For Karina.
The Lightning Arc 7 - My Rose
Fandom: Gundam Wing
Rating: M/NC-15 for m/m relationship
Pairing: Zechs and Treize
Warnings: m/m love, some swearing - if you are hoping for explicit scenes though, you are likely to be disappointed.
Spoilers: everywhere, in all my stories.
Summary: The King is dead... but is this really it? How will Zechs make his way back into the world of the living? What have women to do with it all? And a shard of gundanium? What is hiding behind Lady Une's smooth Preventer surface?
xxx
Chapter 6 - Treizes's Soldiers
He had not expected this. He had been clear about it: if they wanted to celebrate their kind of Christmas at the estate, they could do as they pleased – Noin and Relena, who arrived discreetly in an unmarked private plane on the airstrip that so many years ago had brought him here.
To what had been his home and now was but a hollow shell, padded comfortably with the trappings of a well-off life. Because life was missing from this place of hushed whispers and reluctant steps, where a few long-standing servants scurried about knowingly, intent on not disturbing their master. Prone to tempers he was, and too partial of hard drink and his shotgun. It would not do to annoy him, or to run into him at an inopportune moment. He had changed so much, they muttered among themselves, he had become sick in his mind and was not himself anymore. Not since Treize was gone.
It was the affinity to their previous master that kept them here, welded to the place and everything in it, including Zechs, and Zechs knew it. It did not help matters.
He had expected to be left alone once the women arrived and began to organise the household for the period of festivities. It would all be rather low key, and it occurred to him that the atmosphere would have suited a funeral banquet rather than Christmas.
Perhaps it was just that. According to Russian custom, the tree would be erected in the vestibule not before the last day of the year. The women would attend a service at the nearby private chapel – a tradition kept by the Khushrenadas throughout generations, even though it was not necessarily a measure of piety for them but a show of respect for the old customs.
Zechs had refused to join in. He would spend the anniversary of Treize's birthday and death alone, feeling he had no reason to keep up something that had nothing to do with him. Not anymore, not without Treize. He would cope somehow with the presence of life in the great house while the women were staying, and breathe a sigh of bitter relief when they would part after the day of the kings. (1)
They meant well, but they were too much company, he grouched, listening into the ginger-and-chocolate scented stillness of the house. They worried about him. They told him not to drink so much, to eat more, to seek life again. They did not understand, but it was not their fault and he felt reluctant to rebutt them. He had hurt them so much already...
Now Relena and Noin had gone out, for a walk in the snowbound park though he found it odd that they should take a jeep along. It did not matter though: the servants had retreated now, so late in the evening, and most of the lights were out. Through the open window of his room, he could see a black, starspangled sky. It would be a night of bitter frost.
He heard the plane, a high-pitched whine that carried clearly through the cold air, and he saw its position lights blink as it described a wide arch to home in onto the air strip. He was too drunk to bother – it would be something the women dealt with. Perhaps they had ordered some more supplies for their idea of a celebration. They were all hurting; they could all do with some distraction.
Sitting on the windowsill, he dangled one leg into the room, and pulled up the other to wrap his arms around and rest his chin on his knee. The air was still, without a breeze, and the woods surrounding the park crisp with frost. It smelled of snow that lay thick and dense on everything, muffling the sounds of life. A shroud for the earth beneath.
He did barely feel the cold seeping through his thin shirt and trousers. He was barefoot, as most of the time, his hair unbound. He had warmed himself with half a bottle of vodka. It saved logs for the fire. Later he would crawl under the down comforter, shrouding himself too into the soft whiteness, the illusion of a warm body by his side and the voice that kept whispering into his dreams.
The jeep arrived back at the house shortly after that – Zechs had barely managed another glass of his drink, and felt rather annoyed at this interruption of the cold silence that had settled over the house and the park. He could not see – the driveway ended in front of the house, his room gave onto the back, like the drawing room Treize used to love so much for its view. He was not interested either in finding out what Noin and his sister had been up to, but when he heard the entrance door creak open and the muffled sound of talking voices, he could not help but notice. There were four of them now, three women and a man. A young man. A voice he knew from somewhere, yet he was too far gone to figure it out.
He jumped and almost tumbled from his place when he heard the reluctant rap on his door. Stay out, he thought, not sure whether he had said it out aloud. He hated being disturbed now. He suddenly hated anyone being close, let alone disturbing him thus. This night belonged to him and Treize, they knew that, didn't they...
"Zechs?" the male voice enquired.
He froze. The glass fell and rolled over the floor, soaking the carpet with the remaining sip of vodka.
"Are you in there?"
Go away.
