Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Caught up in circles, confusion is nothing new.

Secrets are stolen from deep inside.

If you're lost, you can look, and you will find me

Time after time.

.

After my picture fades and darkness has turned to grey.

Flashbacks, warm nights almost left behind

The drum beats out of time

If you fall, I will catch you. I will be waiting.

Time after time.

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Time after Time – Cyndi Lauper

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"Milliardo… I'll be waiting on the other side…."

The words were soft, but still clear, the tone sure despite being breathless. Treize felt his lungs struggle for the air that was no longer there, choking as he drew in nothing but poisonous smoke. His eyes burned and watered as he fought to see the controls that were searing his hands as they shorted and overheated.

Tallgeese bucked under his hands, fighting him as he forced the suit up and away from the Gundam. He'd used the little pilot enough for one day – Treize wasn't about to risk causing the boy an injury with what he knew he had to do next.

Arcing electricity burned through his body, forcing cries of pain from him that he wouldn't have ever let anyone else hear. He coughed and felt a vague amount of shock as bright red blood flooded the back of his throat and spilled to dye his uniform jacket and stain his breeches.

The world went grey at the edges as he lost all sense of orientation. It didn't matter; there was only one thing he had left to do.

The button depressed smoothly under his grasping fingers and Treize's world flared into nothing but blinding white light.

The Tallgeese vaporised and its pilot fell.

.

.

"Feliu?"

A woman's voice jarred shattered senses, the sound too much despite the speaker having low, pleasantly modulated tones. Treize could feel every inch of his body screaming its agony at him, nerve endings seared, organs torn, bones broken. He'd been under the impression that his death would stop all pain, but if this was Heaven, then God wasn't living up to His promises.

And if it were Hell, then Lucifer needed to redecorate. The white marble Treize was kneeling on was not a good choice of schemes, all things considered

"Felix? What are you doing here? I thought you were in Bordeaux till the end of the month?"

Treize tried to look up at the second speaker, the rich baritone voice hauntingly familiar, and succeeded only in making the world reel around him. He whimpered helplessly and then cried out in protest as someone gripped him by the shoulders and held him upright, bracing him even as they shook him lightly in an attempt to get his attention.

"Cousin?" The man's voice had taken on shades of worry. "If this is your idea of a joke, it's not funny. Wearing that outfit again is asking for trouble, and covering it in fake blood is a bit much, even for me." There was another, more vicious shake. "Felix!"

Treize tried to draw enough air to explain that he wasn't Felix, that he had no idea who Felix was, that the uniform was his own and that the blood wasn't faked, and found himself coughing and choking on bitterly salty, coppery fluid. He swallowed hard and it burned like acid, roiling in his stomach.

It was a relief to retch. He collapsed against the support the other man was giving him and gave himself over to the convulsions. The man swore frantically and the woman screamed in horror as the marble was splashed crimson with blood.

"Jesus Christ! Felix!"

There was a clatter of heeled shoes on the hard floor and then a flurry of skirts as the woman sank to her knees next to the two men. "Oh, my God!" she exclaimed and suddenly her voice was familiar to Treize. "Feliu! Darling!"

Treize coughed to clear his throat, looking up to confirm what his ears were telling him, unable to understand it. "D…Dors?" he managed, when what he saw just confused him more. The woman in front of him was his niece, he was sure of it – her voice, hair, eyes and familiar eyebrows all said so, beyond any doubt – but she was also at least ten years his senior in age, a woman on the edge of a graceful middle age and not the hell-raising teenager he'd last seen less than a month before.

She gasped, one hand going to her mouth to cover the expression. "Where did you hear that name?" she demanded. "No-one calls me that."

Treize shook his head again. "I've… always…" he choked, struggling to form the words. " Dorothy?" he asked plaintively, when she closed her eyes.

The man supporting Treize seemed to take objection to something in the woman's expression because he gave Treize another shake, this one hard enough to snap his teeth together and trigger another wave of gasped retching. "Gah!" he exclaimed, as Treize threw up blood and bile. "Steady, cousin," he soothed, a moment later. "What the hell have you been doing to yourself?!"

Pain was flooding through Treize, setting off dizzying trembles in his muscles as he swallowed, ignoring the vile taste, and fought to find the words to explain. Palest gold, silver-gilt hair flickered in a corner of his vision as the other man leaned over him and tried to hand him a soft linen handkerchief.

Recognition was instant. "…Zechs…?"

"Yes, I'm Aleks. Glad to see you know at least one of us!" The young man laughed, but the sound was hollow, covering frantic worry and not a little panic. "Should we call a Doctor?" he asked, a moment later.

The woman was staring at Treize as though she'd seen a ghost. "Aleks, get your father," she instructed, reaching out one elegant hand hesitantly to touch the stained fabric of Treize's jacket.

"What?" the other man wondered. "Wouldn't Sally Po be a better choice?"

"Your father, Aleksander! Now!"

Ignoring the edges of her skirts trailing in the mess on the floor, the woman reached out and took Treize's weight from the man, taking the handkerchief as well and moving to clean away some of the blood from his face.

There was a moment of silence, and then heavy, running footsteps as the younger man obeyed the orders held been given.

"Dors?" Treize wondered again, desperate for an anchor of any sort. This was nothing like he'd imagined Death to be.

"If you are who you appear to be – and I don't even think I can begin to understand how you can be – then, yes, I'm Dorothy." Her hands dropped the ruined hankie and settled on Treize's face, cool as they lifted his head so their eyes could meet. "Well, you certainly aren't my son," she continued after a moment. "So I shan't have to go to the trouble of horse-whipping you for wearing that stupid costume again. Where did you get the uniform?"

Treize frowned, so far beyond confused he couldn't think clearly. "It's…mine," he answered uselessly, not knowing what else to say. "Your son?!" he choked, a second later, as Dorothy's words processed properly.

The woman sighed. "Yes, my son. Feliu Maxwell. The resemblance between him and … certain male relatives of his is startling." She summoned a smile that Treize recognised only too well as that of a politician. "How do you feel?" she asked.

"Dreadful," Treize answered her hoarsely. "Maxwell?" he quizzed, wondering if that meant what he thought it did.

Dorothy let him go and waved the question away. "A long story, and not one for you to worry about now, I think." She tilted her head, levelling him a look from eyes that hadn't changed at all. "If I may offer you a word of advice?" she began. "Brace yourself as best you can. I think the next few hours are going to be rather shocking for you."

The irony of that comment made Treize laugh weakly, and the sound was ragged and raw. "A moment ago I was being electrocuted to death," he whispered. "I've done with shocking for the duration, I think. It might be hard to top." He stopped laughing as suddenly as he had started, acknowledging to himself that he was dangerously close to his limits. "Am I dead?" he asked flatly, making Dorothy blink and raise a wry eyebrow.

"Tallgeese?" she asked, but she didn't give him time to answer. "Yes, you are," she told him, "but, no, apparently, you aren't. And I have no idea how that can be, so please don't ask me." She smiled, genuinely this time. "Death hasn't hurt your sense of humour, it seems," she commented. "Do you think you can stand? This floor is not meant for kneeling on."

Treize stared at his niece helplessly for a few breaths, then bit his lip and nodded. Whatever was going on, whatever was about to happen that Dorothy thought would surprise him so, he would be best to face it on his feet, if he could.

He watched as she stood gracefully, shaking out her skirts with a complete lack of care for the stains on them, and then bent down to offer him her hands.

Gripping them carefully, Treize pushed slowly to his feet, feeling his balance skitter as though he were drunk as the effort made him light-headed. He steadied remarkably quickly, and frowned as he realised that his didn't feel nearly as injured as he'd thought he was. He could breathe nearly normally now, would probably be able to talk that way, too, if he could have something to ease his throat. His hands hadn't felt burned when Dorothy had taken them and the agony of broken bones and damaged tissues was rapidly fading to little more than a dull ache.

He straightened to his customary posture and tugged his uniform into place, scowling at the state of it, then ran one hand back through his hair to neaten it. No, he still didn't feel well, but he'd faked good health from worse starting positions in the past. He'd manage.

The hand smoothing his hair came to rest on the bridge of his nose for a fraction of a second as Treize's eyes closed and he took a deep breath, and then he let it out slowly and turned an alert gaze on his niece.

Dorothy drew a sharp breath, clenching her hands together so that the knuckles went white. "If you're a fraud, you're an exceptional one," she murmured. "I've never seen anyone get that gesture just so."

Treize gave her a puzzled look and opened his mouth to ask her what she meant. He stopped as two sets of footsteps approached, seeing Dorothy glance over his shoulder at what he assumed was a door. He made to turn to look and she caught his wrist to stop him. "For his sake, if not your own," she murmured under her breath.

For whose sake? Treize wondered.

"Doro, what the hell is going on?" somebody said from the doorway, voice sharp with enquiry. "Aleks just told me the wildest tale about Felix and you and…. What the hell happened to my floor? Is that blood?!"

Treize shuddered. That voice was seared into his body at every level. How had he ever mistaken it for anyone else's? "Zechs…." he whispered, and he could hear the world of emotion beneath his tone.

Dorothy shot him a quelling look. "Yes, it's blood," she replied, letting him go and stepping around to put herself between the two men. "And Feliu has nothing to do with this, but you can worry about all that later. I strongly suggest you sit down."

Chapter Text

Treize didn't need to see him to know that Zechs had just shaken his head, a stubborn frown setting between his pale eyebrows. "Don't play games with me, Doro," he answered sharply. "How can the boy have nothing to do with it when he's stood behind you?"

"This isn't Feliu." Dorothy gestured helplessly, watching as her old friend stared at the back of Treize's head, recognition welling slowly in his eyes. "Milliardo, I don't begin to understand," she started, hoping to get through at least part of an explanation before he made the leap she knew he was going to make, "but…."

"Treize…?" Zechs whispered, interrupting her without a care for it.

Dorothy closed her eyes and bowed her head. "I thought so too," she admitted softly, feeling Treize shiver at Zechs's use of his name, and wondering when she'd become so very certain that the man behind her was, in fact, Treize Khushrenada. The situation was nigh on unbelievable, Dorothy knew, but she couldn't help feeling some very private worries she'd been keeping to herself for some time now start to lift away. If she could just manage the next few minutes….

"Treize? How…?" Milliardo was across the room in a flash, reaching past her as though she weren't there and putting a hand on Treize's shoulder. Dorothy saw the general steel himself and turn as Zechs tugged, his sapphire eyes – unique and never forgotten by anyone who'd ever gotten close enough to look directly into them – alight with a storm of feeling.

Treize ignored the shocked cry Zechs gave, ignored the way the blonde's grip became instantly painfully tight on his shoulder, ignored everything but the man in front of him and the look in his pale blue eyes.

For a half-second, there was nothing but the two of them, as it had always been. Neither man saw anything but the other, and their expressions were mirrors of each other – hope and hunger, unspoken loneliness and undying love. Dorothy flicked a glance at her Godson, her own son's closest friend, and wondered if he understood what he was seeing. There was something in his expression that said he did, and, not for the first time, Dorothy was grateful that there was more of his mother to Aleksander than his amethyst eyes. The Latin passions he'd inherited from Noin were a necessary balance to Zechs's Nordic chill, a match for Dorothy's own Spanish fire. The woman had a feeling she was going to need Aleks to get through what she knew was coming, and she was going to need him reacting from his gut, from the stories he'd heard of the man his father had lost before he was born and with all the Italian love for Romance Lucrezia had ever possessed.

She looked back to the two older men, seeing a world of meaning in the way Treize was clasping Zechs's forearm and watching as they both moved simultaneously to close the gap between them. She willed them to stay under the spell shock had created for them just a little longer, wanting them to yield to their instincts and kiss. Everything that had to follow would be so much easier if they had that indefinable, unmistakeable knowledge of the others' identity the simple, physical exchange would give them.

She bit her lip as the stunned expression began to fade from Zechs's face, wincing as too-familiar shutters slammed down behind crystal blue eyes, fury and pain flooding over everything else and erasing it.

The change jolted Treize enough to look at the rest of the man, the line of his body tensing abruptly as he failed to recognise what he saw.

In a matter of a heartbeat, the air was crackling with anger and mistrust, open hostility and stubborn confusion.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Zechs hissed suddenly, his voice like a lash. "Do you find this funny?"

Treize jumped as though stung. "Milliardo…?" he whispered, still staring. He was trying to process, Dorothy could see, trying to make what his eyes were seeing and his head was telling him square with what his gut was insisting on and not quite managing it. He simply didn't have the resources.

It was enough to push her past her own blinkered take on things, so that she saw, for the first time, not the perfect officer who'd been her childhood idol, but a bewildered and hurt young man not all that much older than her own son.

The realisation made her move to him before she knew was doing it, her hand coming to rest on his arm as she opened her mouth to defend him.

"Not to you," Zechs answered Treize coldly, at the same moment. "Dorothy, step away from him. Aleks, find Heero and have him call Une." Zechs's eyes still hadn't left Treize, who'd flinched under Dorothy's hands at the icy response. "Who sent you?" he demanded. "When are you people going to realise that this doesn't work!"

"Miri…?" Treize asked again, unconsciously using a nickname for Zechs very few people even knew existed, his voice slipping just slightly from its perfect tutored accent to that of his homelands. Dorothy couldn't help but wonder what he was seeing. Zechs had changed just as she knew she had changed and the smooth faced youth Treize had known had long since faded away in favour of a tall, powerful man who looked fifteen years older than Treize, and more than two decades older than the Zechs Treize had left behind. "What…?" Treize began and stopped.

Dorothy saw Treize glance between Zechs and Aleks as the boy came to stand just behind his father. Everyone commented on how much alike father and son looked but Dorothy had never considered just how similar Aleks was to his father at the same age. How must it feel for Treize to be seeing the face of his lover in a stranger he knew only was called Aleks? The younger Peacecraft was a twisted ghost, with his red sweater and amethyst eyes, of a boy Treize had been willing to die to protect and had loved more than anything else in the world. His gaze flicked between the two men again, still trying to understand, and he reached out to the elder without thinking. "Miri?" he asked again, plaintive and pleading for answers to questions Dorothy wasn't sure he knew he was asking.

Zechs hit his hand away with enough force that Treize staggered, his newly found balance vanishing as bewilderment turned to dizziness. "Don't you fucking dare call me that!" he growled, raising a hand.

"Milliardo, stop!" Dorothy cried, steadying Treize as he stumbled into her. "I don't think he's an impostor!" she protested.

"What the hell else could he be?" Zechs snarled at her. "Get away from him!" He reached to pull her away from Treize, and she dug her heels into the smooth floor and set herself defiantly.

"He called me Dors," she spat. "He called you Miri. Who else knew those names?" There was nothing but stony silence in reply and she gestured sharply at the floor and the bloody mess marring it. "That came from him," she told Zechs flatly. "Even if he is a plant, he's hurt, and badly."

"Ask me if I care," Zechs snarled. He glared at Treize again. "What are you, anyway?" he challenged. "Spy? Assassin?"

Treize shook his head. "I don't understand… I'm not…."

"Where are you from?" Zechs demanded.

"I don't know what you mean," the general protested.

"Whose orders are you under? Balliol's? Chen's?"

"I'm not under anyone's orders!"

Zechs shook his head angrily. "Who sent you?" he snarled.

"No-one sent me!"

Dorothy jumped at the words; she'd never heard Treize raise his voice.

There was a moment of silence as Treize coughed, the force of his shout having wrenched both his throat and his lungs. "No-one sent me," he repeated, more quietly. "I don't even know where I am!"

"Sanc," Dorothy said softly. "You're in Sanc. In the Palace."

"So you say," Treize replied and Dorothy cringed at the doubt in his eyes. The steel that had put the world at his feet at the age of twenty-four was coming to the fore now, and his sharply logical mind was rejecting the impossible truth for a far more believable lie. She watched as he squared his shoulders. "The last thing I remember was pressing the self-destruct in the Tallgeese 2," he explained softly. "That was the 24th of December, AC 195."

"We know when it was!" Zechs hissed. "We were there!" He levelled a look at Treize that promised bloody murder. "Unlike you. The pilot of the Tallgeese that day was General Treize Khushrenada. He died when Chang Wufei pierced his suit with his Gundam's beam-trident and ignited the power-pile."

Dorothy felt sudden tremors wrack Treize and realised he was ruthlessly suppressing the urge to laugh. She scowled, recognising it as the first sign of incipient hysteria. Not that she could blame him – the poor boy was not having a good day. "Are we arguing over how I died?" he asked, conversationally, bringing one hand to rest it on his hip. "Or how I tried to die?" he corrected, frowning. "Since Dorothy assures me I'm still alive."

Aleks choked, joining Treize in the laughter-suppressing game. "My God! He sounds just like all the recordings!" he exclaimed.

"I would hope I do," Treize returned softly.

"We're not arguing over anything," Zechs spat, interrupting the exchange. "You'll have to try harder than that if you wish to ruin the reputation of my friend!"

"I have a reputation to ruin?" Treize asked wonderingly and Dorothy winced at his tone. He was playing with them now. Clearly, he'd decided that the whole situation was beyond ridiculous. In his place, she'd have been telling herself that the self-destruct had failed – and wasn't that a frightening bit of information for her to fret about later? – that she'd been captured and that this was all some ruse to extract information. "I was under the impression I shot that completely, for family at least, the night Dors caught us in her father's rose garden."

Dorothy gasped; Zechs paled. "Where did you pick that bit of information up from?" he demanded.

"By being there," Treize replied, shrugging lightly. "You cut your finger trying to hand me a red rose and then insisted that I kiss it better." The look he shot Zechs was coy, taunting, and absolutely fake. "You were still young enough to be… playful," he murmured. "Or, rather, Zechs was."

"Excuse me?" Zechs spluttered. "You doubt who I am?"

"Well, of course I do. Wouldn't you, in my place?" he asked and if Dorothy hadn't been able to feel the way he was shaking and the tension in his muscles, she knew she would have been utterly fooled by his act. It was a beautiful performance. "Milliardo Peacecraft is nineteen years old. Dorothy Catalonia is sixteen." He canted an eyebrow at the younger blond man. "Who are you supposed to be?" he asked lightly.

Aleks started at being addressed directly and then smiled. "I'm supposed to be the Crown Prince of the Sanc Kingdom," he replied, offering Treize a perfect bow. "Aleksander Stephan Peacecraft, General." He grinned at Treize suddenly. "Did Aunt Doro really catch you and my father…?" he quizzed and Dorothy could have kissed him for his attempt to break the tension. He knew nothing about Treize beyond what he'd learned at school and what he'd been told by family, but he'd read the man perfectly and reacted accordingly.

"Aleksander!" Zechs snapped. He shot the younger man a look that promised a world of trouble and turned back to Treize, who was looking at him with a certain amount of fond sadness. Dorothy raised an eyebrow as the expression made him falter and doubt for a moment, then shook her head as he visibly steeled himself. "What?" he snarled.

"Noin's child?" Treize asked softly, forgetting that he was convincing himself it was all a trick.

"Yes, he's Noin's son," Zechs replied coldly.

Treize nodded. "Where is the lovely Lucrezia?" he asked and Dorothy flinched. That was not a question he should have raised at this moment.

"Dead," Zechs said flatly. "Just like Treize. I have that effect on people." He folded his arms and stared. "You're good, I'll give you that, and I'll be thrilled when we learn where your information came from. But you should have followed the trend. Most people stopped using the 'last thing I remember is Tallgeese' ploy decades ago. And most have the sense to send a double of creditable age, and not a boy too young to have been born during the Eve Wars."

Something about Zechs's little speech rattled Treize, making him lose his cool composure. "I'm sorry, what?" he asked, uncertainly.

"How old are you, supposedly, anyway?"

Treize shook his head. "Taking whatever you want me to believe the date is now, or the last date I remember?" he countered, rallying.

"Oh, yours, of course."

Dorothy ran the math in her head swiftly, sighing when she heard his answer before she could figure it out for herself. Had he really been so young?

"In that case," Treize replied, "I'm 24 years, 10 months, 3 weeks and some odd number of days. My Birthday is February 1st."

"Very good," Zechs sneered. "You can count."

"Would I have made it through the Academy if I couldn't?" Treize retorted, beginning to lose his patience. Dorothy could feel the strain he was under. "Certainly I'd have difficulty designing mobile suits!"

Something flashed in Zechs's eyes and he turned to look at Dorothy angrily. "Still think he's the real thing?" he demanded.

"Now, more than ever," she replied. "I can feel it. And so can you!"

"Can I? Shall we find out?" Without warning, Zechs reached out and seized Treize by the arm, dragging him away from Dorothy and across the room they were in. "Treize Khushrenada was a unique individual," he said conversationally, "the whole world knows that. A leader willing to die for his cause. A hero. A martyr. A visionary and a genius. It's in all the textbooks."

He reached the door to the room and hauled Treize through it and down a narrow, beautifully appointed corridor. The grip on he had on the younger man's arm must have hurt. Dorothy pushed herself past her shock and ran after them, having a sudden sinking feeling about where this was going. Treize was struggling but he was tired and hurt and Zechs, now, was four inches taller and probably a fair bit heavier.

At the end of the corridor, Zechs hit the button on a little elevator control panel and turned to look down at Treize as they waited. Running footsteps told Dorothy that Aleks had followed them, too, and she shot him a grateful glance as he drew level.

"Most people, though, don't know just how unique he was," Zechs carried on, his face twisted with something Dorothy didn't want to think about too closely. "Treize created something in the last few months of his life that only four people in the world ever experienced. One of them couldn't make it work, one of them used it only in stripped down form, and one of them it drove mad. Only one man ever used it as it had been intended – it's creator."

Dorothy gasped and reached for Zechs, her expression horrified as she realised what he was about. "Milliardo, no!" she protested. "You can't do this!"

"Why not?" he answered her. "If he is Treize Khushrenada, then there won't be a problem, will there?"

"If he is Treize Khushrenada," she countered frantically, "then he's just been through the explosion of his mobile suit and God only knows what else! He was vomiting blood on your floor half an hour ago! You'll kill him!"

"Possibly. But then, he isn't Treize."

Aleks was frowning deeply. "Father, whatever you're thinking of, I'm not sure you should…"

Zechs turned on him, eyes flashing. "I am." He turned his gaze back to Treize, who was still struggling futilely. "It took me years to work out why that was. The answer came to me last year, when one small boy did something I'd only ever seen one other person do before. Treize Khushrenada was unique. He had talents that no-one, not even I, his supposed closest friend, his lover, knew he had."

Dorothy watched Treize pale as the lift arrived and Zechs dragged him into it. She followed, her eyes flicking between the two men frantically as she calculated.

"Did you know Treize dabbled with psycho-active drugs?" Zechs asked softly and she saw Treize flinch in acknowledgement. "No? Not many people did. He played with them for years. Different drugs, different mixes, different strengths. Some of the best nights of my life came from him when he hit a combination that worked. Some of the worst, when he hit one that re-bounded on him. Eventually he gave up on drugs and turned to technology."

Dorothy forced herself past the surprise and curiosity rising in herself and glared at her friend. "You are not doing this, Milliardo," she insisted.

When she was met with a blank stare, she turned to the younger Peacecraft. "Aleks, when this lift stops I want you to run and get Heero and your Uncle Quatre. Somebody needs to talk some sense into your Father!" He nodded and she offered him a reassuring smile. All of this must be almost as bewildering to him as it was for Treize.

Zechs ignored the two of them completely. "Treize saw things; flashes, glimpses, snippets. If he concentrated, he could touch people and know what they would do next; touch objects and know what would happen to them in the end. Sometimes, with help, he saw more than one thing, one person. But he wasn't strong enough alone."

The lift door opened and Zechs stalked into a darkened workshop, pulling Treize with him. Dorothy noted that the redhead had stopped struggling and she hoped he'd worked out what was coming – for his sake.

"Lights!" Zechs snapped. "When the drugs weren't enough, he built himself something else. And when he was done with it, the bastard gave it to me."

Treize flinched again at that, and then Dorothy saw his eyes flick around the room. He froze at what he must have seen – standing in an alcove, illuminated by the lights much as it had been in his house in Luxembourg, was the remains of the Epyon suit. "No," he breathed.

"That monster has a lot to answer for," Zechs snarled. "The man who created it, even more." He tightened his grip and leant down. "If you are Treize Khushrenada, as Doro obviously believes, then you're the only person in the world who can get into that suit and not be driven mad, so I think we should try it and find out. If you're sane when the program shuts down, I'll believe you are whom you say you are and we can talk about what you were thinking. If you aren't Treize, then you won't be talking to anyone, ever again, most likely."

Dorothy caught Zechs's arm and dug her sharp nails in hard. "You are not doing this!" she insisted, looking across at the younger man. "Look at him! Doesn't his reaction tell you what you need to know?" Treize was staring across at the suit in obvious horror, clearly frightened half out of his mind. "There are other ways; better ways!"

"None nearly as conclusive," Zechs answered shortly. "None that will give us an answer in less than ten minutes."

"You cannot do this, Milliardo!" Dorothy repeated, but she knew there was little else she could do to stop him.

"Yes, I can," Zechs replied coldly. "And I'm going to. One way or another, he deserves it."

"Miri, no," Treize begged suddenly, still looking at the suit. "You don't understand…"

"I understand perfectly."

"No, you don't! Epyon worked for me, but it showed me everything! I can't use it again. I can't! Why do you think I gave it to you?"

Zechs looked at him mercilessly. "You can tell me that when you come out of the suit." He hauled on the arm he still had hold of and dragged Treize across to the suit, catching hold of the hoist line and letting it take both of them up. Treize fought, but within seconds, he was forced to grab onto his friend for fear of falling to the concrete floor below. Dorothy watched, helpless and praying Aleks would be swift in his running for help, as Zechs stepped off onto the hatch platform and threw Treize into the damaged pilot's seat.

"Miri, please. Please, don't do this!"

"Shut up!" The taller man hit a button on the console and stepped back as the suit began to activate.

As he caught the hoist line and disappeared, the Epyon system came to life and caught Treize in its grip.

Chapter Text

Dorothy flew at Zechs the moment his feet touched the concrete again. "Milliardo, stop this at once!" she ordered.

Zechs stared at her wearily. "It's a low-power test, that's all," he explained quietly. "It'll frighten the shit out of the little bastard and that will be that. I'm tired of this game. How many fake Treize's do I have to see?" He smiled at her, noting that she was still at her most beautiful when her blood was up. "I can't believe you thought I was really going to put him through the full programme! You should know better, Doro."

He was utterly unprepared for the stinging slap that caught him across the face, her nails raking through his skin on the end of it.

"This one isn't a fake!" Dorothy exploded. "I don't know how and I don't know why. I don't even know how I know, but that man is Treize Khushrenada!"

Zechs folded his arms across his chest and gazed down at her levelly. "He's good, Doro, I agree. He's probably the best we've ever seen. He had me fooled for few seconds too, but we both know there is no possible way for that to be Treize. Treize died in the Tallgeese."

"No-one ever proved that," Dorothy pointed out. "There was no body."

"There was no suit!" Zechs spluttered. "The bloody thing vaporised completely. Poof! Gone! Space dust and atoms! I looked, Doro. I read every report on the area I could. Nothing! Not even the black box survived."

Doro shook her head stubbornly. "Absence of a thing proves nothing. Without Treize's body you cannot prove that man in the Epyon isn't him!"

"Of course I can prove it isn't him!" Zechs choked. "Doro, for God's sake, have you heard yourself?"

Dorothy shrugged, looking up at her friend with pleading eyes. "I know I sound crazy. Believe me, I do. I just… I know it's impossible but something inside me insists that man is Treize. He looks just like him, Milliardo. He sounds just like him. Even the cloth of his uniform is right!"

"Yes, he looks just like him. He sounds just like him. His uniform is right. What does that prove except they had a good surgeon, a good acting coach and they robbed a museum! If he were alive, Treize would be forty-nine now! That man can't be more than twenty-five, if that!"

"Twenty four years, ten months, three weeks and some odd days. You heard him say it, just like I did."

Zechs gestured wildly. "Dorothy! That cannot be Treize! However much you want to wish it, he did not get magically transported from the Tallgeese to my morning room!"

"Why not?" Dorothy demanded. "Why couldn't he have been? Is it really so impossible? You said at the time you thought it was odd that the searches of the explosion site found no organic residue!"

Zechs paled and closed his eyes. "I was desperate when I said that. Desperate to believe he was still out there somewhere. Why are you doing this to me, Doro?" he asked softly. "Treize is gone; his body reduced down to sub-atomics so fine there was nothing left of him at all but an empty grave. He's dead. He's been dead for quarter of a century!"

"How did he know our nicknames?" Dorothy asked stubbornly. "How did he know about the night in the rose garden?"

"I don't know!" Zechs exploded. "Maybe Treize left a diary we missed!"

"You know that isn't true," Dorothy said quietly. "It's impossible. If there was that kind of information out there, we'd have heard about it before now."

"It's a lot more fucking possible than Treize jumping twenty-five years into the future at the very moment of his death!"

Dorothy had to concede that point. "Granted," she admitted, sighing.

"Thank you!"

She stared at the floor for a moment and then looked up at Zechs with a determined glint in her eyes. "So, then, just what were the odds of the Tallgeese explosion not leaving any organic matter behind at all?" she asked.

Zechs growled at her wordlessly.

"Well?" she insisted.

The lift doors opened behind her, saving her from whatever furious answer Zechs had been going to give her.

"Well, I have to admit I was expecting more blood," Quatre said calmly as he stepped into the workshop. "Does one of you want to explain why my nephew just came to me with tales of fake-Treize's-who-might-not-be and his father having lost the plot?"

"We had an intruder," Zechs answered shortly. "He claimed to be Treize. He was very convincing. He is not Treize. I dumped him in Epyon to teach him a lesson." Quatre's eyes widened in shock and Zechs sighed tiredly. "And clearly all my friends and family think I'm psychotic. It's running a low-power test cycle, that's all. I'm aiming to scare the hell out of the brat, in the hopes that no one will try this again. The only person who'd actually be in any danger would be Treize."

Quatre raised an eyebrow. "Interesting idea, certainly. You do know he'll probably go straight to the press?"

"Do I care?" Zechs wondered aloud.

Quatre chuckled. "I suspect not. The headlines should be interesting: 'Mad King Milliardo Threatens Innocent Intruder with Illegal War Machine!' Relena is going to kill you."

"I count on you to keep me safe," Zechs returned, cracking a weak smile. "Why do you think I let you marry her?"

Quatre had whatever answer he was going to give cut off by Dorothy grabbing his arm. "Stop the test!" she pleaded.

"Hmm? Why? I know you have bad memories of Epyon, Dorothy, but really, a test-cycle is harmless unless you've been in the suit at full power. Milliardo was right; the intruder would only be in any danger if he really were Khushrenada. Oh, or you, or Milliardo, or Heero, of course. Since he's none of the four of you, the worst he'll suffer is a bit of a headache and a few strange dreams."

"But he is Treize!"

Quatre blinked. "Dorothy, Khushrenada is dead. Isn't he?" he asked, looking up at Zechs in confusion.

The taller blond nodded. "Yes! Yes, Treize is dead!"

"No, he is not!" Dorothy objected. "I know it's impossible, I know it's crazy but that man is Treize. And every minute he's in that suit is a minute that could kill him! Please, Quatre, make him stop the test!"

The Arabian stared down at the blonde woman and felt shock roil through him when he saw there were tears in her eyes. "Doro?" he asked softly, then looked back at his brother-in-law. "Milliardo? Is there any chance that…?"

"No!"

"All right. You won't mind if I abort the cycle anyway? She seems bothered by it and, really, I think a simple DNA test would be better way of authenticating the man's identity in any case."

Zechs shrugged roughly. "Do whatever the hell you like."

Dorothy was across the room to the master control panel in a heartbeat, bringing up the interface and the activity monitors. She bit off a gasp as she read the displays and began hitting the buttons with alarming speed. "I told you!" she flung at Zechs. "I told you and you wouldn't listen to me!"

Zechs closed his eyes. "Stop it, Dorothy," he warned. "Stop it, stop it, stop it! This is not funny!"

Quatre looked between the two of them, and then at the monitors. His cry of horror made Zechs snap his eyes open in alarm. "Allah!" Quatre exclaimed. "Are you sure you set it for a test-cycle only?"

Zechs tensed. "Of course!"

"There's active data streaming though the system!"

The words hit Zechs like a lead weight to the stomach. "Impossible!" he breathed. "Impossible!"

"Not if the pilot has previous system exposure," Quatre countered grimly. "We know that from testing with you." He shook his head. "Is it at all possible that your impostor, isn't?" he asked, as gently as he could under the circumstances.

The lift doors opened again, revealing Heero, and, behind him, Relena and a wary looking Aleks. The former pilot was across the workshop the moment he read the set of his colleague's shoulders, leaving Relena and Aleks to trail him more slowly.

"Treize is dead!" Zechs insisted wildly.

Heero took one look at the monitor's and shook his head. "Not according to Epyon, he isn't. The wave pattern on the data-stream is a hair from perfect." He shot the older man one assessing look and frowned. "Our simulations suggested only Khushrenada could generate data within the 90% mark."

Zechs buried his face in his hands and shook his head. "It can't be!" he moaned.

Quatre raised an eyebrow from where he was working to shut the system down as gently as he could. "There's an old axiom: When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains – however improbable – must be the truth. It is impossible for anyone other than Khushrenada to generate this data; therefore the man in the suit is Khushrenada."

"Or, in other words," Aleks broke in, from where he was standing next to his Aunt, "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, talks like a duck and in all other ways is convincingly duck-ish, then it's a damned duck, and it isn't necessary to shoot it, roast it and eat it to prove it."

Quatre couldn't help the chuckle that bubbled from him. "You're spending too much time with Duo," he murmured.

"It seemed an appropriate analogy," Aleks replied, unapologetically. "He looked like a Treize, he walked like a Treize, he talked like a Treize. In all aspects, the poor man was compellingly Treize-ian, but there's my father, letting a little thing like apparent fact become a gun."

"That's enough, Aleks," Heero chided. He shot Zechs another glance and then looked back at the teenager. "Why don't you take the ladies back upstairs and call Sally Po for us?"

Aleks shrugged but did as he was told without murmur, although Relena insisted on staying and he ended up escorting only Dorothy, who was looking increasingly close to a full-blown bout of hysterics.

"This is all going to be frighteningly funny someday, isn't it?" Heero asked, as Aleks all but picked the woman up to get her into the lift.

"Probably," Quatre agreed, watching Relena as she went to her brother and put her arms around him when the man began to shiver visibly. "We have a King coming unstuck because his dead lover may be being driven mad by a mobile suit. A Duchess half-hysterical and accusing the King of attempted murder. Two Gundam pilots actively trying to help their former enemy. And off to one side, unconcerned by it all, there's the King's son, making duck analogies, courtesy of the Duchess's husband. Why did you have Aleks call Sally anyway? She can't do a thing for system-shock."

"I wanted to give him something that would keep him occupied. He doesn't need to be here if Zechs really cracks and he doesn't need to see what Epyon really does to a person. I got him to call Sally because, at the very least, she can run a DNA test on this supposed Khushrenada." Heero shrugged as the two of them worked side by side to bring the system into the last stages of shutdown. "It's possible the man will have other injuries that need medical care, too. If he really has jumped straight from the last battle of 195, then it's likely, given how Tallgeese went out. Aleks said he was vomiting blood when he first got here, which is damning enough on its own. I was also considering that we might need her for Zechs."

Quatre nodded, taking a step back as the suit shut off, exchanging glances with Heero as the hiss of the hatch reached Zechs's sensitive ears and the man took off running across the hanger flat out.

The other pilot's expression was grim as he shrugged and went after their friend.

Zechs stopped at the foot of the Epyon suit, the two Gundam pilots right behind him and Relena hot on their heels, all of them looking up as a slender, shaking figure stepped from the hatch. He wavered in place for a moment, repeating the trademark hand-to-eyes gesture that had been so convincing for Dorothy, and then caught the hoist line Zechs had already sent up for him.

He rode it to the floor, giving the waiting party a good look at his battered, bloodstained uniform and too-familiar facial features, and Quatre registered his wife's stunned gasp and Heero's surprised grunt as echoes of his own shock. He stepped forward to meet the man as his boots met the rough concrete floor, but the general ignored them all in favour of looking at Zechs steadily

That he was holding himself upright through sheer force of will was obvious, but that did nothing to ease the unbelievable strangeness of looking – for the first time and twenty five years after the man had died and been buried! – directly at someone who had once been Quatre's greatest enemy.

The silence dragged on as Zechs and Treize stared at each other; Zechs with eyes dilated by shock, Treize, exhausted and defiant. "Do you believe me, now, Miri?" the general asked eventually, his voice a ragged whisper. Quatre didn't want to imagine what must have happened to make it sound that way.

"Yes," Zechs answered him softly, hearing the soft, rolling accent under the stress. "Yes, I believe you." He took a step forward and reached out with hands that were trembling. "Treize…" he murmured, lifting hesitant fingers to brush across the redhead's face.

Treize smiled wearily. "That's good," he answered, and collapsed into his former lover's arms.

Chapter Text

Treize woke slowly to soft, yielding warmth and bright sunshine, his eyes fluttering open as he registered the scent of red roses and strong coffee. It took him a moment to work out that he was in a bed somewhere, but it wasn't his bed – any of them – comfortable as it was, and it wasn't a room that he recognised at all.

