Author's Note: Perhaps it's a companion story to 'The Visit', perhaps it's not. You decide.

Disclaimer: Eureka Seven does in no way whatsoever belong to me. Sigh.

Princess

#

Gidget sighed, slowly straightening her aching back and stretching her arms high over her head, savouring the satisfying crack as her spine snapped back into place. Seriously, manual labour was so not her style, but Hilda had insisted that Gidget helped with organizing their meagre rations, and when Hilda insisted on something – like really, truly insisted, for real – then even almighty leader Holland knew to shut up and bow to her wishes. After all, an angry Hilda was scary as hell, and almost as fearsome as a pissed-off Hap.

Besides, with the capital in absolute ruins around them, and with scores of shocked and disoriented people slowly coming out of hiding and more still trapped under the debris, she couldn't very well refuse; not when everyone else were doing their best. The brainiac double-act Jobs and Woz were still struggling with getting the Gekkostate back online, and according to Leader, who was acting as some sort of bossy herald whenever Talho wasn't fussing all over him (though Gidget supposed that it was totally and utterly understandable considering the circumstances and Holland's newfound amputee status), they had briefly accessed core operations a few hours ago, and managed to transmit a general distress signal. But then it was anyone's guess as to whether or not anyone had actually received it, as all systems had failed shortly afterwards and remained down ever since, despite all kinds of clever resuscitation attempts. So in short, even their resident Fix-Its and All-Purpose Geek Geniuses didn't know if or when anyone would come to their aid. So in the meantime, Matthieu and Hap were busy with search and rescue missions, taking turns to look for survivors among the rubble, using the only functional LFO left; and Mischa, bless that woman's brains and ingenuity, was somehow running a one-woman clinic on God-knew what power.

Enter Hilda, clutching an inventory and the kids in tow, looking for slaves...

At least those military men were helping out, too. Though, as far as Gidget was concerned, they could just go—

"Hey!"

She nearly dropped the can of baked beans in her hands (a 'holy kitchen staple' according to Hap, and apparently 'way up there' with frozen vegetables, beer and rice), because a tall, thin figure dressed in blue was rapidly making his way towards the camp site, stumbling slightly as he went along, seemingly unaware – or maybe just uncaring – of the rubble in his path. His left arm was secured to his body by an improvised sling, but whatever pain the bullet left behind once Mischa had finished patching him up, it didn't seem to stop him from waving furiously at her with his right.

"HEY!"

And despite the seriousness of it all – despite the devastation and dislodged people everywhere you looked – despite Holland who had returned to them as a hero but without one of his arms – despite Renton and Eureka who were still missing – despite Doggie who had been shot in cold blood by those military creeps – Gidget couldn't help but to smile at his antics. Moondoggie could be so silly, even at the worst of times! Honestly, though, he probably didn't even know how lucky he was that Gidget was a girl who appreciated cute in all shapes, forms and expressions.

So briefly abandoning her duties, and thus risking Hilda's wrath was she caught slacking off, Gidget acted on the most sensible thing she could think of and moved to greet him.

"Moondo—"

But he had already passed her without as much as a look. Which without a shadow of a doubt was totally unacceptable boyfriend behaviour – and so not cute! Her Moondoggie might not be a perfect gentleman, but he would never just ignore her like that!

This wasn't the laidback, slightly goofy Moondoggie she knew at all, and that scared her a little.

"Hey, wait! Wait! Stop!" she yelled after him. "Hey! I said, stop!"

Perhaps it was the slight tremble in her voice, or sheer exhaustion from having run for so long and so hard, but he let her catch up with him.

"What's going on?" she asked, more worried than mad. "What is it, Doggie?"

He was breathing hard, sweat trickling down from under the brim of his hat and with a blank look on his face; Moondoggie never ran for anything, so something big must have happened for him to come galloping along like some panic-stricken horse.

"What is it?" repeated Gidget in earnest, secretly wondering if she even wanted to know. "Moondoggie, what happ—"

"Gidget..." he ground out in a strange, strangled voice. "Gidget, where is Leader?"

"Holland?" Gidget frowned. If Doggie was voluntarily deferring to Holland, it had to be bad news. "He should be around, but why—"

"He's right here," declared a voice impatiently. "What's the rush?"