"Zechs?" Another rap, a bit firmer this time. The tone of the voice changing subtly, from reluctant to worried.
Just go the hell away.
The doorknob was turned, hesitantly as though the man outside was unsure of whether he should be doing this.
Zechs swallowed hard, his breath suddenly flowing into his lungs like boiling water, and he felt a wave of nausea rise from his stomach to his throat, choking him.
The door clicked open and slowly opened by a crack. Wide enough for him to see what he refused to believe: a pinched face, large, wondrous eyes the colour of dusk, and this impossibly long, thick copper braid...
"Hey," Duo said, a hint of relief warring with glassy tension in his voice. He even tried a smile – it made him look oddly childlike.
The child soldiers.
For whom Treize had found mercy in his heart.
Sometimes, mercy is a crime... there was no mercy for me...
Zechs just glared at him from beneath ragged bangs, and Duo took a couple of steps back, mouth slackening, eyes growing wide. For a moment, they stared at one another, until the younger man could not bear it any longer and drew a deep breath – but before he could say anything, Zechs unfurled his long frame and, with a few swift, powerful steps, was close up and personal, fists clenching at his sides, chin thrust forward, pale eyes ablaze as he hissed, "I hate you. I hate you all."
He kept pressing closer, all but shoving the shorter man out of the door. Disregarding the filling up of those huge eyes, the pain deep within, the small hopeless gasp. He locked out anything but a spark of grim satisfaction at the younger man's suffering.
Yet those eyes also held a good measure of anger, the set of Duo's jaw was grim, his stance defiant. "You… you had it all, Zechs. At least you had it all before you lost everything. We had nothing, and we still have nothing."
"So?" Zechs gave Duo a harsh push against his shoulder. Duo faltered before he caught himself and bit his lip.
"You're trespassing," Zechs ground out. "Get lost."
"You're drunk," Duo retorted stubbornly. "You think you get better like that, pickling your brains to shit?"
I want to close my eyes now…"Never thought you'd be a coward, Marquise! Holing up here, getting sloshed-."
"I AM a coward. And I don't care. Get out."
"Fuck you!" Duo clutched the doorframe for hold, trying to push back against Zechs who attempted to unclasp those strong, bony fingers one by one. Duo held on. "You know that they're squabbling over Khushrenada's grave? Some of your new politicians wanna have it flattened 'cos there's no body. Missing in action, too soon to declare him dead, but you know that, dontcha? No grave, no martyr. No memories."
"I'll be the first to volunteer," Zechs gasped, groping for the hunting gun he kept leaning against the doorpost, if only to entertain himself by firing at leaves stirring in the breeze, or even into the blue air, aiming at a star or another. Never touching any of them. Never hitting home.
And forget about the time that goes on…"I hoped," the soft voice of a woman cut into his fogged mind, "that you would help me." Duo suddenly let go and took a small step aside, and Zechs found himself face to face with Une. Pale, perfectly turned out with braided hair, dressed in a neat field uniform and clean boots. She looked tired and determined as she stretched out her hand to touch his fingers. "It is good to see you."
His mind went blank.
"We both… Lucrezia and I, we both hoped you would. So did your sister."
The women ganging up on him? He nearly laughed out loud, but he only brought out a chortling sound as he slumped back against the doorframe and let his head thud back against the brown wood.
"Won't you ask me in?" Une's voice sounded thin and a bit lost. "We travelled in haste…"
He beckoned with one hand, a listless gesture, while he ran his other hand through his hair in an attempt to rake it out of his face at least. When had he last washed it? He could not remember. Une did not look around his room, she did not gather him up, she merely sat down on the chair by his desk and folded her hands in her lap. Duo stayed by the door, fidgeting as he kept scanning the hallway in between quick glances at them.
Zechs sank into a crouch, and finally lifted his head to look at her properly. "I am sorry," he said, his tone ragged and shaky with drink.
"Don't be," she replied quietly.
And without thinking, he slurred, "He had your picture on his screen…"
Une smiled weakly. "He had you in his heart. I know. I understand. I am not jealous." Not anymore, not if there is so much to regret... She took a deep breath and sagged a little even as she wiped her eyes with a heavy gesture. "I came to make an offer. To ask..." She let her hand drop and stared at him, her face blank, eyes dark and damp. "Whether you would consider… working for me. I know Lucrezia would welcome it, and I… I need someone who understands. Someone to talk to."
"What about HIM?" Zechs bit out, with a sharp nod at Duo.
Une did not stir, and her voice remained quiet, steady, tired. "Those boys are unwanted now, a security risk if we don't monitor them, so I decided to put their skills to good use."
