeless form—"after what happened to him. They were great friends, as you probably know."

He gave a small, sullen nod.

Dorothy returned to stroking the boy's pale hand. "And how is Miss Relena?"

Zechs fended off a shudder at her name.

"Is something wrong, Mr. Milliardo?"

Again he cleared his throat, for suddenly it felt as though something were blocking it, disabling him from breathing. "No," he said finally, almost thickly. "The Queen is, naturally, distraught over recent events."

Dorothy considered all of this. After several more minutes of this impenetrable silence her shoulders hitched once, again, and her hands rose to cover her face as if her hair were not a proper veil. She cried softly into her hands and he gently placed an arm around her shoulders. Eventually, still weeping quietly, she rose from the chair and turned to him. "I'll…I can't…" she murmured, and then her voice failed her. She fell into him, crying now as she so rarely did, and he held her. His embrace was loose and awkward but she did not seem to care. She sobbed against him violently, her hands clutching his coat, her tears soaking through his shirt to his chest.

"Why did it have to be like this?" she asked, seeking an answer he could not provide. "Why?"

"I don't know, Dorothy."

"After all we went through, after all we tried to do on Libra, why has it come to this again?"

"I don't know."

"Why couldn't Treize have changed?"

"Dorothy, stop this," he said quietly, and she raised her head from his chest to look up at him.

"Do you realize what we're going to have to do, Milliardo? Do you?"

"Tell me, Dorothy. I don't know anything anymore."

"We're going to have to kill him." She sobbed harder. She was going to make herself sick if she kept crying like this. "No, we're not. I'm not asking you to kill him."

"You don't understand," she cried. "I don't mean murder him. That would be easier than this. We're going to go behind his back and cut his legs out from underneath him. We're going to crush him."

"No, we won't. He's already too strong to be cut down that easily."

"Then why do you want me to petition the Council? Why the counteroffensive?"

"To make it more difficult for him. What he plans to do is wrong, Dorothy, whether you want to see it or not."

"Don't you think I know that?" she sobbed, slamming one ineffective fist into his chest. "I know. I think I've always known. And…" Her words again yielded to the sobs that wracked her frail body, then quietly, once she was able to speak again, she whispered, "I'll do it. If that's what you want, Milliardo, if that's what is needed, I'll do it."

"Thank you, Dorothy."

She said nothing else. Eventually her tears subsided and she backed away from him. She glanced at the sleeping Quatre again, forced a smile. "Quatre used to love her, you know. Your precious Miss Lucrezia Noin. He even told her he did, but she loved you." She smiled again. "He used to love her. Just as I used to love you." She stepped closer to him and before he could do anything to stop her, she brushed her lips against his. Her lips parted slightly and he felt the brief touch of her tongue, and when he did not return the kiss she pulled away. "I'm sorry, Mr. Milliardo. Please understand. He loves me now, and I love him."

"Understood." When she was again fully calmed he asked, "Is there anything you would like to take with you, Dorothy?"

She nodded, almost pitifully in the manner of a scolded child. And was that not what she was now? A child? A beautiful young woman reduced at last to being a mere child by a life enshrouded in tragedy?

He held her again briefly and silently she yielded to his embrace. When at last he released her, she went to the small closet on the opposite side of the room and plucked from the floor a slender black suitcase. He knew, without asking, that she had never bothered, in all the months she had been here, to unpack anything.

She went without speaking to the boy, took one of his hands in her own. Looking up at Zechs she asked quietly, "Would you inform the nurses downstairs that I will be leaving for a few days?"

He nodded and started to leave. He paused for a moment in the doorway, glanced over his shoulder at her.

She was bent over the bed, her face pressed against the side of the boy's as the tears flowed freely from her closed eyes, and she whispered her farewells to him as though she though he could actually hear her.

Zechs realized that despite what pain Dorothy was in now and had been in for the past several months, he was glad for her in that she had finally found something she truly loved, something to fill the void that warfare had left within her. He wondered if he would ever allow himself to feel the same.

He left Dorothy to her tearful farewells and proceeded to the first floor.

II

They arrived in the Sanq Kingdom, via the private plane of which Odin had granted him unlimited use for his two missions, shortly after dawn that morning. Dorothy had slept through most of the journey, and watching her, Zechs had realized how desperately she must have needed it. God only knew how much sleep she had been getting while staying in the hospital at the boy's side; he recalled how she had looked, when he had first seen her last night, as though she hadn't slept in days.

Perhaps this was true.

Even after she awoke during the landing and was escorted to the car that would take them to the Imperial Palace she remained utterly silent, solemn as a martyr being led to her death.

It did not strike him until then the chances that something would go wrong when she addressed the Council, that Treize's benefactor would contact the organization or have her arrested, or that perhaps Treize had somehow already discovered their intentions and would resort, when faced with the prospect of losing his financial backing, to desperate measures. He found himself, as he silently endured this epiphany, remembering the guard at the Spanish base, the one who had even then struck him as overly suspicious—

His thoughts were interrupted by Dorothy's quiet, whispery voice.