Moondoggie locked eyes with the man who had appeared behind Gidget. "Holland," he said. "I found it."

"'It'?" Holland cocked a brow. "Care to be a bit more specific?"

"I..." Moondoggie squared his shoulders. "I found the crash site and—"

"Oh, God," whispered Talho, one hand over her mouth. "Renton."

Holland took a step forward. "You found the Nirvash?" he demanded in a low voice.

Gidget held her breath, and the whole world seemed to stop around them.

"No," admitted Moondoggie apologetically, taking the edge off of the tension somewhat. "Not the Nirvash, but the black one."

Holland and Talho exchanged a quick look before the former asked, "Where?"

"Eh, it's close..." Moondoggie used his good arm to motion at the empty, ghostly remains of a far office building. "Less than two blocks in that direction."

Talho suddenly spoke up. "What about the pilot?"

She smiled in a way that she hoped was encouraging, but then Moondoggie hesitated and Talho's heart sank. That Dominic guy had looked so confident when he and Renton set out to rescue Eureka and save the world – and the crazy duo must have pulled it off somehow, seeing how the Coralians were gone and Earth hadn't imploded after all. Still, Talho hadn't been able to dispel the thick, sickening feeling in her chest as she watched them, two young men – men? What men? They were little more than boys for goodness sake! – disappear into their respective LFOs. It was as if it had been decided right there and then that only one would make it back alive, and as much as it shamed her now – back then, at that precise moment – she had hoped to God that it would be Renton.

So maybe it was the overwhelming guilt over having so callously favoured one life over another (or perhaps it was for letting Dominic, whose physical condition had been far worse than Renton's, go on that mission in the first place) that pushed her heart to the very pit of her stomach when Moondoggie looked away.

"I don't know," he said at last. "But trust me, it was bad."

His voice sounded so incredibly empty that Gidget felt sick. "H-How bad?" she asked quietly, because the rawness of the emotions flitting across the woman's face told her that Talho couldn't bring herself to ask (and Gidget knew that Holland simply wouldn't), but they needed to know so someone had to do it. "Doggie? How bad?"

"Honestly...?" Moondoggie took one of Gidget's hands in his and squeezed. "It's the worst I've ever seen."

There was a brief moment of silence before Holland took command. "Talho," he muttered. "Get Mischa. We might need her."

Talho pursed her lips. Holland rarely ordered her to do anything, and when he did, she usually objected vehemently, but now was not the time. So she turned on her heel and disappeared in seconds.

Holland sighed, and massaged the side of his head with his remaining hand. "Hap, go find Matthieu..."

Then, to Moondoggie, "Show us."

#

Mischa was speechless. Her particular line of work ensured that she had seen a lot of things through the years, most of them unpleasant in one way or another, but this...

"I'll be going back," she said, surveying the damage one last time. "I won't be needed here."

Moondoggie scratched the back of his head. "I'll go too, Holland. Gidget..."

Holland grunted in acknowledgement, not taking his eyes off of the pitiful remains of the once proud LFO front of him; even with the ruins around it, it was the perfect picture of complete and utter destruction. Nobody – nobody – survived a death like that.

Then, suddenly, something by the wreckage moved.

A girl, he realized, clutching a torn and dirty blanket around her shoulders. And for a moment, Holland assumed that she was just some curious survivor – a damn lucky one – until he noticed the colour of her hair.

It was a shade of unnaturally bright pink, and something deep inside his brain clicked in place.

Holland's eyes widened. "Talho, that girl... She's—"

"I know who she is," interrupted him the woman at his side. "Mischa has been treating her, Holland, on my orders."

"...what?!" he hissed in cold disbelief, because that girl wasn't just anyone. She was Anemone, the infamous pilot of TheEND, Dewey's killer puppet who nearly succeeded in bringing about the end of the world, and even when knowing all this, Talho (and Mischa) had helped her?

"She was infected with the same virus as the Coralians," explained Talho quietly. "We couldn't just let her die."

Holland stared. This was absurd! "Talho, she was his ace pilot!"

"I know, but—" Talho gestured towards the thin figure just standing there, silent and alone and pathetic. "Holland, look at her! She... She's just a girl!"