Frowning as he fought to recall what had happened to him last, he dug one hand from the mass of covers he was buried under, scowling at the deep green silk sleeve covering his arm. He was positive that he owned nothing that colour – certainly not pyjamas! – and he had the distinct feeling that the last thing he'd been wearing was his uniform. Brushing his tumbled hair back from his face, he pushed himself to sit up, wincing at the taste in his mouth that told him it had been far too long since he last brushed his teeth, and froze as sudden movement off to one side told him there was someone else in the room.

"You might want to take it slowly," that someone said quietly. "You've been out cold for three days; you're bound to be a little achy."

Treize had already noticed that. He nodded carefully, then looked up in shock. "Zechs?" he asked, as the voice registered with him properly.

A tall, blond man came and sat down on the edge of the bed, looking at him warily. "Most people call me Milliardo these days," he said, "but yes. How much do you remember?" he asked gently.

Treize had to remind himself forcefully that staring was rude. He made himself look down at the bedding under his hands and shook his head. "I'm not sure, to be honest. I'm sorry," he added, without knowing quite why.

The man calling himself Zechs chuckled. "Don't apologise. There's a fair possibility that you've had the worst few days in the history of the world," he explained dryly. "It's not a surprise that your head is a bit scattered. Sally warned us you might have a little trouble, but she promises it'll all come back to you shortly."

Treize nodded, forbearing from asking who 'Sally' was. There were other, more important questions to be asked first. "Where am I?" he enquired softly.

"The Royal Palace, Newport City, Sanc."

"Sanc?" Treize asked, shocked.

"Yes." The man smiled at Treize again, the expression still gentle. "I know that's not an answer you were expecting, but it is the truth and there is an explanation, I promise."

Treize raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure it will prove fascinating," he allowed.

"Fantastic, perhaps," the other man laughed. "Do you want to get into it now, or would you rather save it until you've had a chance to get yourself together a little? It might take better after a hot bath and a decent breakfast," he offered.

"I…yes, maybe. Thank you." Treize pushed himself to sit up more. "May I ask what time it is?"

"Currently? Just shy of eight in the morning. Your watch is on the dressing table if you want to check for yourself. It's been set to the local time."

"Thank you," Treize said again and opened his mouth to say something else. He closed it again as he realised he didn't have the first idea about where to start with everything that was spinning around in his head.

The blond man was looking at him with something akin to sympathy in his eyes. "You should feel free to ask, you know," he reassured. "I know this must all seem very strange to you right now."

Treize looked up at him for a moment, shrugging helplessly. "In that case, forgive me," he said softly, "but… who are you?"

The man's eyes widened slightly and then closed sadly. "I should have known you'd ask that," he murmured, taking a deep breath. "As hard as it may be for you to believe, because I know I've changed, I am Milliardo Peacecraft. I was born here, in Sanc, on the 5th of December, AC 175 and I've known you since I was three years old and you were seven." He tilted his head to one side, making the long tail his hair was gathered back into fall over one shoulder. "The very first time we met," he added, seeing the other man looking unconvinced, "I fell asleep sitting on your knee because you'd worn me out chasing me all over the Palace whilst we played hide and seek."

Treize knew his surprise must be written all over his face but he couldn't make himself care overmuch. "But if you're…Milliardo… then…."

Zechs held up a hand before Treize could find a way to phrase what he wanted to ask next and cut him off. "Bath and breakfast?" he reminded gently. "I promise I'll explain later."

He waited for Treize to nod slowly and then stood up and took a step back from the bed, giving his friend room to get up. "The bathroom is through that door there," he said, pointing across the room. "There should be soap and shampoo and razors and the like already in there but feel free to ring my staff and ask if you need anything. Just pick up the phone next to you and it will connect directly."

Zechs paused to draw a breath, and to give the younger man a moment to indicate that he'd understood, and then continued, "I've put clothes in the wardrobe for you. They should fit you reasonably well but we can go shopping later this afternoon, if you feel up to it. I'll leave the coffee for you. It's a fresh pot and it's still hot. Do you want me to send someone up to draw you a bath?" he asked.

Treize shook his head immediately. "No, I'll manage. I'd rather be alone for a few minutes, I think," he admitted.

"All right." Zechs smiled again and took another step back. "I'll leave you be, then. You're in the West Wing now and I'll be downstairs in the small breakfast room. Can you remember the way?"

Treize thought for moment, recalling memories fifteen years old. "Yes, I think I can," he said eventually.

"Good," Zechs told him. "There'll be people about if you can't, in any case. Take your time."

"Thank you." Treize pushed himself out of bed as Zechs turned for the door, putting put his feet on the carpeted floor just as the blond paused in the doorway and glanced back. The look on the blonde's face was elated, happier than Treize could ever remember from his friend, and it made him smile in return involuntarily. "What?" he asked lightly, curious and a little wary.

Zechs simply looked at him for a moment more, then shook his head. "Nothing at all," he replied. "I'm simply unbelievably glad to have you back with us."

Treize raised an eyebrow and Zechs began laughing as he stepped into corridor and closed the door behind him.

Treize stayed sitting on the edge of the bed for a few seconds after the other man had left, his mind a blank, and then he got to his feet and crossed the room to the coffee pot. He poured himself a cup, noting that it was as hot and fresh as he'd been promised and sipped it, taking it with him into the bathroom.

He smiled at the size and the depth of the tub that met his eyes and put his cup down on the counter beside the sink as he bent to put the plug in the drain. It took him a moment to puzzle out the working of the taps but soon enough there was a torrent of hot water pouring into the bath, sending clouds of steam to fog up the room and raise the temperature enough that Treize was completely comfortable when he stripped off the borrowed pyjamas and folded them onto the counter next to his coffee.

The sound and sight of the water reminded his body that there were side effects, other than stiff muscles, of sleeping for three days without moving and he spent a minute or two sighing in considerable relief before moving to the sink, washing his hands, and opening the mirrored cabinet above it to hunt for the promised toiletries.

The sight that met his eyes had him laughing aloud. The cabinet was filled with everything he could ever imagine a guest needing and then some. In a quick glance, he'd counted five different types of soap, six shower gels, four bottles of shampoo and conditioner, three different makes of razor, one of them an old-fashioned straight-blade – complete with all the accompanying palaver – and two types of shaving foam.

Looking more closely, he saw several different colognes, various types of moisturiser, a multitude of hair-care products – gels, mousses, brushes and combs, what looked like a full manicure kit and, seemingly, the entire contents of a very well stocked pharmacy.

There were more lotions, potions, pills and packets than Treize could even begin to imagine needing, some of them remedies for things he couldn't recall ever hearing of, but it was his last discovery that made him snort in amused surprise and raise an eyebrow. Tucked discreetly away in a little box at the very back of the cabinet were a dozen items of a more distinctly personal nature, including four different makes of lube, three fits of condom, two packets of tissues specifically designed for the purpose of cleaning up after certain activities, and even a small bottle of one of the milder – and more legal – chemical stimulants.

The whole thing had Treize laughing madly. What on Earth had Zechs imagined Treize would possibly need to call the house staff for with all this lot to hand?

The former general leaned over to switch the water off as the tub filled to just under the overflow and shook his head. Either Zechs was an obsessively attentive host, or he'd been desperately trying to make sure Treize had anything and everything he could possibly need. Whichever was the case, he'd managed to go completely over the top in his efforts, but it was sweet, in a way, and rather typical.

Shaking his head, Treize shoved most of the morass back into the cabinet, selecting a single choice of each of the items he thought he'd need. He quickly discovered that whilst most of the toiletry brand names were familiar – things he'd either used or had heard about for years – with only one or two exceptions, the exact packaging and formulation of them wasn't. It made him frown as he brushed and flossed his teeth and then applied a layer of soap to the unsightly ginger stubble covering his jaw.

Wiping off the steamed-up mirror with one hand, he picked up the straight-blade razor with the other and set it to his skin. The flash of light off the razor reflected in the glass made Treize freeze and he dropped the blade in the sink with a clatter as he went suddenly dizzy.

He bent forward, gripping the edge of the sink with both hands, the porcelain cold and hard under his skin, and closed his eyes as a flood of images washed over him – faces, places and events he either didn't know or only dimly recalled, all ending in glaring whiteness as he was surrounded by an explosion.

He heaved for air as his body shuddered, a chill sweat breaking across his skin. A headache bloomed – swift, vicious and tight – across his temples and every muscle in his body began to throb as though he'd been beaten black and blue. The memory of Tallgeese, of pushing the self-destruct, came back to him in a rush and he cried out in shock and horror.

It faded away slowly, leaving him shaking and cold and staring at his reflection in the mirror as though he didn't recognise himself. As, perhaps, he didn't, he realised. There was no way he should have survived that explosion – he hadn't been intending to survive, he knew now – so how had he ended up here, in a bathroom, in what must be a restored Sanc Kingdom, with a Zechs who looked years older than the one in his memories?

Picking up the razor again, he shaved the stubble from his face and rinsed the remains of the soap away quickly, and then leaned forward and stared at himself closely, looking for changes.

There were none.

He could clearly recall, now, standing in front of another mirror, in what he thought were his quarters on the resource satellite he had chosen to use as his base for his last assault, his uniform perfect on his body and resigned determination glinting in his eyes as he steeled himself to face what he knew would be his death.

It felt like a recent memory – days old, at best – and if one allowed for the state of his hair and his skin, then he looked no different. Zechs had said he'd been out cold for three days and whilst Treize could make that square in his head with his own memories and with his appearance, he couldn't make it work with his location and with the changes in his closest friend.

How had he survived Tallgeese's destruction? How was he not at least injured in some way? And how had he gotten from a ruined mobile suit in Space to a bathroom in the Sanc Palace?

He closed his eyes again, fighting another wave of light-headedness by taking slow, deep breaths, and then told himself it was caused by low blood sugar from not eating – and not by the insidious whispering ticking at the edges of his mind – as he opened the cabinet again and shook out two of the pills from one the bottles of over-the-counter painkillers. He downed them with a mouthful of his cooling coffee to combat the way he was aching and then made himself step into the hot water of the bath and relax.

Zechs had promised to explain. Treize could make himself wait until he was presentable again to ask him to.

Chapter Text

Zechs was sitting at one end of a small table when Treize stepped into the private dining room, a half-eaten slice of toast in one hand as he perused a newspaper spread open on the table in front of him. He looked up almost immediately and smiled warmly, gesturing to the seat next to him as he snapped the paper closed and pressed a little bell set into the surface of the table.

Treize seated himself as gracefully as he could manage and raised one eyebrow questioningly when Zechs simply looked at him for a few moments.

“Those clothes fit you better than I hoped they would,” the blond commented offhandedly, turning over a clean cup from the tray in front of the chair on his other side and pouring steaming coffee into it from a pot.

Treize took the cup as he was offered it and put it down in front of him to look down at the sweater and casual slacks he was wearing. There was nothing wrong with the trousers, though they were a little big for him all over, but he wasn’t convinced about the forest green colour of the jumper.

His expression must have said as much, because Zechs began to chuckle softly. “What is it about you and green?” he asked. “You always hated it and I never knew why. It suits you!”

“It doesn’t,” Treize answered him shortly. “It clashes with my hair and makes me look like an extra from a pantomime.”

Zechs folded his hands together in front of his face and then propped his chin on them. “It makes you look slightly elfin, yes, but that’s no bad thing. Is the sweater comfortable, at least?”

Treize shrugged. “Reasonably, yes. Who should I thank for the loan?”

Zechs smiled a little. “Me, for the sweater. Dorothy’s son, Felix, for the trousers and the shoes. I promise you everything else is new,” he added, before Treize could open his mouth to ask. “I asked one of the valets to run into the city yesterday to pick up a few things. I’d have had him buy you more but I wasn’t sure of the fit and I thought you’d prefer to choose your own things.”

“I would, thank you.” Treize sipped his coffee thoughtfully for a moment, then looked at the other man with a curious and impish expression. “Is that where the contents of my bathroom cabinet came from as well? The valet’s trip to pick up ‘a few things’?”

Zechs shrugged. “In part,” he admitted. “Some of that is standard for all the guest rooms here. I just asked the man to add the things I remembered you using specifically, that’s all. Did you find everything you needed?”

“You really thought I wouldn’t?” Treize wondered.

“You were fussy about such things,” Zechs replied calmly. He paused for a moment as he bit into his abandoned toast, chewed and swallowed. “I’m sorry if I overdid it a little,” he apologised quietly. “There were some things I wasn’t quite sure about, things I remembered you using more than one sort of at various times. I couldn’t remember properly which you were using when….” He stopped and swallowed, then shook his head and continued, “Well, I couldn’t remember, so I asked the valet to get the lot. I wanted some things to be familiar for you, at least.”

“And I appreciate the thought, but five types of soap?” Treize asked, watching with something akin to delight as Zechs coloured a little. “And dare I ask about that little box at the back? Please tell me you didn’t send the valet for that!”

The colouring deepened. “Ah, no,” Zechs answered awkwardly. “That was partly a standard thing. The rest I added myself. I thought….” He stopped again, biting his lip, then shrugged and smiled ruefully. “Actually, I haven’t the faintest idea what I was thinking. I suspect I was operating on some sort of auto-pilot and trying to match your old bathroom cupboard as closely as I could in the time I had.”

The way Zechs was blushing at himself was charming. “Zechs,” Treize teased gently. “When have I ever kept four sorts of lube in my bathroom?”

“I saw you use all four of those at one time or another!” Zechs shot back. “I told you, I was making sure that….”

“Oh, yes? And just who are you expecting me to use them with?”

The moment he said it, Treize knew it was a mistake. Somehow, despite all the reasons why it shouldn’t have been the case, he’d slipped into talking to this Zechs as he had always talked to his friend – a peculiar and unique form of teasing and, in the years since Zechs had been old enough for it, flirtatious banter.

The blond man went completely still for a fraction of a second, then looked away. “Whomever you like, I suppose,” he answered eventually. “As always.”

There was a bitterness to Zechs’s tone that took Treize aback a little, and reminded him sharply just how much there was of his surroundings at the moment that he didn’t understand. It wasn’t that he’d never heard Zechs speak in that tone before – he’d had plenty to be bitter about, after all – but it had never been directed at Treize personally, and there’d never been quite that level of icy venom behind it.

Zechs’s facial expression had changed, as well, closing and becoming cold. It highlighted every single difference between this man and the one Treize knew, until the general felt as though he were sharing the table with a complete stranger. It shook him and he suspected it showed, because Zechs took one look at his face and stood up abruptly.

“Excuse me,” the blond bit off. “I’m going to see what’s keeping your breakfast.” He pushed back from the table and strode off towards the door on long legs.

Treize watched him go, listening as his footsteps began to fade away. Unconsciously, he wrapped his hands around his coffee-cup, letting the heat of it soak into his skin as he stared blindly across the room. He felt lost and rather disorientated all of a sudden.

There was a murmur of voices from the hallway beyond the door and then the appearance of another figure in the room, unfolding from the shadows in a way that spoke of long practice and not a little natural talent.

“Good morning, people,” the new arrival – a slender man on the short side, perhaps a few years younger than Zechs – greeted the room at large, before he stopped and blinked at Treize directly. “Well, hey!” he exclaimed, immediately beginning to move in the direction of the table. “You’re awake!”

Treize nodded slowly. “Ah, yes. I appear to be.”

“That’s great! I was wondering when you were gonna stir yourself.” The man leaned across the table and offered Treize a surprisingly strong and work-hardened hand.

As he moved, a thick, chestnut braid of hair slipped into view and made Treize take another look at him. That hair was familiar from somewhere….

“I’m Duo Maxwell,” the man offered, as Treize took his hand.

“Treize Khushrenada,” Treize replied automatically, as the light dawned and the man’s identity became clear.

Duo laughed. “I know who you are, general!” He plonked himself down in the chair Zechs had vacated and leaned his chin on one hand, grinning. “So, what’d you say to step on Big Blondie’s tail, then?”

Treize blinked at that. “Who?”

“His Most Serene Majesty, King Peacecraft,” Duo replied. “He sure as hell didn’t look serene walking out of here a minute ago!”

Treize felt the sense of disorientation wash over him again. “King Peacecraft… Do you mean Zechs?” he asked helplessly and watched Duo’s face take on an almost-comical expression of surprise.

“Zechs? You still call him that?” He shook his head. “Yeah, I guess you would, at that.” He grinned. “Yes, I meant Zechs. You heard of any other Peacecraft Monarchs recently?”

“One or two,” Treize answered dryly, tightening his grip on his coffee cup. He was strongly beginning to wish he’d demanded that explanation from Zechs before he ever got out of bed. The whole morning was starting to take on an air of unreality that left him wanting to go back to sleep just so he could wake up from his dreaming.

There was a moment of silence and then a warm hand came to rest on Treize’s shoulder. “You okay, there?” Duo asked quietly. “I’m guessing you didn’t know about the whole ‘King Peacecraft’ thing, did you?”

Treize simply shook his head. “The last King Peacecraft I’m aware of was Zechs’s father, King Stephan. I know Relena acted as Queen for a time, but Zechs has always sworn he couldn’t take the crown.”

“Right. That makes sense.” Duo nodded. “Well, it wasn’t easy convincing him, no, but it was best for Sanc. And for Aleks, of course. Ah…” Duo shot Treize another worried look. “You do know who Aleks is, right?”

Treize opened his mouth to say no, and another flash of memory assaulted him as the one in the bathroom had.

From somewhere, the image of a young man came to him, bowing to him and grinning. “I’m supposed to be the Crown Prince of the Sanc Kingdom, Aleksander Stephan Peacecraft,” the boy said and Treize heard his own voice asking if the youth was Noin’s son.

He heard Zechs give him an affirmative answer and then he lost the flash of memory as someone began shaking him roughly and calling his name.

Treize shook his head to try to clear it and found himself looking straight up at Duo, who was leaning over him, gazing down at him worriedly. “You back with me, general?” the older man asked. “You kinda zoned out there for a moment.”

“I’m fine,” Treize told him quietly and saw relief flare in the other man’s unusual violet eyes.

“Good,” Duo replied. “Because I wasn’t looking forward to explaining to Blondie that I broke his friend!”

The sheer irreverence in Duo’s voice made Treize smile a little. “I’m not altogether convinced that he would care right now,” he admitted. “I’m afraid I may have said something to upset him.”

Duo grinned at him, clearly hoping to lighten the mood a tad. Treize rather had the sense that this man spent an awful lot of his time playing court-jester for a set of friends who often needed a little light relief.

He could also see a certain adopted resemblance between the over-bright, encouraging expression on Duo’s face now and the one Zechs’s son – a thought that stuttered in Treize’s mind for a moment before he could make himself accept it – had worn in the flash of memory. He wondered which of them had borrowed it off the other first.

“He’d care, trust me,” Duo told him, letting the blinding smile fade a little to something that looked far more natural. “Upset or not. Just ignore him, if you can. He’s been up and down all over the place the last couple of days. It’s taken all five of us to keep him from driving the staff to murder.”

Treize raised an eyebrow. “All five of you?” he asked.

“Not counting the kids of course,” Duo qualified, “yeah.” He shrugged casually, then looked up, saw that Treize didn’t have a clue as to what he was on about and shrugged again, conveying rueful apology as he added, “Me and Doro, Quatre and Relena and Heero.”

“Relena would be Relena Peacecraft? Zechs’s sister?” Treize asked, hungry for any scraps of information he could get. “And Heero is Heero Yuy, the pilot?”

Duo nodded. “Yeah.”

Well, that was nicely confusing, right there. What on Earth was Zechs doing with a houseful of Gundam Pilots, half of whom seemed to be his friends? The last of Treize’s memories suggested that Heero and Zechs – at the very least – had been more enemies and rivals than anything else. It was one more bewildering occurrence in a world that was very rapidly becoming nothing but. It left Treize off-balance; feeling as though he’d just stepped on-stage in the middle of a play he’d never seen a script for, and that was not a feeling he liked at all.

“Would it be too much to hope that by ‘Doro’ you mean Dorothy Catalonia, my niece?” he asked, hating how tentative he sounded. The possibility eased something inside him, because he was sure that having family near at hand would be a great help – Dorothy would certainly tell him what was happening – but balanced against that hope was the notion that Duo could be referring to someone else entirely, a complete stranger Treize had never even heard of. The general wasn’t sure he could deal with that idea – Zechs had no acquaintances that Treize hadn’t met at least once and certainly no friends close enough to be living with him. The implications of such a thing were staggering.

Duo shot him a confused look as he sank back into his chair, clearly not happy with the expression Treize was sure was on his face. “General,” he asked gently, “how much do you remember about how you got here?”

“Nothing,” Treize confessed. “As far as I can tell, my last memory is of Tallgeese. After that, nothing – until I woke this morning. Why?”

Duo nodded, biting his lip briefly. “Okay. Just wondering,” he murmured. He leaned back in the chair and gazed at Treize levelly. “You met Doro when you first got here,” he said slowly. “At the same time as you met Aleks, actually. It’s odd you remember one of them, and not the other.” He put his head on one side. “And, for the record, she’s not Catalonia anymore, she’s Maxwell,” he finished.

Treize blinked at that, acknowledging it as yet-another bit of information that he couldn’t reconcile with the world he knew. “You’re married?” he asked, wanting confirmation. He was beginning to draw conclusions that were setting off all sorts of alarm bells in his head.

“Yes,” the other man said. “For twen….”

Duo stopped mid-word, shaking his head as Treize raised a curious eyebrow, wondering what he’d been about to say. “Never mind that now,” Duo continued, a heartbeat later. “Yes, we’re married. I’d have asked your permission but you weren’t precisely available at the time,” he added, moving to tease and lighten the mood again.

Treize raised the other eyebrow to match the first, letting his eyes say that he knew what his companion was about. “Dors didn’t need my permission,” he replied, going along with the banter. “Or anyone else’s, for that matter. I strongly suspect she would have castrated you for the insult if you had asked me.”

“Ah, probably true,” Duo admitted, wincing a little. He smiled. “Did Zechs mention it’s our son Felix’s clothes he borrowed for you, then?” he asked.

Treize nodded. “Now that you mention it, yes, he did.” The bubbling suspicions at the back of his mind became another step closer to being real as the former general looked down at himself again for a moment, staring at the clothes he was wearing. Logic began to point out some very uncomfortable facts, and Treize lifted his head again as his breath caught in his lungs from the unexpected distress. “Duo,” he started softly, hoping to catch the other man off guard. “How old is Felix?”

“Twenty two,” Duo answered, as automatically as Treize could have wanted him to. His eyes widened the second he said it, snapping up to look at the general in alarm.

Treize, for his part, returned the look levelly, ignoring the sensation of the blood draining from his face and the way he suddenly felt a little sick. “Twenty two,” he repeated softly. “How long have I been… asleep?”

“Three days,” Duo answered quietly. “You’ve been unconscious since you passed out in the basement workshop three days ago.”

Treize shook his head. “Do you need me to tell you that doesn’t add up?” he demanded, his voice sharp. “How can you look as you do when you claim I’ve only been asleep for three days? How can you and my niece be married and have a son of twenty-two?!” He heard the rising hysteria in the way he was speaking and swallowed hard to counter it. “I look exactly as I did an hour before I climbed into the Tallgeese, Duo,” he added softly, dropping his gaze and gesturing helplessly with the hands that were still wrapped around the coffee cup that had somehow become an anchor. “I don’t understand what’s happening,” he confessed.

Duo got to his feet slowly, taking a first step around the table again. “Take it easy,” he soothed, reaching out to put a comforting hand on Treize’s shoulder. “I know all this has gotta be confusing as all hell,” he admitted. “I’d be screaming the place down in your shoes, not sitting quietly at a breakfast table. There is an explanation of sorts but Zechs was adamant about being the one to give it.”

Treize shook his head. “He isn’t here,” he pointed out. “You are, and I….” he broke off and swallowed.

Duo let his hand tighten its grip, leaning back against the table lightly. “I know,” he murmured. “Just… sit and breathe for a couple of minutes, okay? Drink your coffee. If Blondie isn’t back here soon, then I’ll give it a go, but I really do think it’d be better coming from him.

Treize nodded tiredly, opening his mouth to say something and stopping when someone else spoke first.

“I’m already back here,” Zechs said from the doorway. “I take it you changed your mind about having breakfast before the explanation?” he asked, coming into the room and crossing to the table.

Treize didn’t look at him, not wanting to face the obvious changes in his friend again, and what he thought they meant. Zechs’s voice hadn’t changed at all – if he didn’t look, he could convince himself, perhaps, that nothing else had, either. “I just want to know what’s happening,” he replied.

He completely missed the looks the two older men exchanged over his head.

“I’d rather you ate first,” Zechs said eventually, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had stretched as he and Duo flung lip-read arguments at one another. “It was the Doctor’s advice and it makes sense. Physically speaking, you’ve had a very bad few days. You’re running on reserves you really don’t have, I don’t need you fainting from exhaustion and I don’t think you’re going to feel much like food when I’m done.”

Treize couldn’t help the angry laugh that left him at that. “And you think I do now?” he spluttered. He shook Duo’s hand off and pushed back from the table, standing up as he glared at the blond. “I want to know what the hell is going on, and I want to know now. Either one of you will tell me or I will go to every person I can find in this palace-that-shouldn’t be-here and ask them all until I find one that will!”

“No one here will talk to you without my permission,” Zechs told him coolly, “so that plan won’t work. Why don’t you sit down again?”

Duo watched as an irate flush rose to the general’s face, countering some of the pallor that shock had created. Sapphire eyes snapped a warning that the man was a breath away from exploding as they locked with Zechs’s, nailing him in place and all-but daring him to continue speaking.

Watching as the blond drew a breath and opened his mouth to say something else, Duo groaned silently. If the resemblance between the Oz leader and Duo’s eldest child went deeper than just their looks, then Treize had a heck of a temper under his blue-blood cool and Zechs was about to provoke it to full fury.

Thinking quickly, Duo took a step forward and put his hand back on the younger man’s shoulder, applying downward force. “Your Majesty, you’re being a prick,” he said flatly, pinning the blond with a meaningful look. “And general, you need to learn to follow good advice when you’re given it. Sit down and try to curb the urge to interrogate us all until we give you the answers you want.” He pressed down harder, all-but forcing the taller man back into his chair. “In fact, why don’t we all sit down,” Duo suggested, “and try to talk about this as reasonable adults?”

He waited a beat and then suited deed to word, plonking himself back down in the chair next to Treize. He gestured to the one opposite him, inviting Zechs to take it silently.

The King dropped into a moment later with a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, directing the words at both of the other men. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, just for Treize. “I can’t begin to imagine what all this must feel like for you. It’s hard enough dealing with it from my end.”

The general nodded warily and Duo summoned his trademark smile. “Perhaps that’s as good a place for us to start as any, then,” he quipped. “General, we know you want answers and we understand why. I’ve already said I’d be screaming bloody murder until I got them in your place, and I’m sure Blondie would agree with me. Maybe we need to remember that more when we talk to you. Similarly though, perhaps you can try to understand that you’re not the only one affected by this. If you can hang on to the patience you’ve been giving us a little longer, this will all be much easier on everyone.”

Treize gave Duo an assessing look. “All right,” he allowed carefully.

“Good.” Duo smiled. “Right, then. Blondie, it’s all yours.”

Zechs blinked, caught off-guard, then squared his shoulders and looked across the table at the youngest of the three men. “Where do I start?” he wondered, speaking to himself. “What do you remember?” he asked Treize.

The redhead shrugged. “Tallgeese,” he answered. “I remember being in the Tallgeese. I remember pressing the self-destruct. I remember the explosion. After that, there’s nothing until I woke in your guest room this morning.”

Zechs nodded. “You don’t recall meeting Dorothy and Aleks at all?”

“No.” Treize shook his head. “The last time I recollect speaking to Dorothy was at a Romefeller conference just after Dermail died, and before I sent her to you on the Libra. I take it that’s not the case?”

“No, it isn’t,” Zechs agreed. “You saw her when you first arrived here, three days ago. She, in fact, was the first to insist that you were you, and not some sort of impostor.” He sighed. “She’s probably going to be quite upset that you don’t remember her impassioned defence of you.”

Treize reached out and snared his coffee-cup again, mostly for something to do with his hands whilst they talked, since the coffee itself was now quite cold. He saw Zechs register the action, and raised an eyebrow at the slight smile that touched the blonde’s lips. “It’ll probably come back to me. Other things have been,” he said. “It took me until I was shaving to remember Tallgeese.”

“Your memory is coming back, then. That’s good.” Zechs let his smile show fully for a moment. “Sally said it would but it’s nice to hear it, all the same.”

“I take it there are things I’m still missing?” Treize asked.

“A fair bit, yes.” Zechs stopped, looking a shade uncomfortable. “Ah, if you don’t remember Doro, then you won’t recall Aleks either, will you? Right.” He cast a glance at Duo, then looked back at Treize. “This might be a bit of a surprise for you but Aleks is….”

“Your son,” Treize finished for him, making the older man sit back in astonishment. “Your son by Lucrezia Noin, I believe you said?”

Duo began chuckling to himself as Zechs blinked blankly for a few seconds. “Now, how on Earth do you know that?” he demanded. “Did Duo tell you?”

Treize shook his head. “No. Just a snippet of memory. I can’t place when or where it was but I recall a boy who looks very much like you introducing himself as Aleksander Peacecraft.”

Zechs stared for another few seconds. “Doro is going to be annoyed. That happened when you first got here!” He closed his eyes briefly, then gestured lightly. “You arrived here in the Palace – in my morning room, to be precise – late in the afternoon three days ago. Aleks and Dorothy were making their way up to their rooms after spending the day in Newport City and they found you, completely by chance. It was a bit of good luck, actually. That room can go unused for weeks at a time, normally.” He shrugged. “They thought you were Dorothy’s son Felix at first, which was quite a surprise because he’s supposed to be in Bordeaux inspecting the family estates until the end of the month.”

“Glad to know someone’s looking after things,” Treize commented, and had to hide a smile when Zechs’s eyes widened slightly.

The blond shook it off predictably quickly and didn’t change the subject. “You were… hurt,” he continued, “and you asked for me. It was you calling me Zechs that tipped Doro off to the fact that you weren’t who you appeared to be. Aleks came to find me when she sent him.”

Treize was looking down at the tabletop, turning the cup slowly in his hands as he listened. “Do I really look that much like him?” he quizzed, curious. It would be very odd if he did. Certainly, Treize wasn’t about to deny that his family were distinctive in the way they looked but it was predominantly on the male side. The general had always known that he was identifiable as a Khushrenada on first glance, particularly by people who had known his father, but he and Dorothy were related through his mother, Lady Anna, and through Duke Dermail. Dorothy, therefore, had no Khushrenada blood and so couldn’t have passed any to her son – which should have meant, logically, that the boy couldn’t bear Treize any real similarity.

It was Duo who answered him. “I don’t know how much it will hold up if the two of you ever stand next to each other but there’s definitely something.” He laughed. “Yeah, you're similar," he confirmed, looking at Treize closely. "Trick of genetics, I guess. There’s a lot of Doro in Felix. He has her build and bone structure – and those bloody eyebrows! About the only things he gets from me are my eyes and my hair, and the two of us are close enough in hair colour for it to add to the effect rather than diminish it.” He gave a quick shrug. “I’m not sure you’re mirror images of each other but you could definitely pass for brothers if you had to. Especially with the age gap being as small as it is,” he added offhandedly.

The thought caught Treize by surprise. It wasn’t something he’d considered until now, but assuming he was as old as he recalled himself being, then he was closer in age – much closer – to Duo’s child than he was to Duo himself or Dorothy, or to Zechs. It made him shiver. “Can I ask…?” he started, feeling all the strangeness that had begun to fade away as they talked come roaring back. “How old is Aleks?”

There was sympathy in Zechs’s eyes when he answered. “Nineteen.”

Treize nodded. “What happened, then?” he asked, not wanting to deal with the maths of that right then.

Zechs gave him a look which said he understood what Treize was doing, but he continued his explanation, telling the redhead about the argument they’d had, about him not believing Treize was who he said he was – something for which he apologised repeatedly – and about how he’d dragged the younger man down to the basement.

The tale triggered more snippets of memory but nothing of any real significance until Zechs drifted into a hesitant, loaded silence.

Treize looked up from his cup turning as the older man leaned forward a little.

“You need to understand something before I tell you the next bit,” Zechs said, his voice soft but intense. “I didn’t know who you were. I had no reason to suspect you were really you. If you knew… I’ve seen so many fake Treize Khushrenada’s that I’ve lost count of them. Some of them were incredibly convincing, especially at first when we still thought there was a chance….” He shook his head, something raw and hurt flashing in his eyes. “I’ve met men who were more you than you are. I thought you were another of them. I only meant to scare you off.”

“I can understand that.” Treize found a smile for his friend. “Perhaps it will amuse you to know that I’ve come across one or two ‘Milliardo Peacecrafts’ in the last couple of years? The association between our families was well known in certain circles and there were a few people who believed a sufficiently pretty blue-eyed, blond-haired boy would be enough to distract me. They never did figure out why it didn’t work!”

It made Duo laugh, at least. Zechs simply shook his head again.

“I shouldn’t have done it,” he confessed. “I’m incredibly sorry for it. I’ll never forgive myself if it turns out I’ve hurt you in any way but…”

“But?”

“But it certainly was enough to authenticate who you are. No one else could have generated the readings you did, and it was only a low-power test…”

Treize felt himself go cold all over. “Low power test of what?” he snapped. “Did you…?”

He caught his breath as it all came back in a rush, the cup smashing on the floor when Treize dropped it as he reeled back in his chair, his body locking up on him. He saw the workshop and the suit, saw Zechs force him into it, saw him start the system up.

He recalled all the images the suit had generated, working as it had been meant to for only the second time in its existence and felt them burn into his mind all over again. Too much information for anyone to process, even with the system on low. He’d only ever used the Epyon once on full power but it had been enough – God, had it been enough – and then sworn never to again. The suit had told him he had no future, had shown him that no one had any future and the knowledge had come close to driving him mad.

He tumbled from the chair as remembered shock made his body start seizing, and was distantly thankful to whoever caught him and saved him from the bruising landing, but his attention was on all the images of everything that he was missing.

It was, he realised dimly, everything that he had missed. He was being given years worth of knowledge that he had never lived. Epyon had been right the first time – Treize Khushrenada had no future. He saw the moment that Tallgeese vaporised, the power of the blast a shock even to him, saw Zechs and Heero square off against each other one last time to end the war.

He saw the world steady into a shocked peace, saw a flash of a red-haired child – her roots reaching back into the weave of Treize’s past – start another war, and saw the Gundam Pilots team up with Une and Zechs to stop it.

He saw Zechs and Noin run to Mars together so that Zechs could heal, finding himself for the first time, grieving for his friend and lover, and moving on as best he could. He saw Duo and Dorothy meet face to face for the first time and fall instantly in lust with each other. He saw their lust bite back when she became pregnant a scant year later, saw the two of them marry and have their son and learn to love each other.

He saw Zechs and Noin make the decision to have a child, saw the baby turn to little boy and then to a gangly pre-adolescent. He registered that Noin was suddenly gone.

He saw Relena and Quatre fall in love. Saw the birth of their daughter and Dorothy’s second child.

He saw Une’s life, and Heero Yuy’s and Trowa Barton’s. He saw Chang Wufei’s.

He saw what the world had become and it made his heart sing. He saw what was coming and it made him scream.

When he came back to himself, he was being held in someone’s arms and he could feel strong fingers stroking through his hair soothingly. He coughed weakly and instantly there was a glass of water at his lips, the chill liquid easing the strain in his throat.

He opened his eyes to see Zechs looking down at him. The man was pale with fear and looked halfway to crying. He began to speak and Treize lifted a heavy hand to rest gentle fingers across his mouth.

“How long?” he asked softly, lifting them away again.

Zechs hesitated. “Twenty five years,” he said eventually and there was a world of apology in his voice. “As far as we know, you’ve been dead for twenty five years.”

Treize nodded, accepting that as best he could, and then reached up, slipped his arms around the older man and clung as he began to shake in reaction to it all.

Chapter Text

Treize took the heavy crystal snifter that Zechs handed him gratefully, gripping it in both hands and balancing it on one knee to be sure of keeping hold of it as he watched the older man sink into the soft chair opposite him with a sigh.

“I know it’s a little early for it,” Zechs said, “but you look like you need it.”

Treize glanced down at the glass, then lifted it and knocked the inch of rich amber liquid back in one go. It burned his throat on the way down but the heat and the potent, smoky taste felt remarkably good against the cold shakiness still gripping his body.

He’d been rather surprised – dimly, and through the haze of the reaction he was in the grip of – when Zechs had gathered him up and stood, lifting him easily and carrying him from the dining room across the corridor into this little sun-soaked sitting room. Before he could protest, he’d found himself settled onto the cushions of a wonderfully comfortable over-stuffed couch and held gently until he’d gotten himself together. When Treize had moved to sit up, Zechs had let him go and gone to a little cabinet in a corner of the room to fix the glass of whisky.

The general put the empty snifter down on the antique coffee table in front of the couch and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to centre himself.

“How do you feel?” Zechs asked him quietly.

Treize shrugged. “How am I supposed to feel?” he wondered. “I’m not entirely sure it’s all sunk in yet.”

The older man nodded in understanding. “I’ve had a few moments like that. Take your time.” He reached out to put his hand on a phone very like the one in Treize’s bedroom. “Is there anything I can get you? I have a nanny-turned-governess who makes the most fabulous cocoa. I’m sure she’ll be willing to spice it a little if I tell her it’s for a grown up.”

