All Standard disclaimers apply

Chapter 8

To Live Joyously

There are colors that are particular to Ireland. Colors that, though I have traveled much of this earth and its surrounding space, I have never encountered again outside the borders of that land. Describing it would be in vain. I can only recall it. Ireland's true description lies only in its experience. Beauty to be sure, but something even more lies in its valleys and rises with its peaks. There is a harmony there that is unequalled. And yet, for this greatness in appearance and spirit, Ireland is perhaps one of the bloodiest places on our earth. Having lived there for a time, and having always wished to live there again, I can see why blood could be easily spilled over such a land. Could anyone relinquish such a prize of land and way of life without fighting for it?

The only thing that surpasses the land in its illustrious qualities is its people. When I was introduced into Ireland and came to know the people, people who have changed little in the centuries they have existed there, I came to understand the human heart. The Irish, unlike any other peoples I have ever encountered, feel with such strength that it impossible for a stranger to not also learn to feel. A man who has no heart for anything will soon find himself a great lover of more things than he could have imagined in the emerald isle. So it was with Aria and I, who had been sent to places that only succeeded in stunting and scarring us that we learned to both live and love among the seasons of beloved Ireland.

We left in the morning.  Several times in the night I had awoken with troubled thoughts, but the morning came nonetheless. It was early when, before we left, I found my way to the third floor where I remembered my mother's room being located. It was an unlocked door somewhere on the left hand side. Strangely enough, it was still just that. Years of her being buried had not changed the status of my mother's bedroom, except for a few brief years when it served as the bridal bower of the woman who was my stepmother. She must have been unremarkable except for giving birth to my brother and sister, neither of whom I had met. Like my mother, she had fallen victim to an untimely illness not too long after the twins were born. I never knew the name of my father's young bride. I never cared to learn. It was not resentment that made me indifferent. She had never been part of my life, or I part of hers. There was no tie that could bind my interest to her and nothing to create such a tie, for she was long dead.

I confess to remembering very little of my mother's bedroom beyond its location, being scarcely five years old when I was sent to the compound to live with Hirumatsu-sama. The room was much like the rest of the house, dark and somewhat sterile. I noted a few boxes lying in dust here and there. Many of them excited my exploration but I had little time to wander the house before Bram would take us away. It was my luck that within the first drawer of a lacquered tower jewelry box, I found my mother's glasses.

They were still in my breast pocket twenty minutes later when I was ushered alongside Aria into a car. I took the glasses out to examine them, holding them up to the light and looking at my reflection in the slightly smeared glass, wondering if I could see my depravity reflecting back at me through my mother's eyes. I had so little of my mother in me, which had always made me melancholy. 

"What are those?" Aria questioned me as she tapped her fingers on the interior of the car door.

"They were mother's"

The car door opened beside me, and, hesitantly, a pair of small children was pushed inside by easy yet dangerously capable hands. It was then that I saw my brother Mathius and my sister Shireen for the first time. Aria paid them little attention, she already knew them. Mathius looked something like I had at such an age, with less definition and much shorter hair. He was definitely the boy. Shireen was my very self and it was very startling. I thought perhaps that there was no step mother and that I had been cloned into these two children. They didn't seem to notice me much. Mathius was trying to take a plastic locket from Shireen and she kept shouting and smacking him on the head.

"HEEEEEEEEEY" Aria shouted at them when the car started off with Bram in the front seat next to the driver. A glass window separated the front and back seat. The twin's indeed stopped at Aria's elongated wail.

"What?" Mathius asked.

"SHUT UUUUUUUUUP!" Aria said with equal length. The way it was yelled was too comical to be taken seriously by either child who immediately began laughing at her.

"She's dumb" Mathius whispered.

"You are dumb" Aria stuck out her tongue. Mathius responded in kind.

"He's not dumb! You're dumb, Aria. Cuz you know wha.. you know I… Oh, you know what I can do. I was… yesterday" Shireen started her sentences over and over again, never arriving at her excited point, as very young children I later learned, tended to do. I slipped the glasses on my face to escape the blabbering.

"Why are we going back? We just got back" Mathius asked playing with his fingernails.

"Because he doesn't want us near him." I slumped back in my seat sluggishly. The twins looked at me but didn't understand.

"Which works out fine, because I don't want to be near him either"

Aria shook her head. "You shouldn't say such things around them. They don't understand."

"They will have to understand soon enough" I shrugged along with my words.

