Title: Eureka Moments

Author: Karina

Rating: PG

Pairing: Duo + Milliardo

Notes: Challenge 194. Baby Series 4 #40. Takes place after Catalyst of Change.

Spoilers: None

Warnings: Extended Length

Many thanks to ShenLong Degb for her work betaing this set of fics.

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the Characters from the series but the baby is mine.

Title: Eureka Moments

He could not quite believe he was seeing it. One moment he was striding through the multitude of anonymous, dust sheeted furniture spotted with its assortments of smaller odds, ends and trinkets begging to be explored, and the next he was staring in disbelief. The dusty tome lying half hidden under the broad base of a seven hundred year old candelabra his mother had hated with a passion. The massive piece had to be sitting on something else hidden beneath its base as the tattered papers were too small to fully base the candelabrum in a stable position.

"Zechs? What is it?"

He was barely aware of Duo's voice, his attention captured by the faded script. Yellowed with age, neglected, simply thrown up here with the scavenged wonders of centuries of royal collecting and the greed of a single man.

"Zechs? Milliardo?"

A hand lightly skipped along his forearm, demanding his attention and he started, realising he was not alone. "Duo. Ah, sorry. Sorry. Did you want something?"

"Yeah. What the heck caught your eye? I've had a few 'eureka moments' up here, enough to recognise that you just had a major find and you know it, unlike me. I just go for something I like to look at. So give, what have you found?"

What had he found, indeed?! If he was right… If. That was the important word, but he was almost certain of what it was he was looking at.

"I'm… not sure it is what I think it might be… yet. We need to move that candelabrum."

Duo stared at the tiered, twelve armed, heavily ornate object covered in cherubs, flowers and vines and shuddered. "We have to move that? Just you and me?"

"If I am correct, and it is intact, then what is resting beneath it is something that, if someone had the finances to purchase it, it would fill the royal treasury to the point of bursting and re build a good quarter of New Port City."

Had Zechs even heard him? Duo blinked, peering around the taller man to get a better look at what had caught his eye. It looked like… well, he was not sure what it looked like, exactly. Tattered, stained, faded but legible hand written script still in evidence… and definitely written in no language he could hope to read.

"Okay…" He drew the word out slowly, straightening just as slowly to scratch his head. "So, what is it? Just looks like a pile of hand written notes to me. No real cover on it and, to be honest, to me it's written in chicken scratching by drunk chickens on a dark and stormy night."

Milliardo did a double take, staring at his companion before bursting into delighted laughter, shaking his head slowly. "Ah, Duo, you have such a way with words."

"Yeah, well, so do enlighten me. Just what is that battered old thing?"

He drew a deep sigh and stared at the trapped pages, eyeing the huge candlestick, wondering if they had a hope of shifting it. The tattered pages looked to have been bound together with a thin binding clamp to keep the pages together. That would have been done long after the author was dead, he decided and he could only hope it had not damaged the document too much.

"If I am right, I believe it is an original hand written draft pre-dating the first edition printing of 1805, the first instalment published of what would eventually become the classic Russian novel, War and Peace."

Duo blinked. "War and Peace?"

"You have not read it?" He was more than surprised. For a child of the L2 streets he knew Duo to be exceedingly well read and still expanding his reading lists with classic literature.

"Zechs, I haven't even heard of it!"

"Now that is a tragedy, my friend. There would be copies of the novel in various languages and printings in the library. I would highly recommend you read it. It makes for an interesting read."

Duo looked anything but keen. "Why should I? I'm working my way through Clive Cussler at the moment."

"Ah, Duo, War and Peace is not just a novel. Much of it is a philosophical discussion on war, on the people and the times, but timeless in the context of the effects of war. It is a depiction of the French invasion of Russia in the early 1800's, old calendar. A story written on an epic scale. A tale of war, tragedy and romance, of nations and beliefs."

"And you think that," he indicated the partially visible text, "Is a part of it?"

"I think it is, indeed, and an original draft written before the work as a whole was completed and somewhat modified from the original story that was published in magazine format."

Duo did not look too convinced and eyed the massive silver candelabra and sighed. "I don't think you and I will be enough to move that thing."

"No, I don't suppose we can. From memory it took four hulking footmen to move it when mother could not avoid using it. In the morning I will have Pagan bring a security team and have them move it. We need to have it taken to secure keeping, where it can be preserved and authenticated. Trying to track down where it came from… that will be a challenge in itself."

"So… it was not from Sanc? Not a part of the palace collection? Or the museum in New Port City?"

"No part of a private collection that I ever heard reference to, and my father was an avid reader and collector of antiquities. He would have told me, shown it to me with pride if it was known to him. Given the pack rat mentality of the former Alliance Governor and his penchant for light fingers, I would guess it was stolen from a private collector during one of the many Alliance conflicts to contain the local governments of the European sector." He extended a hand out to indicate the attic surrounding them. "He took great advantage of the disruption and chaos that comes with conflict to collect this."

"The man appears to have taken every opportunity to line his pockets."

"You find so many who exploit war for personal gain. From petty thieves to men who were honest and seek only to survive, to the so called honest men in positions of power who exploit that power for personal gain. And let us not forget the weapons makers and the politicians who ride to prominence on the wave of war. Then you have the political protesters who, in their bid to have the world understand their ideals, create havoc, destruction and murder. Horrible things happen in war. Truly horrible things."

End

Karina Robertson 2012