Treize shook his head. “I’m all right.” He looked up, and sighed ruefully. “It’s silly. I can run a war, organise a revolution, and even orchestrate my own death without turning a hair. Tell me I’ve survived and I’m falling apart at the seams.”

“One could imagine that the small matter of being tossed a quarter of a century through time with no knowledge of how you got there might have something to do with it,” Zechs pointed out.

“Perhaps,” Treize allowed and it won a small chuckle.

“I shouldn’t fret over it too much. A lot of it is probably physical, actually. I wasn’t trying to get you to eat just to put off having to explain. Experience has taught me always to feed people and let it settle for a while before shocking them half to death.”

“Oh?”

“Fatherhood,” Zechs explained with a grim smile. “Having to tell your eight year old son that his mother has been killed teaches a brutal master class in delivering bad news.”

“Yes,” Treize agreed carefully. “I imagine it would, at that.” He gave it a moment, then asked, “Can I ask what happened to Noin?”

“A sniper,” Zechs answered, his voice low. “Relena and I had just stepped out of a full day’s ESUN summit and we were standing outside the council chambers waiting for our car to be brought round. Noin came to join us, discussing what we were going to have for dinner that night, or something like that. The shooter fired from the roof of an adjacent building, aiming at either Relena or me – we’re not sure. Noin somehow caught a flash of light off his scope just before he pulled the trigger and put herself in the way. The first round went into my shoulder, the other caught Noin in the back of the head.”

Treize winced, able to picture the scene far too easily. He’d been the target of several assassination attempts over the last few years, and twice had watched the bright young soldiers serving as his bodyguard’s take bullets intended for him. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “She was a wonderful and amazing woman. It must have been a crushing loss.”

“It hurt,” Zechs replied simply. “It had consequences, too. Relena would probably be married to Heero now, rather than Quatre, if it hadn’t happened. And, of course, Aleks has never been quite the same. I don’t think he’s ever quite forgiven me for surviving when she died.”

Treize raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure he doesn’t think that.”

Zechs snorted. “I’m sure he does – he’s told me so several times, but that’s adolescence for you.” He got to his feet and scooped up the glass, taking it back to the cabinet.

“It wasn’t for me,” Treize replied sharply. “It wasn’t for you. I hope you put him across your desk for it.”

“Treize,” Zechs said dryly, lifting the whisky bottle by way of offering a refill, “think what I was doing at nineteen. I can hardly comment on teenage tantrums – and neither can you, given that you spent your time plotting the downfall of a world government!” He splashed the alcohol into the glass and came back across the room. “And I’ve never struck my son. I’ve never needed to.”

Treize took the glass from his friend silently, biting down on his reply as he realised that he had no place offering any further commentary.

Zechs sat back down and smiled knowingly. “Say it,” he said, making Treize start a little.

“Oh,” Treize murmured, taking a sip of his whisky. “Ah, I was simply thinking that if Aleks thinks it’s all right to speak to his father in such a disrespectful and deliberately hurtful way, then maybe you have needed to discipline him more. I know I’m not a father,” he continued, missing completely the way his friend flinched and bit his lip, “but I was an instructor for a few years and it was my experience that most teens benefit from a firm hand. Especially the boys. There were very few cadets it didn’t work with eventually.”

Zechs smiled. “Probably true, but Aleks isn’t a military cadet.” He laughed softly. “And strange as it might sound, I like that he feels secure enough to pitch fits at me occasionally. He’s a product of his time, and I thank God for it.”

Treize had to smile in agreement. “If you’re happy with him then…”

“Most of the time.” Zechs propped an elbow on the arm of his chair, and looked at the younger man with an expression that was both happy and a little wistful. “This is very strange,” he commented. “I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve wished you were around to talk to like this, especially after Noin died.”

Treize raised an eyebrow. “Really? Surely you had your friends? Dorothy, or Relena?”

“Oh, yes. Of course. But it wasn’t the same.” He tilted his head to one side a little more. “Would you think me terribly forward if I say that I missed you?”

Treize shook his head. “Not too badly, I hope?”

“Occasionally,” Zechs admitted softly. “Aleks was named for you, you know. Your middle name, of course, and not your first – I don’t think he would have thanked me for making him one of about five million Treize’s – but the thought was there. The only difference is the slight respelling to make it the Sancian variant – Aleksander rather than Alexandrè.”

Treize blinked, caught between surprise and an amazing sense of privilege. “I… thank you!” he said. “I’m honoured.”

“That was the idea,” Zechs replied.

They sat, gazing at one another for a few moments before Treize spluttered. “Five million Treize’s!” he exclaimed. “What on Earth…?!”

Zechs started laughing loudly. “I knew you’d react like that!” he cheered. “I’ll have to tell Quatre he owes me a bottle of scotch. Yes, five million, thereabouts, at last census count. I’ll be able to address you as Treize in public without raising so much as an eyebrow because most of them are between 20 and 25 years old. You fit the demographic perfectly, given your age now. You’d have been born two months after the end of the Eve War, and ‘Treize’ was one of the most popular boy’s names for the first few years, especially in the old European countries. There are about five million instances of ‘Treize’ as a first name, and God alone knows how many as a second or third.”

“Good grief!” Treize shook his head in incredulity. “Those poor children. Did no one think to inform their parents that it was a ridiculous idea?”

Zechs shrugged. “Can’t argue with heroism, my friend. You’re going to get a real kick out of reading some of the history texts and biographies that have been written of you.”

There was utter disbelief in Treize’s eyes as he stared at the blond for a moment, then downed the rest of his whisky, put the glass down and buried his face in his hands. “Sweet merciful God,” he moaned. “Biographies?”

Zechs was on his feet before he really knew he’d moved, reaching across the table to put a hand on his friend’s shoulders. “Too much?” he asked gently, wincing at the way the man’s breath was catching.

Treize just shook his head helplessly. “Biographies!” he choked. “Oh, my God!”

“Treize!” Zechs reached down with his other hand as well, intending to pull the smaller man up. He stopped when a hitching, bubbling sort of noise rose from the general.

The man dropped his hands to wave at Zechs feebly. “Biographies!” he repeated and dissolved into peeling laughter.

The blond just stood and stared. He hadn’t seen Treize go off on a giggling fit like this since they’d both been children, and he didn’t think he’d ever seen the man laugh so hard he was crying with it and clutching at his ribs. There was an edge to the sound that Zechs – if he were honest – didn’t entirely like, but he recognised it for what it was, a much-needed release of tension, and soon found that it was infectious and that he was chuckling right along with his friend.

He was smiling happily when Treize finally pulled himself together and wiped at his eyes. “Oh…” Treize sighed. “I am sorry! But really – Biographies? What on Earth did they find to write?”

“Enough,” Zechs answered him good-humouredly. “I have a few in the library, I’m sure – publishers keep sending me copies in the hopes that I’ll endorse one or the other. I’ll let you have at them when you’ve got your bearings a bit.” He looked at the younger man assessingly for a moment, then held out a hand. “Come with me,” he offered quietly.

Treize hesitated for a few seconds before he put his hand in Zechs’s and stood up. “Where are we going?” he asked, as the older man closed strong fingers around his own tightly.

“I thought you might enjoy a walk in the gardens,” Zechs told him, tugging gently, and leading his friend towards the door. “I usually make a point of spending half an hour or so a day out there and it’s a lovely morning. You never were one to be indoors if you didn’t have to be.”

Treize smiled at the thought. He’d caught glimpses of the grounds of the palace through the various windows he’d passed during the morning, and had seen enough to know that Zechs had restored the gardens as well as the palace itself. He nodded his agreement and followed willingly.

As they neared a heavy wooden door, Zechs straightened his posture a little, letting go of Treize’s hand and running the other over his hair.

He stopped before the door and turned to look at the younger man. “Just a word of caution about one of the things that has changed since you were last a guest here,” he started. “Sanc was in a bad way when I agreed to take the throne, and one of the ways we footed the bill for the restoration of the Palace and the Monarchy was to make ourselves a tourist attraction. We agreed to open the Palace and the grounds, as well as various other Crown Properties, to the public. The original plan was to discontinue it when we had the country’s economy back on an even keel but that’s never quite happened. Tourism has become a huge business again in the last fifteen years and a large part of Sanc’s annual revenue has become dependant on it. We’re perfect for it, I suppose, given the nature of the country itself, the history and the fact that we’re one of only three fully functioning Monarchies left in the world, and the only one whose leaders also hold political positions, but it has meant some changes in how the Palace is run.”

He gestured at the door. “You’ll notice when you get more familiar with the place again that there are some odd things about the doors. They’re all made of heavy wood, but some are stained and some are painted, and it has nothing to with the room or the corridor they’re in.”

Treize nodded, glancing back over his shoulder to the door they had just come through, and then back at the one in front of him. Sure enough, the first was stained and the second was painted, when it would have made far more sense from a decorator’s perspective to have them match. Was there a reason for it, then?

“It’s that way deliberately,” Zechs confirmed. “It serves as a visual reminder for those of us who live here. Within the sections of the Palace that are strictly private, all the doors are whatever wood stain will suit the décor best; within the areas that are opened to the public most of the time, they’re all painted. Any door painted white, like this one, signifies that you’re about to cross from the private areas to the public. It’s worth making a point of noticing them, if only so you aren’t caught off guard by the pack of tourists that could be standing on the other side of it. I should also warn you that I expect a reasonable degree of decorum in any behaviour that could be on public show, and I’ve been known to be rather harsh with people who don’t come up to snuff.”

“That seems fair enough,” Treize said, and Zechs nodded.

“I didn’t think you’d be one to object. The same thing applies in the gardens – but with metal gates for the public areas and wooden ones for the private. A white gate marks a transition point. It is possible to get everywhere within the private areas of both without ever setting foot in the public ones, but – so you know, and don’t complain at me later – it will often mean going quite some distance out of your way, and sometimes actually outside and back in again at a different entrance.”

Treize shrugged. “I don’t see why it would be a problem,” he said, “if all I have to do is not make a show of myself.”

Zechs gave him a small, impish smile. “Well, there’s the rub, actually, and why some of the family will always take the detours. There’s been something of an understanding between the family, the tour-operators, and the press for years now: Public areas must be public – completely so – if the Private ones are to be private. It boils down to an agreement between both sides that goes something like this – they will leave us alone in private, which includes not taking photo’s through windows or trying to sneak through the transition doors, as long as we give them something in return. That something would be that if you walk into the public areas, you’re fair game for anyone who may be around.”

Treize raised an eyebrow. “In what sense?”

“That depends on who’s about. Generally speaking, it means standing chatting to tourists for a few minutes, occasionally filling them in on some bit of history about the place and often posing for lots of photos with them. Some of the tour guides have been working the palace for years, and will stop and chat just to catch up with what’s happening. They’ve become acquaintances over the years, and even friends. They leave anyone in Staff uniform alone, and they won’t approach the younger children.”

“What about the Press? Are they still as vulture-ish as I remember?”

“Some of them. The press expect the photos, especially in the lead up to some big event. They also expect you to answer any questions they ask, although we do have a protocol about what they can and can’t ask, and you can ‘no comment’ to a point.” Zechs shrugged. “It may seem odd, but it actually helps us to control what information gets to the media, and certainly the possibility that they may get to meet and talk to and have pictures taken with members of the Royal Family is a big part of the tourist draw.”

Treize nodded. “I can see how it would be. It seems fair enough, certainly. I’ll try not to embarrass you.”

Zechs chuckled. “I’m sure you won’t, but I wanted to warn you because I’m probably going to get pounced on by both groups the moment we step through this door. We’re in the middle of the school half-term break, which means a fairly high level of tourism, and we’re in the run-up to a big Social Function – our annual Halloween Fundraiser Ball.”

“It’s October, then?” Treize asked quietly after a moment, and Zechs blinked at him.

“Oh, damn!” he swore, as it dawned on him what Treize was asking. “I haven’t told you the bloody date, have I? I’m so sorry! Yes, it’s October – October 20^th, to be precise. You are, of course, invited to the Ball, which is the end of next week. I’m sure we’ll be able to find you a costume by then.”

Treize smiled coolly. “Have my uniform cleaned and repaired,” he said. “A bit of white face paint and talcum powder in my hair and I’ll go as my own ghost.”

His words were met with complete silence from the blond, the older man dropping his gaze and refusing to meet Treize’s eyes. “I’d rather you didn’t,” he said softly.

Treize watched him, then bit his lip. “I’m sorry,” he offered. “That was rather… tasteless of me, I suspect.”

Zechs shook himself. “A shade close to the bone, perhaps. I’m still trying to adjust to the fact that you’re here. For me, you’ve been dead for the last twenty-five years,” he confessed. “I wouldn’t like to test my grip on reality by having you look like your own ghost, not yet. Maybe next year.”

Treize shook his head. “Maybe not at all. I don’t think anyone but myself would find it funny, and it might not be wise to advertise my identity that heavily.”

“Dorothy, maybe, or Duo. The children probably would, but it’s less of an issue for them, of course.” Zechs broke off and smirked. “Felix definitely would. He actually dressed up as you once, a couple of years ago, blue contact lenses and all.”

“Yes, I vaguely recall Aleks saying something about an ‘outfit’ when he still thought I was Dorothy’s son. I got the impression that you didn’t appreciate it much.”

Zechs sighed. “I didn’t, and I let him know it, too. As did his mother.” He caught Treize’s look of curiosity and tilted his head. “What? Were you expecting me to have? Put yourself in my shoes – what you have done?”

The redhead smiled. “Torn strips off of him for the nerve, and then given Aleks a copy of your uniform, just to complete the look. I always did have a twisted sense of humour.”

Zechs looked a little taken aback. “Yes, you did.” He shook his head ruefully. “Christ, the media frenzy that would cause – the press wouldn’t know whether to love it or crucify us for it.”

“‘Loved or hated, but never ignored’ – it’s an old rule,” Treize murmured. “The publicity would certainly be good for your tourism, and you could always pass it off as youthful stupidity and issue a formal apology if it really did offend anyone.”

“Remind me to tell my press agent he’s fired, will you?” Zechs replied, grinning suddenly. “I don’t think I’ll be needing him anymore. I’d forgotten how damn good you were at stuff like that.”

“Necessity is the best teacher,” Treize quipped dryly.

“Quite,” the older man admitted. “Well, that idea aside, I’ll inform our court dresser that she has another person to cater for and let her come up with something. If a hyperactive blonde accosts you with a tape measure in the next couple of days, it’ll be her wanting your measurements. Do let her take them – she’ll need to have them eventually anyway, for all the ceremonial stuff you’re going to need.”

Treize raised his eyebrows, but nodded his agreement, wondering silently what the older man meant by ‘ceremonial stuff.’ He didn’t ask – recognising that it would probably mean another long explanation and knowing that he would be best to assimilate the information he would need in small doses.

He flicked a glance at the door and watched as Zechs picked up on the hint, reaching for the handle. “Brace yourself,” the older man warned, and stepped into the corridor on the other side.

Treize took a deep breath and followed him, both eager for, and nervous of, this first exposure to a world he didn’t know. The noise level in the corridor was the first thing he noticed, realising that the dividing door must be soundproofed somewhere under the white paint to have blocked the collection of voices rising from the crowd of people ambling around the hall.

He glanced around swiftly, trying to get his bearings as Zechs reached past him and closed the door firmly behind him. “Second floor portrait gallery,” the older man murmured into Treize’s ear, “and the code for the door is 1-2-1-7-1. I’m sure you’ll be able to remember it.”

The former general nodded slowly. Yes, he was sure he’d be able to recall his birth date. “Didn’t that picture used to be in the dining room?” he asked, pointing discreetly to a portrait of Zechs’s paternal grandmother.

The King glanced in the right direction, and then nodded. “Yes. It’s mostly little things like the placement of pictures that you’ll find have changed. We tried to restore as closely as possible, paintings and all, but it makes more sense – if one thinks of the tourism again – to have family portraits all collected together.” He gestured at the room himself. “If you look more closely, you’ll notice that the room has been arranged in a rough timeline to show the history of the Royal Family. The brass wires and plaques between the pictures give important dates and facts.”

Treize let his eyes skim around the room, seeing what Zechs was describing. It was a clever bit of arrangement and a beautiful effect. The pictures, varied as they were in style and formality and even in condition, covered the upper half of the walls in the room, woven into a lovely tapestry by the connecting brass wires. Framed by the rich cream of the paint behind them and the golden tones of the wood panels of the lower halves of the walls, and lit by the sunlight flooding through the full-length windows at either end of the hall, the room was warm and peaceful – a fitting tribute to the people it commemorated.

“How much time do you spend in here?” Treize asked softly.

Zechs turned his head to look down at the smaller man again, smiling sadly. “Not as much as I used to. It took me five years to put this together, tracking down pictures and having them restored, or commissioning new ones to be painted from file images and as the children reached suitable ages. It was one of the most time consuming parts of the restoration – this and the Eve Wars exhibit around the corner. I’ll let you see that some other time,” he added as Treize opened his mouth to express his curiosity.

The redhead was prevented from asking directly by soft laughter from behind him. He turned his head to look for the source and came face to face with a small, neat woman dressed in a grey suit and holding a clipboard.

“You’re doing my job for me, Your Majesty,” she chirped, dropping Zechs a little bob of a curtsey.

Zechs smiled at her. “My apologies, Elaine. I don’t mean to. I was just answering a question for my friend here.”

The woman answered his smile with one of her own. “Oh, I don’t think anyone will complain,” she teased. “Would you mind?” she asked, gesturing at the crowd that was beginning to turn and notice the two men with much chattering and excitement.

Zechs looked at Treize for a moment, asking silently if the younger man would mind the delay and the former general just shook his head. “All right,” Zechs told Elaine. “I have a few minutes, I suppose. Do you want me to answer questions or just to talk?”

The tour-guide – or, at least, that’s what Treize was assuming she was – beamed up at Zechs. “If you could answer a few questions, I’m sure they’ll be happy. I’ve already run through the standard talk with them. We were about to move on.”

The blond nodded. “Ask them to stick to this room and the history of the Palace, please. I’m not answering questions about the Wars today.”

“Fair enough. We haven’t got to the War exhibit yet anyway.” Quickly, raising her voice just enough to be heard above the general hum of conversation, she called her group together and explained what was about to happen.

Treize made to take a discreet step to one side, out of the direct focus of attention, and stopped when Zechs caught his wrist and held him in place. He gave the older man a questioning look and received a reassuring smile in response. “They’ve taken you for Felix, most likely, which means it’ll look very odd if you keep out of the way. He’s very co-operative with the tourists, normally, and makes a point of stopping to talk if he at all can. If you get asked anything directly that you can’t answer just pass the question to me.”

The younger man nodded, wondering why Zechs was under the impression he’d be able to answer any question.

He watched and listened as Zechs fielded half a dozen questions about various people and the Palace itself, learning that one of Zechs’s great-great-grandfathers had been notorious for his extra-marital affairs, personally founding several cadet branches of the Peacecraft family that were still being traced, and that the Palace had been restored, as much as was possible, with materials and craftsmen from the Sanc Kingdom, with most of the suppliers to the household still being local.

He also learned that the Halloween Ball to which he’d been so recently invited really was a huge deal in Sanc, hotly anticipated for months before, mainly because the costume theme of the Ball and the Charity to which the proceeds would go were kept a secret until Zechs gave his opening speech at the Ball itself.  

He was drifting into his own thoughts a little when someone caught his attention.

A man at the back of group had queried if Zechs would mind answering a more personal question, asking, “I was wondering, Your Majesty, if there was any truth to the rumours that a Royal Wedding might be in the offing?”

Treize blinked. A Royal Wedding? Who? Relena and Quatre were married, so it couldn’t be her, and surely Aleks was too young. Was Zechs involved with someone?

Instantly, Treize found that he felt utterly sick. The idea that Zechs could have a partner, or a wife, hadn’t really had time to occur to Treize yet, but as he stood there waiting for Zechs’s answer, he realised that he’d been reacting for the most part as though things were still as they’d always been between himself and his oldest friend. It was a false conclusion, of course – Aleks proved that. Clearly, Zechs had moved on enough to father the boy with Noin and he’d had more than a decade since her death to move on again. It was likely, very likely, that he’d met someone else that he could care for to some degree. Until three days ago, there hadn’t been a thing to stop him.

It was possible that there still wasn’t.

Swallowing carefully, Treize forced himself to meet the sudden look that Zechs shot at him, hoping his sudden sense of loss and light-headedness wasn’t showing on his face. If Zechs was involved, or even engaged, what did that mean for Treize’s place in life? He’d been told several times that morning that Zechs had missed him, that he was happy to have him back, and he’d taken it at face value, never stopping to question it.

Duo had been right when he’d accused Treize of forgetting that his arrival affected more people than himself. For the first time, it was brutally clear to Treize that his being here could create all sorts of difficulties for his friends and family. They’d moved on, all of them; they’d grieved and healed and lived, and they’d done it without him. If it had been a few months, or a few years, then perhaps there would have still been a place for him, but a quarter of a century…!

“Those rumours are rather exaggerated, I’m afraid,” Zechs said, a heartbeat later. “I promise you that if I had any intention of marrying, an announcement would be made.”

“What about the fact that you’ve invited Lady Anna Une to the Halloween Ball as your personal guest? You’ve been seen with her a few times now and the two of you go back a long way. There’s been a lot of speculation that you were waiting for your son to reach his majority before you began courting her formally.”

Treize saw Zechs’s face tighten, saw the little look he shot the tour guide, and it made him wince. Zechs and the Lady?

“The Lady and I are friends,” Zechs countered coldly. “You’re quite right when you say we’ve known each other a long time.”

“But…”

“I’m sorry,” the tour guide broke in, “but I think the King has somewhere he needs to be and we’ve kept him quite long enough.”

There was chorus of thank yous, and she directed the group towards the end of the corridor. “I’m sorry about that, sir,” she apologised to Zechs. “I suspect he’s a reporter from one of the tabloids you’ve banned from the Palace. He’s been asking me questions like that all day.”

“Not your fault, Elaine. Thank you for the timely interruption.”

The woman bobbed Zechs another curtsey and smiled. “You’re welcome, sir,” she chirped, and hurried after her group.

Zechs came back to Treize’s side with a tight smile on his face. “Sorry about that,” he murmured. “They would choose today to demonstrate the downside of our open-door policy.” He ran an inspecting look over Treize. “Are you all right? You look a little….”

The former general took a deep breath and made himself nod. Duo’s words firmly in mind, he answered, “I’m fine,” and committed himself to remembering that he really wasn’t the only person involved in this whole bizarre scenario.

Chapter Text

A little while later, Zechs watched Treize raptly as the younger man moved about the rose garden, wondering if it would be appropriate to tell the younger man that the sight was something of a dream come true for the blond.

Zechs had personally designed the garden during the early years of the restoration, choosing plants and digging beds by hand, refusing to let any of the army of gardeners that had been hired touch any of it until he was sure it was as complete as he could make it. Many was the early morning that Noin had come out to find him pottering about in it, and she had, more often than not, simply gone to her knees at his side, helping him with whatever he was doing until he indicated he was done. It was one of the things he’d loved about her most – that she could understand so well what demons drove him from their bed and that she never resented the solace he found from them in creating a memorial to the lover she’d replaced.

The rose garden was closed to the public and always had been, and though it had started as a monument to a dead general, Zechs knew that over the years it had come to mean many things to many people. For Dorothy and Wufei, it had come to mean everyone they had lost during the wars, Treize amongst them; for Duo and Trowa, it was a place to recall their broken childhoods by its very contrast to what they had grown up with; for Heero and Quatre, it was the representation of the peace they had fought so very hard for, and what they had suffered to achieve it.

For Relena, the garden was where she came to contemplate her relationship with Heero – her first love as much as Treize had been Zechs’s. Heero had vanished into thin air for almost two years after Noin’s death, and by the time he returned, he’d been gone long enough that Relena had set aside the last of her childhood, fallen in love with, and married Quatre. As far as Zechs knew, his sister was perfectly happy in her marriage, but that didn’t stop her occasionally coming to the rose garden and thinking about what might have been.

As they grew older, the garden had come to mean something for the children, too. It was the place where they’d come to learn of the amazing, frightening history that bound their parents together, hearing stories of mobile suits and battles, grand hopes and sweeping destruction – the revolution and war they were too young to have known. Slowly, as time passed, hearing such first-hand and personal accounts of events that their schoolmates and friends only knew about from textbooks and lessons began to leave its impression, and the garden became more than a collection of flowers for them as well.

What Felix and his sister, Helen, saw in it, Zechs had never asked, but Katerina, Relena’s daughter, used it to commemorate the grandparents she had never known – all of them – and Wufei had made it the place where his son came to practice the traditional techniques he was learning.

Aleks, Zechs knew, came to garden to mourn his mother, and to remember what a wonderful woman she had been. The King had never thought of keeping the truth of the garden from his son and Aleks, even as a young child, had realised what it said about his mother that she had put so much work into it. More than once, the older man had found his son grieving for his mother amongst the flowers she had helped to plant. Sometimes he’d chosen to join the boy and share his pain; others, he’d slipped away quietly, knowing some things couldn’t be shared and shouldn’t be witnessed.

Perhaps only for Une and Mariemeia did the garden mean the same thing as it did for Zechs and they, like him, had spent their time here over the years, and then begun avoiding it altogether.

Watching from a corner as Treize moved from bush to bush, his fingers brushing the petals of those in bloom delicately, his head tilting as he inhaled the heavy aroma, Zechs wondered if the younger man recognised the theme of the plants. Every one of them meant something, every one commemorated some particular place or occasion or sentiment that had been important to the two of them.

Zechs had poured his soul into the plants the younger man was pottering through at the moment, sinking everything he’d felt for his captain and soul mate into the soil as he worked it – all the love and passion and longing from a lifetime’s intimacy, all the anger and confusion and resentment the events of the War had left him with.

It was here that he’d worked through the worst of his grief, too. More than one of the plants had seen his tears as their first watering and more than one was a replacement for an earlier specimen destroyed when he couldn’t bear for another second the knowledge that the man he was creating the garden for would never see it.

The place really was a shrine – one that Zechs thought he might finally be able to enjoy as much as other members of his family did. The look on Treize’s face when he’d seen the garden had made all the hours and hours of often heart-breaking work that had gone into it over the years seem worth it.

As the King watched Treize make his way to the middle of the garden, following the meandering paths until he reached the focal point, he wondered idly what it would come to mean to the man it had been made for.

In the very centre of the garden, alone in a clear space and flanked by two stone benches, a single rose bush had been allowed to grow unchecked. It was wild and straggly, unkempt next to the pruned perfection of the other bushes, but its blooms were perfect – deep red and velvety soft – and it possessed a beauty all its own. Tucked just at the base of the bush was a small stone plinth

Zechs knew by the way the man stiffened the moment Treize read the small brass plaque fixed to that stone, and he made his way to one of the benches on silent feet, sitting down as Treize read the words again, saying them silently. Zechs didn’t need to see the plaque to say them with him.

For the soldiers of the future – may there be no need for them

For the soldiers of the past – may they never be forgotten

“It seemed appropriate,” the older man said softly, when his companion looked at him with eyes that were perhaps too bright. “I thought… you wouldn’t mind the amendment,” he added.

Treize shook his head. “Of course I don’t,” he replied, his voice hoarse. He turned slowly, looking over the whole garden. “This is…”

“For you,” Zechs answered quietly, wondering if it had been a mistake to bring his friend here so soon. He seemed so close to his limits suddenly that Zechs was a little afraid for him.

There was a heartbeat when the blond thought Treize was going to yield, but the younger man simply closed his eyes for a moment, his expression eloquent to his feelings in a way he couldn’t have expressed by any other means. It was probably as open as Zechs had ever seen him be.

He opened them again after a time and smiled, his gaze melancholy and joyful both. “That bush needs pruning,” he commented and Zechs smiled back at him gently.

“By no one’s hand but yours, my friend,” he answered warmly.

______________________________________

Treize knocked on the door to Zechs’s office an hour or so later, waiting until he heard the other man call for him to come in before he opened the door and stuck his head through it.

The older man was sitting behind a wide, ornate mahogany desk with a pen in one hand, a coffee cup in the other and papers strewn all over the polished surface. “I was beginning to wonder whether I’d have to come and drag you out of the rose garden by force,” he quipped. “Was it boredom or curiosity that made you come and find me?”

Treize had the grace to flush a little as he stepped into the room, not sure whether to stare at the sheer volume of books, files and papers first, or at the discreet gold-framed glasses Zechs had perched on the bridge of his nose. “A bit of both, I think,” he confessed. “I made myself come to the conclusion that the roses will still be there tomorrow and came inside. Are you busy?”

The King smiled. “No more than I normally am. It’s mostly routine – running a kingdom generates a lot of paper.”

“That doesn’t surprise me in the least. Oz was bad enough, and the Khushrenada estates were worse, though my solicitors usually did most of that for me.” Treize put his head on one side. “I was wondering if that offer to go shopping was still open?”

“Of course it is,” Zechs replied. “Like I said, none of this is really urgent and most of it is nothing Relena or Aleks can’t do if I ask them nicely enough. Should I feed you first or would you like to wait until we’re in the city and find somewhere?”

“Whichever you’d prefer,” Treize answered. “I’m still not especially hungry, if I’m honest. I think I’ve had one too many shocks this morning for my body to even think about something so normal.”

The blond nodded sympathetically. “We’ll eat in the city, then. I know a restaurant with a chef that could tempt a saint. I’ve never known anyone refuse the man’s cooking and you could stand a few decent meals from the way you look. When did you lose weight?”

Treize raised a surprised eyebrow. “Is it that obvious?” he wondered.

The older man shrugged. “Oh, I’ll grant that it could be my memory playing tricks,” he admitted, “but I don’t think so. I got a fair look at you when I was helping Sally strip you out of your uniform, after all.”

That comment had the second eyebrow joining the first. “You have me at a disadvantage, then, I think.” Treize shrugged. “I dropped about half a stone when I was under house arrest in Luxembourg and the same again in the last month or so of the war. It was the same cause both times – stress and too much work. Worrying about you is not good for me.”

“I know the feeling,” Zechs retorted, then shook his head. “Sally isn’t going to be pleased. I’d brace yourself for the lecture of a lifetime when she finds out. She has a thing about people making themselves ill for no good reason.”

“I take it this ‘Sally’ is a doctor?” Treize asked, his expression rather wary.

Zechs smiled at him reassuringly, standing up and stepping out from behind his desk. “She is. Sally Po is the Chief Medical Officer for the Preventers,” he explained as he walked a few steps and came to a stop to lean back against his desk and look at the other man. “She also happens to be a friend and an ex-Alliance Intelligence Officer. She handles most of the family’s medical care already and she seemed like the best choice for you, as well. She’ll be able to keep your identity a secret and she’s familiar with many of the special needs you’re likely to have as a patient.”

The younger man nodded a little, frowning. “Medical care was one of things I wanted to ask you about this afternoon, actually,” he said. “Would it be too much to hope that my personal physician is still practicing?”

“After twenty-five years?” Zechs reminded, watching as Treize winced at the words. “I have no idea,” he admitted. “Why do you ask?”

Treize gave him a careless-looking shrug as a reply. “There are a few matters I should probably discuss with a doctor sometime soon, that’s all, and I was hoping it wouldn’t have to be a complete stranger.” He caught the worried look that touched the blonde’s face and shook his head. “It’s nothing serious, I promise. Just a few odd issues. I have one or two prescriptions that need refilling, and there’s a few things I’d like some advice on but it’s all fairly routine.”

Zechs didn’t look convinced. “I see,” he said. “Unfortunately, even if your old doctor is still seeing patients, you can’t go near him. How would you explain who you are?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry if it’s not what you wanted, but Sally is very good at what she does and you only have to stick with her until we have an identity in place for you. If you don’t like her, you’ll be free to choose another doctor for yourself as soon as that happens.”

The redhead seemed to consider for a moment, his eyes focussed on the bookshelves behind the desk, and then he smiled ruefully. “I’m certain your Sally is perfectly capable, Zechs – I wasn’t questioning that – but some of what I wanted to talk about is a little personal and the idea of doing so with a woman I’ve never met isn’t an entirely comfortable one.”

Instant curiosity flared in Zechs’s pale eyes, tempered with a deep concern and layered with a type of amusement Treize didn’t think he’d ever seen in his friend before. There was a moment or two of silence as Zechs looked at the younger man steadily, and then the blond shook his head in a gesture that looked like nothing so much as fond exasperation. “Treize, you have my word that Sally is completely professional,” he started quietly, “and that nothing you say will surprise her, but if her gender is a problem for you with this, then I’m sure she has male colleagues she’d be happy to recommend.” He paused, then continued, “If you’d rather talk to another man, you only need to say so.”

Treize blinked at him for a moment, then flushed deeply and looked away, fixing his eyes on the floor. “Ah, that’s not… quite what I meant,” he managed, sounding horribly uncomfortable. “Forgive me, I should have said ‘person I’ve never met’ not ‘woman’. It’s not that kind of personal.”

Zechs raised an amused eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Not entirely, at any rate,” Treize admitted.

That won him a rather knowing smile. “Right. Dare I ask?” Zechs wondered aloud, his eyes sparkling mischievously for a moment.

“If you must,” Treize sighed. “It’s not something I’d prefer to tell you but I’m not entirely sure what information you need to have now.”

Zechs sobered instantly, straightening away from his desk as he pinned the younger man with a steady gaze. “I need to know if there’s something wrong that could be dangerous to yourself or to anyone else, or if it’s possibly in breach of the law in some way. If none of that is the case, then….” He shrugged.

Treize shook his head. “It won’t affect anyone else. It won’t affect me as long as I attend to the matter. As for the law… How much has it changed?” He looked away again, his expression suddenly tired and a little lost.

Zechs winced, seeing it, and immediately reached out to put his hands on the younger man’s shoulders, squeezing supportively. “Indulge me for a moment,” he said softly. “It’s 194. We’re in your office in Luxembourg. I’m still one of your pilots and you’re still my general. Occasionally we go to bed with each other as we have done since we were both far too young for such things. Are you with me?”

Treize nodded, his eyes having drifted closed. “Yes,” he agreed quietly.

“Right. Are you going to tell me why you need to speak with a doctor?” Zechs asked

“No,” Treize answered immediately. He opened his eyes and looked at his friend. “Absolutely not,” he emphasized.

Zechs nodded, squeezing with his hands again. “So, don’t tell me now, either,” he said. He let Treize go slowly and reached behind him to his desk, picking up a slim, folding phone. “You’re currently scheduled to see Sally on Friday morning and it’s Tuesday today. Do I need to move the appointment up?” he asked. “The original idea was to give you a few days to get your bearings before subjecting you to both the Preventers and to full medicals, but that was always open to change if necessary. It won’t be a problem,” he reassured.

The younger man took a deep breath and let it go slowly. “It might be a good idea,” he replied. “Another four days on top of the three I was unconscious might be a bit… more than is wise.”

“Right.” Zechs flipped the phone open and pressed a button, putting it to his ear. There were a few moments when nothing happened and then the phone lit up and Treize could hear the tinny whisper of someone speaking on the other end.

“Anne?” Zechs asked. “Sorry to bother you at work. I need to speak to Sally and I wasn’t for dealing with your switchboard.” There was another pause. “Yes, my dear, I realise that you aren’t a receptionist.” He smiled. “No, we’re all fine. It’s simply that the appointment for our newest addition needs moving up. Sorry?” Zechs asked, then took the phone away from his ear for a moment and rolled his eyes at the younger man. “No,” he said. “No, he’s fine.”

Treize watched in not inconsiderable surprise as the blond smiled affectionately, leaning over his desk to pick up a pen and notepad. “I don’t know. No. No, I… What do you mean, why? Because I didn’t ask! It’s not my business.” He winced suddenly. “Anne, love… Anne! Down, girl!”

Treize blinked and struggled to keep himself from choking. Was Zechs really talking to whom Treize thought he was? The general would have been willing to bet it would have taken more than a quarter of a century to get those two on civil terms.

“I don’t know,” Zechs continued after another pause. “Well, because he told me he could do to speak with a doctor sooner rather than later, that’s why, and I’m assuming he’s still mentally intact enough to know his own medical needs.” Zechs shook his head. “No, I haven’t asked him about that, either, and I’m not going to. Let the poor boy have one day’s peace, will you?”

Treize caught and held Zechs’s eyes at that, raising one eyebrow. ‘Poor boy?’ he mouthed, letting his expression convey what he thought of being referred to in such a fashion.

Zechs just shrugged, smiling. “For the love of God, woman!” he sighed. “Just let me speak to Sally, will you? I’m using the switchboard next time – which was probably your intention all along!” He paused again, then bit his lip. “All right, just hang on…” He took the phone away from his ear, and covered the pick-up with one hand. “Treize?” he asked, looking at the younger man. “Une,” he said, gesturing with the phone. “Do you want to speak with her?”

Treize went still, looking at the phone, then slowly shook his head. “No…no, I’d rather not. There are some things that I… No.”

Zechs raised a curious eyebrow. “All right.” He put the phone back to his ear. “Sorry about that, Anne, Relena wanted to speak to me. Treize isn’t here right now for you to speak to, I’m afraid. He’s out in the gardens but I’ll tell him you asked for him. You’ll see him whenever he comes to see Sally anyway. What? No, I am not feeding you a line. No!” He laughed down the phone. “All right. Yes, I’ll see you for dinner tomorrow. Thanks, Anne.”