He reluctantly did what he was told, but he still couldn't understand. She was here – Anemone was here – well within firing range – and by all rights, they should hate her and everything she stood for. He hated her and Talho should.

"But, Talho, she's a k—"

"And we're not? Eureka isn't?" Talho's voice was hard and sharp. "Dominic fought beyond his limits to save her. That should mean something."

Eureka.

Holland cringed inwardly. Only Talho would dare to use that name against him, and he both hated and loved the woman for it.

Eureka, Anemone. Anemone, Eureka.

Renton, Dominic. Dominic, Renton.

Holland, Dewey. Dewey, Holland.

...was there even such a big difference anyway?

Holland suddenly felt old and so very tired. "Get her out," he muttered under his breath. "Whatever she is, whatever she's done, she doesn't need to be here for this."

Talho's hand brushed against his, all feather-like and soft. Then she was gone.

Holland sighed. It wasn't much, but if he could spare a child soldier from at least this, he supposed that he would... for Eureka's sake.

And for Talho's.

#

"A-Anemone...?" Talho approached the young woman slowly and carefully as one might a frightened kitten. "I don't know if you remember from earlier, you were in pretty bad shape back then, but—"

"I know who you are," interjected the girl airily. "Gekkostate, right?"

Talho nodded.

"...he's dead, isn't he?"

She nearly flinched. "Who?"

"Dewey, of course," replied the girl flatly. "The shaking stopped."

"Y-Yes," said Talho, a little stunned, because this wasn't the reaction she had expected. "Yes. He is."

"I'm glad." The girl lowered her voice. "Did you hear that, Dominic?" she whispered to the LFO. "Dewey didn't win after all."

"Dominic." Talho was fighting to find the right words. "Dominic, he—"

"He shouldn't have known what to do. He never had any training." The girl laughed softly. "You know..." she continued, conspiratorially. "I don't think he had ever seen the inside of the cockpit until today. Silly, silly, Dominic..."

Talho didn't know what to say. "Anemone, I..."

"But he was very clever," said the girl, proudly. "My Dominic was always so clever. And he was really brave to go, wasn't he? He made the Child very happy until the very end."

Talho smiled through the tears forming at the corners of her eyes. "Come on," she said gently. "Let's get you back."

The girl let herself be led away from her broken LFO, only turning around once.

"Gulliver, that's enough," she called out, and a fat shadow separated itself from the shadow of some rubble. "...we're leaving."

#

"Holland, what should we...? Eh, boss?"

Holland sighed. As much as he was dreading this, it had to be done.

"Matthieu," he ordered. "Open the hatch."

"If we find it first..." muttered Matthieu unhappily, regarding the wreckage sceptically. "But, Holland, why do I have to—"

"I would do it myself, but I can't." Holland gestured to his stump impatiently, before shoving a thumb in Hap's general direction. "And he wouldn't fit."

Hap glared evilly. "Watch it."

"Or what?" informed him Holland dryly. "I'm a cripple now and can do whatever the hell I want."

Then, to Matthieu, "Just do it, okay?"

The pilot threw his hands up in defeat, silently cursing himself and his lean genetics, Leader for his messed-up family relations and Hap for being a damn emotional eater, but nevertheless scaling the still-warm LFO in search for the emergency hatch. And he eventually found it, only barely making it out; even up close, it looked no less than absolutely totalled.

"Hey! I found it!" shouted Matthieu. "But this thing's so busted that it doesn't even have a handle no more! Leader, what do we do now?"

"We'll just have to pry it open!" Holland yelled back. "We're getting him out... Hap?"

"Yeah, I'm on it," said Hap. "I just need to go back and get some tools."

#

She approached him soundlessly from behind, but their many years together had taught him to sense her presence, or at the very least to recognize her perfume.

"Talho," he said just as she joined him. "You don't have to be here for this either."

"I know," she said, quietly. "But I want to."

Holland cracked a shallow smile. He should have expected this, because Talho was tougher than Hap's beef special. Diane Renton had been the same but in her own way, which made it a completely different thing; and Holland knew that he could never have loved Diane like he loved Talho. "...how's the girl?" he asked, reluctantly. "Anemone."