"Let them have a few years then, without all the shit of knowing. It's not their fault you never got that."

I never liked being reprimanded by my baby sister, and as the years went on, the occurrences of such would become so infrequent that they eventually disappeared. But that of course, is not only because Aria's personality changed, her view of me changed, and I changed myself. On this occasion, however, I turned my head to the window and ignored all of them, hiding myself behind my mother's glasses, thinking about the Disorder I had, shielding my eyes with the glasses so no one could look into them and know I was tainted by madness. How would I ever fulfill my duties to my family if I was crazy? They had said my father had it too. Maybe then this was a good sign? But it hadn't sounded good. So many unanswered questions; I was beginning to feel like I had been cheated out of half the knowledge of my life, such as why I had been attacked at Lefrey's. There had been more to it than a petty attempt to make me leave. The rape had slowly dissipated into the back of my memory. I wasn't over it, but then again, I remembered very little of the actual event. The events following it clung more heavily in my brain, the events of Vespertine, Aria, and the boy on my balcony.

That boy. I had never remembered a thing about his face; I could scarcely remember his voice. But he had known what had happened to me. He had been somehow involved in it, though not in the event itself. He said he had met my father, the twins… The twins!

"You two" I said sternly as I sat up straight in the seat. The two children stopped teasing each other at once and looked at me. My face meant business and they knew it. My smart little beauties.

"You were in Ireland before"

"Mrs. Mcormick cooks my potatoes bad" Shireen pouted and I took that to mean a yes.

"Did you meet any young boys there?" I asked as Aria began to pay attention.

"No kids, just us."

"No, a boy, like me, my age. A big kid." I tried to display myself in the seat for their understanding. The children looked at each other and Shireen began to giggle.

"He let me pull his coattails"

"Who? What was his name?"

Shireen kept giggling and put her tiny hands in front of her mouth. Mathius was laughing at her and making cooing noises to tease. Obviously this young man had shown her enough attention that she remembered him with only a handful of life within her. Aria was leaning down with almost as much interest as I. She was better with them as well. I felt sure that either Shireen did not know the answer or she would giggle forever and never tell. But finally, Aria made Mathius stop his teasing and gently asked Shireen the name of the boy. Shireen took her hand off her mouth, exposing a huge smile missing several teeth and answered in a half giggle.

"Mr. Treize"

Oh my dear reader, was there ever any doubt?

The name answered none of my questions. So I let it stew in the back of my mind until a time when it would be useful. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

We lived wonderfully in Ireland. A house was taken for us just outside of Galaway within easy sailing distance of the Aran Islands. It was a marvelous land where the wind was constantly fresh and smelled of a good clean sea, very different from the coast of Dover, where the wind held a sense of dread for me. Aria and I were installed easily and allowed many freedoms. My father had sent Mrs. Collins along to attend the house, and locals were hired to do extra servant's work. There wasn't much that needed doing as we four children were the masters of the house. Mrs. Collins officially had the rule of us when Bram was not there, but she was in a little fear of us as Delizabanes just as any other servant would be. We tried to be good to her as she had always been good to us, and so we gave her little trouble. Mathius was the only discipline problem. He took to biting everyone when they weren't looking.

I liked my younger siblings more and more as each day passed. We spent mornings with them learning to ride horses. This was to be part of our "refinement" Aria and I were at an advanced level, having already learned much of equestrian sports at Lefrey's. The twins were taught on small ponies that they looked very funny trying to ride. The horse master was a very nice man named Seamus Brenna, his youngest son, Taber, assisted him during our lessons. Mathius did not enjoy the riding as much as his sister did. It was during these exercises half a month into our training that Mathius formed a small attachment to me. He was always one for forcing his will upon the ponies he rode. One morning the small bay he rode would have none of it and bucked him straight off his back onto the hard dirt. Mathius howled and cried and refused to get up. Only I would do. My toffee haired brother wailed until I dismounted and picked him up so that he could howl some more into my hair. I remember my annoyance at being singled out for the chore as I carried him back to the house. But later, when Mathius followed me around and constantly asked me to find him when he hid behind curtains and sofas, that I began to delight in his childish attention. Aria thought perhaps I had a way with children if I just applied myself to it.