Zechs put the phone face down on his shoulder whilst he chuckled and shook his head. “Honestly, that woman is a dreadful mother-hen sometimes. I’m sure she thinks you’re lying somewhere bleeding to death now, but never mind.” He lifted the phone again as someone began talking on the other end of it. “Sally. Hello.”

For a few seconds, Zechs just listened silently, then he nodded. “I’ll tell him. He’s why I’m calling, actually. Can we reschedule that appointment?” There was another pause, then Zechs looked over at Treize again. “Will tomorrow morning do? She says she can swing past here this evening if it’s something that won’t keep, but you’ll end up having to go in and see her anyway before the end of the week for a full exam. She’d rather do both at once.”

Treize nodded. “Tomorrow is fine,” he agreed. “If I’d known I was going to cause such a fuss…” he started.

Zechs waved him off, turning back to his phone. “Tomorrow, Sally. I’ll drive him in myself.” He smiled again and nodded, though the woman on the other end wouldn’t be able to see it. “All right, thanks. Bye.”

A few seconds later, he closed the phone and put it back on his desk. “Problem solved. She’ll see you in her office tomorrow morning, whenever you’re ready. Apparently, you have to dress exam-friendly – she told me to apologise in advance for all the tests she wants to run on you.”

Treize sighed. “Lovely.” He gave Zechs a look that was a little apologetic. “Really, though, you didn’t need to go to that much trouble.”

The King smiled gently. “Treize, one phone call does not count as ‘trouble’, and even if it had, I wouldn’t have minded. I want you as comfortable here as we can make you, as quickly as possible, and decent medical provision will play no small part in that.” He glanced away, pushing away from his desk and moving to straighten some papers. “It’s probably best if you get to know Sally now at any rate, just in case…” He trailed off, not finishing the sentence, and continued to tidy his desk.

The redhead blinked, watching him do it for a minute or two. “Just in case what?” he asked eventually, wondering.

Zechs shrugged. “Just in case.” He turned back around a moment later and smiled brightly. “But we can cross that bridge if we come to it. You might well not.” He put his head on one side, letting the forced expression fade slightly. “You said that medical care was one of the things you wanted to ask me about this afternoon. What were the others?”

Treize raised an eyebrow, considering. “I have quite a list, actually,” he said, deciding not to push for the time being. “But the next most important item would probably be to ask about the state of my finances.” He shrugged diffidently. “It’s all very well you saying you’ll take me shopping,” he added, “but can I actually pay for any of this stuff I need, or should I be asking you to lend me the money until I can work out what I’m going to do with myself now?”

“Treize,” Zechs replied, his voice mild, “when I said I was taking you shopping, I meant ‘I am taking you shopping’, not ‘I am accompanying you whilst you shop’. There’s no question of you paying for any of this yourself. You’ll have enough to cope with this afternoon already; I’ll handle the financial side of it.”

Treize met his friend’s gaze and then shook his head. “Ah, I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “If the situation is such that I can’t…”

The blond raised a hand to cut him off. “You can. You simply aren’t.” He moved around his desk again and sat back down in his chair. “I’m not doing this for charity’s sake, my friend,” he explained. “I have some very good reasons for it – starting with the fact that you are my friend and you need help.”

Treize took a step closer to the desk, his expression set. “That’s hardly grounds for…”

Zechs looked at him, then smiled. “Isn’t it? All right. If that stings your pride too much, then how about this – I’d be doing nothing for you that your family didn’t do for me when you took me in. Consider it repayment of a Royal debt.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Treize fired back. “What debt? You were a child, you’d lost everything – do you think my family even noticed the cost of a few sets of clothes and some toys?”

“You make my point for me,” Zechs commented quietly, and Treize glared at the comparison.

“I’m hardly a child!” he spat.

Zechs looked at him levelly, the look in his eyes unreadable. “No,” he said softly. “You aren’t.” He searched the younger man’s face, seeming to look for something. He looked away again after a few seconds and reached down to a drawer in his desk.

He withdrew a slim, blue folder and held it out to the other man. “The state of your finances as of close of business yesterday,” he explained. “I had a feeling you’d ask,” he added when Treize seemed taken aback.

“I… thank you,” the younger man said, taking the folder.

“Thank Quatre, not me. It was almost the first thing he thought of once we had the DNA tests authenticating your identity back. He’s been working on it ever since.” Zechs stood up again and made his way to stand by Treize’s side. “I’d suggest you leave reading it till this evening, or even tomorrow – it’s quite a complex document. The gist of it is that, although Quatre is far from finished with his work, you have enough money that you’ll never actually need an income.”

Treize glanced up, startled. “Has he made some sort of mistake then? Because in terms of liquid assets, I was never that well off. My day-to-day living expenses were always drawn from my salary; most of the capital I inherited was in the form of solid commodity, or entailed to pay for the upkeep of the family holdings.”

Zechs shook his head. “No mistakes. Just some clever number crunching.” He shrugged. “There are several sources for the money, actually. Some of it is from bank accounts of yours that have been in stasis since the war, some more from payments released to you by Une on behalf of the various Soldiers Funds and War Pensions she’s executor for these days – all money that has been accruing interest for twenty-five years. My Treasury owed most of the rest to you. A lot of what I inherited from you, I poured into the Kingdom when we were struggling to rebuild; that’s all been paid back to you, adjusted for inflation and exchange rates. Too, the Crown has been holding and using several assets that are rightfully yours for a good number of years now – property, artwork, plate, that sort of thing. You’ve been compensated for the loan, and the assets have been released back to you. The figures in there are nowhere near complete, of course – three days hasn’t been nearly enough time to start making sense of some of the issues involved. They’ll probably at least triple before things are straight – or so Quatre tells me.” Zechs shrugged. “One way or another, you have money. I took the liberty of dumping some of it into an account I opened. It’s in my name because we don’t have a legal identity for you, but I had the bank issue a second card that could be used by ‘any member of my household.’ You’ll find it in the back of the folder.”

Treize had been listening to the explanation silently, scanning his eyes over some of the papers in the folder rapidly. He flipped to the back of the folder at Zechs’s last words, quickly locating the little data card.

He tugged it free of its slot and then looked down at it blankly. “Zechs, I don’t…”

“Recognise the bank card, or the currency?” the blond asked. “You won’t. The currency was standardised throughout the ESUN about fifteen years ago. That type of security card is about five years old.” He smiled gently. “This would be the other reason why I’m paying for this shopping trip and not you. Even if I couldn’t just write off anything we spend as Expenses – which I can – I don’t imagine you want to take the time to learn the monetary system and how to use that card before we go shopping?”

Treize stared at the card, trying to familiarize himself with the currency sign. “How does it work?” he asked after a moment of looking.

“How does what work?” Zechs queried. “The card, or the currency?”

“Both,” Treize admitted.

The older man shook his head. “I was hoping to save explaining things like that for another day,” he began, and was cut off when Treize shook his head.

The redhead looked up at his friend, fingering the small, plastic card uneasily, fingertips brushing over the surface of the inlaid data chip and the raised, embossed sigil in the top left corner that indicated it had been issued by the Royal Bank of the Sanc Kingdom. “I need to know, Zechs. I’m helpless here without information like that.”

“I doubt that, Treize,” Zechs replied. “You’ve never been helpless in your life.”

The last thing Zechs expected was for Treize to laugh softly, the sound short and jaded. “Have I not?” he asked, and shook his head. “You have no idea.” The expression on his face was tinged with bitterness, not something Zechs was familiar with seeing.

The older man put a hand out automatically, reaching to comfort, or soothe, or something that would wash that look away. Boredom, hostility, contempt, cunning, condescension, even a certain amount of cynicism – those were all expressions Zechs was familiar with Treize displaying, but not bitterness, never bitterness. That was a feeling that had been reserved exclusively for him. It made him take a close look at his old commander, seeing fine lines at the corners of his eyes that belied his youth, and a tightness to the set of his mouth and shoulders that was completely new to Zechs’s experience of him.

It was enough to remind the blond that, although he’d been counting the time of Treize’s ‘death’ from the Christmas Eve he’d apparently died on, the two of them had actually been apart some time longer, having not seen each other – or even really spoken – since Zechs had run from Oz in the August of 195. The topic of that separation was another one of the hundreds that had yet to be raised between the two of them, and Zechs had been regarding it as of less importance than many others – one to be dealt with sometime in the future when they had a quiet evening and nothing else more significant to handle.

He was forced to wonder now whether that was another thing he needed to rethink. Treize hadn’t raised the topic either but something must have happened in those four long months to grant him the expression he was wearing; whatever it was, it hadn’t been in any of the accounts of that time Zechs had read. Neither his resignation, his house arrest, nor his return to power should have had that effect on the younger man.

“Treize…?” he questioned, settling his hand over the one the redhead was holding the folder with.

The former general remained still for a moment, then looked up and banished everything else behind a bright smile. “I’m sorry,” he apologised. “I’ve gotten rather a tendency for introspection lately. Feel free to snap me out of it if I do it again.”

Zechs nodded his assent, caught off guard and feeling unsure of what to do next.

Treize solved that problem for him, too. “If I promise not to ask too many questions, will you explain the currency and the card to me on the drive into the city?” he asked coaxingly.

The blond couldn’t help but smile. “Of course I will.” He took the folder back from the younger man, freed the card from its slot and passed it back to Treize, and then tossed the folder onto his desk. “Shall we, then? If I’m remembering your shopping habits correctly, one afternoon isn’t going to be nearly long enough!”

“Hey!”

The good-natured protest from Treize was accompanied by a light shove from one hand – a gesture Zechs used shamelessly as he caught the younger man’s hand and wrapped it firmly in his own as he pulled and drew Treize into a light hug.

He released him a moment later and danced out of the way of the next chiding slap aimed in his direction, before turning to the door and inviting the red head to follow him with a winning smile.

“You haven’t lost your reaction time, then,” Treize commented as he drew level again.

“Very little of it,” Zechs admitted. “This way,” he gestured.

Chapter Text

Zechs watched with a small smile as Treize skimmed the menu of the restaurant he’d been dragged into. Despite Treize’s protestations that he still wasn’t hungry, Zechs had insisted on them eating before they did anything – and as he’d expected, the wonderful range of smells emanating from the kitchens and from the plates of other diners seemed to have changed the redhead’s mind enough that he was at least reading the menu with serious intent.

Predictably enough, too, Treize had barraged Zechs with questions on their drive to the city, quizzing the King on every subject from the currency to current events to try and force some sort of bearing on himself should he need it. The former general had seemed both pleased and quite taken aback at the depth of thought Zechs had already put into the task of getting him acclimated. He’d been thrilled at learning that measures were already in place to bring him up to speed with things such as the monetary system, and surprisingly upset when Zechs had told him he would have to learn to modify the way he moved and spoke.

As Aleks had jokingly pointed out, Treize looked and sounded and moved exactly like himself, military leader and professional politician. For a man his age, born when he would have been, his posture was too perfect, his speech too formal, his self-discipline too rigid – no twenty four year old behaved that way anymore, and so neither could he if he wasn’t to give himself away.

One of the first things Zechs had suggested was that Treize needed to drop the elocution-lesson-drilled way he talked. In the time that had passed, Zechs had picked up more than a hint of his native accent to his English, Aleks’s voice was lilting with it, and even Dorothy had reverted to hinting at her Catalan origins. National identity had become important, Zechs had tried to explain, as the ESUN sought to repair the differences between colonist and Terran. No longer were people grouped by being born on Earth or in one of the five colony groups – instead the designations L1, L2, L3, L4 and L5 were always followed by the exact colony number, and those from Earth identified their home nation before anything, as they would have centuries before. Border controls were back, native languages were being taught in schools and spoken in homes – it was the complete antithesis of what Relena had originally proposed but it was working. Some laws were standardised, and the currency was Sphere-wide, but other than that, countries and colonies ruled themselves.

Unfortunately, that meant that Treize’s cultivated, carefully accent-less English was something that had to go. Nobody spoke that way anymore; most children had never even heard it outside of history classes. Even if General Khushrenada’s speaking voice wasn’t rather well known, it would draw too much attention, so after fifteen years of making himself suppress his childhood accent, Treize would have to learn to speak with it again at all times, and not just when he was tired or upset.

Privately, Zechs wasn’t too upset by that change – he’d always loved the natural rolling lilt of his friend’s voice. He’d conducted entire conversations in French with the man in previous years just to hear it.

He was doing the same now. As a way of forcing him back into the habit, Zechs had refused to talk to Treize in anything other than the general’s native language from the moment they’d left the palace, despite the younger man’s protests that Zechs’s butchery of the tongue was giving him a headache.

Treize chose that moment to look up at Zechs and smile. “I concede. I’m perhaps hungrier than I wanted to admit,” he acknowledged, gesturing apologetically.

Zechs smiled back. “I thought you might be. As I said, I’ve never known anyone not be able to eat here. I’ve been trying to get their head chef to come and work at the Palace for years now, but he says that would be selfish of him, and that everyone should experience his cooking.” He shrugged. “He’s probably right.”

Treize chuckled softly. “He’s probably right in thinking that making you come to him here is very good for his business,” he teased.

“That, too,” Zechs admitted. “Have you decided?”

Treize shook his head. “My first meal in twenty five years – I confess I’m having some trouble deciding.”

The blond rolled his eyes. “Let me choose for you, then?” he offered, and was glad when Treize nodded immediately.

“It might be faster,” the redhead admitted.

Zechs smiled again and turned to place two orders with the waiter that was approaching the table, deliberately switching into Sancian to do it so that his friend wouldn’t know what he was getting until it arrived. He turned back to see Treize watching him with fond amusement, obviously onto the trick.

Something about the expression made Zechs catch his breath a little; he’d thought he’d remembered what it felt like to have Treize looking at him like that, but he knew now he’d been wrong. Without thinking, he put a hand out across the table and brushed his fingers against the other man’s. “Treize,” he murmured, his eyes flickering back and forward as he studied his friend.

The younger man raised an eyebrow at the scrutiny but he didn’t move, giving his silent approval to the contact between them.

It was enough to make Zechs feel a little daring. “Treize,” he said again, his voice low and soft. “May I kiss you?”

Surprise flared in midnight eyes, the expression in them becoming a little diffident and protective. “If you’d like to,” Treize allowed after a moment. Only Zechs’s familiarity with him let the blond read the shades in his tone that indicated uncertainty and nervousness, rather than disapproval.

Keeping his gaze locked with his friend’s, Zechs leaned into him across the narrow width of the table separating them. He watched as Treize’s dark eyes flashed with a swirl of emotions; longing and hope and want for what Zechs was offering, but also fear and uneasiness.

Zechs let his gaze flick from his friend’s to skim the rest of his face and the line of his body, noting that Treize was holding completely still, every muscle seemingly relaxed. There was nothing on the younger man’s face to indicate anything but perfect acceptance, but, shadowed in the back of the gaze that met Zechs’s when he looked back up, hidden behind all the other emotions, was a thread of mistrust.

It stung, and it made the older man still in place, his eyes holding the other man’s until the former general began to frown a little.

“Zechs?” Treize queried softly, his tone full of puzzlement. “Have you changed your mind?”

Zechs shook his head slowly. “No,” he answered, as quietly as Treize had asked. Gently, he caught up the hand he’d covered with his own and lifted it to brush his lips across cold fingers. “No,” he repeated. “I’d like to, but you wouldn’t.” He found a small smile and shook his head again. “Don’t let me bully you,” he instructed softly.

Treize glanced down at his hand, then pulled it from Zechs’s carefully. “I won’t,” he replied. His fingers curled and his other hand came up to grip the first, shielding it as though protecting an injury. He opened his mouth to say something else, and stopped himself when he caught sight of the waiter approaching the table with a full tray.

A swift shake of his head seemed to serve in place of whatever the rest of his statement had been, leaving Zechs to puzzle over what his friend might have said as they began working on their meals and resumed a less personal line of conversation.

____________________________________

Despite the quarter of a century that had passed since he’d last seen Treize, Zechs had thought he’d remembered the other man relatively well.

An hour into their shopping trip, though, and the King was realising that he’d either forgotten more about Treize than he thought, or else he’d simply not known the man as well as he’d presumed he did.

The blond had been teasing when he’d made the crack about one afternoon not being enough time for Treize to go shopping, but there had been a real element of truth to the statement as well. The former general was, after all, looking at replacing every single thing he’d ever owned – something Zechs didn’t actually expect to do in one day and not least because it was Treize he was shopping with.

The Treize of Zechs’s memories had been a self-admitted hedonist with a borderline addiction to shopping. By the age of ten, Zechs had been well used to spending entire days being dragged from one shop to another with his friend, hopping from designer boutiques to army surplus stores and back again endlessly as the senior Cadet bemoaned the shortness of the Academy breaks. By thirteen, Zechs had learned to enjoy the trips as the one occasion that Instructor Treize could be guaranteed to be happy and affectionate, and not the stern teacher.

By his own later teens, Zechs had come to regard such shopping trips as foreplay, actively liking the time he spent indulging his commander’s obsession, having finally realised that Treize adored being shopped for and that there was something wonderfully intimate and almost erotic in dressing the older man. That afternoons of shopping usually led to evenings spent at the theatre or over lingering dinners, which then led to nights spent curled up in bed together, was no small part of the attraction.

On the basis of that, the prospect of an entire day where he was free to wander to his heart’s content around shops he’d never seen before, with an entire wardrobe to purchase and an unlimited budget for the first time in his life, should have had Treize bouncing off the walls with happiness. Zechs had been looking forward to watching his reactions, secretly hoping to recapture some of the feelings of those earlier trips, and more publicly hoping that a few hours doing something he’d always enjoyed would help Treize feel more grounded, even as having his own wardrobe would plant the first subtle seeds of belonging.

Treize had seemed interested in the idea before lunch but it had quickly become clear that he wasn’t enjoying himself at all. Contrary to Zechs’s expectations of enthusiastic dashing about, Treize was still wandering rather aimlessly through the first of the big department stores Zechs had suggested would be a good place to start. He’d made almost no purchases so far, managing to buy only one or two rather boring but necessary items before he’d seemed to stall and slide into his funk.

Occasionally, he’d pause in his steady meandering to reach out and touch something, rubbing the fabric between his fingertips, but then he’d let it drop back to where it had started and carry on moving.

The listlessness was making Zechs worry. It was possible, he knew, that it was too soon and that Treize had already dealt with enough to wear him out for the day, but somehow, Zechs didn’t think so. There was set to the pale face and the slim body that was suggesting a more complex cause.

Watching as Treize went through his aimless feel-and-abandon routine again, Zechs took a deep breath and closed the gap he’d left between the two of them. “Are you all right?” he asked quietly, searching the younger man’s gaze when Treize turned his head to look up at him. The sapphire eyes were completely empty for the first few seconds, the expression distant, and then Treize gave a helpless little shrug and shook his head with a rueful smile.

“I’m sorry,” he offered. “I’m being rather boring, aren’t I? No doubt you were expecting me to be halfway to heaven by now.”

Zechs put his head on one side. “I’d expected a shade more enthusiasm, I have to admit,” he agreed, answering the smile gently with his own. “But as long as the only problem is you being completely indecisive, I’ll live. What are you doing, master planning your entire wardrobe in your head and seeing how long it takes to make my feet hurt?”

Treize made some small, noncommittal noise in his throat. “Unfortunately not,” he replied. “Though the idea has some merit.”

Zechs laughed softly. “I’m sure it does.” He leaned lightly against one of the displays, keeping his eyes on his friend. “What is the problem, then? If you’ve had enough for the day, you can say so. I thought you’d enjoy this but if you’re too tired for it, I understand. You do look rather washed out.”

The redhead looked away, shrugging again. “I’m not tired. I feel a little sick, if you want total honesty, which probably explains my colour but it’s not…” he trailed off, glancing around himself as he gestured feebly. “I just… don’t really know where to start.”

The King had pushed himself up from his casual posture at Treize’s admission of not feeling well, but it was his last words that made the blond frown. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“Just what I said.” Treize sighed softly. “Where do I start, Miri? I get the impression that I own absolutely nothing at all, which one would think would make this easier, but I know nothing about the environment I’m living in, nothing about what I’m going to be expected to do in the next few days and how I should dress for it. Even if I did, it wouldn’t do me much good. I can’t read the labels on any of these clothes,” he admitted.

Zechs’s expression showed open surprise before he glanced down at the pile of shirts nearest to him and realised the mistake he’d made. He’d thought to warn Treize about the resurrection of national languages, but he’d completely overlooked the rest of what that meant for the younger man. Zechs might have been using his native Sancian dialect again for more than twenty years but, from Treize’s perspective, the language had been dead for more than fifteen.

From the day the Sanc Kingdom had fallen, its language had gone underground just as much as the survivors had, barely even spoken between families for fear of it becoming the key to their discovery. Zechs could recall occasionally using the odd word or two in front of Treize – mostly when he was very young or when they were both blind drunk – but the chances were that those few instances were the redhead’s total exposure to the tongue. Certainly, there was no hope of him being able to read it when Zechs himself had needed to put in some formal study to do so on his ascension to his throne.

Cursing himself silently, Zechs turned the nearest label over in his hands, glancing over the mix of Cyrillic and Roman characters that gave Sancian its unique sound and advertised the country’s origins so heavily. It was utterly familiar to the King now but it hadn’t always been and he swore again mentally as he tried to remember if Treize even knew any of the Slavonic languages. If he didn’t, then he would have to learn Sancian from the alphabet up and practically word-by-word – the characters representing each individual letter changed between the two alphabets almost randomly depending on the phrase – and it was more than likely that he would never manage more than a few awkward sentences. Not something that would improve his feeling of being at home.

“I don’t suppose,” Zechs began lightly, quirking an eyebrow as he fought to keep the importance of the answer from showing in his tone, “that you speak any Russian or Polish or some such, do you? I know it’s not likely but….” He stopped as Treize stared at him blankly. “What?” he asked.

“Not likely?” Treize demanded shortly. “With my surname?” he continued disbelievingly.

Zechs shrugged. “You’re French,” he answered. “Both of your parents were French. I know your name isn’t but neither is mine particularly Sancian, so I never really paid it much mind.” He tilted his head. “Especially since I can’t recall you ever using anything non-European.”

Treize shook his head slowly. “I speak fluent Russian, Zechs,” he corrected softly. “I always have. I even hold titles and property in the country.” He frowned, looking puzzled. “I thought you knew that. I could have sworn you’d heard the story at least once. My father’s family were White Russian aristocrats originally, who fled to Paris in the Bolshevik revolution. They’re as French as anyone else there is now, but they’ve never forgotten their roots.” He bit his lip. “I’m sure I told you that.”

“You probably did,” Zechs agreed. “Once over. It’s been a while,” he reminded. “Do you read the language as well? If you know the Cyrillic alphabet, you’re going to find Sancian a lot easier to get a handle on.”

Treize winced at the reminder of the time that had passed for Zechs, his gaze cutting away to fix on the floor instead. “Could you just translate for me, please?” he asked, and his tone was disturbingly uncertain. “I can read Cyrillic perfectly, but I don’t think I can learn a new language in one afternoon. I’m not….”

“I’m not asking you to learn Sancian this afternoon!” Zechs spluttered, interrupting whatever Treize had been about to add. “Good God! That wasn’t what I was thinking at all.” Without thinking about it, the King reached out and rested a hand on Treize’s shoulder. “No, of course I’ll translate for you, and gladly, though I’ll be surprised if you don’t pick up the odd word here and there by the time we’re done.” He squeezed lightly with his hand, bending his head enough that he could catch Treize’s eyes with his own, and found himself reacting straight from his parental instincts at the expression in them.

The younger man’s gaze was lost and frightened, clearly overwhelmed. It reminded Zechs so strongly of Aleks’s when he’d been told Noin was dead that the King found himself looking at Treize in a different light.

The King had no way to know it but his reaction was almost identical to that Dorothy had experienced in his morning room. For the first time since Treize’s arrival, Zechs looked at him and saw, not the confident officer of his memories, but a young man who was barely an adult, who was only a few years older than Zechs’s own son was.

The vulnerability both touched something in Zechs and made him wince at his own lack of understanding. Shaking his head, he tightened his grip and said firmly, “I shouldn’t have asked you to do this today. It’s too much for you.”

He waited for Treize to look up at him again and forced a reassuring smile. “You really have no clue, do you?” he asked. “Look, a lot of the reason I brought you here this afternoon was that Sally Po suggested that you might start to feel as though you belong here faster if you aren’t borrowing everything from other people all the time.” He shrugged lightly. “I happened to agree with her – I think it would help. Would you mind a suggestion?”

Treize blinked hesitantly. “What?” he asked carefully.

“Start by replacing what you’re wearing at the moment.”

Zechs smiled warmly when the younger man opened his mouth to protest, holding up his free hand to check him before he started. “I mean that literally,” he said. “I want you to substitute it all item for item. There’s nothing wrong with the outfit in terms of what you’re going to be doing for the rest of the day, but you obviously hate the colour of the sweater, the trousers aren’t exactly a perfect fit and those shoes have to be hurting your feet. I’ll leave off mentioning what I’m sure you think of the underwear and such,” the King added impishly and relaxed when he got a twitch of an answering smile from his friend.

“Would that suit you?” he asked. “It’ll only take half an hour or so to replace what you have on with something similar that you actually like,” he coaxed. “If you’re up to it when you’re done, this place has a café on the top floor. You could borrow the restroom to get changed and we could sit over a cup of coffee for a while and see how you feel. If you want to, I’ll rustle up a pen and paper and we can give some thought to what else you might want to buy today. If not, we can have the drink and then simply go home. You can always come back another day.” Zechs gave Treize another warm smile. “Even if I’m not free, I’m sure Felix will be happy to come with you. Or Aleks.”

The younger man, who had been taking all of Zechs’s abrupt burst of planning in with a mix of surprise and patience, suddenly raised an eyebrow and nodded. “All right,” he agreed quietly, then added, “What is he like?”

The King frowned. “What’s who like?” he asked.

“Felix.” Treize shrugged. “He’s family, I suppose. I should like to know something about him.”

Zechs blinked, taken rather aback, then took a step away from the shelf he was hovering next to when a middle-aged woman dropped him a polite curtsey as she reached for something, reminding him of how long he and Treize had been standing in the same place as they talked. “That’s right,” Zechs replied, half to himself, “he is. I hadn’t realised that until just now. How silly of me!”

He gestured towards the middle of the store, keeping his pace slow enough to allow Treize to glance across the displays as they moved and noting with relief that the younger man actually seemed to have some interest in them now. Apparently, at least the first part of his plan for the rest of the day had met with approval. “Being Doro’s son makes him your nephew, doesn’t it?”

“My cousin twice removed, technically,” Treize corrected absently. “Dors isn’t actually my niece – it was ‘Uncle Treize’ only because nobody could get her to sit still long enough to explain how we were actually related when she was little.”

Zechs chuckled, nodding. “Well, whatever the reasoning, I’d run with the theme when it comes to Felix. It’ll be less bewildering that way. If Felix takes to addressing you as his uncle, then Aleks will as well and the rest of us won’t have to spend the next ten years double checking whether it’s you or Felix he’s speaking to.” He watched as Treize brushed his fingertips over a soft grey sweater, smiling when the redhead let his hand linger after the first contact.

“I can’t call Felix my nephew, Zechs,” Treize protested as he picked the jumper up to look at it more closely. “He’s less than three years my junior in age. It would be ridiculous!”

“Better ridiculous than infuriating.” The King reached out and caught the tag in his hand, reading it quickly. “It should fit you well enough and you still have excellent taste,” he offered, then switched back to topic. “The boys are bad enough with the whole ‘cousin’ thing now. They took up using it for each other a few years ago – a typical adolescent posing sort of a thing – and it’s stuck. If they start including you in it as well, it’ll be completely confusing.”

Treize was still petting the sweater lightly. “Aleks called me cousin when he thought I was Felix, so I knew they used it. Why, though? Unless it’s some notion of a mockery of the old aristocrat’s standard form of address when you can’t remember who the hell you’re talking to.”

“Probably part of it,” Zechs agreed. “But I think it has more to do with the fact that they actually are.”

“Are what?” Treize asked. His eyes were still on the sweater, looking it over with intense scrutiny, turning it in the electric lighting of the shop to see what it did to the colour.

“Cousins,” the King replied and reached over to snag the jumper from Treize’s hand. “It’s lovely. Go find something to go with it,” he ordered.

Treize looked up at the older man in surprise and Zechs wasn’t sure whether it was because he’d stolen the sweater or because of what he’d said. “How are they cousins?” Treize asked after a moment of staring blankly at his appropriated item of clothing. “And if you’re about to tell me that Noin was somehow Dorothy’s sister,” he added, “then I’m sorry, but you’ve all made a mistake.”

The flat certainty of the former general’s tone made Zechs laugh, not a little in relief. Fully half of everything Treize had ever said had been delivered in that tone of voice – calm, convinced, just defying the listener to challenge him – but it was the first time Zechs had heard it from the younger man since his arrival in morning room. Its continued absence had been a worry the blond had barely been aware of.

“Nothing to do with Noin, I promise,” he chuckled. “Did you never look at Doro and me and wonder? We found out a few years ago that her mother and mine were cousins. Turns out that half the reason Weyridge had it in for Dermail so badly during the War, was because they were half-brothers. Weyridge apparently felt as though Dermail had taken the title and position that should have been his, and Dermail never got over the fact that Weyridge had married his daughter to my father.” Zechs shrugged. “Made little real difference to anyone other than the boys, but they loved the fact that they were actual blood relations rather than just informal adopted ones.”

“Well, it explains a lot,” Treize commented after a few moments. “Where did you find the information?”

“Weyridge told Relena just before he died. His mother had an affair with the older Dermail and never told anyone until her husband was dead and Weyridge had inherited all the husband’s titles and what have you.” Zechs gestured idly, giving a chuckle of a laugh that lacked any real humour. “Weyridge himself just never quite got past the fact that he was a fraud, and when he confronted Dermail with the fact that he had a claim to the Dermail Duchy, Dermail laughed in his face.”

Treize shook his head at that. “I wonder if he’d have reacted differently if he’d known how things were going to turn out. At least Weyridge would have been an heir to the estate from the same branch of the family.”

“Oh, probably,” Zechs agreed. “Not that it would have made much difference in the end – Weyridge only had one child and that was my mother.” He glanced sideways at the younger man, curiously. “I wondered if you’d known, actually. You helped settle his estate, didn’t you?”

“Yes. As both Dermail’s nephew and his granddaughter’s guardian, I had the interest and the right. I had to go back five generations to find a legal male heir for the title. Weyridge could have made my job a lot easier if he’d come forward, though I suspect Dors wouldn’t have come out if it nearly so well off if he had.” Treize shook his head. “I had no idea at all. I suspect my mother did, though. It would certainly explain a few things if she had known.”

Zechs let his face show his surprise. “Oh? Such as?” he asked, touching Treize’s arm to steer the younger man in the right direction.

“You, for one thing. Our fathers’ ongoing ‘honoured enemy’ relations aside, my parent’s explanation that they owed you protection as one noble family to another never did pass muster as justification for the risk they ran when they took you in. If my mother knew Weyridge was really her brother and she told my father that, he would have insisted on protecting you. He always was obsessive about family.”

That was an understatement. Odell Khushrenada had considered the concept of family utterly sacrosanct; even the least important, most distant cousin had only had to ask his help to have him move heaven and earth for them. Blood kin, he had said in Zechs’s hearing more than once, were worth everything one owned and more and he had proved it over and over again, especially with his son. Treize had been groomed and polished with exhausting intensity by his father, perfection demanded in everything he did. Only the fact that he had been spoiled and cosseted in equal measure had made it at all acceptable.

Zechs had formulated his own theories over the years as to why the elder Khushrenada had behaved that way – he’d been looking forward to being able to ask Treize if he was right, now – especially since he hadn’t been nearly so harsh with the young orphan he’d let into his home. In fact, most of the time, Zechs had gotten the impression that Odell barely knew he existed.

Treize chuckling softly drew Zechs from his thoughts. “What?” he asked, catching the mischievous hint to the sound.

“You’re right to worry about Aleks taking to addressing me as cousin,” Treize said, still smiling. “And I don’t think you’re going to be able to stop him.”

“Why?” Zechs enquired warily – he hadn’t been joking about how annoyingly confusing it was going to be.

“Because I am,” Treize answered, “and I suspect he’s intelligent enough to use it. I am precisely as related to him as I am to Felix.”

The King blinked as he took that in, then stopped walking almost mid-step and stared at the younger man in astonishment. “I beg your pardon?” he asked blankly.

Treize stopped as well, making the half turn he needed to face the other man smoothly. His face was still lit by the impish smile. “You hadn’t realised?” he queried. “If my mother was Marquis Weyridge’s sister, then your mother was my cousin and Aleks is my cousin-twice-removed, just like Felix is. Dors isn’t going to be happy with you,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

Zechs shook his head in bewilderment. “I employ people to deal with this sort of thing, Treize. I don’t begin to follow it. Why isn’t Doro going to be happy with me?”

Treize shifted his weight from one foot to another and folded one arm to rest his hand on his hip, his fingers reaching to play with the hilt of a sword that wasn’t there in a reflexive movement Zechs didn’t miss. “You said this morning that Felix is in Bordeaux until the end of the month, inspecting the family estates,” he explained. “The only property any of us owned in that part of France were my mother’s dowry-lands, which is why I said I was glad someone was looking after the place – she was very fond of them. Dorothy had no Khushrenada blood, so most of my estate she had no claim to, but she was my heir for everything I inherited solely from my mother.”

Zechs winced visibly. “Ah, Treize…” he started, wondering how to phrase what he had to say. This was, most assuredly, not how he had wanted to break this particular bit of news, but if Treize was going to start trying to tackle the subject of his property and titles so quickly, then the older man had no choice.

Treize either missed the reaction, or took it to mean something else entirely than it did. “Yes,” he continued. “Or so I thought. I was wrong. If Weyridge was my mother’s brother as you say, then you and Dors are both equally related to me, and to my mother. Even amongst families like mine, who are old enough to allow both genders to inherit, the male line takes precedence. Dors isn’t my rightful heir – you are.” He frowned suddenly. “And if the people you have working for you to ‘deal with this sort of thing’ didn’t realise that, then you need new people. Those estates should have become Crown property. For a monarchy that was struggling financially to not realise that was a serious oversight. Most of my private income came from the vineyards on those lands.”

Zechs kept his gaze fixed on Treize for a few seconds, then closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. “You’re going to wreak havoc in my household, aren’t you?” he asked wistfully.

Treize snorted and Zechs didn’t need to see his expression to know how contemptuous it would be. “If all your Staff is that sloppy, then, yes, I probably am.” His voice softened. “Presuming you don’t mind, of course,” he added hesitantly.

The King smiled gently as he opened his eyes again. “No, I won’t mind – if you’ll do me a favour?”

“What?”

“Train Aleks the way you were. If you had any idea how many times I thought ‘Treize would have known…’ in the first few years I was King…” He sighed. “I was never taught how to run a household, never mind a country. I didn’t know how to balance a bank account until you showed me after I left the Academy. Relena grew up very well off, but not nobility, so she had no idea, either. We neither of us had a clue.”

Treize frowned, looking puzzled. “Surely there were people other than me you could have asked? I know there were parts of my education that were rather specialised but I’m hardly the only one of my background in the world.”

“The difficulty was finding someone I could trust, that was actually willing to speak to me,” Zechs admitted, “I was understandably not popular for a while.”

Treize laughed. “Scorching half of the Pacific Ocean out of existence will have that effect,” he commented dryly, referring to the shot Zechs had taken at the planet. His expression was light and amused, but it faded out slowly when the older man shook his head.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Zechs sighed wearily. “And I’ll tell you some other time,” he added, seeing Treize’s face shift into curiosity.

“All right,” Treize agreed, wondering what he’d missed. It occurred to him suddenly that he didn’t actually know when the war had ended – it could very well be wishful thinking on his part that had made his Epyon-gotten images seem as though it hadn’t been long after his ‘death.’ “Why didn’t you ask Dorothy for help?” he asked, shaking his head to clear it as thoughts of the red suit made the insidious whispering tickle at the edges of his mind again. “Or Une? They would both have known everything I did.”

“They did help, to some extent.” Zechs shrugged, starting the two of them walking again and steering the younger man with another light touch. “But Une was already overwhelmingly busy with the Preventers, and with her own affairs, and Doro…” The King sighed softly. “Our relationship was a little… awkward for a few years after the war. It wasn’t really until Felix was born, and then Aleks, that we had much to do with each other again, and not until Noin died that we repaired our friendship. She moved into the Palace to help me raise him,” he explained. “We needed an adult who wasn’t coming apart at the seams the way Relena and I were.”

Remembered pain echoed in the blonde’s voice; his face was shadowed by it. Treize didn’t really need to ask to know Noin’s death had hit hard but he found himself doing so anyway.

“Was it so bad?” he asked, as gently as he could manage, reaching to touch the older man’s arm, to offer what comfort he could.

Zechs shot him a sidelong glance, frowning. “She was my wife, Treize. The mother of my son.” He shook his head. “I don’t think you can understand what that means.” He let silence stretch between them for a few moments. “Yes, it was bad,” he continued eventually. “Shattering, actually. It almost ripped the family apart completely. Helping my son put flowers on his mother’s coffin was the most soul-destroying thing I’ve ever had to do.”