"Asleep." Talho smiled her brilliant, heart-shattering smile, and she suddenly looked so fragile that something inside of him clenched and Holland felt a sharp urge to kill his idiot bastard brother all over again. "Mischa have her enough sedatives to knock out a horse. For the shock, she said."

"What shock?" Holland's lips twisted into a wry smile. "She looked alright to me."

"Maybe, but it will set in eventually. You know, I think..." She regarded him seriously. "I think she saw, Holland."

Holland shrugged. "That explains how she knew where to find him."

"Anemone, she..." Talho shook her head. "She's not what I expected her to be. She might be faking it and plan to kill us all later on, but after taking to her earlier, I doubt it somehow. She seemed so relieved when she heard about Dewey that—God, Holland! I don't even want to think about what he might have done to her to make her do all those things!"

"Then don't," he snapped. "Dewey is dead. My brother is dead. It's over."

"...is it really?" Talho asked, softly, softly, and he flinched. "Holland?"

He ground his teeth. When had she learnt to read him like that? Or had Talho always known?

"Yes," he fairly growled. "It is."

She regarded him with a strange look in her eyes. "I don't think you'll ever tell me what really happened and that's okay, too. It's just..." Talho paused to brush aside a strand of hair from the side of his face. "Just don't shut me out anymore. Please, don't shut me out."

Holland sighed. "There's not that much to say," he grumbled. "I tried to kill him, he tried to kill me and everyone on the planet; I won, he's gone. That's all."

Talho looked completely bewildered for a moment, and he thought that she probably never expected him to be so open with her. In fact, he was a bit surprised with himself that he let her come so close to the truth.

"It was the right thing to do," she said at last. "Holland, you didn't have any choice!"

"Yeah, I guess," admitted Holland, because it was true. Dewey hadn't left him any damn choice. "But we were family once. Before all this, that bastard and I were family."

Talho regarded him thoughtfully. "Are you sure about all this?" she asked. "Wouldn't it be better if we just let it be? I mean, I'm sure the military would—"

"Don't make me laugh!" he spat with all the venom and bitterness of somebody who knows. "The military isn't going to do shit for a deserter. No, we're not leaving him like this. That bastard's right-hand man or not, we owe him at least this much, Talho."

She suddenly averted her eyes, fidgeting with the sleeves of her shirt. "...Dominic was in a bad shape when he left, Holland," she said. "Real bad, but I let him go. I didn't even try to—"

"Listen—" Holland spun her harshly against him. "This was all his choice. And there is nothing you could have done to stop him, or Renton."

Talho struggled, but his grip on her arm was too firm. "How do you know?" she snarled. "You weren't even here!"

Holland cocked a brow. "I'm a man, aren't I?"

Talho stilled. "...and that's it?" she demanded. "That doesn't prove anything other than that you're a misogynist bastard!"

"I resent that." Holland peered down at her. "I happen to appreciate you very much, Talho."

Talho frowned. "That's not the same thing."

"Alright, let me explain." Holland slowly released her and let his arm fall back to his side. "I know, as a man, because he was off to save the princess."

"What princess..." Talho trailed off. "Oh."

"There is always a princess worth saving somewhere along the story," continued Holland, making a point to catch her gaze with his and holding it there. "I'd know," he added quietly.

"So if it had been you back there...?"

She had left the question unfinished, but he wasn't about to leave her in more doubt. That time was over. "I wouldn't have thought twice about it." He winked. "Now, how's that for misogynist?"

"Horrible," she replied with a small grin. "But I'm glad you feel that way. Means there is hope for you yet."

He contemplated to kiss her right then. That woman would eventually be the death of him, and Holland wouldn't have it any other way.

"Tal—"

"Hey! Holland!" It was Hap. "We're about done here!"

"Good work!" Holland shouted back. "Talho?"

"Go," she replied, pushing him away with firm hands. "I think I'll head back to help Hilda. Gidget is probably too busy gushing over Doggie to be very useful. Not that I blame her, but if it spares Hilda a nervous breakdown..."

Holland nodded.

Then just as Talho was beyond earshot, he muttered under his breath, "Be careful on your way back, princess."

That done, he hurried towards Matthieu and Hap (because even if he couldn't do much to help, he'd be damned if he wouldn't be right there with them, every step of the way), grimly bracing himself for a right mess.

After all, they had a kid to dig out.