"What if my petition is not granted, Mr. Milliardo?"

"I doubt Treize will do anything to you," he replied, but did he really? He had never previously believed that Treize would resort to what he had done, what he had so damnably done to Relena, but had not those foolish assumptions proven false?

"Will I need to stay in Sanq?"

He realized then what she had meant. "No. You may return to Morocco immediately following the address."

She seemed content with this response.

The car — arranged, as had been the plane, by Odin — left them at the gates of the palace. He escorted her up the long walkway in perfect silence; indeed the only sound other than their quiet footfalls against the stone walk was the singing of the birds in the trees around the gates, creatures that knew nothing of war or its foul endeavors.

No one, having seen them from a window, awaited them beyond the main entrance. The door shut softly behind them, and this sound carried through the room and out into the corridor, alerting one of the nearby servants to their entrance. "Your Highness," the jovial, plump woman said when she saw him. "I see you have brought us yet another guest."

"Miss Catalonia will only be staying for a few days."

Beside him, Dorothy seemed silently grateful to hear this.

"Miss Noin is still asleep, I think," she continued. "Shall I call her down anyway?"

He shook his head.

"Then shall I call Mr. Rhyn?"

He forced a slight smile. "If Miss Noin is still asleep, I assume he is, too."

"No, Your Highness, Mr. Rhyn woke early this morning and decided to go into the gardens and entertain the birds by singing an aria to them."

"Then please, yes, call him down."

Dorothy looked at him inquisitively.

"Rhyn is a member of the counteroffensive," he explained. "Due to recent circumstances, he is staying here until another arrangement can be found."

As if cued by this remark, Rhyn appeared in the doorway, looking strangely rather solemn until he spotted Dorothy.

"Well, well, well, what have you brought us now, Marquise-love?" His eyes traveled down the length of her figure and widened in feigned shock. "It's blue-eyed! It's blonde! It's female! It has bigger breasts than your sister! What's its name?"

"Rhyn, this is Miss Dorothy Catalonia."

He nodded excitedly. "Odin sent me a message about your little mission, love. Did you enjoy Spain and then Morocco much?" Not waiting for an answer, he looked again at Dorothy and bowed dramatically. "Me llamo Rhyn Tolkien."

"I speak English," she said, though not maliciously, as Zechs would have expected her to.

Rhyn graced her with a wide smile. His face had healed considerably over the past weeks and such an expression no longer inspired an inner shudder. "Good, because I don't really know much Spanish. I know a little bit of French, though. Marguerite was teaching me a bit before I was transferred here. No offense, Miss Catalonia, it's not that I don't like Spanish or anything, I just have been told I can't speak it well because apparently some people think I have a bit of a Liverpudlian accent that won't be talked over…I'll shut me mouth now." He looked again at Zechs. "Is she going to be staying here long?"

"Only a few days."

"She can stay in my room then."

Zechs raised an eyebrow. "And where will you stay?"

"In my room."

Dorothy gave a short, quiet laugh at this. Thank God.

Pagan appeared a moment later and greeted Dorothy warmly. He offered to show her to her room and she went quietly with him, leaving Zechs alone with the loud Brit.

"Has Relena awakened yet?" he asked finally, assuming Rhyn would know.

Rhyn gave him a puzzled look. "She's not here."

"What?"

"You didn't know? She hasn't come back from wherever the hell it was she went the other day. Is something wrong, love? You look even paler than usual."

Zechs shook his head, and for the first time since he had been summoned to a hospital on Mars, he realized that the feeling that arose in his mind at these words was nothing other than a pure, undiluted fear for her.

My dear sister, what have I done?

Author's Notes: Zechs re-enters the story with this chapter, thus ending the character studies and resuming the action. At the beginning of the chapter there is another parallel between Zechs and Heero (the odd desire to drown themselves rather than continue their respective missions), as I do believe they really are quite similar in character.

As to why I chose to extend Morocco's borders and place a well-funded hospital there, I have but one explanation: it is purely random. I like the word 'Morocco.' That is, quite honestly, my entire reasoning.

I could find no role for Quatre in Ballad but I also could not find a reason to kill him, so this is why he is in a coma. Also, I think I had plans for him in Remnants. But it's actually been so long since I wrote both Ballad and Remnants that I don't remember whether or not he does anything in Remnants. I also really like the idea of him being paired with Dorothy, if I can't put him with Trowa.

On a final and more serious note, Dorothy's conversation with Zechs is in no way meant to be a political statement regarding euthanasia. Such a thing is a highly personal decision that I think is best left up to the party involved and/or their immediate loved ones. However, my own political standings have nothing to do with this story; Dorothy clings to a hope that he may yet recover, and thus she chooses to maintain the use of machines.

One more final note: yes, I do love those Liverpudlian accents...