Treize flinched. He hadn’t realised Noin and Zechs had been married – though he should have, given their son was apparently uncontested as Sanc’s Crown Prince – and the blonde’s words were conjuring images that were altogether too realistic for comfort. Unaccountably, he found he felt guilty, and he put his hand out again. “I’m sorry,” he offered helplessly.

Zechs shrugged brusquely. “What for?” he asked. “You weren’t here.”

That, Treize realised as Zechs picked up his pace and led him into what looked like a shoe department, was what he’d been apologising for.

Chapter Text

As Zechs had hoped he would, with a cup of hot coffee in him and wearing a set of clothes that he’d picked himself, Treize rediscovered his love of shopping, and it was the King himself who called a halt to their spending spree several hours later.

By that time, Treize had managed to garner himself a decent basis of a wardrobe – enough to tide him through the next few days at least – as well as one or two more interesting and unusual items he’d picked up simply because.

Also in that time, Zechs had remembered that his friend had an obsession with close fitting sweaters, learned that he almost always wore boots because he found it hard to find shoes that fit comfortably and despaired at how extraordinarily, exasperatingly fussy he was when it came to his more personal items.

In the end, the King had been forced to drag his friend away from the clothes stores, promising to let Treize come back soon. He’d pled boredom – and it was true – but Zechs had also been conscious of a second reason for stopping where they did and he made a silent promise to himself to include at least one of either Aleks or Felix in the next expedition.

The former general had always had – and still did have – exquisite taste in his wardrobe, seeming to know instinctively what would look good on him and what wouldn’t, but what he didn’t have was a grasp on modern standards of fashion. As the afternoon had worn on, Zechs had realised that Treize was choosing a lot of items based on his familiarity with their styles, choosing to avoid the newer trends he didn’t know. It wasn’t a bad plan – casual, understated elegance in men’s dressing just didn’t change that much – but it had flaws. One was that the redhead was dressing with an eye to the military protocol he’d obeyed for half his life and choosing very little that was truly casual, especially in the more relaxed climate he was in now.

The other was that, by veering to cuts and colours that he would have bought on any other day, he was choosing styles that were twenty-five years out of date. Treize was running the risk of looking middle-aged before his time, or of looking like he’d borrowed his father’s clothes – hence Zechs’s decision to enlist the help of his younger relatives, who would be able to guide the former general in selecting the more fashionable clothes he would need to really blend in.

Of course, clothes shops hadn’t been the only places Treize had insisted on visiting. Once banned from any more clothes, they’d also spent time in a bookstore, where Treize had bought a bewildering range of titles, fiction and non-fiction both, an electronics shop, where he’d trawled through computers and components until Zechs had suggested he’d be better talking to Heero first and a music retailers, so he could purchase both sheet and pre-recorded music. To Zechs’s utter amusement, given Treize’s ranting about the subject over breakfast that morning, there had also been half an hour in a chemist’s for Treize to select all his own toiletries from scratch – including the signature cologne he’d always worn and which Zechs had never, until that moment, known the name of.

The only point of disagreement in the entire afternoon had come when Treize had asked Zechs where he could find an armourer and a gunsmith. The King’s response that he still had Treize’s duelling sabre had been met with a delighted smile, but the refusal to allow the younger man to carry a gun had not gone down nearly so well.

Treize had been wearing his service pistol in the Tallgeese, so the weapon didn’t actually need replacing, but Zechs had calmly informed his former commander that he couldn’t have it back, and certainly couldn’t carry it around with him everywhere as he always had done. It was locked in the Palace armoury and it would stay there, until and unless Treize took up a profession that granted him both a gun licence and a carrying permit for it.

Since that almost exclusively meant the younger man joining the Preventers, under Une’s command, Zechs suspected that the pistol would be staying locked up for quite some time.

Treize had protested, quite vehemently, but Zech had refused to be budged. Very few people outside the Preventers could, or even wanted to, own a gun anymore and practically no-one Treize’s age had even seen a gun outside a museum, much less fired one. That his familiarity with the weapon would make Treize stand out from his peers horribly was one of Zechs’s objections. The other was that the penalties for illegal ownership and use of a gun were frighteningly severe.

The argument had become quite heated, with Treize first becoming angry and then rather upset at his friend’s continual denial. Zechs had cut it dead in the end by simply telling Treize to ‘take it up with Une’ as the only person with the authority to grant him the permission he needed.

It had taken the older man almost another hour to understand that Treize’s protest was caused by the dent his self-confidence had just taken. Not only was Zechs asking him to walk around unable to defend himself for the first time in ten years – something that had to be frightening in the strange surroundings – but he was also telling the former general that his only profession was obsolete, the visual symbol of it an anachronism.

The insight had made Zechs reach out to Treize to comfort. He’d slid his arm around the younger man’s waist, pulling him close, and realised when Treize leaned into him willingly that it really was time to call a halt altogether.

The King had guided the redhead back to the car, deposited all the various bags into the boot, and, pausing only to exchange glances with the Preventer Agent who’d been silently trailing them all afternoon, started the drive back to the Palace.

They hadn’t been driving ten minutes before Treize fell asleep.

Pulling to a halt at a set of traffic lights, Zechs pressed the switch that would tilt the passenger seat back, watching as the younger man’s body settled into a more comfortable posture, his head to one side as he breathed evenly and his hands gathered lightly in his lap. There was no question that Treize was soundly asleep. He barely stirred at the movement, and didn’t at all when the King stroked a gentle hand over his hair.

“You might have said you were tired,” Zechs chided, his voice no more than a whisper. “Silly man.”

His only response was a faint murmur and it made him smile indulgently. Treize had always been a light and rather restless sleeper, not usually in bed more than four or five hours a night. It made a nice change to see him really under, without him being truly unconscious.

The lights changed and Zechs turned his attention back to the road, being careful to keep his driving as smooth as possible.

He put his foot down a little on the approach road to the palace, knowing that he was unlikely to encounter other traffic. The public weren’t allowed vehicles this close to the grounds and the staff were in the middle of a shift.

The presence of other cars on the courtyard of the Palace, their doors and boots open whilst the porters unloaded them, told Zechs that there had been new arrivals during his absence. One little sports car in particular made him smile – Felix Maxwell had combined his father’s love of machines and his mother’s love of luxury into an obsession with classic cars. Zechs had never seen the lovely little number parked in front of his main door before but he had no doubt about its owner.

Turning to his passenger as the senior footman noticed their arrival, Zechs clasped Treize’s shoulder in his hand lightly and shook him. “Treize? Treize, you need to wake up.”

The younger man opened his eyes blearily, blinked, and then sat up as he took in his surroundings. “Oh, I’m sorry…” he began as he realised he’d been asleep for the entire journey home, and Zechs cut him off with a smile.

“Don’t apologise. You obviously needed it.” He gestured out of the windscreen and watched Treize’s face change as he spotted the car. “As you can see, we’ve got guests.”

The King opened his door and slid out onto the gravel, nodding to the footman with a smile of thanks and an instruction to see that all the bags were delivered to Treize’s rooms. Treize himself climbed out of the car a moment later and began making his way over to the sports car without even pausing long enough to stretch.

Shaking his head fondly, Zechs followed him and stayed a pace or two back as Treize walked around the car slowly.

“Yours?” Treize asked, and there was something close to hope in his tone.

Zechs shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I don’t have much time for cars unless they break down on me.” He smiled at the mixed look of disappointment and incomprehension on his friend’s face. “I’m not actually completely sure who it belongs to,” he explained. “Though I can take a good guess.”

“She’s beautiful,” Treize breathed raptly, putting one hand out to touch and stopping before he made contact.

“Isn’t she, though?”

The new voice made both men turn their heads to the speaker, looking up the sweeping white stone steps that stretched from the courtyard to the doors. A tall young man was standing on the top of them, posed just under the overhanging balcony.

He came towards them as soon as he saw he had their attention, his stride light and graceful down the steps, his hand outstretched in an offer to shake as soon as he was within reach.

Zechs took it, using it to pull the younger man into a brief hug of welcome before letting him go completely and putting one hand on his shoulder. “Inspecting the estates wasn’t the only thing you were doing in Bordeaux, then?” he asked lightly.

He won himself a musical laugh. “Clearly not. I could hardly resist, though, now could I? She’s a lovely little thing and she runs like a dream.”

The King rolled his eyes in affectionate exasperation. “What did your mother say?” he asked.

“Oh, she doesn’t know yet. I said hello but she’s in the middle of dressing for dinner.” The younger man gave an airy wave of his hand. “I’m not worried. I shan’t have to tell her, after all – my father will go into rhapsodies the moment he sees the car and she’ll learn about it from him.”

“Devious child,” Zechs chuckled. “What are you doing here, anyway? We weren’t expecting you for another week.”

“And I’m terribly sorry for imposing myself early, but I was given to understand that there’d been some excitement. Certainly, I’m not used to half-hysterical phone calls from my mother.” The younger man gave a tight shrug. “I’m rather afraid I reacted without thinking by packing a bag, tossing it into the car and putting my foot down. By the time I got Aleks to make any sense, I was halfway to Berlin.”

Zechs shook his head. “Speed limits, dear boy,” he commented.

“Are all well and good, but you and I both know I can ignore them quite safely. If I could have gotten an answer from any of your household except my mother and Aleks, I might not have felt it so necessary to panic.”

Treize watched as Zechs raised an eyebrow, then winced in realisation. “Ah,” the King replied. “It should have occurred to me that Doro would have called you. I am sorry. I can only say that we were all rather busy.”

“So I gathered,” the younger man answered, then smiled and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m here now and it was an interesting drive.” He made another airy gesture. “And it occurs to me that I’m being unforgivably rude,” he added suddenly.

Treize blinked as the other man pivoted on one booted heel and offered his hand across the bonnet of his car. “I’m Feliu Maxwell,” he said warmly. “Felix, to everyone except my mother. It’s an honour and a pleasure to meet you, Your Grace.”

Treize took the hand reflexively. “Treize Khushrenada,” he replied. “Thank you.”

The younger man’s fingers were warm and soft under his own, the grip giving just a pleasant hint of a firm strength and confident personality. Treize let his eyes wander as they released each other, taking in as much as he could of the other man.

Felix was an unquestionably attractive young man, tall and slender and in obviously good shape. Slightly untidy reddish hair fell into his eyes where it had slipped out of the elegant back sweep it appeared to have been styled in. Clear skin held the remains of a summer tan and distinctive split-ended eyebrows arched neatly over intelligent amethyst eyes.

Duo had been right, Treize acknowledged, noting that he was being studied as closely as he was studying, the resemblance between the two of them was a matter of overall effect rather than true likeness. Individually, feature for feature, there was little similarity. Their eyes were of obviously different colours and were probably a different shape, as well. Felix’s hair was darker, holding more chestnut and mahogany tones than Treize’s strawberry blond ever had and the general had never had a tan in his life. His skin burned at the slightest exposure to sun.

The two of them were, Treize conceded, almost exactly the same height – Felix might have been a half-inch the shorter – and he knew from the fact that he’d been leant the younger man’s clothes that they weighed about the same, but their builds were different. Felix wasn’t nearly so rangy, showing the promise of maturing into a man more along Zechs’s lines – powerful and solid – than the aesthetic spareness Treize knew he was destined for. Certainly, Treize had never dressed the way the younger man was, though the open-necked shirt, sports coat and flannel trousers suited him perfectly.

Treize found himself smiling as he concluded that he wasn’t really all that much like this newest member of his family, watched as Felix apparently decided the same thing and returned the smile, and then turned sharply as Zechs gave a bitten off gasp from his post a few feet away.

“Good God,” the King said. “I knew there was some resemblance but….” He shook his head and gestured helplessly. “You should see the way you’re smiling,” he continued. “It’s eerie. You’re practically mirrors of one another.”

Treize frowned. “Do you really think so?” he asked. “I can’t see it,” he admitted.

Zechs nodded slowly, still looking between the two younger men intently, his eyes focussed sharply in the light. “No wonder Aleks thought you were Felix,” he said softly.

The statement provoked a startled laugh from Felix himself. “He did?” he asked, looking surprised. “He didn’t tell me that!” he chuckled.

“He wouldn’t have,” Zechs answered him. “Self-preservation, and all that.” He shook himself a little and found a smile of sorts. “I think he must know you too well to give you such easy ammunition. Though it has to be said that I thought Treize was you at first, as well, so don’t be too rough with him.”

“I’m never too rough with him,” Felix replied, and the wicked smirk that was touching his mouth made Treize blink and raise an eyebrow. It wouldn’t have taken very much more for the other man’s tone of voice to be a sultry purr.

Wondering what was going on there, Treize waited to see what the King would say next, hoping it would give him more of an idea.

Before Zechs could answer, the sound of another car drawing to halt on the gravelled forecourt drew all three men’s attention. Treize turned from the Morgan in time to see the near-side front door open and the driver of the car climb out, pausing a moment to stretch out the kinks in his body in a way that was familiar to anyone who had ever had to suffer a too-long car journey.

The autumn sunlight reflected beautifully off the inky blue-black hair that was caught back into a neat plait at the base of the man’s scalp. Combined with the spare precision of the man’s movements Treize had realised the newest arrival’s identity even before the man turned to show austere Asian features and inscrutable black eyes.

“Chang…” Treize breathed, feeling his body tense. More than most, Chang Wufei had reason to be displeased with Treize’s sudden arrival. For the general, it hadn’t been four days since he’d mercilessly used the Chinese boy as the apparent instrument of his death. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what twenty-five years of dwelling on that usage would have done to Chang’s opinion of him.

Caught up in his own thoughts, Treize completely missed the way Zechs’s eyes widened in alarm at the sight of the oriental man and the way the King flung silent instructions at Felix before hurrying towards Wufei and catching him by the elbow. He used the grip to turn the oriental man away and began walking him around to the other side of his car before he even had chance to say hello.

The sudden presence of a firm hand on his shoulder made Treize jump in shock. “You look as though you expect him to hit you,” Felix said, his voice tinged with laughter and very soft in Treize’s ear.

“There’s every possibility that he might,” Treize answered. “And I suspect I’d deserve it,” he admitted. He well knew that what he’d done to the boy had been cruel, but he’d had little choice. Zechs’s unexpected refusal to duel had thrown all of Treize’s plans into disarray and Wufei, so filled with anger and hatred, had been the only sure option he’d had left.

Felix shook his head, pulling Treize from the course his thoughts were taking before he could get too drawn in. “He wouldn’t. It’s not in his nature,” he explained lightly.

“With you, maybe not,” Treize said ruefully. “I might well be a different case. Practically the first thing he ever said to me, after all, was that he was going to kill me. He has cause not to like me very much.”

The younger man shook his head again. “He still won’t hit you. If he really does dislike you that much, all you’ll get is icy silence. He has a thing about physical expression of anger that got both me and Aleks into all ends of trouble when we were younger.”

Treize let his surprise at that show openly as he glanced across the forecourt again, his gaze considering as he pondered what might have happened to make a former teenage terrorist take such a stand. He couldn’t claim ever to have known Chang well, or even at all, if he were absolutely honest. They’d met face to face but once, and though the boy had left enough of an impression for Treize to recall him some six months later when they met again on the battlefield, that didn’t give him any insight into the man’s psyche.

Across the top of Wufei’s car, the general could just see two heads, silver haired and black, bent together as Zechs and Chang conversed intently. The shorter man shot a swift glance in Treize’s direction, frowning as he did so, and then shrugged at the King and nodded his agreement to something. Zechs’s face lightened in relief and he smiled his thanks. Treize wondered what he’d asked.

A flash of gold in his eye line made Treize look over his shoulder, away from the two older men and at his younger companion. Felix was smiling impishly as he held his hand up at eye height, his car keys dangling provocatively from slender fingers.

“Want to play?” he offered, his tone of voice and the tilt of his head familiar to Treize from watching Dorothy employ the same approach on reluctant targets for years.

“Play?” Treize asked.

“With the Moggy,” Felix clarified. “Come on,” he encouraged, giving the keys a little shake. “I saw the way you were looking at her before. I know you want to….”

Treize looked from the keys, to the car and then to its owner, admitting to himself that Felix was right and he did want to try the Morgan. He hesitated, turning his head to look for Zechs and Felix must have caught the gesture because he smiled winningly.

“Don’t worry about Uncle Milliardo,” he said quickly. “He won’t mind if I steal you away for an hour or so, I promise. You can always tell him I bullied you into it!”

“He wouldn’t believe me,” Treize replied. “I really should wait for him. It would be horribly rude of me to just….”

“Not even if I let you drive?” Felix coaxed. All his body language was pleading, his expression openly entreating, his eyes wide and his smile eager. He looked young, a child trying to include a favourite relative in a much-loved game. The general realised he was wavering, reluctant to disappoint the younger man and trying to decide if it would have been easier or harder if he’d known Felix from childhood.

Treize glanced over at Zechs again, remembering when the blond had been young enough to look at him in the same way, and found himself wondering how many years it had been since he’d been capable of such innocent, unquestioning affection himself.

He could charm when he had to. He could lie through his teeth and make it sound as honest as an oath before God from a priest. He could make his face and body show every shade of emotion that might persuade from shrinking submission to utter command; he’d been well trained to do just that. But it had been a long time, a very, very long time, since he’d been innocent in any regard and that was something that couldn’t be faked.

Treize looked steadily at his near double, and then shook his head tiredly. Zechs had talked of teaching Treize to blend in with his peers but if Felix Maxwell was an example of his age mates then the King could kiss that dream goodbye before they ever began. There was less than three years biological age difference between the two men but Treize felt old simply talking to his newest cousin; bitter and sullied, his hands bloody and his soul completely weary.

Some of his feelings must have shown on his face because Felix’s smile faded into a tight frown. “Treize?” he asked, slipping his car keys back into his pocket as he reached out with the other hand. “Did I say something I shouldn’t have?”

Treize avoided the physical contact by taking a backward step. “No,” he replied, rather faster than he should have. “No, not at all. I simply don’t feel very well all of a sudden,” he said. “Will you excuse me?” he asked, and didn’t wait for an answer before he turned on his heel and began making his way up the steps to the palace doors.

He turned his head to look for Zechs when he reached them and caught only a flash of palest gold hair disappearing through another door, followed by Chang and the lithe figure of a tall, red-haired woman. He should have been intrigued by her, his curiosity peaked by the way she seemed familiar from somewhere but, for that moment, all Treize could feel was his isolation and the first wash of a well-known sinking depression.

Ignoring anyone else who might have been about, the former general made his way through the palace with his boots heels clicking swiftly along the floors and shut the door to his borrowed suite behind him firmly as soon as he reached his rooms.

Chapter Text

The knock on Treize’s door almost an hour later was soft but not tentative; it wouldn’t have woken him from a true sleep but it cut through the daze he’d fallen into just by its sheer presence and left him in no doubt as to who his visitor was.

“It isn’t locked,” Treize called, letting that be invite or not, as it suited, and not troubling to move himself from his sprawl across the surface of the bed when the door opened, not even enough to move the hand he had resting across his eyes.

“Are you all right?” Zechs asked, closing the door behind himself and taking a pace into the room. “Felix said you ran from him like he’d offered to buy your first born.”

“I’m fine,” Treize answered quietly.

“Yes, and you look it, too,” Zechs snorted. He reached out to one side, flicking the switch that would turn on the lights Treize had neglected, and then crossed the room to sit on the edge of the bed much as he had that morning. “You might at least have taken your boots off,” he chided gently.

That prompted a reaction from the younger man as he dropped his hand and lifted his head enough to look down himself at the feet that were – Zechs had been right – still clad in their new boots.

Sighing to himself, Treize sat up heavily and began to swing his feet back to the floor. He was stopped before he could bend to tug the first boot free by a firm grip on his shoulder.

“I wasn’t serious,” Zechs said quietly. “If it suits you to put your boots on your bed sheets, I really couldn’t care less. They’ll wash.” He ducked his head, trying to see his friend properly, and Treize turned away a little more, refusing to meet the enquiring gaze.

“That doesn’t excuse the fact that it’s bad mannered of me,” he replied, and succeeded in freeing first one foot, and then the other. He shook off the King’s grip by standing, boots in one hand, and walking across his room to slide them into the bottom of the wardrobe.

Zechs watched him do it in silence, quirking an eyebrow and standing to follow when his former commander headed into his bathroom instead of coming back to the bed. He leaned lightly against the doorframe, arms folded across his chest and eyes intent, saying nothing as Treize reached up to the cabinet above his sink and began rooting through it.

“What are you trying to find?” he asked, when the younger man’s search didn’t seem to be bearing fruit.

Treize shrugged. “I was only wondering if you had anything stronger than ordinary aspirin in there. It doesn’t matter.” He raised a hand to his temples and rubbed wearily, then closed the cabinet door again and turned to walk back into the openness of the bedroom.

Zechs didn’t move from his position by the door, seemingly unaware that he was blocking the doorway and keeping Treize trapped in the smaller space of the bathroom. “Headache?” he asked sympathetically.

“Obviously,” Treize replied. “Excuse me, please,” he added, taking another step forward in clear expectation of the King moving out of his way. He was forced to check the movement when the blond didn’t budge an inch and the look he cast the King was not entirely friendly.

Zechs didn’t appear to notice. “When did it start?” he queried, a small frown setting two deep lines between his eyebrows.

“This morning, before breakfast,” Treize said. “It’s nothing really, just annoying,” he dismissed. “Excuse me,” he tried again.

“You didn’t say anything,” Zechs said in reply, not letting the subject go. “How long ago did you take the aspirin?” he asked, moving only enough to drop his arms and stand up straight.

Treize sighed under his breath. “This morning, and again an hour ago. Zechs….”

The King interrupted him. “And your head still hurts? Is the aspirin helping at all?”

“Not noticeably, no. Zechs, you’re blocking the door. Let me through, please.”

“I will, in a minute,” Zechs answered absently. “Come here and let me look at you, will you?” he asked, reaching out. “Is it just your head, or is there anything else wrong? You said something about feeling sick earlier.”

The younger man shook his head and brushed him off with a firm wave of his hand. “Don’t fuss, I’m too tired for it. It’s a headache, that’s all. I’m sure it’ll go away on its own if I leave it be.” He lifted his head and met the older man’s gaze squarely. “Move,” he ordered. “I need to get past you.”

The King raised a curious eyebrow at the sudden heat in his friend’s voice, but he took a step backwards obediently, lifting his hands in surrender as he did so and the red head brushed past him with quick steps.

Treize crossed the bedroom swiftly, heading straight for the wide windows and sinking down to perch on the ledge as he stared out at the striking sunset. Zechs watched him for a moment, then cleared his throat gently, drawing his friend’s attention back into the room, and possibly back into the right decade.

Narrowing his eyes at the fact that Treize’s breathing was too fast and too shallow, his fingers white in their grip on the drapes, Zechs shook his head. “Just saying ‘I don’t like small spaces’ would have gotten me to move faster, you know,” he commented, keeping his tone as neutral as he could. “As a suggestion for the future, you might try setting aside your pride a little and simply being straight with people. I can’t read your mind and I had no reason to think you claustrophobic.” He moved across the room and leaned over his friend to work the latch on the top half of the window and push it open, letting the cool evening air into the room. “Where did it come from, anyway?”

“Luxembourg,” Treize said eventually, apparently intending it to be an explanation. “I suppose.” He shrugged weakly. “The tendency has always been there, but….”

“But three months trapped in the same house would probably a good trigger for anybody,” Zechs finished, sighing. “All right. I’m sorry. Would you feel better for a walk outside?”

“I’m fine.” The younger man took a deep breath and leaned forward to put his forehead against the glass. “It wasn’t… one of Dermail’s guards liked to play games. He found it funny to trap me into one room, knowing I couldn’t risk hurting him to make him move. He was a closet sadist on a power trip, I think, and my bathroom was a favourite target. I had little choice about using that room, even after I learned to avoid all the others with only one door.”

The general’s voice was expressionless, his face a blank. Zechs found himself cringing a little, and more so when his mind began supplying him with all sorts of possible additions to the scenario the other man had described.

Taking a slow breath, not wanting to ask and knowing he had to, Zechs sank into a crouch by his friend’s side, making himself less of a threat as he levelled their heights so they were on the same eye line. “Treize, he didn’t… hurt you, did he?” he asked as delicately as he could manage. He couldn’t imagine it – or perhaps he simply didn’t want to – and it was the one trauma, out of the dozens that they’d been expecting, that none of them had any experience with. Unfortunately, it was a perfect explanation for a very great deal of the behaviour Zechs had seen from the younger man so far.

Treize didn’t move for a moment and the hesitation was enough to have the King feeling utterly sick, then the general turned his head and smiled sadly. “Not the way you mean,” he said quietly, making Zechs release a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “Not more than I knew he would.”

“What does that mean?” Zechs pressed carefully.

“Nothing, really,” Treize explained wearily. “Epyon,” he said, again seeming to expect the one word to explain. “Une. I had very little else in the way of currency,” he continued.

For a moment, the King felt confusion reign, then the light dawned and a sudden chill washed through him from the inside out. “Jesus, Treize….” he moaned helplessly as he realised what his friend was saying. “ How could you do that?”

The younger man gave a dismissive shrug, his gaze going back to the darkening sky and the grounds of the palace. “It was familiar coin, at least,” he offered quietly.

If that was supposed to make the King feel better, it failed miserably. “Jesus!” Zechs said again, and pushed himself to his feet with a snap. He paced across the width of the room swiftly, his footfalls silent on the thick carpet, swamped by the feeling that he absolutely had to move or risk lashing out at exactly the wrong person.

Zechs had never been unobservant, even as a young boy. He’d known from before his tenth birthday that there was something about the workings of the shadowy Romefeller organisation his friend wasn’t sharing with him – known, too, that there was some reason Treize had been so adamant in his refusal of membership for Zechs, beyond his insistence that it wasn’t safe – but he’d never been able to get the older boy to tell him exactly what. He’d known he was being protected, but what from had been a mystery.

In what he recognised now as a fit of wilful stupidity, he hadn’t figured it out even after he and Treize became intimate. He’d thrown fit after fit at the commander over the years, driven to distraction by the fact that, no matter what he said or did, Treize never seemed to consider him worth any degree of faithfulness. Time after time, he’d stood back and watched as his commander flirted with others, drawing them in with his smile and his charm and the promise of his body, watched the older man leave balls and conferences and dinners with his head bent close to another’s, his arm around a slender waist or a strong shoulder. He’d become used to letting himself into the older man’s rooms of an evening to find him in the shower washing away the marks of another partner; he’d learned to accept Treize coming to bed in the middle of the night, his skin holding the musk of sex and the lingering taint of a woman’s perfume or another man’s cologne.

And he’d hated it.

He’d lost count of the number of times he’d flown into a rage at his friend, cursing and insulting him, only infuriated more when Treize nodded his agreement placidly and asked him to calm down, his eyes sad and his smile tremulous. So often, he’d left the bed or the room in his anger, tossing furious invective over his shoulder and ignoring Treize’s soft pleas for him to stay.

By the time he’d realised the truth of what had been happening, that Treize had traded his body and his bed for influence and power, first on the instructions of his Uncle Dermail, later on his own recognizance, the general had, apparently, been dead for over a year. It had been Dorothy who had told him that such bartering was the stock-in-trade of the Romefeller Foundation, the youth and beauty of the new generation in return for the favour of the old. She’d slapped him soundly for his disgust when he’d learned that Treize had used, not only himself, but both Une and Dorothy as well, mercilessly, and refused to speak to him for several years, leaving Une to make him see that their former commander had been given no other option.

Zechs had come, in the years since, to understand why Treize had done it, but it seemed he’d underestimated how far the other man had taken it, and he’d never known how it had been borne.

A quiet noise behind him made the King turn back to the window.

Treize was looking at him steadily, his eyes shadowed and his smile weak. “You have no idea,” he said softly, “how very glad I am that you can still ask me that.”

Zechs blinked, caught off-guard. For a moment, the twenty-five years he’d lived without his friend melted away and he found himself feeling young and naïve again in the face of the other man’s jaded knowledge.

The sensation faded as Treize winced, closing his eyes as he put a hand to his temples again. “Gods, it’s been a long day,” he sighed.

“Admittedly,” Zechs agreed after a slight pause. He took a step back across the room towards the red head and perched himself on the edge of the bed again. “I have something in my rooms that might clear that headache,” he offered. “I’ll go and get it in a minute, if you like?”

“Please?” Treize asked. “It’s not all that bad but it’s driving me to distraction,” he confessed.

Zechs gestured his understanding. “The proverbial straw, probably,” he suggested. “You have enough to deal with without feeling rough physically. You most likely wouldn’t even notice it on any other day. Is that why you came up here?” he asked. “I know you told Felix you weren’t feeling well, but he rather thought you were saying it simply as an excuse.”

The younger man shrugged emptily. “Partly,” he replied, but he didn’t elaborate further. “Why did you come up here?” he asked in turn. “Were you just chasing me down?”

The King smiled. “Actually, no,” he said. “I came to find out if you were planning to join us for dinner. I meant to tell you about this earlier but the whole family eats dinner together, unless one of us has a prior engagement. Breakfast and lunch are catch as catch can, but we’ve always made a point of getting together in the evenings.” He gestured lightly. “A habit we got into for the sake of the children, mainly, and just never got out of. Seven sharp, every night, and no excuses!” he teased.

“I thought it would be a good chance for you to meet everyone properly,” the King explained, when Treize didn’t return his smile, “but if you aren’t feeling up to it, I can have someone bring a tray up here for you. The family will understand if you’re too tired, I promise.”

For a few seconds Treize looked at Zechs warily, and the blond was sure he was going to refuse, then the younger man nodded his consent slowly. “No,” he said. “I’m all right and I suppose I should at least make an effort to say hello. I’ll be fine if you can find me something for my head.”

The King smiled warmly. “Done. Come on, then,” he instructed and held out his hand as he stood up.

Chapter Text

Zechs hadn’t been kidding when he said the entire family got together for dinner.

With the exception of a quick stop at the King’s suite – which Treize was surprised to realise was only a few doors down from his own – the older man had guided the younger swiftly through the palace. He’d walked straight past the dining room breakfast had been served in to cross into the north wing of the building and come to a stop before a door Treize had no memory of.

“Brace yourself,” the King said impishly and pushed the door open.

The buzz of conversation rose as Zechs stepped into the room, peaked for a moment, and died away to nothing at all as Treize followed him.

Feeling decidedly awkward, the general hesitated just inside the door, scanning the room swiftly and being careful not to let his gaze linger on any one person or intersect with anyone else’s. He could feel the weight of their eyes on him, and knew he was being studied.

Zechs put a hand lightly under his elbow, drawing him a pace further into the room so the door could swing shut behind him. “I realise the introduction is a little late and rather unnecessary but for those of you who haven’t met him before, Treize Khushrenada,” Zechs said steadily. He waited a moment and when the silence continued, he added, “Don’t everyone say hello at once then!”

There was an uneasy rustling and a flurry of exchanged sideways glances. Treize tensed and felt Zechs’s hand grip a little harder as he registered the reaction, offering wordless support as someone in the back of the room sighed noisily and pushed past Felix’s tall figure.

“Oh, honestly. All the lectures you’ve given me about manners!”

Treize blinked as a small, slender teenage girl stepped into clear view and came towards him without a trace of hesitation, her back straight and her eyes lowered modestly. Her left hand caught up her long skirts as she dropped him a perfect curtsey, her right extending for him to take. “Elena Maxwell, Your Grace,” she murmured. “Helen, unless my mother is in the room.”

Treize reached for her hand without thinking, the reflex of a lifetime’s training, and laid a gentle kiss on the back of it as he drew her carefully back to being upright. “Treize Khushrenada,” he answered her, then, very quietly, “and thank you.”

The smile she gave him at his words was beaming. “You’re welcome.” She tilted her head and looked up at him intently, letting him see the dusky purple of her eyes as they flickered back and forwards across his face.

Treize barely registered it when Zechs let him go and took a step back; he was too busy scrutinising the girl in front of him.

There was no mistaking whose daughter she was. The colour of her eyes did nothing to disguise the expression in them and though her hair was burnished gold rather silvery platinum, it hung in a straight, heavy sheet to her hips, drawn back at her ears with two emerald barrettes.

Involuntarily, he glanced over Elena’s head to search for Dorothy, and jumped when the girl half turned around to look at her brother. “Kitty, get over here!” she ordered sharply.

Felix rolled his eyes and straightened slowly from his elegant slouch against the back wall. “So loud, Hellion,” he chided. “I’ve already said my hellos but I shall come and say them again if you insist.” He handed off the glass of wine he was holding to his father and made his way across the space, pausing only to snare a hand into the arm of another young man standing a few feet away.

Treize couldn’t help but look at Elena in puzzlement. “Kitty?” he asked.

“Kitty,” she repeated firmly. “Felix-feline-cat-kitty,” she explained rapidly. “And because he’s just like a cat. Fussy and spoilt and disdainful…”

“Thank you, brat,” Felix interrupted. “Hello again, then,” he said to Treize, over his sister’s head. “Feeling better?”

The younger man had changed clothes since they’d spoken in the courtyard, shucking the sports coat and slacks for a silk shirt and sharply tailored trousers. Treize felt rather underdressed in comparison. “Somewhat,” he replied a little awkwardly. “You have my apologies for…”

Felix waved a hand. “Pfft, forget it. We can go for that drive in the morning, I expect.” He smiled warmly. “And since no-one else seems to be bothering, I’ll make some introductions for you, shall I?” he offered and proceeded to suit word to deed.

Letting go of the boy he’d collared, he gestured to him indicatively. “Your Grace, Aleksander Peacecraft. I believe you’ve already met but I thought I would make sure you were clear on identities… both of you…”

Treize couldn’t help the smile that touched his mouth – there was that teasing Zechs had been expecting. He bit his lip to suppress the reaction and bowed gracefully from the waist. “Your Highness,” he murmured. However much he wanted to study this namesake of his, the boy was Crown Prince of a country and the protocol was clear.

The movement stirred the room into unsettled humming; more so when Treize stayed in his bow.

“Let him up, Aleks,” Zechs said a moment later, and there was a swift, uncertain touch to his shoulder. Treize straightened, noting that Felix was laughing silently, his sister with him, and that Aleks looked confused and a touch embarrassed.

“We’re not so formal a court as you’re used to,” Zechs explained lightly, directing his words to Treize before switching his attention to his son. “He’s Old Blood, Aleks. He can’t move without your permission. I should have thought to warn you.” He looked back at Treize. “Are you going to do that to everyone?” he asked, nothing in his tone giving away whether he approved or disapproved.

Treize gave a minute shrug. “It rather depends on whether they outrank me,” he answered honestly.

Aleks suddenly shook his head at himself. “You’re going to be good practice for the Brits next year, I can tell. Remind me to get you to drill me in every other silly tradition that could trip me up!”

“Yes, leaving the British Princess in her curtsey till she wobbles and falls over would be a wonderful way to start your courtship!” Felix laughed and Aleks blushed furiously.

“I would not!”

“She only has to be smart enough to do what I did and put her hand out,” Elena commented, looking smug.

Treize, completely lost, looked to Zechs for an explanation. “I’ll tell you later,” the King said. He took Treize’s elbow again and pressed him in the direction of a low velvet couch. “If I’d known you were going to be such a bloody traditionalist, I would have conducted the introductions myself,” he groused softly. “What happened to my bow, anyway?” he needled gently.

“You don’t count,” Treize whispered back. “And these trousers are too new for me to be kneeling in them.”

Zechs blinked, then coloured as he realised he’d made exactly the same mistake as his son. Protocol might have demanded Treize bow to Aleks, but Zechs was ruling royalty, without even a consort to share the throne. If the general had stayed with his traditions, he’d have been down on one knee with his neck bent until Zechs gave him permission to move.

“Do me a favour, and keep letting me not count,” the King asked, as his memory kept filling in the rest of the code of behaviour Treize was following. “I can do without you hopping about all over the place every time we’re in the same room. I abolished that level of formality for a reason.”

“All right,” Treize agreed.

Zechs stopped in front of the settee and gestured forwards. “Treize, my sister, Relena Peacecraft-Winner, her husband, Quatre Winner, and their daughter, Katerina.”

Treize bowed smoothly again, standing when Zechs gave a tug.

Three pairs of blue eyes met his squarely, honest curiosity in one and guarded wariness in the others. Looking to charm, Treize looked first at the owner of the curious pair and smiled warmly. “A pleasure, mademoiselle,” he murmured and made the girl giggle.

Katerina Winner couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old but she hid her smile long enough to nod at him in proper regal fashion before giggling again. She looked a true Peacecraft, pretty and blue eyed and with silky blonde hair pulled back into a simple braid.

Her parents, however, didn’t look like they were going to be nearly so easy to win over.

Treize had never met Quatre Winner in person, so his first impression of him was as a slender blond man of average height, edging into a stately middle age. There was a weight of experience to his gaze that suggested he was not to be crossed but also an openness that tempered it into something approachable. He offered his hand willingly enough, no real warmth in his smile, and his grip was perfectly firm for exactly as long as it should have been.

“Your Excellency,” he murmured and the title was a polite warning. The children might have been willing to accept Treize whole-heartedly, giving him the respect due to another noble with their ‘Your Grace’s’ but Quatre was reminding him that there were those in the room who knew what else he had been and what he was capable of.

“Winner,” Treize murmured back, and turned to Quatre’s wife.