She paused, perhaps hoping for an answer, but Zechs lurched back to the window and leaned his head against the frame. He folded his amrs, and his long silver hair fell over his face, hiding him perfectly.
"It is hard to be alone," Une said softly behind him. "For all of us. I need people I can trust."
"Trust?" came the muffled retort. "After what I've done?"
"You would be working away from the public glare. It would not be the usual police work either but intercolonial cases, high-level investigations, industrial espionage and sabotage, illegal arms trade and manufacturing… Your connections and your skills would be invaluable. We also have plans for a large project on Mars." She hesitated, wiped her face once more before she said, her voice brittle, "He trusted you. Right to the end."
Zechs crawled into himself at that, pressing his arms hard against his stomach, and began to rock slightly on his heels. "There was no end," he murmured. "They're right to remove that damn grave."
Une looked down at her hands again, twining and unlinking her fingers. "It would be good to have old friends close. It is a new world, and it feels cold."
"Treize's world," he rasped. "Peace forever. I'm a soldier, not a policeman."
Une's answer came cool, calm, without missing a beat. "Then accept your orders and carry them out. We still are who we were. He knew. He trusted us enough to carry on-"
"Stop that," Zechs murmured wearily. "I heard enough of that already."
"Yes. There's only one justice, and it's in the winners' hands."
He half turned to glare at her from behind the curtain of his hair. Vaguely wondering why she was talking like that, oddly touched by her words – as though it was Treize speaking, he thought fuzzily, and his heart wrenched as always when the pain became too intense and the alcohol too weak.
Une held his gaze, the smallest smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Yet we are the instruments they need. The tools they must pick up for they have none of their own making. We are shaping this world, it is us making their future. Just as he wanted. The conqueror absorbed by the conquered. We still are the ones with the skills, the knowledge, the money, the connections."
His eyes widened a little, and he braced himself on the windowsill, his hands whiteknuckled, his back stiff. If he had not known better, he would have thought he saw a spark of triumph in her eyes. Quiet, frosty, vengeful triumph, with a good helping of spite, the darkness in her gaze deep and hard. Grief had neither softened Une, nor changed her mind of a soldier...
I am looking for the future…"I…"
She looked at him expectantly. Hopeful, too, but somehow he sensed that she did not doubt his answer. She had known. Une had known him better than anyone, perhaps even better as Treize for whose affection they had heatedly competed at times.
Know your enemy, and sometimes you might discover an unexpected ally...
If he was right... if he was reading her hints correctly, then perhaps he could do something else than drink and rot away in seclusion.
"What would you have me do?"
She tugged at the fingertips of her gloves to straighten them, a small, nervous gesture that reminded him of Treize. "Would you truly want to know?"
He blinked and raked his hand through his hair. His heart was thudding hard against his ribs, and he could hear his own pulse pound in his temples. Duo Maxwell stood by the door in complete silence – a miracle indeed – and did not seem in the slightest surprised by all this. Was it a trap? Had they come after him to finally lock him away for good, in some sanatorium for the terminally and criminally insane?
A bitter chuckle bubbled up in his throat, and he shook his head. "I have nothing better to do."
Her smile was full of shadows. Her eyes redrimmed, exhaustion written into every small wrinkle on her forehead, and in the pair of sharp lines between her eyebrows. Bitterness etched into the lines that ran from her nose to the corners of her mouth that was thinlipped and harsh beneath its coat of discreet lipstick. Yet beneath this veneer of tiredness, he could see a soul of steel, something he recognised as familiar, and suddenly something began to lift off his own troubled mind. Slowly, by degrees. Like blindness receding, a fog melting away, greyness giving way to colour again.
A world of colour.
Life.
A purpose.
Finding Treize, somehow, somewhere other than in helpless dreams.
It was too good to be true. A trap, to harm Relena. Yes, that was it, of course. A web of lies to catch him, and bring her down without glory, in a haze of shame and pain... Zechs swallowed a sob and bit his lip. "I'm no good to you now."
"Let me be the judge of this," Une said, almost softly. She crossed the room until she was so close he could smell a hint of her perfume – roses, he registered, with acute pain lancing through his chest. Who had worn it first, Treize or her? Did it matter? Now, after all that had passed?
She looked at him for an endless moment, before nodding once. "I would be honoured if you would agree to head the project on Mars. Officially, it will be classed as a terraforming project. If you are interested, I would show you the rest of the files back at the Preventers HQ. But I can tell you that we are still here. We have never gone away. And you are part of us."
"Us?" he breathed, barely trusting his ears, his voice, his mind. There had been so many illusions already.