"Just make a little effort and you will turn into a Pied Piper for them" I remember when the leaves began turning and I did work my charm on little Mathius by running with him outside and catching the leaves as the wind blew. The sky rained color as both he and Shireen squealed in wonder, darting this way and that trying to catch the impossible autumn in their small hands. I found love in my younger siblings, most especially in Aria. She was my partner in crime. We frequently ditched our afternoon studies to pull pranks inside the city. Our chauffer was a good humored man who just did as he was told, but knew enough to keep us out of real danger. We snuck into cinema theaters and tossed candies off overpasses to see if anyone would dart into the street to get retrieve them. Usually no one did.

Aria covered for me when I snuck off to the stables after dark to share kisses with Taber Brenna. He was a sturdy sixteen year old with dark hair and boyish Irish features; a very brazen boy who must have seen that the only way to get me was through a challenge. Once, when we were tacking down our horses, we joked and dared each other to do the stupidest things. Finally, he dared me to steal the gum in his mouth. When I refused he teased me and called me a coward until I pinned him down into the hay of one stall (he put up no resistance) and effectively wrested the chewing gum from him. After I had triumphed, neither of us saw any reason to stop kissing. We continued until Aria walked into the stables with her exhausted Arabian. She covered her eyes and yelled that she was now blind from the site, embarrassing us both.

Taber and I spent many more experimental evenings together. I must credit that vivacious young man with healing my body's fear of a man's touch. By the time of my fifteenth birthday, we had taught each other the extent of physical closeness. We were not in love, and that was alright. We were only teaching each other. Aria would laugh and call me a dirty tramp as she demanded all the details. I loved my little sister Aria. She both understood me and revered me; making me strive toward excellence so that I could be worthy of her good opinion. The awe that sometimes came into her eyes when I told her my thoughts on things was worth all the trouble I had seen in my life. She responded to me like a child to a mother sometimes, and I swelled with pride, remembering how I had promised to take care of her in my mother's stead. Aria and I taught each other to laugh, and to be young, and proud of ourselves, not for our titles, but for our characters. Aria and I taught each other to be good and to be honorable. We taught each other how to live. We swore to each other to always live. We vowed always to survive not just in body, but in spirit. For my part, I kept the vow.

"Life seems to have made a great sport of beating us down. I think that such action against us can only be met with the terrible retribution of living joyously" I had said in those times.

Please, let me remember that when I wake up and find myself back in the Isle with all my life changed.

 * * * * * * * * * * * *

My eyes opened briefly, fixed on the ceiling over my head. This remembering was becoming easier to wake up from. I turned to see a tray of food sitting still warm by my bedside. I ate all the plate had to offer, not wishing to have to be forced awake again to eat. It was better food this time, roasted potatoes and lean pork with mixed greens, good British fare, and not intolerable porridge.

I felt lightened by both the food and the memory. I wanted to rise and stretch my limbs. It had been so long since I had been out of bed. They had already rearranged my room in a hospital setting which was different from the last time I had been awake. It was only when I tried to move that I realized that there was an IV in my arm. They had been feeding me intravenously. I removed the small needle and rose, holding my slightly bleeding wrist. I got up with a little light-headedness, but found my feet quickly. I was wearing a ridiculous hospital gown. How ugly! My closet was the first place I ventured. Inside laid all the array of my youth and some of my adult years. My clothes, my life still lingered in the closet, I smiled.

 Several Isle uniforms hung well preserved inside. I found a simple white empire waist strap dress that tied in the back. It would serve well enough for a nightgown. After dressing, I longed for fresh air, like the kind in my memory of Ireland. A set of locked French doors lead out to a terrace off my room. It was a feature I had always loved about this room that I so rarely used. They doors resisted me a little as I unlocked and pushed against them. I feared for a moment that Aria had altered them so I might not escape this way. But it was age and not wariness that held the doors fast. A good shove and the cold night air flew in to hit me in the face. I breathed deeply, but knew it was not Ireland. This was not Ireland. That part of Ireland was gone. Zechs had destroyed it, the place where my sister and I made our vows to live, the place where my brother Mathius had followed me about, the place where I first made love with a man. It was gone. That time of laughter and youth was gone. Zechs had destroyed it with the Libra cannon. Taber and Seamus Brenna might have been killed that day. It was gone, all of it. Zechs had taken it.

But for me, it was gone long before the first Eve War. It was gone the day I was taken from it. They day Aria and I were taken from the Isle to the city of Lyon, in France.