Relena Peacecraft had aged well from the impetuous teenaged girl Treize had dethroned. Sitting primly in her expensive lilac suit, the hem of the skirt just brushing her knees, back straight and hair swept up into an elegant chignon, she looked like the professional politician she was.

“It is so very strange to be looking at a dead man,” she said delicately and her eyes were icy. “How are you finding the world we built?”

Treize flinched and Zechs hissed under his breath. The tension in the room, which had begun to dissipate with the children’s greetings, was suddenly palpable again. Somewhere along the line, Relena had made an art form of the politician’s insult – not a word out of place but she’d struck straight for the core of the former general.

It took Treize a breath longer than it should have to recover. “Your brother has done an excellent job with the restoration, Mrs Winner,” he fired back, his voice as neutral as hers had been. “He’s a credit to those that raised him.”

“Treize…,” Zechs warned softly.

Treize shook his head, holding up a hand to ward off the interruption he could feel the older man preparing “It’s not my intention to cause an argument with anyone here,” he said to the King, and looked back at the Princess. “To that end, will you let me offer you any apologies that are due, Relena? I did only what I thought was necessary and I’ve been given to understand that it was a very long time ago.”

“Your definition of ‘necessary’ needs work, General,” Relena replied coolly. A heartbeat later, she glanced at her brother and her eyes thawed fractionally. “Yes, I’ll let you apologise. I’ll even accept it and return my own.”

Treize nodded at her, feeling himself relax. If Relena had chosen to take a stand against him it would have made things very difficult and, Lord knew, the woman had little enough reason to be nice to him. They’d only ever had one civil conversation and even that had been harried and emotionally fraught. “Thank you, then,” he said softly.

The woman looked at him for a moment, then offered him a small smile. “It might be best if the two of us could talk sometime soon. I think perhaps we should clear the air between us,” she glanced at her brother again, “for the sake of our family.”

Treize returned the smile, letting his gratitude for her phrasing show through. A subtle use of words, but she’d told him a very great deal in her choice of ‘our’ rather than ‘the’ or even ‘my’ as she would have been entitled to. “At your convenience, ma’am,” he replied and held her gaze for before turning away.

Zechs sighed under his breath. “Ouch,” he whispered, “sorry.”

Treize shook his head wordlessly, knowing his friend had missed the layers and layers of meaning he and Relena had just exchanged. As awkward as their conversation was going to be, Treize could feel himself anticipating it with more than utter dread. Relena had become the skilled opponent she had promised to be.

The King steered him to the matching couch across the room and Treize smiled as Duo grinned up at him cheerfully. “Told ya’ it was creepy, Heero,” he said brightly. “Good to see you again, general,” he added. “Did Blondie finally get round to feeding you breakfast?”

“He did, thank you.” Treize looked at the Asian man standing behind Duo. “Yuy,” he greeted, knowing, despite the changes in the man, that there was no one else it could be.

“Khushrenada,” Heero returned and seemed content to lapse back into silence.

Something about the exchange made Duo bark a laugh but before Treize could ask what was funny, the woman sitting on the other end of the couch had made a sound of pure frustration and sprung to her feet.

“You are not going to say hello to me like one of those old stuffed shirts,” she ordered sternly, her eyes flashing in a face that was scarcely less beautiful for the marks the years had left on it. “I won’t let you!”

Treize raised an eyebrow at her and then staggered back a pace when she all-but threw herself at him in a swirl of skirts and her hair, wrapping her arms firmly around his neck. “Dorothy…” he started, catching her reflexively and holding her loosely as his eyes cut to her husband in alarm.

Duo shrugged lazily, spreading his hands as if to ask, ‘what can you do?’ He nodded at the same time and Treize took that as permission to wrap his niece into a proper hug. “Dorothy,” he repeated more gently, tasting the familiar syllables as he said them.

Dorothy had her face buried into the shoulder of his sweater, her fingers tight in the fabric at the back of his neck. “I thought you’d died,” she moaned. “How could you do that to me? How?” she demanded fiercely. “What were you thinking?!”

Treize closed his eyes in pain. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I couldn’t…I had no choice,” he explained weakly.

Dorothy pulled back from him, eyes sparkling angrily. “No choice?” she repeated stormily. “No choice?! You bastard!” she spat, her hand cracking across the side of his face hard enough to make both Zechs and Duo wince in sympathy. There was a flood of heated Spanish as Treize saw stars, then, “You didn’t even have the courtesy to tell me what you were planning!” she cried and flung herself back into his arms.

This time, Treize caught her without hesitation, pulling her to him and bending his head to hide his face in her long hair. “I’m sorry, Dors,” he whispered. “So sorry. I couldn’t think of any other way and I didn’t think anyone would care.”

“Care?” One of her little hands balled up and struck him on the shoulder weakly. “You stupid man!” she exclaimed. “How could we not care? Me, Milliardo, Anne… what were we without you?”

Treize shook his head. “You all seem to have managed well enough, Dors,” he replied and even to his own ears, he sounded bitter.

Dorothy growled wordlessly, her slender figure tensing as though she was going to pull away. “Don’t make me hit you again,” she warned.

“No,” Treize said and tightened his hold on her, reluctant to let her go. She was warm in his arms, the scent of her hair familiar and soothing. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d been hugged that way, sharing physical contact that was both welcome and comforting and he hadn’t realised how much he needed it.

Eyes still shut, Treize drew her up onto her tiptoes, wrapping the two of them together as closely as they could be. His hands shaking suddenly as his self-control began to slip, he slid one arm around her trim waist and lifted the other to curl his fingers into her hair at the back of her head. Dorothy’s arms wound back around his neck as she leaned her entire weight into him.

“Stupid man,” she whispered again and her slim form began to shake.

Treize drew a ragged breath and let it out as a soft moan. “Oh, don’t,” he pleaded. “Please. I’m not worth it.”

Dorothy nodded wordlessly.

“No, I’m not.” Feeling increasingly unsteady, Treize began pushing the woman away from him. “Dors, please,” he begged, letting the tone of his voice and the tremor in it tell her what she needed to know and he couldn’t say. “I can’t do this,” he whispered. “Not today.”

Dorothy clung to him for another moment, then took a deep breath and stepped back, bringing her hands up to wipe her face as her husband stood up from his seat on the couch and took her into his own hold.

Duo bent his head to whisper in her ear for a few seconds, then looked up at Treize and smiled. “If she cries half so much for me when I die, I’m going to consider this a successful marriage,” he quipped.

The general stared at him blankly, and only dimly saw Duo’s eyes flick to someone over his shoulder, not registering that the gesture meant anything until a large, warm hand touched him between the shoulder blades.

“Are you all right?” Zechs had appeared from somewhere and was standing side on to the smaller man, blocking him from the rest of the room, which, Treize was becoming aware, had fallen into an uncomfortable silence.

Squaring his shoulders, Treize blinked quickly and nodded, noting absently that a family dinner shouldn’t take more effort than handing his resignation to Dermail in front of the Romefeller council had.

“Do you need a minute?” Zechs continued. “I swear to God, if I’d known it was going to be like this…” he apologised helplessly.

“I’m fine,” Treize interrupted. “It isn’t your fault and this was never going to be easy.” He forced a smile. “Where were we?”

For a moment, the King stared at his friend intently, then shook his head slowly and took a step to one side. “That’s it, ask me to make it worse,” he said under his breath. He beckoned to the last group of people, who had been sitting gathered around a small coffee table in the very back of the room. They came to their feet as the King gestured to them, and crossed the room to stand in front of the two men.

“Treize, Chang Wufei, his wife, Marie and their son, Chang Wei Ning.”

“Khushrenada,” Chang said calmly. “It’s pleasing to see you again.”

“Likewise,” Treize managed, bracing for another outpouring of emotion. The Chang of his memory had been a rather excitable boy.

“You needn’t cringe so, Khushrenada,” Wufei laughed, apparently registering the reaction. “I’m not one for making scenes like Maxwell’s woman. I shall instead repeat the Princess’s offer and suggest that the two of us would do well to speak frankly to one another in the near future. Perhaps you might join me for tea in the next few days?”

Relieved, Treize simply nodded.

“Excellent. There are several matters we need to discuss, I think.” He smiled with more warmth and openness than Treize would have thought him capable of and reached for his wife’s hand.

The lithe red-haired woman Treize had spied in the courtyard reached back immediately but her eyes never left Treize’s face.

“An honour to meet you, madam,” the general said, returning the scrutiny and wondering who she was. Of everyone in the room, she was the only one who wasn’t either an old acquaintance of some sort, or the child of one. It made him wonder at the inclusion of both her and Chang in what Zechs had called a ‘family’ dinner. There had been, after all, others who had a stronger connection to Treize who weren’t there, Lady Une as an example, and if it were merely because the oriental man had been a gundam pilot, then there was one of their number missing as well.

Treize looked more closely at the woman, because he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was familiar from somewhere, and found himself looking directly into her eyes. The colour was a stunning rich blue, as clear as fine sapphire. “Likewise, sir,” she said throatily and the sense of déjà vu increased.

“Now that I think about it,” Wufei said, breaking the line of thought, “it occurs to me that I may just have found a tutor in European swordplay for my son who’s worth the title. If I can persuade you to the post, that is. Milliardo has maintained for years that you were his teacher and he is an acceptable standard.”

Zechs snorted rudely in reply. “You only say that because I beat you half the time.”

“And lose the other half, but that is precisely my measure,” Wufei explained. “Think about it, please,” he asked Treize.

The general, caught completely off-guard, suddenly shook his head. “I don’t need to think about it!” he said. “If you’d be willing, I’d be delighted! If you can give me time to find my bearings and put in a little practice, it would be an honour!”

Wufei smiled again. “Merely fitting,” he answered cryptically, then turned to the King. “May we eat now?” he asked bluntly.

Zechs laughed, glanced back over his shoulder at the others in the room, and nodded. “Yes, you glutton. Twenty years, and I still don’t know where you put it!”

“I thought Maxwell solved that riddle years ago,” Wufei replied. “In my hollow legs!” He made his way to the far side of the room, pushing open the door that was set into the wall and revealed a pretty little dining room, just big enough to take the table that was set in the middle of it and be snug.

Sparkling glassware and silver cutlery gleamed in the lights thrown from the candle set on the table and Treize smiled. It had been a long time since he’d sat down to a properly presented meal.

A slender hand tucked itself into his arm and he looked round to see Felix had come up next to him. A moment later, Aleks stepped into his other side, bracketing him between them. “And now you’ve done with all that stuff and nonsense,” Felix said airily, “you can come and sit with us and talk about something more interesting. My new car, for example, and when we’re going to take you out on the town.”

Treize blinked, realised he was being told and not asked, and acquiesced with good grace.

Chapter Text

Dinner was served with all the smoothness of long practice and was hot and delicious, but by the time the dessert course was being cleared Treize was so tired he couldn’t recall what he’d just eaten.

Aleks and Felix had kept up a steady chatter of amusing comments and encouraging questions throughout the meal. They were more than determined to include Treize in their banter, desperate for information about him, reaching out from what was an obviously old and close friendship to welcome the newest member of their family. No doubt, Treize had realised early on, they saw only another young man of about their own age and treated him exactly as they would have any of their other friends.

The general had gleaned some interesting knowledge from their conversation, at least. Felix, he’d learned, had recently completed his final year of training as a doctor, studying first at the Sorbonne University and then at the Royal Sanc Hospital, and was now debating where he should specialise. Aleks, on the other hand, was in the middle of his final year of a bachelor’s course in Art History and trying to decide on a topic for his dissertation. It had been nice to learn that the intellectual potential of the parents was breeding true but it was hardly vital intelligence.

The conversation from the upper half of the table had sounded, in what snippets of it Treize had caught, far more interesting. Duo, Chang and Yuy were discussing nothing Treize was concerned with but Chang’s wife, Marie, and Dorothy appeared to be discussing music and Relena, Quatre and Zechs were having a spirited debate about some political movement that was in the headlines.

Treize had caught his own name from those three occasionally but every time he glanced their way he got a warm smile and a dismissive wave from Zechs.

One of the serving staff leaned over his shoulder to pour him coffee and Treize stopped them with a quick shake of his head. Every course on the menu had been picked from his favourites – he hadn’t missed it – and the coffee smelled like it was one of his preferred blends but nothing so far had tasted quite like he remembered it. The change was only adding to the weight of the day instead of easing it as Zechs had obviously hoped it would.

In retrospect, Treize knew he should have refused the dinner. He’d been out of sorts when Zechs had asked, feeling isolated and fractious, and everything since had conspired to take it out of him when he didn’t have anything left to give. Even the witty back-and-forth between Felix and Aleks had been trying his patience for the last fifteen minutes.

Ignoring the fact that it was a dreadful breach of good manners, Treize propped an elbow on the tabletop by his empty coffee cup and leaned his forehead into his hand. The only good point Treize could see at that moment was that he no longer had his headache. Whatever the tablets Zechs had dug up from his room had been they’d shifted it in a matter of minutes.

Closing his eyes, Treize let his immediate awareness slide away from himself a little and began a series of slow, timed, controlled breaths, visualising heavily as he sought to keep himself in a frame of mind to be fit company, and awake enough to be company at all. The exercise was something Treize’s father had taught him years ago, when he’d been a very small boy and it had consistently been one of the most useful techniques he’d had to hand ever since, even against the raft of far more advanced methods he’d been taught at Victoria Academy.

The steady pressure of clever fingers as they began rubbing his shoulders and the back of his neck fed so perfectly into his created imagery that it took him a few minutes to recognise that they were real.

He moved to sit up as soon as he did, and checked when one of the hands pressed down steadily. “It’s all right,” Zechs said softly, from somewhere behind and above him. “Stay under another minute or two, will you?” he asked. “You have to be the only man in the world who can be unconscious for three days and still have weeks’ worth of tension in your muscles. It’s no wonder your head was hurting.”

The general made a meaningless noise that might have been agreement and sank back into his daze.

“Remind me to ask Sally to refer you over to the Preventer’s physical therapists,” Zechs said, still working steadily. “You’re going to need a couple of hours in professional hands to work some of this out. You’ve got hot spots and knots deep into the tissues. It’ll hurt like hell but you’ll feel better for it afterwards.” He shifted his stance, pressing in harder as the surface tissues began to yield. “You should probably spend some time on the mental disciplines in the next couple of days as well,” he carried on. “I’ll see if I can’t clear a few hours tomorrow to work with you. There are a couple of exercises I can teach you that might help.”

The idea of two hours under the hands of a trained masseuse followed by a few hours of deep meditation sounded something close to heaven to Treize and he nodded as much as he could given his state and posture.

Mobile suit pilotage put tremendous strain on both body and mind, a fact recognised long before either Zechs or Treize had started their training at Lake Victoria. Especially in the high-performance elite echelons that both men had classed, the link between a fit and balanced pilot and a good set of results was impossible to ignore. Consequently, Specials pilots had spent a lot of time in the hands of doctors and dieticians and therapists all working to bring each individual as close to perfection physically as they could get. The type of intensive massage Zechs was suggesting Treize needed had been an almost weekly ritual for them both.

But what had truly separated the Oz elite from their peers had been the rigorous instruction in mental practice they’d been given. Dismissed as pretentious, new age, pandering though it had been, no cadet graduated Lake Victoria without a formidable grounding in meditation and biofeedback techniques. Every pilot had been encouraged to spend at least a few minutes a day running through the exercises, and Treize, already exposed to the idea by his family, had been inclined to spending hours at a time in deep reverie – a tendency he’d passed onto his younger friend.

There’d been a time when the general had been so disciplined and so balanced that a few minutes under could give him the same renewal of energy and clarity as a full night’s sleep. Zechs had never quite managed that, but as he’d said to Dorothy whilst he was hauling Treize down to the Epyon, the general had always had something in that regard that the blond didn’t.

Zechs’s hands were firm and skilled as they mauled the muscles and tissues in Treize’s neck and shoulders. One particularly tight spot resisted furiously and released with a pang of sharp pain that had Treize hissing in protest and then groaning softly as the tension he hadn’t known he was carrying began to slide away. He slumped further forward and Zechs chuckled affectionately.

“Well, there’s one thing about you that hasn’t changed,” he laughed. “Still a whore for being fussed over, aren’t you?”

Treize shrugged wordlessly, letting his body yield to the other man’s hands as his mind sank deeper into the beginnings of true meditation.

“Hmm,” Zechs murmured, halting his hands over the line of Treize’s spine. “Wufei, does the Preventers still have a chiropractor on call?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard up the length of the table and waiting for the affirmative nod in answer. “I have a feeling that you’ve got misalignments all over the place,” he informed Treize. “I’ll get Sally to take some x-rays tomorrow.” He stepped back and patted the younger man on the shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “You’re falling asleep.”

Treize drew himself back to as much consciousness as he needed and pushed himself to his feet heavily, putting one hand on the table for balance as he did so. Zechs reached out and caught his arm, drawing him carefully around his chair and close enough that he could wrap a supporting hand around the younger man’s waist.

He made a strange noise low in his throat a moment later when the redhead leaned into his body heat, half-turning and resting his weight into the King’s arms as his head settled on Zechs’s sweater clad shoulder.

Zechs stared down at him in surprise for a moment, hearing the dining room fall into silence as Aleks gave a nervous laugh and someone behind him drew a sharp breath. “God…” he breathed softly. “ Treize….”

The gesture Treize had made was straight out of their shared past, a wordless avowal of trust and affection made only when the general was at his limits. It was his way of asking the blond to look after him, literally putting himself into friend’s hands. Clearly, Treize, now, had made it without thinking, his mind in his half-dazed state processing only the familiarity of Zechs’s touch and voice and not the rest of his surroundings.

“All right,” Zechs said carefully after a slight pause. He closed his arms around the smaller man and held him for a moment before letting him go, turning, and guiding him into a slow walk. “Come on. You need your bed.”

Aleks took a step forward as Zechs did, opening his mouth to speak, and the King freed one hand long enough to hold it up warningly. “Hush,” he said quietly, knowing his son’s voice would jar the former general from the waking reverie he had slipped into. Zechs had only seen it once or twice before from his friend, when the commander had been so close to exhaustion that trying to sink into meditation had sent him into a type of numbed sleep instead. He’d learned from experience to simply put his friend somewhere he wouldn’t be disturbed and let him sleep it off.

“I’ll be back shortly,” he added. “It won’t take me more than a few minutes to get him settled,” he explained and turned his concentration to his self-appointed task.

__________________________________

When Treize woke the next morning, it was to the hazy recollection of where and when he was and the certain knowledge that he didn’t know how he’d gotten to bed the night before. He could vaguely recall being in the dining hall, talking to Aleks and Felix, and he felt his face heat a little as he realised he might well have fallen asleep at the table.

Wincing internally, he buried himself deeper into the warm weight of his covers for a moment and then took a deep breath as he pushed them back and sat up.

He was, at least, dressed in the nightclothes he’d picked out for himself the day before, which gave him some hope that it was simply his memory playing tricks on him, and he smiled at the feel of the soft fabric brushing against his skin as he reached his arms over his head and stretched slowly and luxuriously. Much more comfortable than the borrowed set had been. Who the hell slept in green silk, anyway?

He settled back into himself with a contented sigh, then swung himself around and got out of the bed, noting the time with a quick glance at his watch where it was sitting on his night table. He still had soldier’s reflexes it seemed, despite everything. That, or his early bedtime had allowed him to sleep himself out at such a ridiculously early hour. He wondered if anyone else in the Palace was awake yet.

The notion that he might have the place to himself for an hour or so appealed to Treize as he crossed the room to his wardrobe, grateful to the servants who had ordered his new things as he hunted up an outfit for the day, and then headed off into his bathroom. Being able to wander around undisturbed for a while might prove to do a power of good to his adjustment to the place.

__________________________________

As it turned out, Treize wasn’t the only guest at the palace who rose with the sun.

Having decided to take a walk in the rose garden to enjoy the cool clarity of the morning air, he was surprised to run into Chang Wufei in one of the little spaces dotted about and he spent a few moments watching the other man move slowly and with absolute control through some kind of martial art.

Chang didn’t seem to be aware of his presence but his wife, sitting on one of the benches tucked out of the way, looked up from the folder she was making notes in and smiled warmly.

“Good morning,” she greeted softly, then stood up, tucked her folder under her arm and skirted around the edge of the clearing towards Treize. “Did you sleep well?” she asked as she stopped a pace or two away.

“Perfectly,” Treize answered, and then gestured towards Chang. “I have to confess, I wasn’t expecting anyone else to be up yet.”

The woman – Marie, Treize recalled – replied softly. “Wufei usually gets up with the sun. I don’t, unless I have some reason to but it’s such a beautiful morning that I couldn’t resist. I thought I’d get a head start on my work for the day.”

Treize smiled at the woman’s sincerity, charmed by her without knowing why, and tilted his head a little as he glanced down at the folder and then back up at her face. “Work?” he wondered. “May I ask what it is that you do?”

Marie looked back at him warmly. “Of course you may!” she said. “I’m a musician, of sorts. A composer, more properly, I suppose. I was hoping the fresh air would let me pin down a harmony line I’ve been struggling with for the last few days.” A smile touched her eyes and made the sapphire hue sparkle mischievously. “I need to finish the piece I’m working on by this weekend or the dancers won’t have time to rehearse to the full track and Milliardo will lynch me!”

Treize raised an eyebrow, “If I’m disturbing you…?” he offered and was secretly pleased when Marie immediately shook her head.

“Not at all. I wasn’t getting anywhere anyway and I often do better with this type of composition if I talk to people.” Marie tilted her head, the sun turning her loose red hair into a halo of flames, and Treize was suddenly struck by how startlingly beautiful a woman she was. “I was going to go and kick Aleks out of bed in another hour if nothing else worked.”

“Aleks?” Treize wondered. “Why would Zechs be cross with you?” he asked, without pause, puzzled by both too much to choose which to ask first.

The sparkling smile renewed itself, showing just the hint of perfect white teeth. “Aleks because he’s usually quite good at inspiring me,” Marie explained, “and Milliardo would be mad because the track is supposed to accompany the opening of his charity ball and God forbid anything goes wrong with that. He takes the whole thing dreadfully seriously!” she confided impishly.

Treize had a sudden vision of his brooding teenage Ace pilot tearing his hair out over seating charts and dance rehearsals, and couldn’t quite stop the grin that touched his mouth. “He was always rather… focussed on things,” he said and was delighted when Marie laughed musically.

“That’s the polite way to put it, I suppose,” she agreed. She shook her head, gesturing lightly. “Anne calls him ‘an obsessive-compulsive paranoiac with a guilt complex bigger than Mars and less than half the wits he was born with!’” She shrugged. “I think she means it affectionately.”

Now why did that sound wrong? “Lady Une talking about Zechs?” Treize asked. “I doubt it,” he said, before the conversation between the two he’d heard yesterday came to mind again. “They hate each other.”

There was a moment’s silence, then, “Hated,” Marie corrected softly, putting one hand out to touch a nearby rose bloom with elegant fingers. Her smile when she looked back at Treize was softly sad. “They hated each other. Past tense, if ever at all. Your…death did a lot to bury the hatchet between them and I think I….” Marie trailed off and bit her lip. “Well, they’re friends now. You’ll see.”

There was nothing Treize could say to that except, “I’m sure.” He let his mind wonder over what Marie had been about to say and started in surprise when she tucked her hand into his elbow.

Her eyes were studying his face when he met them. “Don’t let me upset you,” she pleaded, looking up at him remarkably successfully for a woman as tall as she was. “Come and have coffee with me and help me finish my song.”

“I’m not sure how much use I’ll be,” Treize demurred, though he wanted to agree. Chances were that her offer was one of politeness only – she had said she needed to finish her work to a deadline. “I know very little about music and…”

He stopped as Marie raised an eyebrow at him and then began laughing. “You know very little about music?” she asked. “Has everyone been lying to me all these years? I’d been given to understand that you were quite the musical aficionado in your spare time, and not a half-talented performer.”

The general shook his head. “I’m an interested amateur, no more,” he said. “There’s a big difference between that and a professional musician, as I’m sure you must know.”

“Of course I’m aware of that,” Marie agreed. She looked at him keenly for a moment then nodded to herself. “Were you aware Milliardo had recordings of you playing?” she asked quietly. “That’s some interest, amateur,” she teased.

The two of them had been walking slowly and companionably along the garden paths away from Marie’s husband and towards the Palace, but now Treize stopped in his tracks, frowning. “I never recorded myself,” he said, taken aback. “I don’t know who Zechs has been passing off as me, but I never so much as gave a public performance in my life.”

“But you did let him hear you play,” Marie answered. “He taped you,” she explained, “because, he said, you wouldn’t play for him as often as he wanted you to.”

“He recorded me?” Treize spluttered. “Without telling me?” He shook his head. “Even if he did, how did you hear it? When I played for Zechs it was always… private.”

Treize fixed a somewhat angry gaze on the woman’s face in time to see her blush and look away. “I know,” she admitted. “I think he thought I had the right,” she said softly. “I don’t think many people have heard,” she soothed, and then smiled brightly. “In any case, we’ve established that I think you more than the average amateur, so come and help. At the very least you can tell me what you think of what I have so far!”

She was, it seemed, going to give him no choice. Realising it would be foolish to protest further when the both of them wanted him to accompany her, Treize inclined his head in acceptance, smiling when she tucked her hand more firmly into his arm.

He reached out in front of the two of them as they neared the door, pushing it open with his free hand and holding it as she stepped through it. She smiled her thanks, but there was no awkwardness to her acceptance of the gesture, telling him she’d been raised in an environment to expect such manners, and used her hold on his arm to steer him through the ground floor of the palace and into a little suite in one of the far corners.

Treize glanced about himself as they moved though what appeared to be a sitting room, noting that the rooms seemed to comprise almost a self-contained apartment within the palace proper. He took in the family photos scattered about the space, images of Marie, Chang and their son, of the two of them alone and of them individually with their friends and extended family. Treize was amused by a shot of Wufei in the middle of the other Gundam pilots, and puzzled by one of a teenage Marie in cap and gown proudly waving a rolled certificate at a beaming Une and Zechs. He’d been assuming Marie’s connection to the royal family came through her marriage to Chang.

“Through here,” Marie murmured as she unlocked a little door recessed into one wall on the far side of the room. “Make yourself comfortable,” she offered. “I’ll be back in a moment with coffee.”

Treize stepped into the room she was indicating and settled himself into a comfortable armchair before really looking around.

He was surprised when he did. What had, perhaps, started life as a spare bedroom had been carefully and expertly converted into a cross between a music room and sound studio. Traditional instruments – everything from piano to percussion – filled one side of the room, standing on the floor or tucked neatly into the fitted cupboards much as such things were always arranged in Treize’s experience, but the rest of the space was taken up with microphones and a mixing board, reel-to-reel and digital recorders and an astounding variety of more modern instruments. The former general wondered if Chang’s wife could actually play everything in the room, or if she had help with some of them. If she managed even a fraction of them alone, she was an amazingly talented woman.

The tinkle of china on silver told Treize that his hostess was back just before she opened the door again, and he stood to take her laden tray from her as she came through it, winning himself another of her infectious smiles.

“Thank you!” she said gratefully. “I was trying to be quiet so I didn’t wake Ning. Staying at the Palace always excites him and it takes forever to get him to sleep for the first few nights. If he wakes too early this morning, he’ll be an absolute nightmare to deal with by mid-afternoon and I can do without him being tired and cranky.”

“I can imagine,” Treize agreed. “Not that I have a great deal of experience with children,” he added, smiling slightly. “It’s very strange that everyone I know – or used to know – does.”

Marie raised an eyebrow at him as she poured fragrant steaming coffee into cups. “Is it?” she asked, and from her expression was genuinely interested. “I know it must be a bit of a shock overall, to suddenly be faced with a new generation and one that’s mostly grown, but surely, intellectually, given the time factor, it isn’t strange.”

She held out one of the cups as she spoke and Treize took it before sitting back and thinking about his answer, wondering at the sudden serious turn the conversation had taken and at his willingness to reply to a woman who was practically a stranger. A lifetime of habit didn’t seem to matter with her and Treize wished he knew why. He would have hesitated before answering that question for Zechs – not that the blond would ever have phrased it so incisively.

“Yes, I still think that it is,” he said eventually, his voice soft. “It’s not so much the fact of my friend’s having grown offspring – although given I’m still having to force myself past thinking Zechs is nineteen, that’s certainly a factor – it’s that I don’t understand it on a personal level. I haven’t seen Zechs interact with Aleks much but it’s not a part of him I recognise or can relate to. The idea of having a child, that close of a blood relative, literally another person who is a part of me, is something I can only guess at. For a long time now, Zechs and Dorothy have been the closest thing I have to family of any kind.” He shrugged. “I’d never even considered fatherhood. I wouldn’t think myself ready for it, in honesty,” he confessed.

Marie’s expression, which had been politely curious, became openly surprised. “Really? Given the level of responsibility you dealt with, I wouldn’t have thought a child would be too much for you?”

“It would seem that way, but my family were always very focussed on their children – had to be really – and I’m not sure I could give that kind of time without resentment. Too, I’m not sure I have the… strength for it. Zechs said yesterday that coping with Aleks after Noin died was the hardest thing he’s ever had to do. I’ve seen a good portion of that boy’s life and his measure is rather high for such things.”

Treize let his voice trail off as he finished speaking, still not at all sure why he was telling a near stranger such intimate detail.

His confusion with himself was such that he nearly missed Marie glancing away for a moment and muttering something under her breath that sounded very much like, “Oh, the irony…” before she turned back to him and found another of her warm smiles.

“I think,” she said softly, “that you doubt yourself too much. I won’t pretend that parenting is the easiest thing on the planet but I’m sure, had you ever been given the chance, you would have managed.”

Treize put his head on one side, considering. “Perhaps,” he said, eventually, then shrugged. “I suspect it’s all going to remain theoretical now, though.”

Marie smiled again. “Why don’t you wait and see. Now, here,” she instructed, as she took a sip from her cup before putting it down on the tray and standing up and gracefully smoothing her skirt down.

Taking a mouthful of his own coffee, Treize turned his head to watch as her elegant figure stepped away from the table and around to the opposite side of one of the mixing desks. There was no question that Chang was a very lucky man – Marie was a beautiful woman with a stunning figure. If carrying their son had hurt her at all, Treize couldn’t see any evidence of it in her sleek curves.

The mild appreciation kept him amused as a flood of music spilled into the room, jumping a little at first as Marie pressed buttons to make adjustments but soon settling into a harmonious current.

The first section of the track, rippling instrumentation and a soft, sultry female singer was pleasant, though he could already tell that the track wasn’t finished, but as the song continued the beat grew more pronounced and as it hit the first chorus, the classical form faded away in favour of driving electronic rhythm and powerful vocalisation.

Treize raised an eyebrow – though the track alternated between the two styles and had, overall, a decidedly Slavic feel to it that was only enhanced by being sung in what he suspected was Sancian, there was no disguising the fact that it was a very modern piece, closer to the sort of thing Treize would have expected to be played in a club than a concert hall. Certainly, it was not the classic, heavily orchestral style of music Treize had been imagining Marie would compose and Zechs would commission.

He sat back in his chair a little as the song ended with a flourish, processing what he had just heard as Marie began to look at him intently. “It’s… not what I was expecting,” he admitted honestly after a moment. “For some reason, I’d imagined something more, ah, traditional. Especially when you began talking about harmony lines. Has Zechs heard any of it?”

Marie blinked at the question. “He’s heard very early edits. Do you think he won’t like it?” she wondered, and she sounded genuinely concerned. “It’s not as though as he’s unfamiliar with my work, and whilst I admit this is a bit of a new direction for me….”

The former general shrugged. “I’ve always known him go more for traditional styles of music, but then, I haven’t known him at all for the last quarter of a century. If you don’t think the electronic side of it will be a problem…” He stopped as Marie smiled suddenly and then began to laugh. “What?”

She waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, simple relief. I should have known after all the formality last night that you’d be a traditionalist. Yes, Milliardo is well aware of my tendency to use modern sounds in my work. When I said this was a new direction for me, I actually meant that this is the first time I’ve tried to fuse my two styles. I record under two slightly different names, that's all - one for my modern, popular stuff and one for my more classical material.”

“I see,” Treize answered, though in truth, he didn’t.

Marie must have read the truth on his face, because she set the track playing again as she explained, “I started out by writing only for orchestra. I’m known under my own name for that. Felix got me into writing the modern pieces about ten years ago, when he first started listening to music on his own, and Aleks encouraged me to publish it a couple of years after that. My first love will always be the serious symphony, but I have a lot of fun with the modern tracks, and I have to admit, I make more money from them. I’ve been successful in both fields, fortunately – it was Milliardo’s suggestion that there might be a market for a fusion of the two and his suggestion that I use his Ball to trial it.”

The former general let the music wash over him for another moment, setting himself to listen beyond the overall sound to detect the layers of harmonies that comprised it. “Can you take out the percussion and the vocal line for me?” he asked, struggling to detect the individual instruments and their melodies under the electronic noise he was unfamiliar with.

Marie swept her hands across her boards with practiced deftness and the incomprehensible lyrics and driving beat disappeared. Treize smiled. “That’s better,” he said, waited for the song to finish playing again and then looked at Marie warmly. “It’s lovely. Do you have a guitar?” he asked.

Chapter Text

Zechs, almost an hour later, also ran into Wufei whilst he was taking a walk around the gardens before breakfast and quickly found the peace of the morning shattered by what his oriental friend said to him.

“What possessed you to let them?” he demanded, when Wufei had finished explaining how Treize and Marie had wandered off together.

“Would you care to explain how I should have stopped them without it looking strange?” Wufei returned, just as sharply. “I realise that Khushrenada doesn’t yet know who Marie is and that he has a lot else to cope with – you were very clear on that yesterday! – but do you not understand what it feels like for Marie? Are you going to lose sight of everything and everyone else now that you have him back?”

Zechs raised an annoyed eyebrow. “I didn’t lose sight of everything else for him, not once. I haven’t now.”

“Really?” Wufei interrupted. “You still haven’t adequately explained why my wife learned of his appearance from an email sent between children to our son, rather than through the conversation you should have thought to grant her. You practically raised her as your own but you’d forgotten her needs in favour of his before he’d been here more than twelve hours. Should we be planning for you to become his shadow again?” he asked coldly.

“I was never his shadow!” Zechs snapped, feeling anger rise as Wufei’s eyes pinned his own. The oriental man had been kind the day before, taking Zechs’s hurried explanations in his stride and showing commendable courtesy to Treize himself at dinner but his patience had obviously run its limit and, with no one else around to hear, he’d stripped off his kid gloves in favour of his true opinion.

The eyebrow he raised slowly seemed to ask a mocking, ‘Weren’t you?’, and Zechs founding himself defending himself before he really knew he was speaking.

“I was never his shadow!” he repeated hotly. “His lover, yes, his friend, his family. His pilot and officer. Never his shadow!”

“Only his attack dog,” Wufei continued smoothly, his tone and volume a complete contrast to the taller man’s. Even his posture, relaxed and open, was in opposition. “His assassin. His puppet. His ‘ace’ – and there’s a reason why it’s that term for a top pilot as well as for a clever hand of cards! If he loved you, it didn’t stop him from using you and he was never faithful to you in any way. He manipulated and betrayed you and in the end he played a very great part in driving you mad.” He held up a hand as Zechs opened his mouth to jump into the fray again. “It may have been necessary. It probably was, at least in his eyes. We may all have committed worse sins. That is not the point.”

“Then what is?” Zechs asked curtly. “Because everything you accuse him of could just as easily be laid at my door, or yours, or even Marie’s, to some extent. If you can forgive me, then why not him?”

Zechs had asked that question of almost every member of his family over the past four days. None of them had been able to answer but Wufei did, reminding Zechs of why he and the Chinese man were family and what role Chang most often played in his life. If Heero was his rival, Quatre his match and Duo his closest friend, then Chang had become his conscience. The oriental man questioned him and pushed him, as he did with himself and with everyone he knew, challenging them to refine themselves into better than they were. Even Marie, with whom Chang was softer than any of them had ever thought he could be, wasn’t exempt.

Wufei folded his arms across his chest and levelled his gaze directly at the King. “I can forgive you because time has allowed me to do so. You are not now the person you once were and neither am I, and other influences and events hold more significance between us. Khushrenada – if that man is Khushrenada – has not had that benefit. He is still, exactly, the man who attacked my home and killed my first wife, who started a war, who devised and controlled Operation Daybreak, who ordered murder from assassination to genocide. He was a military genius, a bloody-handed dictator and a political shark, and he has not changed!”

Zechs had recoiled a little when Wufei started his litany but he’d rallied as it continued and now he shook his head. “I think that he has, Wufei. He’s not the man I remember. There are differences in him. I think he regrets what he did, just as we do.”

Wufei shrugged sharply. “Perhaps he does. Have you asked him?” He dismissed the question unanswered. “Milliardo, I am not suggesting we lock him away somewhere, or even that we ask him to justify his actions. We didn’t have to. All I am asking is that you remember that he is every bit as sharp as he ever was, and that if he could hold such sway over you once, why not again? I wish for you to be careful,” he added, more gently.

For a moment, Zechs didn’t know what to make of that, then he blinked and smiled slowly. “Are you worried about me?” he asked, his surprise showing through.

Wufei rolled his eyes. “Your Majesty, we all are,” he replied shortly. “None of your friends have been blind to you these past few years, and I can imagine what my reaction would be if I suddenly got Meiran back. Don’t lower your defences completely so soon. It would not be good for any of us, including Khushrenada, who must be given time to find himself and his place here without such distractions.”