Une took his hand and pressed it firmly before letting it slip again. "Welcome," she murmured, "to New OZ, Colonel."
xxx
Zechs, slumped onto the hard bench seat of the military jet, stared out of the window into the swirling blue and white beneath the grey wings. The big metal bird feeling familiar around him, the cold ridged metal of its skin pressing harshly into Zechs' back.
Across sat Duo, looking very tired, hands dangling between his knees, head lolling forward as he drifted in and out of a heady doze.
Une co-piloted for Noin.
He felt too numb to fight the memories that had begun to flood back with blazing intensity, wave after wave, as though no time at all had passed between the explosion of Epyon and the declaration of peace that ended the war of all wars. He let himself drift.
Une had found the one argument to convince him. To drag him back into this hateful new world that had nothing to do with him. A corruption of the dreams of purity and love they had entertained… or perhaps, he had, hence the crash of illusions. Treize had tended to be more realistic. More forgiving, perhaps, in his own strange way. You expect too much, my friend… ordinary people have ordinary dreams… it would be wrong to judge them by your own measure…
I am looking for the future
That cannot be expected by anyone…
He was looking for nothing anymore. He was dreaming, drifting into those memories, allowing them to swamp his mind and drown him.
xxx
"They have decided to flatten the graves," Noin stated dryly. "Because Milliardo is not dead, and no one has found Treize's body."
After a blast that would have blown apart anything in a blast of particles and fire... Zechs winced at the blatant stupidity of this, but he merely shook his head.
"Let them," Une said quietly, her lips thinning with a fine smile that left her eyes dark. "And see what they make of it."
And so it happened that the graves that proclaimed the death of the Lightning Count and His Excellency, General Khushrenada, were removed, the rich dark soil turned over and flattened, made into green meadow, woven through with summer blooms when the year had passed. Amid great publicity, it was announced to the world that the man who had held the greatest delusions ever maintained by anyone had vanished from the face of Earth and the Colonies for good, with not even a site to remember his name.
xxx
Zechs studied the last of the stack of newspapers quietly, absorbed by the photographs that illustrated yet another set of screaming, carefully orchestrated headlines. Shots of Treize and him, mostly, cooking up old scandals again, replete with rumours and slander, augmented with lots of invented, and a few slighly more truthful details of the salacious kind. He could not help the numb, dragging pain that settled inside his chest, as always...
Always when, against all hope, he hoped, for a flash of a second, only to clamp down savagely on his agony and lock it away firmly where he could ignore it for another while. He lived in stages: dull, quiet, numb, alternating with raving, raging, maddening pain caused by yet another irrational spark of hope. He hated hope with a vengeance.
Noin peered over his broad shoulder. "They actually tell people that his body has not been found," she said, incredulously. "How stupid..."
Zechs snorted softly in agreement. Une looked up from behind her desk and pushed her glasses up a little. "I think Relena is rather good at this sort of game."
"She's my sister," Zechs said wryly, with a hint of pride. Treize had been right, yet again: Relena was strong, stubborn in a way she shared with her brother, and knew the political game very well. Allowing those indignant factions to succeed in their crusade to eradicate the memory of the general, knowing full well that this would play into the hands of those who remained true...
Relena, ruthlessly veering between suppressing the real news and stoking the furnace of speculation. Creating a smoke screen behind which Une could work, hidden from the public glare. Zechs allowed himself a smirk that distorted his features into an unpleasant grimace. Noin placed her warm, firm hand against his cheek, and the smirk melted away. It was good to be able to yield, he mused vaguely as he breathed in her aroma of earth and sun.
She smiled and was about to reply when the door to his office hissed open and Une walked in. "Yes," she said, her voice quiet and cool, with a hint of satisfaction, "Treize did well to put faith in her. We had news from our search teams: they found a suitable... object."
She bent to tap a few commands onto the touch screen of the desktop in front of Zechs, and the screen began to come alive with images, still and moving.
Showing a scrap of torn, scorched, metal, rainbow-coloured beneath a layer of black cinder, warped by incredible heat, enough to melt the edges of the massive shard of gundanium armour plating that once had been part of a gundam, or perhaps something larger still.
"I had it collected, and arrangements for a discreet transport to Russia are underway as we speak," Une went on, straightening and crossing her arms with an air of confidence.
Ever the faithful soldier, Zechs mused, bright, strong, clear... the women were right, no one could complain if he decided to bury a piece of scrap metal on his private ground, deep into the rich, fertile soil that once had given birth to someone like Treize.
Zechs marveled a little longer at the pictures, a wistful smile settling in the corners of his mouth. "I never saw his plans... entirely."