The door of my room unlocked and open and a very sullen looking Gabriel swept over the threshold. I watched him turn back and lock the door from the inside. He walked over to my bed, not looking, but checking his watch. It was almost funny how he remained completely oblivious until he noticed the tray of food was completely empty and that my bed was empty as well. His one eye went frantically around the room until he saw me at the French doors. Immediately he bolted at me and thrust me away from the doors, closing them with a slam. I was not in the least alarmed. The happiness of my memory along with the euphoria of eating a real meal had too many endorphins running in my blood. I didn't feel like being upset by Gabriel. On the contrary, I put my hand over my mouth and tried not to laugh at him. He had come in so oblivious to the change in the room, even the difference in the air from the open doors that I had to laugh. It was all too funny. He was not amused in the slightest, and glared at me with the same animosity he had the last time we met, although he didn't seem as threatening. I saw him look from me to the empty tray and his eye narrowed. It hit me then, I had eaten his dinner.

I couldn't contain myself and laughter poured out shamelessly from behind my hand. Staggering in my mirth, I sat in the chair at the far side of the room. Gabriel was still glaring at me, I could feel it. I knew that it was dangerous to court his anger. But nothing would help it. I looked up at his scowl and laughed even harder.

"Think I am funny, do you?"

I nodded, laughing deep in my throat. It felt so good to laugh. It felt so much like me, laughing at Treize as he looked on, scowling the same way Gabriel did. The parallel seemed so stark that I thought perhaps I had slipped back into my remembering again. But no, the eye patch would always give it away. This was Gabriel, sweet, time-lost, vengeful Gabriel.

I felt guilty, remembering the time I had slipped the mask of forgetfulness off for an instant, leaving Anne in the shadows, so that I could strike out and hurt Gabriel. I remember saying those terrible things to him. I knew how much they would hurt. The instant before his palm hit my face, I shielded myself in the forgetfulness that was Anne again, and she took the brunt of the hit, not understanding. Poor Gabriel, he had never known there was more to Anne. I was always there.  Anne was the newcomer. Poor Gabriel, if his heart had been broken, I must have been the one to break it; although I am sure it was not me he had loved. I am not sure he loved either of us.

"What are you looking at?" he spat. I had been staring the whole time, still smiling off what was left of my laughter. I must have started to look sad or something, because I saw his face soften marginally.

"I am sorry for what has happened to you" And I genuinely was.

            I had told myself I would not speak until I had finished my task. Yet I spoke anyway. I felt that he needed the words. I needed to say them as well. There was guilt after all, and it is best to resolve guilt as quickly as possible before it does further damage. But I spoke in my deep accented voice, so that he would know me from Anne, so that he would recognize the deeper unknown portion of a woman he once claimed to love.

But Gabriel was not going to make anything easy. He made a grunting sound, set his hands on his hips and turned back to the French doors. I saw him examine the lock, draw something from his pocket, and before I knew it, the lock was destroyed. I would have no luck opening those doors again.

"Can't have the cuckoo flying from her nest" he said flatly. I simply sighed at his comment, knowing I was no madder than anyone else in the house. I wasn't going to fight with him, I felt too light and airy for it. But then my insides twisted a little and I laughed again.

"Don't be so bitter. I will likely be throwing up your dinner soon." I rubbed my semi-sore stomach and chuckled.

"When did you wake?" his voice was soft. I looked at him and saw his blank expression. Clearly he still did not know what to make of Leecy.

"I am not yet awake." I said simply. I love confounding people. He scoffed.

"My God, you are insane."

"I'm just working through everything" He was staring out the window as I spoke. For the first time I wondered why he was here. Why he was taking his meals in my room while I lay unconscious as his hated company. Conclusions were not forthcoming and I gave up trying to develop my own. I didn't want to flatter myself with the obvious answer.

The last of the fresh air was breathed in and the room became stale again. I sighed, losing my grip on that happy memory of beautiful Ireland. The Ireland I had left behind so that Zechs could destroy it in his quest for the ultimate peace.

 . . . Zechs.