Zechs, feeling his face heat in a blush, knew his friend was speaking nothing more than the truth but he couldn’t stop himself from shaking his head in negation. “I wasn’t about to drag the man into bed with me, Wufei,” he sighed.

Wufei gestured dismissively. “I would hope not, but I wasn’t referring to anything so shallow.” He paused for a moment, and then gestured again. “What do you plan to do about Marie? You weren’t clear yesterday what your thoughts on the subject were.”

“I don’t know,” the King admitted wearily. He turned on one heel and began walking, knowing Wufei would fall into step at his side without having to ask. “It’s complicated, Wufei,” he continued. “I realise that I have to tell Treize who Marie really is, but I can’t think of a way to do so. The situation is unprecedented – had you realised that she’s almost eight years older than he is?” Zechs let his hand reach out to one of the bushes and then drop back as he tipped his head back and closed his eyes against the sunlight that was just beginning to warm the air. “There’s so much to be organised, so many things to tell him or show him or explain to him that I don’t know where to fit it in. How important is it, do you think?” he asked the younger man and got a noncommittal grunt as an answer.

“Important, in my opinion,” Chang answered. “Do you not think he has the right to know, Milliardo?” he asked, expression surprised.

“Of course he has the right to know, Wufei!” Zechs replied. “But, when? And how?”

The Chinese man scowled intently. “I suppose,” he began a little diffidently, “that we are sure he is Treize Khushrenada?”

“To the best of our abilities to authenticate, yes. DNA matches and so do all other physical indicators – blood type, fingerprint, retinal scan.”

Zechs’s voice was firm, undoubting and it made Wufei bite his lip a little as he thought for a moment. “So would a clone’s,” he pointed out, and Zechs supposed he should have known the oriental man would think of that first, with his wife.

“Sally pulled his medical records from his service jacket,” Zechs said. “He has all the scars and healed breaks he should have, and a clone wouldn’t have those. He has all the freckles and marks I could remember, too. It is him, Wufei. Epyon thought so, if we’d needed any further proof.”

The smaller man nodded slowly. “I had to ask.” He took a deep breath. “I think we have to tell him, Milliardo, as soon as we can. Perhaps if you’d contacted me directly and told me what was happening it would have been different. I might have been able to persuade Marie to stay at home until you were ready, but once Ning got the email from Katerina, there was no chance she was going to do that. Have you not realised what it means for her? An answer, finally, as to who she is?”

Zechs scowled in his own turn as they walked out from the rows of flowerbeds and across the open lawns, booted feet silent and perfectly in step with those wearing soft, oriental slippers. “I thought all that nonsense with Ning last year settled that?” the King asked. “That was genetic proof, even if all the DNA tests weren’t.”

“But as with Khushrenada himself, DNA does not prove identity,” Wufei countered. “It proves cell structure. All Marie’s DNA proves is that Dekim Barton had access to Treize’s at some point. It’s all circumstantial – the testing, Noin’s assurances that he once met Leia Barton, the coincidental dates – as it has always been and none of it will matter if Khushrenada doesn’t confirm it. That knowledge is going to drive Marie mad until she gets the chance to ask for herself.”

“I know,” Zechs admitted. “Why did you think I wanted them kept apart? You don’t think she’d ask him on her own, do you? It’s going to be a hell of a shock for him, Wufei.”

“I have no doubt that it is, but no more than his being here has been for us. We’re coping.”

The King shook his head. “Are we?” he asked softly. “You saw him last night; he’s more fragile than he looks.” He sighed. “When, Wufei? He has to see Sally for a full medical this morning, something he told me yesterday couldn’t really wait. Seeing Sally means an introduction to the Preventers, and I’ll be stunned if Une doesn’t use that opportunity to arrange to meet him. Even if she doesn’t, we’re supposed to be having dinner tonight. Do you really think I’ll get away with not taking Treize along? Do you imagine that introduction will be stress-free?”

He shook his head, pushing open the Palace door as they reached it. “Quatre needs to talk to him about his finances at some point,” he continued, “and Relena has organised that little ‘chat’ with him. We still need a legal identity for him and my court dresser needs to get her hands on him in the next couple of days, both before the press conferences this weekend and the Ball next. And, of course, the longer he walks around this Palace, the more likely it is that someone will either start asking questions or will treat him to an impromptu history lesson and blow all our careful management of him to hell and back. I still haven’t had chance to sit him down and tell him how the war he fought in ended, Wufei, much less start explaining about the one a year later!”

Zechs sighed wearily. “I’m worried about his ability to cope with it all. You said it yourself – time hasn’t passed for him as it has for us. He’s five days out of the end of the war, straight from active combat, and he’s spent three of those unconscious. Am I the only one who recalls just how badly we all coped with the end of the fighting? How can I continue to make that worse?”

Wufei had been listening silently, acknowledging the truth of everything the King said. “How can you not?” he asked when Zechs finally lapsed into silence. He held up a hand when Zechs looked as though he were going to protest again. “What is, is, Milliardo. He’s here; he will have to deal with that. All you can do is try to make that as easy as possible. Telling him about Marie directly might be a shock for him but it is better than letting him find out by accident, or worse, working it out alone. Because he will, given time,” he warned gravely. “He’s already suspicious of Marie and her presence here. Sooner or later, one of us will say or do something to give the truth away. A walk around the wrong part of the second floor and that lovely exhibit you put together for the tourists would do it.”

“I know,” the older man confessed. “I know. I just really don’t know when.”

The oriental man shrugged. “Not this morning, if he is to see Sally. Is he free this afternoon?”

“That depends on how long the medical side takes to sort out. His health is paramount,” Zechs added firmly, forestalling anything Wufei might have been about to say to the counter. “Sally might have a full day planned already, there are a couple of things I’d like to happen whilst we’re over there and Treize said yesterday there were a few things he needed to speak to a doctor about. I have no idea what they are – he didn’t want to tell me – but I’ve had one or two conversations since that have given me some clue and I won’t rush him. All that has to come first, I’m afraid. That is important.”

The two men had made their way almost to the door of Wufei’s little apartment, so the oriental man contented himself with simply nodding and answering, “Understood,” as he opened the door.

A quick glance around told the two men that Marie must be in her music room and they headed that way with a shared look of concern.

Neither of them was prepared to open the door to a flood of laughter and rippling melody.

Chapter Text

“Would you care to tell me what it is I’ve done?”

The voice from behind and to his left made Zechs jump as he stepped back from the boot cupboard, heavy coat in one hand and his body whipping around to look for the source. He relaxed when he registered Treize’s trim figure in the doorway to the garage and sighed noisily, his breath hissing between his teeth as he shook his head in annoyance.

“Don’t you know not to startle people like that?” he demanded shortly.

Treize shrugged tightly. “You spent most of yesterday telling me nobody goes armed anymore, so I don’t imagine I have much to fear. You didn’t even reach for a gun,” he dismissed.

Zechs turned around properly, casting an irritated glance at the younger man. Treize’s tone of voice had been reproving, even bordering on condescending, not something Zechs was used to hearing from anyone anymore. “I haven’t been a soldier for over twenty years, Treize. No one has. Why would I have maintained a soldier’s reflexes? And why should I reach for a gun that I haven’t worn for almost two decades?”

The sharply pointed questions made Zechs’s feelings perfectly clear and seemed to take some of the stiffness out of the former general. Treize dropped his questioning stare, looking down at the rough floor for a moment before sighing softly. “And I ask again,” he said quietly, “would you care to tell me what I’ve done to upset you?”

The King stared at his friend for another moment, then recalled his own words to Wufei a few hours earlier and winced to himself. What was the point of him insisting to everyone else that Treize was more fragile than he looked, if he then turned around and forgot that himself? Using the act of sliding the coat into place over his clothes and making sure the heavy wool didn’t crease his suit jacket to buy himself some time, he took a careful breath and let it go slowly. “You haven’t done anything,” he said quietly. “Just… ignore me for a while, would you? I have moments when I’m not fit company for a cat.”

He was answered by an impolite snort. “You’ve always been moody, Zechs. You wouldn’t be you, otherwise. I’m well used to it and I can tell when it’s just you having a bad day. That snit over breakfast was aimed at me specifically, so what did I do?”

“It wasn’t aimed specifically at you,” Zechs protested, but he forbore from completing the sentence and enlightening his friend to that fact that it had been aimed at both Treize and Marie, and more at Marie.

The sight that had greeted Wufei and the King that morning had been enough to make Zechs’s heart twinge with bittersweet emotion. Short of his near hysterical bout over the biography the day before, Treize had been remarkably sombre since his arrival at the Palace, any good mood he would normally have managed weighed down by the circumstances.

But when Wufei had opened the door to his wife’s music room, Treize had been bent over his borrowed instrument, his eyes dancing, laughing softly from sheer pleasure and looking both completely relaxed and completely at home as he poured a torrent of bubbling, joyous music from the guitar. Zechs hadn’t heard him play so freely for years even before they’d separated.

The jealousy that Marie, who should have been nothing more than a stranger to the younger man, could have managed what Zechs himself had not had been searing, sparking hot anger as he glanced from the general across the room to the woman in question and quelling her own laughter with just his expression.

Leaving a thunderous-looking Chang to deal with his wife, Zechs had curtly informed the younger man that it was time for breakfast and then turned on his heel to walk away, leaving Treize to follow him as they made their way to the little dining room.

He’d left the general to the mercies of the younger generation again, waiting until Treize had seated himself next to a sleepy-looking Aleks before taking his own seat at the other end of the table and ignoring him for the entire meal. At the end of it, he’d briskly told him to change and be in the garage in an hour, and then disappeared before Treize could even begin a reply.

It had taken him almost all of that hour to realise that he was reacting so badly, not only from jealousy, but also from pain on the younger man’s behalf. Seeing Marie and Treize together had been unexpected; seeing how well and how quickly they’d bonded had been wrenching. He didn’t know if Treize had ever thought about children – it hadn’t been something they’d ever discussed – but, seeing him with Marie, Zechs had known that his oldest friend would have made a natural father and Marie, if Treize had survived, would have grown up spoiled, cosseted and adored. Knowing that neither of them would have the chance for that was tearing, especially when Zechs thought about how he would have felt to miss his experiences with Aleks.

Wufei had been right to insist that Treize needed to be told who Marie was as soon as possible – the guilt that he hadn’t already done so was making Zechs feel terrible and was half the reason he was being so sharp with his friend. He only hoped, in a bizarre twist from his younger days, that Leia Barton had been one of Treize’s earlier conquests. If it turned out that Marie was the artificial product of stolen and manipulated DNA Dekim had claimed her to be, then the fall out was going to be awful.

A shuffling of feet brought Zechs’s attention back to the here and now. “I’m just tired, Treize,” he reassured as the younger man shook his head in disagreement. “I’m in a bad mood with everyone over nothing. Ignore it. I’ll snap out of it eventually. Are you ready?” he asked, to change the subject.

Treize shrugged, clearly not believing him, but he nodded as well. “As I can be, I think, without knowing exactly what your Doctor friend has planned. I dressed about as casually as I could manage,” he added, glancing over what Zechs was wearing in contrast, “and now I’m wondering if I misjudged. Is there a reason for you being so smart?”

Zechs glanced over his clothes as well, and then smiled as he realised what was puzzling his friend. “I got over my objection to formal clothing quite a few years ago, Treize. This is fairly normal for me, these days, especially when I’m out in public as I will be today. I toned it down yesterday for your sake. Surprised?” he asked lightly, watching with some amusement as Treize ran a closer gaze over him. He wondered what the younger man was making of him.

“It’s a departure from the boy who had to be forced to wear a shirt to go out to dinner with me, certainly. I suppose it makes sense, given everything.” The general tilted his head to one side. “It suits you,” he confessed.

Since this suit, like almost every other one he owned, had been approved by the court dresser and made especially for him, Zechs had already known that, but there was a look at the back of his friend’s eyes that gave the words more meaning and Zechs found himself with a pleased smile on his face.

“Thank you,” he replied, then shook his head as he sobered. “You’ll be fine in what you’re wearing. If I know Sally, you won’t be wearing it for long. She’s vicious.”

“Oh, lovely. I need a morning of being tortured by Doctor Frankenstein.”

Treize’s voice was so disgusted that Zechs couldn’t help but laugh. “She’s not that bad, and I’m sure you’ll feel better for getting it all sorted.” He reached up, freed a small set of keys from a row of hooks by the cupboard and gestured across the garage with his other hand. “Come on, then.”

Sighing to himself, Treize gathered up the little bag he was carrying more closely and followed him across the space, letting his eyes wander at leisure over the stunning number of rare and expensive cars, many of them classics that had been beautifully restored. Some of the cars in this garage Treize had fantasized about owning for years. He’d never thought to see half of them up close, much less in such wonderful condition. He wondered what Zechs – self-confessedly only interested in cars when they broke down on him – was doing with such a collection.

He couldn’t help but feel disappointed when he realised that they were heading for the same sleek car Zechs had been driving the day before.

Of course, his realisation was helped by the fact that Felix, dressed as smartly as Zechs – if with the ostentatious twists that Treize was coming to realise were a trademark for the younger man – was leaning lightly against the passenger side door, clearly waiting for them. There was a folder tucked under one arm and a neat black bag at his feet and he raised a hand in greeting as they drew near.

“Morning,” he said lightly. “Would you mind if I stole a lift?” he asked cheerily.

Treize shrugged, looking at Zechs to give the answer. He was the one driving after all.

The older man raised an eyebrow, glancing at the folder and bag, and at the dark grey suit Felix was wearing. “Dare I ask what for?”

“Well, I wanted to speak to Dr Po sometime this week anyway, but when I rang her this morning to ask when she was free, she suggested I come down with you.” Felix was talking to Zechs, but he shot a sudden look at Treize. “She actually suggested that I ask if you wouldn’t mind me sitting in on the exam. It’d make a fascinating experience, medically speaking – there’s no one for me to study with quite your conditioning and background anymore.”

Treize blinked in surprise, but shrugged and nodded. “If you think you’ll find me that interesting,” he agreed. “I might ask you to leave for some of it.”

Felix nodded, suddenly totally serious. “Of course. It’s all at your discretion.” He smiled again, just as quickly. “And, yes, you are that interesting,” he teased, amethyst eyes sparkling as he turned back to Zechs. “Actually, I think she’s hoping to palm off some of the routine follow-up onto me.” He hesitated for a moment and then added, “Since I’m going to be living up here at the Palace for at least the next month anyway, it makes sense for me to get a feel for his baseline readings and take over, rather than her having to run up here all the time, or Treize go to her.”

His voice was still light but his eyes were direct when they met Zechs’s, and Treize got the impression that there was something being said between the two of them that he didn’t understand. He dismissed his suspicions a moment later when Felix turned to him again and asked, “Again, with your consent? If you’d rather stick with a doctor who’s been doing the job more than a year, I’ll understand.”

Treize found a smile. “No, I have no objections. I’m sure you can manage to take my blood pressure without killing me, and, to be honest, I think… well, at least I’ve met you.”

The general was sure his tone of voice was completely even, holding nothing but good humour and calm acceptance. That didn’t stop Zechs and Felix scowling at his words, exchanging anxious glances and reaching to touch him at the same moment. Felix’s fingertips brushed his shoulder lightly, the contact just barely there long enough to be felt as his face reflected his feeling of puzzled concern. Zechs, in contrast, wrapped his hand firmly around the younger man’s wrist, his eyes showing tense worry.

“Dr Po really is very good at what she does,” Felix said quietly. “She was my mentor for part of my studies. I don’t think you could be in better hands, and I promise she’s capable of keeping her patient’s confidentiality.”

Treize nodded. “I’m sure she is,” he agreed. “I’m not in any doubt as to her skill.”

“Then what?” Zechs asked. “You didn’t seem happy when we were talking about this yesterday, either, but I thought we’d sorted it out?”

Treize shrugged again. “We have. There’s no problem. You’ll just have to forgive me if I’m not looking forward to undergoing a full physical at the hands of a complete stranger. I’ve never been fond of having to strip to my skin to be poked at and scrutinised for however long.”

Felix chuckled slightly at the explanation, shaking his head as he took a step away. “Ah, that makes sense,” he said. “My sympathies, then, but there’s no way around it.”

“No, there isn’t,” Zechs picked up. “I have no idea why it’s worrying you. You should be used to it after the Specials,” he continued, his voice dry. His expression had shifted from worry to a certain amount of boredom, almost as though he thought Treize was creating problems for the sake of it.

“I am used to it,” Treize agreed. “Four or more times a year for the last thirteen years, of course I’m used to it. That doesn’t mean I have to like it,” he said, sighing wearily. “And if this exam is even half as thorough as the Specials physicals were, I may be forced to resort to murder,” he warned. “There was absolutely no need for most of those tests!”

Felix and Zechs exchanged another glance.

“There probably was, you know,” Felix countered mildly. “Contrary to common opinion, most Doctors don’t actually enjoy inflicting unnecessary tests on their patients.”

He shifted the folder he was still holding to tuck it under his other elbow. “I suspect, though, that Dr Po is planning to throw every thing she can think of at you today. I would be, in her shoes. We know nothing at all about you, after all. If you were to become ill tomorrow, unless the cause was extremely obvious, we’d be flying blind as to how to treat you. I’d hesitate to prescribe anything stronger than an over-the-counter remedy simply because we have no way to know how you’ll react to modern medications.” He gave a shake of his head that looked both resigned and worried. “Twenty-five years isn’t all that long, but there have been some real leaps forward in medicine. There are whole classes of drugs that didn’t exist the last time you saw a Doctor that are in standard use now.”

Treize blinked in surprise, then closed his eyes in resignation as he realised he’d have no choice but to co-operate with anything Dr Po asked of him. Zechs, on the other hand, simply looked startled and increasingly worried.

“Do you really think there could be a problem?” he asked sharply. He shot Treize a look that could only be described as guilty. “I gave him my headache tablets last night without even thinking about it. Shouldn’t I have?”

Felix shook his head, chuckling suddenly. “You shouldn’t be giving prescription meds to anyone without permission full stop, but no, that’s not the type of drug I meant really.” He stopped to draw a breath, took in Zechs’s expression and let it go again slowly. “Look, don’t worry about it. I know Dr Po is planning to look for any possible problems like that, so we’ll know by the end of today. It’s incredibly unlikely.”

“Fair enough.” Zechs glanced down at his watch and raised an eyebrow. “We need to get going or we’re going to be late.”

Felix shot a look at his own watch, whistled under his breath at the time and gestured that Treize take the front passenger seat. “I’ll need to spread these papers out to read them,” he explained. “And Uncle Milliardo is a much better tour guide than I am anyway.”

____________________________________________

Zechs had given Treize a potted history of the Preventer Organisation during the drive from the Palace but that hadn’t prepared him for the sheer scale of the complex that constituted their Headquarters.

The steel and glass main building was visible from the high-speed ring road that Zechs had explained surrounded Newport City these days, to connect it with the major trans-European road network, long before the King flicked on his indicator and swung his car onto the exit ramp nearest to it.

As the car rolled up the approach road, Treize was taken aback again by the level of security. To his eyes, the Royal Palace had seemed almost completely undefended and so had what he had seen of Newport City the day before. With that added to Zechs’s repeated insistence that the world was at peace, the last thing he’d expected to see was a defensive wall and gun emplacements that would have rivalled those surrounding an Oz base during the height of the war.

He was also surprised to see that the guard who stepped out from his post and approached the car as Zechs drew to a halt in front of a barrier was carrying a holstered pistol on his hip and seemed entirely as though he knew how to use it, despite the fact that he couldn’t have been much above twenty.

He waited patiently by the car as Zechs wound his window down and reached into his coat pocket for something. In the rear seat Felix, who, with the exception of the occasional comment, had been silently studying his papers for the length of the journey, did the same thing and Treize watched curiously as both men handed over unmarked black leather wallets to the guard.

He handed them back a moment later, with a polite smile, then returned to his guard post for a moment to collect a small folder.

“Your parking permit, Commander Wind,” he explained. “Lady Une also asked me to tell you that the folder contains clearance codes and a visitor’s pass for your guest so you’ll be free to go straight to your appointments without having to pass through Reception.”

Zechs took the folder, his eyes showing his surprise as he nodded a thank you and rolled his window back up as the barrier lifted. “Trust Anne to be efficient,” he murmured, steering the car forward and into one of the marked channels for traffic after a quick glance down at the first sheet of paper in the folder he’d opened on his lap. He took one hand off the wheel long enough to hand a small square of plastic to Treize. “Put that in a pocket or in your wallet and keep it on you at all times. It contains a chip that will automatically unlock a lot of the security doors for you. Don’t be surprised if people ask to see it, either. Anne organising that in advance means we get to avoid some of the hassle but we’re still going to have to walk through some of the HQ.”

Treize nodded, pulling the wallet he’d bought for himself the day before from his coat pocket and sliding the visitor’s pass next to the bankcard Zechs had given him. It still disturbed him that those were the only two things in it.

He gathered his coat up as Zechs pulled the car into a numbered parking space, a glance out of the window telling him that the rain, which had started just after breakfast, washing away the pretty early morning in flood of damp and grey skies, was still falling in sheets.

He climbed from the car into the clammy air and waited whilst Zechs got his own things together and Felix slid all his papers back into the bag he was carrying. Treize had asked what they all were about halfway through their drive and had been surprised to learn that the younger man was skimming though the medical files that had been attached to his military service jacket.

The space they’d been assigned was on the top level of the car park and Treize followed obediently as the other two men began crossing the concrete, keeping within the marked lines as they headed for a door built into the surrounding wall on the far side. Zechs tapped a code into the key panel by the side of the door and pulled it open to hold it for his two companions.

“Phew!” Felix exclaimed, brushing back his hair with one hand as he stepped out of the rain and through the door. “That’s it for summer, then,” he commented. “What did you do to merit VIP parking?” he asked Zechs.

The older man let the door shut, shrugging out of his damp coat and folding it over his arm before replying. “Twenty-odd years of seniority might have had something to do with it,” he said off-handedly. “Actually, I don’t think I did anything to merit it.”

As he spoke, he shot a telling glance at Treize, and the general had to catch himself before he shuffled uncomfortably. “The Lady?” he asked warily.

Zechs nodded, smiled and made a dismissive gesture as he began walking down the connecting passageway they’d stepped into. “It’s not what you’re thinking,” he reassured. “She’s probably just trying to make this as easy as possible for you. She got past thinking of you like that quite some time ago.”

Treize answered the smile with his own, hoping it didn’t look as shaky as he suddenly felt. He hadn’t realised how nervous he was about meeting Une again, and the knowledge that she no longer carried a torch for him as she once had left him feeling both relieved and pleased for her sake, and the tiniest bit disappointed for his own. He wondered at how selfish it made him that he wanted at least one of his old friends and lovers not to have gotten over him with such seeming ease.

His focus on his own thoughts caused him to miss Felix’s sudden look of surprise until the younger man spoke. “You and the Lady?” he asked, voice incredulous.

Treize shrugged. “Once,” he answered and deliberately didn’t look at either of his companions. Felix, answering, “Wow, I didn’t know that!” took it to mean one thing. Zechs, as had been intended, took it to mean something else entirely.

“Neither did I,” the older man replied coolly. “Anne’s never mentioned it.”

“There wasn’t much to mention,” Treize responded quietly, thinking back to the hurried encounter he and the Lady had shared the last time he’d seen her. The whole thing had been born of desperation and panic, rather than any happier feeling, and of the unspoken knowledge of what Treize was planning. The general hadn’t been proud of it at the time and, looking back, felt downright ashamed and embarrassed by his behaviour. Une had deserved better from him than to be used that way. Her silent offer was one he should never have taken.

“Enough, if it has you colouring like that,” Zechs commented, almost under his breath as he held another door for the general. His tone, though still holding annoyance, was edged with laughter. Treize flicked a glance up at him enough to register the twinkle in the King’s pale eyes and then looked away again, shrugging roughly. He hadn’t known he’d flushed but it didn’t surprise him.

There was a light touch to the back of his hand. “That last night?” Zechs asked, and this time his voice really was little more than a whisper. He was clearly trying to keep Felix from overhearing, but the younger man was doing a sterling job of being firmly interested in the corridor they’d come to all on his own.

Treize nodded once, hoping that would be an end to the subject.

A moment later, the hand brushing his wrapped firmly around his fingers and pressed. “It doesn’t matter,” Zechs said softly. “If it helped, if it made either of you feel better….” He shrugged. “It’s water under the bridge, Treize. I’m not in a position to criticize you for it,” he admitted, but what he was admitting to, precisely, he didn’t say.

Treize just nodded again, tightening his grip on his friend’s hand before pulling away as the three of them turned a corner into a more populated area.

There were three or four people scattered about the space Zechs was leading them through, all of them in variations of the uniform Treize had seen the guard in, black and khaki green with shirts and t-shirts in a range of colours and degrees of smartness. As they caught sight of Zechs, they straightened from their informal poses, coming to neat attention and saluting. “Commander Wind,” one of them murmured and Zechs acknowledged it with a polite nod, touching Treize in the small of his back to steer him to his right around the next corner.

“Commander Wind?” the general asked when they’d passed beyond earshot. “Not ‘Your Majesty’?”

Zechs shook his head. “Not here. One of the Preventer’s policies is that nothing from beyond the organisation matters at work. I’m nothing more than another employee here, if one with a certain amount of seniority. I was Agent Wind when I first joined, Commander later, when I was promoted. That’s the rank I retired at, so that’s how I’m known when I have to be here.”

Treize scowled. “But the building is situated in your Capital city,” he protested. “Surely the respect owed to a ruling monarch outweighs…?”

Zechs interrupted him. “There’s your upbringing talking again,” he chuckled. “The Preventer complex sits on Sanc soil because Relena was the one to offer the land to Une when she was trying to set the organisation up, that’s all. It isn’t, technically, a part of the Kingdom. We devised paperwork about fifteen years ago to give it the same immunity as a foreign embassy.”

Felix, who’d been listening silently, smiled and put in, “It works a little like Vatican City used to, if that helps. It’s almost an independent state.”

The King nodded, gesturing with one hand at a door in front of them. “It was the best way we could think of to make it truly multi-national,” he explained. “If there is any official business between the Preventers and the state Relena handles it, to prevent a conflict of interest. She was never a member.” He shrugged. “I officially resigned from the force when I took the throne but Une keeps my name on the reserve list, so I still have the access cards and the like, and so she doesn’t have to have me fill in ten thousand disclaimer forms every time she wants to discuss something with me. She does the same with Duo, Heero and Quatre as well, and it wouldn’t surprise me if she asks to add your name, when we work out what it’s going to be.” He slanted Treize a mischievous look. “Assuming you don’t end up working here, of course. Everyone else did.”

Treize looked up at the taller man for a moment, then shook his head determinedly. “Not likely,” he said firmly and made Felix laugh as they finally approached a door marked with the universal Red Cross symbol.

Zechs pushed this one open as well and ushered Treize from the brightly lit, expensively decorated corridor to a room that looked like every medical facility Treize had ever had the misfortune to see.

The place was spotless, floors and equipment all gleaming, and some effort had been made to relieve the sterility by hanging a few bland art prints on the walls but the smell was pervasively that of a hospital, bleach and underlying illness. Treize sighed in resignation and waited for one of his companions to tell him where to go next.

Before either of them had the chance to move, a door on the far side of the room swung open and a tall woman with thick honey-coloured hair swept back into no-nonsense ponytail entered the room. She wasn’t a young woman – Treize put her somewhere around the same age as Zechs – and there was something in her bone structure that suggested a more interesting racial background than the hair and blue eyes indicated.

There was something in those eyes as they swept over Treize, cool and professional as they were, that belied the encouraging smile she summoned and the friendly aura she projected. The general got the sense that she wasn’t to be crossed if it could be avoided and that she could and would fight like a cornered cat if necessary.

“Well, hello, Dr Maxwell!” she greeted, her voice full of warmth and affection as she put down the file she was carrying on a cabinet and crossed to their party.

Felix smiled back. “Hi, Dr Po,” he returned, and there was the slightest hint of colour to his face. “I’m still not used to that,” he admitted, and it took Treize a minute to realise that the younger man meant the title the woman had granted him.

“Takes awhile, I know, but call me Sally. You’ve earned it by now I should think and it’s only professional courtesy.”

“Thanks,” Felix replied and she shook her head, reaching up to pat his shoulder gently.

“Don’t thank me until you’ve listened to me trying to recruit you to work for me,” she answered and turned to Zechs. “Milliardo, how’s the ankle?” she quizzed.

Treize watched as Zechs glanced down at his left ankle and then back up. “Fine, now, thanks,” he said. “I sprained it riding a few weeks ago,” he explained when he caught Treize’s puzzled look. “Treize, this is Dr Sally Po. Sally, Treize Khushrenada.”

Treize summoned a smile from somewhere and held out his hand automatically. The doctor took it and smiled back, but Treize had the sense that she wasn’t entirely happy.

“It’s nice to see you awake and aware, general,” she greeted politely. “I’m trusting Felix and Milliardo have given you fair warning about what sort of morning this is likely to be?”

Treize flicked a glance at Zechs long enough to see him hurriedly hide a wicked smirk, and then nodded in resignation. “They have. I was expecting it, mind you, after half a lifetime of military service.”

Sally gestured lightly. “No doubt,” she agreed. “Well, there will be a few differences. Medicine has seen some advances in the last quarter of a century, so some things will be new to you and you may find some things missing. Feel free to ask me about anything you aren’t sure about, of course,” she added, “but I will explain as we go.”

Treize nodded his understanding and watched as Sally stepped back from him and surveyed him for a moment, quietly. Her body language changed a few seconds later, becoming all competent professionalism.

“We may as well get started then,” she began. “Has Felix explained that I’d like him to sit in with us?” she asked.

Treize nodded again. “He mentioned you’d suggested it, yes.”

“And would you mind?” Sally pressed. “I have several reasons for wanting it, not the least of which are that I think it would be of benefit to you both. Felix would acquire a unique learning experience that he’s unlikely to match anywhere else and you would have the advantage of a Doctor living with you full time who’s familiar with you and in a position to treat you should it become necessary,” she explained. “You may also find that you prefer to go to him for any future care,” she continued. “What we have of your medical history is incomplete, at best, but I did note you have a marked preference for Doctors of your own gender.”

The former general shook his head at that and shrugged elegantly. “I’ll admit I find it easier to talk to another man, but the weighting that way is more likely a result of whom I was assigned to see rather than anything else. The only Doctor I had any control over was the personal physician I hired a year or so ago.” He glanced at Zechs and Felix and then back to the doctor. “I have no objection to Felix staying for the most part. I did make clear to him earlier that I might ask him to leave for some things.”

Sally echoed his glancing around and then nodded back to him. “That’s your decision of course.”

She drew a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Right, if you’ll follow me into my office, I want to start by just talking to you for a few minutes. Is that all right with you?”

“That’s fine,” Treize replied.

“This way, then.” She indicated the door she’d come through a few minutes earlier and moved to gather up the things she’d put down. “Milliardo?” she asked as Treize stepped forwards to follow her. “Are you staying as well?”

The King shot a quick glance at Treize, then shook his head firmly. “No, I’m not. I discussed this with Treize yesterday. I wouldn’t have dreamed of sitting in on his medical care before; I’m hardly going to now. There are a couple of things I wouldn’t mind asking you first, though, if I could have a minute…?”

“Of course. Felix, you recall where my office is, don’t you?” Sally asked. “Why don’t you take the general and get him comfortable. I’ll join you shortly.”

Felix nodded and gestured towards the door, indicating that Treize should go through it.

He did, but not without a backwards glance as he wondered what it was Zechs wanted to say to Sally.

Chapter Text

Sally’s office was a pleasant change from the rest of the medical wing in Treize’s opinion. As with the first room Zechs had ushered him into, the rest of the facility he had seen on his walk with Felix screamed stereotypical hospital, clinical beyond even the levels of the military base sickbay’s he was used to. The doctor’s rooms, however, were tastefully decorated, made to look as welcoming as possible.

Treize settled himself into the chair Felix indicated, forcing a certain amount of relaxation into his muscles when he realised how much nerve-generated tension he was carrying. It wouldn’t do any of his results any good if he gave himself a stress-headache and, too, Zechs had been right – what was he fretting about so much? There was very little Sally could throw at him that would top the physicals he’d endured over the years.

The door to the room opened a few minutes later and the doctor came through it, making notes in the folder she was carrying as she moved. She seated herself behind her desk, finished her notes, closed the folder and put it to one side, and then looked up at Treize squarely and smiled warmly. “Right, general,” she began briskly. “I have some questions I’d like to ask you, if you don’t mind starting with those, and then I’d like to go over what we have of your medical records with you.”

She indicated the file she had been writing in with one hand. “I’ll be basing the rest of the morning quite heavily on the outcome of these discussions,” she explained, “so I have to ask you to be as open and honest with me as you can.”

Sally paused for a moment as she said this – watching for his reaction, Treize imagined – and then raised her eyebrows when he merely looked back at her calmly. “If there’s anything you really don’t want to answer, I’ll accept that, of course,” she added, “but the more information you share, the better a feel I’ll be able to get for your state of health and any care you may need.”

“I understand that,” Treize said evenly. “My protests to Zechs and Felix earlier notwithstanding, I do quite comprehend the importance of this evaluation. I asked Zechs to reschedule it, if you’ll recall. I’m not planning to make things difficult, for either of us.”

“Well, that’s good. Protocol does, however, require me to stress the point to any patient before anything else occurs.” Sally offered him a quick smile and drew the file she’d set aside back in front of her, opening it with one hand as she reached for her pen again with the other. There was a quick rustling of paper, then, “So, how have you been feeling since you first woke up?” she asked.

“Confused, primarily,” Treize replied promptly and let his eyes warm when Felix barked a surprised laugh from his chair at the end of Sally’s desk.

Sally flicked her younger colleague an indulgent glance. “No doubt,” she agreed. “And that’s perfectly understandable. I meant, however, how have you been feeling physically?” She tapped the end of her pen against her notes as her eyes skimmed over them again. “From the reports I was given by Dorothy and Aleksander, you seemed quite badly injured when they first found you.”

The former general frowned as he tried to recall the minutes immediately after his arrival. Even with everything that had happened the day before to restore his memory, he still didn’t have that particular space of time as more than a pain soaked haze. To his perceptions, he’d jumped straight from the cockpit of the dying Tallgeese to the battered remains of the Epyon, with only the occasional flash in between.

“If I have a complaint,” he began eventually, “it’s that I’m more tired than I think I should be. That, and I’m somewhat stiff in places. I wouldn’t say there was anything seriously wrong with me, or even anything worth mentioning.”

Sally looked surprised. “Really? Aleks, especially, was particularly alarmed by your condition on arrival. According to him, you were vomiting blood – something that would normally be indicative of serious internal damage.”

Treize shrugged elegantly. “I certainly don’t feel that badly hurt,” he demurred.

“And I found no actual injury that would give rise to such symptoms when I examined you,” Sally agreed blandly, her blue eyes so intent as they looked at Treize that he found himself rubbing his right thumb against the side of his forefinger in a nervous tell very few people were aware he had. “But the fact remains that you’d lost enough blood by the time I got to you that I had to transfuse you to counter hypovolaemic shock.”

Treize blinked his surprise at that. “Oh?” he asked. “That’s interesting. I normally tolerate blood loss extremely well.”

“Useful to know,” Sally commented, making some little note on her papers. “Particularly with your blood type.” She looked up again. “That makes it more critical, however, to pin down where you lost enough blood to cause the symptoms I saw. Is there nothing you can recall? It would have been rather… noticeable, I should think,” the doctor said carefully.

“Noticeable?” Treize asked, hearing the hesitation and wondering about it. “How noticeable?”

It was Felix who answered him, looking up from the more extensive notes he’d been taking. “Oh, fairly,” he said lightly. “A shock reaction acute enough to need actual blood transfusion rather than simple crystalloid fluids like saline is typically triggered by a severe Class II or a Class III haemorrhage. Even accounting for a conservative approach to treatment,” he explained, glancing to Sally, who gave him a quick nod, “that would suggest you’d lost something between 15% and 30% of your total blood volume.” He noticed Treize’s blank look and smirked. “Sorry. New Doctor Syndrome – I’m showing off the fact that I can memorise textbooks,” he admitted. “What it really means is that somewhere along the line you lost around 2 pints of your blood, probably more.”

Treize’s eyes met Felix’s for a moment, then he gave a little frown that suggested he was impressed in spite of himself.

Sally reached across her table to touch Felix on the arm as she took control of the conversation back, her gaze warm with approval. “To my knowledge, you didn’t lose anything like that amount after your arrival,” she said. “I certainly couldn’t see any injury to account for it.” She scowled. “The reason I’m pressing you on this is that it could be indicative of an underlying problem that needs to be tracked down and dealt with. Or have there been any other incidences of you vomiting blood recently?”

“Not that I remember,” Treize replied slowly. “And my recall is clear up until I self-destructed.” He noticed Sally raise an eyebrow at his words and Felix flinch minutely but paid neither of them much mind as he closed his eyes and began to scroll back through the events leading up to his ‘death’. The cockpit of the Tallgeese came back to him with all the clarity of his trained and focused memory, so real that he thought he could smell the burned out wiring and hear the screaming alarms. He breathed in sharply, felt his lungs resist and lifted one hand to cough to clear them as he shivered.