"None of us did," Une replied softly, "only he had the vision... the strength to believe in the future. But he entrusted each of us with a part of his dream. He worked out the strategy, leaving it to us to find suitable tactics in time." Her smile warmed a little as her gaze wandered from Noin to Zechs. "He did well. For us. For the future."
xxx
On the anniversary of the ultimate battle, the shard of plating, a massive, two-storey tall obelisk of ragged gundanium coloured an angry rainbow blue by the furnace of an explosion, was hoisted up and sunk into a foundation laid at the main entrance to the Khushrenada estate that now belonged to Zechs.
A small crowd, here by invitation only, had gathered at the house earlier on. They had arrived in trickles – most of them in private planes, some by train and jeep. Zechs recognised all of them: ex Alliance personnel, a few ex OZ officers, of which a surprising number bore the Preventer badge, tagged discreetly to the lapels of their civilian suits. He even saw some men who were working for the new world government, and one who had been a Romefeller official.
Une knew her mission well.
They had begun the ceremony informally, with a few toasts to warm up by the roaring fires that had been lit in each of the fireplaces of the great house, an echo of the old splendor of days gone by. Yet instead of fading away, this echo had become clearer and stronger with each new arrival. Laughter had sprung up amid the hushed talk, and had stayed with them as they swapped memories and gossip old and new. The buffet had been stacked with what the estate produced: cold game roast, pickled eggs, gherkins and salted mushrooms, rose jelly, rye bread, borstsh and shtshi, smoked fish, honeyed fruit and nuts. There were coffee, tea from a bubbling samowar, clear iced vodka, all served on fine silver, white porcelain and cut crystal.
As the rooms grew hotter, so the chatter became more lively, until the grandfather clock in the drawing room began to chime. Silence began to subdue the talking, and when the last gong had rung out, the stillness was complete.
"It is time," Une said, from the entrance to the vestibule.
They began to move, feet shuffling towards the door. They pulled on their fur coats and donned scarves and hats against the biting cold of the Russian winter, and slowly made their way down the wide driveway through the park, towards the gate that separated the estate from the rest of the world.
A procession, crunching its black and winding path through the knee-deep snow that covered the drive that had been cleared only a few hours before to make room for the jeeps. In the twilight of the early winter dusk, it still snowed, a dense white curtain dropping from the low sky to the sleeping earth, to set the stage for one of the last acts of a drama.
How appropriate that the world should vanish now...
At the gate, they began to cluster around the deep pit that had been dug, just inside, under the hissing light of giant flares. Fires kept the soil at the sole of the pit free of frost so it could be shovelled back later to cover the webbing of steel rods. A giant concrete mixer lorry kept turning its barrel, exhaust fumes billowing blue in the white and grey of the snowy dusk.
And then, before the solemn eyes of the assembly, the soaring sweep of the shimmering metal was cemented in, held upright by a complex arrangement of cranes and heavy building machinery such as used in terraforming projects. Snow settled on shoulders and hats, and in spite of shuffling about in ankle-deep, freezing mud, no one complained once.
Instead, a kind of tense expectancy settled over them. Noin stepped forward, looked up at the soaring shard of metal, and then back at the crowd, quietly letting her gaze wander, seeking out each face in turn, locking eyes with each of them – fellow officers at the Preventers, the ex-OZ men that had taken their leave before the purges after the war could flush them out, and people who were unhappy with the new order of the world. "Our general is missing in action. Our colours have changed, but our hearts are the same. The future does not wait."
Deep silence. Zechs shifted tensely. One of our jobs, Une had told him, slightly sarcastic, is to chase a chimera. We are to terminate any rumour about his still being alive. It suits our purpose for it will keep us busy forever – he was a legend before they decided to give it colour.
It was a subtle game to play. When OZ was dismantled, a large chunk of their funds was used to set up the Preventers. With it came carefully 'cleansed' and cleared personnel, taking in the expertise OZ had amassed. And the scientific files, the surveillance files, the experiments... even the gundam pilots, including himself. Zero. Everything. He could not help a smirk that crept over his face.
When Une joined Noin, the hushed silence appeared to still even the snow that had been falling for days on end.
"So today we remember," she said, her voice carrying effortlessly, "we are soldiers of stardust. We are the army that never retreats. We will not lose our way."
"We will not lose," the crowd enunciated, a dark murmur melting into the even whisper of wet snow.
And Zechs felt his lips move soundlessly, repeating the words, and a smile, soft and without bitterness, settled on his face.
Soldiers of stardust.
Until the faraway dawn. (3)
xxx
THE END of LA7
Notes:
(1) day of the kings - 06 January
(2) a nod to a verse from the lyrics of Treize's image song, 'Stardust Soldiers':
(3)reference to Zechs' image song, 'Faraway Dawn'