I closed my eyes, and recalled Zechs, his surly expression in the morning before he had his coffee. I smiled, remembering how he would groan every time I played the piano in the formal living room. He thought I played poorly and should just spare him the agony. I remembered how he had told me not to leave the house that last time I saw him; how he implored me beyond his own pride not to leave the estate, not to be stubborn and willful just to spite him, not to think that he was trying to reduce my independence, not to send Wufei away when he came to watch over me, not to be angry that he wasn't telling me the state of the world anymore because he didn't think I could understand anymore. Zechs must have thought I was mad, like the rest of them. No, of course I was not mad. But I was changing. When this is all over, I will need to get some real help. If I get out of this, and Zechs does as well, then I will know where to go and get better. Though, I don't think Zechs would go with me now. He must be so angry with me. I thought of how Zechs must hate the lie he now knew I was. But then, he doesn't have to go anywhere with me. In the end, we are still really nothing to each other. I frustrate him and remind him of things he doesn't want to remember. He has never liked me. He wouldn't stay, I am sure.

I rose from the chair, melancholy again. In the years he had returned to earth, I had never felt Zechs' absence more keenly then at that moment. I wanted him there to argue with me, to bait me, to deny me. I wanted him there to hold me in place, to remind me of everything I tried to forget. I, Analicia, wanted Zechs there, past Treize, past Gabriel, past even my own baby, I wanted Zechs there. I didn't know what you would call that. It didn't have a name.

I wretched suddenly and dove toward the trash basket not far from the bed. The contents of my stomach loosened and exploded from my throat. I tasted that terrible acrid bile and huffed in the aftermath of heaving. Wiping my mouth and leaning against the wall, I saw Gabriel shaking his head, still looking out the window. Did he know how much I wanted Zechs to be there right now? Did he know just how much of a victory his rival had achieved over him and perhaps all because Gabriel walked out that day? But regardless of my longing for Zechs, Gabriel still had some claim over me. There was Treize Alexander.

Alexander. . .

Where was my baby?

"Where is Alexander" I asked with a thick throat. Gabriel looked at me finally as if he didn't know who I meant. His thoughts had been elsewhere and finally his concentration clicked back in place. I saw his eye dilate.

"We did not take the baby with us. Only you, Darlian, and Marie" His voice was shaky, but it was not from emotion. Something was happening. A tremor went up his body and he hissed in breath quickly.

What followed was a frightening scene. Gabriel gagged and his hand went to the sides of his head. He shrunk down to the ground and I saw with a strange fascination the blood seep from his ears. It was most definitely painful for him, because he yelled and every muscle seemed to first contract and then lock up. Finally, Gabriel pounded his hands into the floor, his eyes wide open, staring in my direction, eyes fully dilated, but not seeing anything. The blood flowed over his cheekbones and dripped off the side of his chin.

"Stop it, Zero! Stop! Enough!" he gagged out these words repeatedly as he further contorted. I couldn't move, I could only watch.

"I don't want to see anymore. God . . . Stop it . . . Treize!" these last words made my breath catch. Gabriel finally released a long wail and slumped on the ground, the blood pooling around his dark hair now. I crawled forward then. He was out cold and his brow was puckered and discontent. I wiped some of the blood away from his face. The flow from his ears had ceased now. I turned him onto his back and wiped off his familiar face with the hem of my nightgown. Trying to summon up the old feelings, I put my hand on his forehead. My mind replaying all the tender moments there had been with Gabriel, even as he called me Anne. But my heart was screaming for another. I could hear its wild beat battling back and forth. The first beat cried out for Zechs, the old answering beat echoing Treize.

It was time to get back to the deed. I used the wall for support and pushed myself back up. However, I only got halfway there and ended up half slumped on my bed, my knees still supporting me as I recoiled into my deep memories. Gabriel had set me to the task by calling out his name. It was time to get to him, time to recall those pivotal times. It was time to remember what had happened with Treize. It was time to deal with what he had done to me, and what I in turn, had done to him.

A/N:

Can't WAIT to get to the third book. I am as anxious and others to have everything come together. I really have to apologize for the change in prose and structure throughout this segment of the story. Right now I am experimenting with different POV's and narrative structures and poor EC is my lab rat. I'm sort of throwing things against the wall to see how they stick for me and I haven't quite found what I like best. Hope it's not confusing anyone or causing any problems. I promise to go back to the default strict 3rd person omniscient for book III, if we ever get to that (we will! I swear it)  I am always open to suggestions on where you think the story is/should go (believe me, my ideas change daily) and often it is good to get outside opinions of what is and is not working for people in a story. I LOVE constructive criticism on any writing. But I do thank all of you for your kind praise. Email me anytime. Lots of love! Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

Oh yeah! Thanks for sticking around Quincy! I thought I might have lost you and I'm always so happy to see your reviews. ^_^

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

~A.