“General?” Sally asked, and the word was enough to snap Treize from his recall into the present.

“I coughed,” he answered her quietly. “In the cockpit,” he explained, and didn’t bother to elaborate which cockpit he was talking about. “The suit was losing air from a breech and the burnouts were giving off smoke. I couldn’t breathe. I remember coughing and being surprised when there was blood. It made me choke.”

The two medics were exchanging glances before Treize finished speaking. “Haemoptysis, as opposed to haematemesis?” Felix asked the other doctor, his tone of voice quiet but intense.He looked rather wide-eyed but his mind was obviously still working. “Was the smoke toxic?” he asked Treize.

The general shrugged, somewhat bemused by the fact that he had no clue what the other man had just said. “Probably. The suit was badly damaged by the electricity overload and a lot of the insulation would have burned away under the heat. Modern suits use an insulation that’s designed not to be toxic but the Tallgeese was based on an older design and many of the components dated from then. Too, I was assembling it quickly, at the end of a lengthy conflict and I wasn’t expecting it to matter. I didn’t particularly care which materials were used when it was built.”

“Thank you,” Felix replied. “Sally? Toxic inhalation triggering respiratory haemmorhage, followed by significant haemoptysis? If he was choking, he could have swallowed,” he suggested. “Ingestion of enough polluted material, particularly in the circumstances, would act as an emetic….” Felix trailed off and looked at Sally expectantly, waiting for her verdict.

“You might be right.” The woman smiled at Felix warmly, her eyes showing her approval again. “And it might be worth including a bronchoscopy in our tests. We’ll see what the chest films show.” She wrote something down again and then looked up at the quietly watching Treize. “The gist of that, general, was that you weren’t vomiting blood – it just looked like you were. The smoke caused your lungs to bleed and when you coughed the blood up, you also swallowed enough of it to make yourself sick. Have you been having any trouble breathing?” she asked.

Treize let his comprehension show through as he shook his head and frowned. “No, not at all.”

“No sore throat or cough? Chest pain?”

“No.”

“Good.” Sally nodded. “Hopefully the damage corrected itself like everything else, but I’ll pay attention to the area. Any other symptoms since you woke up?” she asked.

Treize, whilst recognising that the morning had barely started, was already tired of all the technical talk and medical terms. It was something he’d always hated, not being able to understand what his physicians were saying, and he’d been known so much for it by the Specials medical wing that most of the doctors had long been in the habit of speaking only in plain English around him rather than risking his displeasure. “Nothing at all,” he answered firmly, hoping to speed things up. “As I said, I’ve been tired and I’m a little achy, but yesterday was rather draining and I’ve never slept well in strange beds.” He finished his statement with a smile he knew was charming in its sincerity.

“You told me you weren’t feeling well yesterday evening,” Felix said quietly as Sally slanted Treize a speculative look. “I didn’t push at the time because it wasn’t appropriate but what did you mean, precisely?”

The older man shot the younger an annoyed glance. “You hadn’t warned me you were a doctor at the time,” he said in reply and Felix laughed.

“No, I hadn’t.” He let his laughter fade into a sympathetic grin. “I’m sorry for pulling you up on it but if you really weren’t feeling well then we need to know about it.”

Treize tilted his head enough to read Felix’s amethyst eyes with his own, searching intently for a few seconds before looking away and shaking his head. “Dr Po said she wanted to know only about the physical. That wasn’t,” he admitted.

“It wasn’t?” Felix pressed. “Well, then, what….”

“Felix.” Sally cut across the other doctor’s words gently but firmly. “You have your answer.” She waited until the younger man had closed his mouth firmly, flushing slightly, and bent her own head to catch Treize’s gaze. “I thought it would best to tackle the physical side of things first. I’ll come back to everything else later, if that’s all right?”

Treize nodded. “Yes.” He sighed suddenly. “I had a headache for most of yesterday,” he admitted. “It was nothing but low blood sugar and stress, I think, but you said you wanted to know.” He shrugged uneasily.

“I do and I find it helps if my patients don’t self-diagnose,” Sally warned gently, picking up her pen again and making more notes in a quick, firm hand. “If I asked you to rate the headache on a scale of one to ten – one being barely noticeable and ten being completely disabling – where would you put it?”

Treize gestured dismissively, breaking the tight posture he’d been holding since the conversation began. “Three, possibly four towards the end of the afternoon. Zechs gave me something that shifted it just before dinner but it was never bad enough to keep me from functioning. I’m used to headaches,” he added with a dry chuckle. “They came with my job.”

Sally glanced up and her lips twitched. “Yes, I rather imagine they did.” She looked back at her notes for a moment. “You said Milliardo’s tablets shifted it?”

“Oh, yes. Gone completely in about ten minutes,” Treize clarified. “Even though the aspirin I’d been taking didn’t do a damn thing.”

“And it hasn’t come back?”

“Not yet. Ask me again when you’re done with me,” the general quipped.

For the first time since he’d met her, Sally’s expression was completely genuine as she laughed in surprise at his comment. It made her look years younger and much more attractive, showing up the unusual bone structure of her face to perfect effect.

“Very droll, cousin,” Felix chipped in.

“Thank you. I try,” Treize replied.

There was a brief pause, then Felix raised an interested eyebrow in a gesture that was pure imitation. “Oh, I’m sure you do,” he murmured.

Treize, as he had the day before, found himself wondering at the other man’s tone of voice. There was that near-purr again. No wonder his sister called Felix ‘Kitty’.

“Thank you, boys,” Sally interrupted, glancing between the two of them. She flicked over a few pages in her file, then folded her hands on top of it neatly. “General, I’d like to go over your medical records now.” She waited for Treize to nod, then sighed. “And to start with, I have to warn you that what we have of them is patchy. We’ve spliced together what we could lift from your service jacket but it isn’t complete. There was too much data stored on military servers that were destroyed. I’m very familiar with what we do have – Une released the data to me years ago for other purposes – but that only really covers a few years of your service in the Specials. I have nothing at all from your childhood before you went to Victoria Academy and, more importantly at the moment, I have nothing at all from the last few months of your life.”

Treize frowned, thinking. “My records as a child would have been held by my family’s doctor but there would be nothing really remarkable about them. I had the usual childhood bumps, scrapes and fevers, like any other boy. As for the last few months….” He sighed wearily. “My service record would have been closed when I resigned from Romefeller. My medical care whilst I was under house arrest was provided by a physician in the pay of Dermail. Whilst he did the job adequately, I doubt he kept thorough records, and even if he did, I suspect he would have burned them the moment he heard that I’d died. The poor man did look terrified every time he came to see me. I dread to think what my Uncle must have had on him to guarantee his silence. My resignation was announced to the world in general as an unexpected illness, if you recall?”

Sally nodded, making more notes in her folder. “Would you happen to know his name?” she asked. “Even with that much I might be able to locate the man.”

Treize shook his head. “I was never told. He came, he listened to me talk, he prescribed his treatment, and he left. That was it, and even that was closely monitored.”

Treize had glanced away as he spoke, casting his gaze to one of the photos Sally had scattered around her office. He missed the look Felix exchanged with the older medic, unaware of anything but silence until Felix reached out and tapped his forearm lightly, bringing his attention back to the two doctors.

“Are you saying you were guarded even during medical consultations?” Sally asked softly.

Treize nodded. “Of course I was. Dermail wasn’t quite stupid enough to leave me alone for that long with someone else I could have influenced. His guards were suspect enough and they never left the property. The doctor would have been a perfect means for me to pass information to an outside contact.”

“Good God,” Felix breathed, shaking his head.

“Quite,” Sally agreed though she looked far more as if she understood the military necessity of what Treize was saying the younger man did. “I suspect, then, that having those records wouldn’t be a great deal of use in any case. I doubt you were totally honest with the man and I doubt even more that he was honest in what he reported.”

Treize shrugged. “Probably not,” he replied.

“All right.” Sally nodded, closing the folder completely and coming to her feet. “If you’ll follow me, I’d like to move you into one of our treatment rooms so I can start the exam proper.” She glanced down at him, quickly. “I’ll start off gently,” she tweaked. “Height, weight, blood pressure, eye sight and hearing. I’ll ask you to strip and change into the robe I give you in a little while.”

Treize found a smile to give her in reply. “Thank you.”

“This way,” she instructed.

__________________________________

There was a nurse already in the treatment room when Sally showed Treize through the door and she bustled about efficiently whilst the doctor, with the occasional bit of help from Felix, ran through the basic checks she had described.

As Zechs had predicted, Sally had tutted sharply when she took his weight, subjecting him to a battery of questions about his diet and making several notes in the ever-present folder. With several comments about ‘having Milliardo speak to his chef’, she’d moved on, leaving Felix to roll his eyes at him sympathetically.

They’d left him alone to change when Sally declared she was done with the basic tests, the nurse handing him a folded something or other in a plastic bag and drawing a privacy screen around the bed he was sitting on the edge of before she walked away and closed the door behind her. Treize had opened the bag, unfolded the bundle of fabric and been pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t the paper dress he’d been expecting, but a long white robe made from cool, thin cotton.

Wondering at the change, and if it was something Sally had arranged to make him more comfortable, he’d stood and stripped the sweater, trousers, boots and socks he was wearing with the speed of a lifetime in the military and then wrapped the robe around himself. He’d pressed the Velcro-tab fastening closed just above his left hip to keep the whole thing in place and hadn’t been able to resist wriggling a little to feel the material brush his skin. The robe was very similar, if one discounted the short sleeves and the lack of colour, to one he’d used to wear after his baths in the summer.

He was in the middle of pushing the privacy screen back when someone tapped on the door and then opened it. “Decent?” Felix called lightly.

“As I’m going to be for a while, I suspect,” Treize replied and glanced over his shoulder as the other man stepped through the door. He raised an eyebrow almost immediately as he registered that he wasn’t the only one to have changed. Felix had shucked his expensive looking suit and shirt for a set of maroon medical scrubs over a long sleeved, black t-shirt. The colours did absolutely nothing for him, clashing with his hair and drowning his eyes, and for the first time Treize registered the true weight of the younger man’s intelligence and ability without it being clouded by his extravagant personality. He looked, suddenly, like the doctor he was.

Refraining from commenting on that thought, Treize gestured at his own outfit. “Is this normal?” he asked.

“The patient robe?” Felix asked in reply. “Fairly standard, yes. It came in about ten years ago, once the Mars project got its hydroponics fields sorted. Being able to produce cotton grown and woven in an absolutely sterile field so cheaply made the old paper things almost obsolete.”

“The Mars project?” Treize asked, so caught by that bit of information that he almost missed everything else Felix had said.

“Sure. The terra-forming project.” He took in Treize’s blank look and shrugged. “It’s been going longer than I’ve been alive, since just after the last war – I know Uncle Milliardo and Aunt Lucrezia were involved in it for a while, before they got married – and it opened for civilian colonisation about ten years ago, when they got a full atmosphere up there. Their agricultural exports have been handing a kicking to everything home grown ever since.”

Treize listened to the explanation silently, trying to connect it with the images Epyon had given him of Zechs and Noin standing in space suits on a ball of dust. There had been vague murmurings of a terra-forming plan for the red planet almost all of Treize’s political career and it had never amounted to anything. If he was being honest, he had never expected it to but it seemed he’d been wrong. “My lord,” he sighed and Felix tilted his head in curiosity. “The things I’ve missed,” Treize explained. “It’s a shame it’s such a long trip,” he mused. “It’s something I’d dearly like to see.” The idea of standing on such a new world was thrilling.

“Long?” Felix shook his head. “Takes about two weeks,” he corrected, “if you fly on one of the compression drive ships. Ask Aunt Relena to take you with next time she goes up there as Foreign Minister. I think she’s scheduled for a run sometime early next year, after the British state visit, and she doesn’t normally mind one of the family tagging along.”

Two weeks? Treize thought, staggered by the idea. Using the very height of technology, the best-estimated flight times he recalled were somewhere between four and seven months.

He flinched suddenly as Felix touched his shoulder.

“Up here,” the younger man bade, offering Treize a hand to help him slide back on to the edge of the diagnostic couch. “Turn around.” A press of a button on the side of the couch as Treize co-operated lifted the top third of the bed up, forming a backrest, which Felix encouraged the older man to lean against with a gesture. “Comfortable?” he asked, when the general had finished fiddling with his robe.

“Relatively,” Treize replied, looking down at his bare feet ruefully. The thin cotton of the robe might have been more concealing than the paper dress but it was hardly warmer and the couch was chill against his skin, raising goose bumps across his body.

“Cold?” Felix asked. He pressed more buttons and the surface of the bed began to warm under Treize’s spine. “I want you comfortable, not cursing me,” he said when the older man looked at him in surprise. “Sally has an almost unlimited budget and her equipment reflects that,” he explained. “Part of why she might actually tempt me to work for her.”

He was moving across the room as he spoke, stopping by a small trolley in the far corner and bringing it back to the bed. “Now, are you all right with me conducting the next part of your physical?” he quizzed. “Sally has gone to set some things up for later that Uncle Milliardo asked for and she suggested that it would save time if we didn’t wait for her to get back.” He looked down at Treize intently, his expression completely neutral. “You’re under no obligation to agree,” he reminded.

“Perhaps you could tell me what it will involve…?”

Felix nodded. “Of course. She wants me to get a full set of fluid samples from you, give you the first in a series of inoculations and immunisation boosters and start you on the heart monitor,” he said crisply. “She expects to be back long before we’re done.”

Treize knew his expression was showing his unease. He repressed the reaction, thought over his options in his mind, lightning swift, and then nodded. “All right,” he agreed. “With nothing against Dr Po, I’d rather you than her if ‘full set’ of fluid samples means what it used to.”

Felix chuckled low in his throat. “It does,” he confirmed. “Don’t tell me you’re shy?” he teased, picking up a thin pair of surgical gloves from the trolley and slipping them onto his hands with practiced deftness. “Are you left or right handed?”

“Left,” Treize replied. “Of course I’m not ‘shy’. I simply have some rather…vigorous objections to anything to do with that subject and a woman that I barely know.”

“You’re about going to die later, then.” Felix’s eyes were on the trolley, his hands hidden by the raised rim around the top layer. He flicked his gaze up to Treize’s and shook his head. “You’re not alone. Just about every male patient I’ve ever encountered has felt the same – those that weren’t trying to get the teenaged nurses to ‘give them a hand’. I think it’s hardwired.”

There was a click from under the doctor’s hands. “You don’t have a problem with needles, do you?” Felix asked. “Tell me if you do. It’s no trouble to give you something to take the edge off.”

Treize lifted his head from where he’d been resting it back against the couch and saw that Felix was holding an assembled hypodermic in his hands, the safety cap still in place. “I’ve been in the military since I was twelve. If that hadn’t been inclined to cure me of any phobias, I’ve certainly had bigger things to worry about.”

It won him a small chuckle. “Fair enough. Give me your right arm, then.”

Treize co-operated, wincing as he felt the familiar bite of the pressure cuff and then the cold and sting of the spirit wipe and the needle. He looked down again, watching with interest as Felix switched the collection tubes on his needle smoothly, his hands surprisingly small and delicate for a man his size. His mother’s hands, Treize thought absently as there was another switch in bottle.

The younger man pulled the needle back after that one was done filling and pressed a small pad of cotton wool to the site immediately. “Hold that for me,” he instructed, turning away to dispose of the needle. “You’ve never broken this wrist, have you?” he asked a minute or two later, fiddling with something on his trolley again.

Treize shook his head. “Neither.”

“Good.” Felix leaned over, lifted the cotton wool away and nodded. “That’s stopped. Put the back of your right hand flat on top of your leg, please, and keep it there.”

“Might I ask why?” Treize quizzed.

“You might,” Felix replied. He picked up a spirit wipe and whisked it over the delicate skin of Treize’s wrist. “I need to take another blood sample,” he explained. “This can be a little uncomfortable so head back, please. Look at the ceiling until I tell you otherwise.”

Treize did as he was told and had to bite down on his lower lip when he felt the needle break the skin inside his wrist, pressing deep.

“What did you think of my garage?” Felix asked suddenly. “I saw you looking over the collection this morning.”

“They’re yours?” Treize wondered. “Why are they in Zechs’s garage?”

“They’re not mine, most of them. They’re presents I gave to people. I have a thing about restoring classics but I end up with nothing to do with them, so I end up giving them away. Most of those belong to one member of the family or the other now. The moggy you saw yesterday is just the latest in the collection.”

“Interesting hobby,” Treize said, wincing again.

“It’s got its charms, even if my mother screeches at me every time I buy another car. There, done,” Felix told him. “Sorry about that but with the possibility of lung damage, Sally was insistent on it. Did you see the Firebird?” he asked. He stored the blood sample alongside the others, tossed the needle and returned to the bed to put more cotton wool and more pressure against Treize’s skin. “It needs a fair bit of work still, if you’d be interested in joining me. I’m planning to give it to my sister when she’s old enough.” His eyes scrutinised his patient. “Have you never had that done before? You look a little pale,” he said gently.

“No, and I hope I never will again,” Treize replied firmly. “I’m not surprised I look pale; that was thoroughly unpleasant!”

There was real venom in his tone, making Felix smirk. “You’re going to love me when I tell you I have about a hundred injections to give you then, aren’t you?” he asked.

Treize just closed his eyes in resignation.

Chapter Text

By the time Zechs got Treize back that morning, the general looked like he was ready for somebody to shoot him and put him out of his misery.

It was an impression he confirmed by dropping into the armchair next to the one Zechs had been waiting in, putting his head in his hands and moaning, “Oh, I want to die….”

Zechs snorted in amusement. “Don’t be melodramatic,” he ordered.

“I’m not being,” Treize protested. “Do you have any idea what Dr Frankenstein just did to me? All ably abetted by that hellspawn Dors calls a son, of course. I didn’t know there were that many needles in existence!” He shook his head in disgust. “And someone really needs to teach that woman to let the damned lube warm first!”

“Treize!” Zechs choked. “I do not want to know!”

The younger man waved a hand. “I’m teasing,” he dismissed. “Humour me and laugh.” He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. “Somebody ought to.”

“Ha ha,” Zechs replied dryly. He put down the book he’d been reading and looked over his friend closely.

Treize may or may not have been joking about Sally needing lubricant for part of her exam – Zechs had been through too many full physicals of his own to want to think about it – but she’d certainly done something to put the younger man through the wringer. Treize looked absolutely wretched, so pale that the skin under his eyes looked bruised. How, Zechs wondered, was it possible to spend three hours with two highly trained medical professionals and walk out looking like death warmed up when you were fine when you went in? The King had seen Treize look better after 72 hours straight of combat command.

“Do you need anything,” Zechs asked after almost a minute of not knowing what to say or do. Old instinct was telling him to get up and pull the other man into the hug he looked so much like he needed, whereas an extra twenty-five years of life experience were advising him to a more cautious course. If Treize felt bad now, unwanted physical contact could only make it worse. “I can get you a coffee, or a glass of water,” he offered weakly.

“Water would be nice,” Treize replied. “I’ve been advised against anything else until I’m sure my gag reflex is back and I can swallow safely.”

Zechs felt his eyes widen in surprise as he stood up to get the water. “Pardon?” he asked.

“Dr Po said she’d explain.” The younger man waved a hand wearily, tilting his head into the warmth of the sunlight streaming through the wide windows. “She’s going to come and find you in a minute, apparently.”

The King let his face close. “I hope so, if she’s leaving you in this state,” he said tightly, feeling annoyance rise at the doctor. What on Earth had gotten into Sally that she’d push a patient to such lengths? “I’m sorry,” he apologised a moment later. “I was planning to take you to lunch and…”

Treize shook his head, cutting him off as he finally opened his eyes again. He offered his friend a twisted little smile without much humour in it. “I don’t think I could eat without throwing up anyway. I’ve been queasy since Felix decided to jab a needle into my radial artery.”

Zechs winced at the description. “Oh, ouch,” he sympathised. “No wonder. I knew letting that boy go to medical school with his parents was like freeing a bull in a china shop. Too late now, I suppose,” he sighed. He handed Treize the plastic cup of water from the dispenser and watched as the younger man sipped cautiously.

“He’s actually a very good doctor,” Treize protested a few moments later. “Very capable and confident. I trust him. It’s just that everything taken together was a little much.”

“I’m sure,” Zechs agreed, filing this assessment of his young relative away for future consideration. “Did you at least sort out what you wanted to?” he asked. “Or was there no point to this exercise other than to make you feel like hell?”

“I’m not that bad,” Treize demurred. “And, yes, I dealt with what I needed to.”

“Good. Fairly straightforward, I hope?”

“Relatively.”

Zechs nodded as his friend answered, then watched in sympathy as the younger man flinched from something, his dark eyes flickering closed again. Without really thinking about it, the King went to one knee in front of the other man’s chair, putting a hand out to rest it on the back of Treize’s wrist. “You look exhausted,” he murmured. “Are you hurting?”

“In places,” Treize murmured back. “I’m all right. It was necessary, I know.”

“Hmm,” Zechs agreed. He used his free hand to brush his fingertips along Treize’s cheekbone lightly, drawing his attention. “If you were anyone else,” the King started softly, in reply to the questioning look he received, “if you were Aleks, I’d know what I should be doing now. But with you….” He shook his head. “I don’t know whether to try to help or to offer to leave you completely alone. I never could read you,” he admitted a little bitterly.

Treize’s eyes widened slightly, though the rest of his expression didn’t change at all. “Zechs,” he started and the older man interrupted.

“No one calls me that, you know. You don’t have to, either, anymore. You never did like it.”

“It was your choice,” Treize replied. “I didn’t have to like it. I understood.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t know either,” he said quietly. “I don’t know you well enough to be sure of you now. I don’t know what….” He stopped, shrugging one shoulder dismissively. “I’m fine,” he finished.

Zechs studied his friend closely for a moment, not liking the way Treize was holding himself or the expression he was keeping buried in the back of his eyes. There was a distance in his gaze that suggested he was hitting his limits again.

“Oh, fuck it,” the King said abruptly. He pushed back from the chair a little. “Come here,” he all but ordered, holding a hand out in invite. He was pleased when the younger man took it without hesitation, twining their fingers together and moving without resistance when Zechs gave a forward tug and pulled Treize into his arms.

The younger man shivered under the touch wordlessly, sighing slowly. “Thank you,” he breathed.

“Hush,” the older man murmured back, letting one hand rub lightly between his friend’s shoulders. He stood up slowly, drawing the general with him and closed the space between them. As it had the night before, Treize’s head settled against Zechs’s shoulder as he let the older man take his weight.

Treize had always been a tactile person, inclined to touch when the mood took him, and, because of his upbringing, he’d never thought anything of physical contact with those he trusted and cared about. His genuine bisexuality, something he’d openly acknowledged since his early teens, also meant he’d never bothered to acquire the subconscious adjustment for gender that the Academy had taught Zechs most people had. For as long as the blond had known him, Treize had made allowances for such things as age, rank or marriage band but had paid no attention to society’s ideas of acceptability, approaching another man as comfortably and willingly as he would a woman, often in absolutely the same way.

That comfort zone showed as the general gave himself completely into Zechs’s hold now, without hesitation. Zechs wrapped them together in the same way Treize had Dorothy at dinner – the same way the general had taught all of his friends to hug in their younger days, having learned it from his own father – his embrace firm and warm and involving his entire body. Zechs had made a point of passing it on to his son and to all the other children of his family as something every individual should know.

“Better?” the King asked his friend after a minute or two had passed and the fine shivering had begun to subside. Treize nodded quietly, showing no inclination to move and Zechs smiled. He hadn’t missed the way Treize had seemed absorbed in his encounter with Dorothy but, despite everything, it hadn’t crossed his mind to offer this to his friend. Treize had been willing for every brief hug and touch Zechs had given him so far; he’d even gone as far as asking to be held in his own fashion the night before, when Zechs had whisked him off and dropped him into bed. Why hadn’t he realised how much good, solid physical contact could do against the sense of loss and disorientation the younger man had to be feeling? Treize himself had taught him that such things needn’t be more than what they were.

Without realising that he was doing it, Zechs tightened his hold and began rocking the younger man slightly, twenty years of parenting prompting the time-honoured rhythm automatically.

There was a quiet sigh, no more than Treize letting go of a deep breath more slowly than normal, then another quietly murmured, “Thank you.”

Zechs shook his head. “Hush,” he replied, as he had the first time. “If it’s helping then there’s nothing to thank me for.” He let his words fall into the quiet for a few minutes, listening to the background noise of the busy HQ with its distant hum of conversation and occasional urgent patter of feet past the door. “I learned a long time ago,” he murmured eventually, “that if something helps, it’s usually worth doing.”

“Sometimes,” Treize answered softly. “Sometimes the cost and the consequences aren’t worth the benefit. It’s often not worth the trade.”

The King considered pursuing the line of conversation and chuckled lightly instead. “Waxing philosophical?” he asked. There had been shadows in his friend’s voice but this probably wasn’t the best time to discuss them.

“Don’t I always?” Treize wondered. He sighed again, then took a bracing breath and freed his hands from their hold on the older man to push at his shoulders gently as he took a step backwards. Zechs let him go carefully, letting a hand slip down one cashmere-clad arm to close under the other man’s elbow, preventing him from going too far.

“Yes, you do at that, now I think about it. You wouldn’t be you any other way, I suppose.” The King smiled gently. “Did Sally say how long she was going to be?” he asked. “You look like I should be taking you home and putting you to bed.”

“Again,” Treize added dryly, then shook his head. “She said something about gathering results.”

“Ah, right. Fair enough, then.”

Zechs glanced away for a moment, then met Treize’s eyes squarely. “How bad are you feeling? Honestly? Because there’s something I really need to talk to you about and I’m not sure it can wait much longer. Wufei was fairly insistent that….”

“Milliardo?”

The King had stopped speaking at the knock on the door to the waiting room; now he turned his head sharply at his name, looking over Treize’s shoulder at the source of the voice.

“Milliardo, how long have you been here?” Lady Une demanded. “You didn’t tell me you’d arrived and I don’t appreciate having to learn these things from my secretary. It really isn’t necessary for you to sneak around my building like a ghost.”

Zechs smiled, the expression genuine and warm and a little bashful. “Sorry,” the King said. “But given you organised the visitor’s pass in advance, I assumed you wanted us to come straight here.”

“I did, but that didn’t mean you had to stay here!”

The blond chuckled. “Oops,” he quipped, then put his head on one side impishly. “Aren’t either of you going to say hello?” he asked.

His tone had been deliberately light because he knew what this was going to do to both of the people he was with. He could recall how he had felt, those first few wonderful seconds in his morning room and later, when Treize had first come to, and he was determined to give Une as much of that same feeling as he could. He could feel too, under his hand, the way Treize had begun shaking the moment he placed the speaker as Une. There was too much history between him and the Lady for this ever to have been easy for him.

Zechs watched as Une’s eyes left his and drifted across to stare at the other person in the room. They widened a little at first, then closed briefly before opening again, the warm chocolate colour both resolute and unimaginably soft. “Treize…?” the Lady asked uncertainly, taking a step into the room.

Zechs saw Treize draw a deep breath, and then the younger man was turning, breaking Zechs’s hold on him as he steeled himself to face another bit of his lost past.

“Hello, Une,” he said quietly. From somewhere he conjured a smile for her and Zechs watched it hit the Lady like a blow to the stomach.

“Treize… Oh, my God.” Une caught her breath raggedly. “It is you!”

“Seems to be, yes,” Treize agreed. “Did you think Zechs was making it up?”

The question seemed to stymie the Lady. She blinked in confusion for a moment, then shook her head. “No, of course not. I just didn’t….” There was a moment of silence then, “You haven’t changed,” she said weakly.

Treize let his expression soften. “Neither have you,” he replied gently, and there was a world of warmth and love in his voice.

It couldn’t possibly be true, Zechs mused as he flicked his gaze back and forward between his two companions. Just on first glance, Une was in full Preventer uniform, the outfit nothing close to anything Treize had seen her in before. No matter how good the fitted jacket and knee-length black skirt looked on her still-toned figure, it was still unfamiliar to the younger man.

Even being kind, though, Zechs wouldn’t have been able to say the uniform was the only change in Treize’s former aide. The passage of twenty-five years had changed Une just as much and as surely as the King knew they had changed him. When Treize had last seen her, Une had been a pretty girl of nineteen, sharp-eyed and smooth skinned. The Lady at the door to the waiting room was in the first years of her middle age, a mature woman polished and confident. The years she’d lived showed in her face and the way she carried herself, the stress of her command and the experiences she’d had were written into her the way Zechs was aware they were written into him. Une was still a beautiful woman but it wasn’t the beauty of youth, and the King suddenly found himself wondering if that was something Treize had learned to appreciate yet.

The Lady gave a soft little laugh at Treize’s comment. “Still the charmer,” she said lightly. “Oh, Treize…” she sighed, and then she was crossing the room.

Her steps were swift and sure and she reached out with one hand as she drew level with the two men, brushing her fingers across her former general’s chest carefully, feeling the warmth and the breath in him. “Treize…” she breathed again as her hand settled into one place and her eyes flickered back and forth, drinking the younger man in and renewing her memories of him.

Treize let her do it for a moment, standing completely still, then he moved himself, suddenly gathering the woman into his arms and drawing her close as he bent his head. “Lady,” he murmured back. “My Lady. I’m sorry, Anne,” he sighed. “So very sorry. You deserved better than you ever got from me.”

Une blinked up at him, caught off guard by the sudden embrace and puzzled by his words. “You have nothing to apologise to me for,” she replied quietly. “I made my peace with your ghost a long time ago.”

Treize shook his head slowly. “Still,” he began. “I…”

“Treize,” the Lady interrupted, stretching up a little to rest her fingertips against his mouth. “Hush. Don’t,” she bade. She lifted her hand away and went onto her tiptoes to kiss him. The brush of her lips against his was careful and chaste, loving but not passionate, and over in a moment as she settled back onto the heels of her court shoes. “We have time, now,” she told him with a warm smile.

The former general looked dazed, Zechs thought, but that was hardly surprising. Une, these days, had a way of making a person feel as through they’d been subjected to a very deft and delicate force of nature. Treize was in for some interesting times as he got to know his former aide again.

The younger man was still holding the woman lightly, his hands having lifted automatically when she reached up to him, one coming to rest on her waist to help her balance, the other on the back of her head. He stroked her hair now as he let her go, and blinked in confusion.

“You cut your hair?” he half-asked, apparently only now registering that as his hand slipped from the short strands to the fabric of her jacket.

“About fifteen years ago,” Une replied, giving him the truth in plain, unvarnished style. There was nothing mocking or apologetic about her statement; it was only what it was. “It was time,” she explained with a shrug, one hand going to smooth her sleek bob back into place under her ears. She touched her mouth next, as if to check her lipstick hadn’t blotted, and Zechs smiled at her knowingly. Feminine primping had long been the topic of a running joke between the King and the Lady.

Noticing his look, Une coolly raised an eyebrow at him as she straightened her jacket and stepped backwards to observe both men equally. “Come to my office,” she said abruptly. “We can talk there. I’ll have coffee brought up.”

Zechs shrugged. “Far be it from me to argue with you,” he said.

Treize hesitated a little. “I’m supposed to wait for Dr Po…” he began and Une snorted daintily.

“Sally can come to us,” she answered. “My office is far more comfortable and I have some ideas I want to discuss that would be best kept private.” She waited until Treize’s expression seemed to have shaded in favour of agreeing, then nodded briskly and turned on her heel to lead the way across the building.

Treize fell into step with Zechs as they followed her, looking around himself in idle curiosity as they walked. Une’s office was almost on the other side of the building altogether, in a different wing than the medical bay, and their journey required three separate lifts to get them to connecting floors and several check points.

Finally, Une opened the door to a tastefully appointed waiting room, swept straight past the girl staffing the outside desk whilst issuing an order for the coffee she had promised and showed the two men into a room that could only be her office.

It was a wide space, lit by the sunlight streaming through the floor to ceiling windows in one wall and furnished in muted, warm colours from the carpet to the rich woods of the furniture. Treize glanced around in interest, taking in the unmistakeable evidence of a heavy workload but also the proof that Une had learned to do more with her life than just work. There were little knickknacks scattered about the room, everything from fragile antique rarities to pieces obviously made by a child’s amateur hand that spoke of gifts given by friends and family. There were photographs, too, and it was those that most caught Treize’s eye.

Une had arranged the images in discreet, matching frames around her office, setting them on her desk, filing cabinets and bookshelves to break up their austere lines as well as hanging them on her plainly papered walls. As he had that morning with Marie, Treize soaked up the images of the life he had missed avidly, smiling at some and puzzled by others.

Like Chang’s wife, Une had a mixture of group shots and individual pictures, professional portraits and amateur snaps. Treize registered images of the Gundam pilots, of Zechs and Sally Po and Dorothy, even one of himself, smiling in his full Dress uniform, sitting on her desk, but he was most taken by a large group picture taking up the centre of one wall and he stepped closer to it without being aware that he had.

Treize completely missed the way Une and Zechs exchanged bittersweet smiles behind him, losing himself in studying the photograph until Zechs stepped to his side and rested a hand lightly on his shoulder.

He tore his eyes away from the picture just long enough to flick a fleeting look at the older man, and then gazed back at it, completely captured. “Is this… what I think it is?” he asked unsteadily.

The King was looking at his friend rather than at the picture – he generally blanked the image whenever he was in Une’s office, though it had long since ceased causing the agony it once had – but Treize’s words made him glance at it reflexively. “My wedding? Yes,” he confirmed, tightening his hand. “I have albums full of pictures of it back at the Palace. I’ll dig them out if you’re interested?” he offered.

Treize nodded, his eyes still wandering over the image. “Yes, please. I…” He hesitated, as though lost for words. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” he said eventually. “I would have liked….”

“To what?” Zechs asked. “I’m sorry you weren’t there, as well,” he said. “I rather missed my best man embarrassing me thoroughly and then getting elegantly drunk on my table wine,” he teased, trying to lighten the mood. Treize seemed quite badly shaken and the King didn’t know exactly why.

He felt Treize’s start of surprise under his hand and took an educated guess at the cause. “You don’t think you wouldn’t have been?” the blond wondered, looking back at the younger man. He thought better of mentioning that it was unlikely he would have married had Treize still been around at the time. So much would have been different but for his apparent death that Zechs didn’t feel equal to the task of trying to calculate the possible changes. He and Noin had talked once or twice about what might have been and she had delighted in teasing him with outrageous suggestions of a Royal three- or even four-way relationship.

“I…” Treize said again. “Who was?” he asked a moment later.

“I didn’t have one. I had a best woman,” Zechs corrected, smiling, gesturing back over his shoulder and then at the photo. “Une. Dorothy and my sister were Noin’s bridesmaids.” He nodded at the ornate white stone building in the background. “We were married at the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence – Noin’s home town,” he added when Treize looked up at him for explanation.

“I know,” the younger man replied.

“Ah.” Zechs nodded, then shrugged. “She was catholic; she wanted a church wedding. The cathedral was the compromise between my wanting a small, private service, Noin’s Catholicism and Relena’s insistence that the Crown Prince of a country could not simply elope in the base chapel on Mars. I think she’s still annoyed I didn’t let her invite more people.”

The sally finally made Treize give a weak smile. He put one hand out gently, brushing his fingertips against the glass of the frame. “She was a beautiful woman, Zechs,” he said softly, fixing the picture in his mind. The faces of his friends were familiar in the shot, almost as young as he recalled them being as they glowed with happiness. Zechs, his hair a silvery waterfall against the deep blue of his Sanc state dress, was looking down at his new wife with devotion and Noin, elegant in a simple satin shift dress of a lilac so pale it was almost white, was simply radiant. They were flanked on either side by their attendants in shades of midnight blue and purple, and by one tiny red-haired girl holding Une’s hand.

The presence of the child gave him pause, because she was the only one in the photo. Looking more closely at the picture, he realised with a start that he recognised Chang’s wife Marie in the little flower girl and his breath caught as he glanced between her and the image of the Lady. Quickly, he called to mind his meeting with the woman that morning, searching for evidence of the stunning conclusion his mind had suddenly jumped to. He almost groaned aloud when he realised he’d spent the entirety of his time with her thinking she was familiar from somewhere.

He drew a slow breath. It wasn’t possible, and yet…. “Is that Chang’s wife?” he asked as casually as he could, and had to bite his lip when Une, who had just stepped to his other side, nodded.

“Oh, yes. That’s Marie, my daughter. They married a few years ago now.”

Chapter Text

Zechs cast a concerned glance at Treize as they got into his car, sharing it with Felix as the young Doctor studied his morning’s patient with an intent gaze.

Sally and Felix had arrived in Une’s office some twenty minutes after Une had whisked the two men there, disrupting the quiet conversation between the three of them. Felix had smiled brightly at everyone in the room as he dropped into the chair next to Treize, saying something softly into his ear and handing over a folded sheet of paper. Sally, in contrast, had been frowning in her usual abstract fashion, weighed down by folders.

She, too, had murmured a few words to the former general, then changed the subject as Une offered her a coffee.

What she had said, and what had been written on the paper, Zechs had no idea. Treize had glanced at the paper and nodded his acknowledgement of whatever he’d been told but he’d been remarkable for his silence ever since. He’d even refused the massage Zechs had asked Sally to arrange, saying that he simply wanted to get back to the Palace.

Wondering what had prompted that, Zechs had said his goodbyes to Une, gathered Felix up with a look and guided both younger men back through the building to his car.

“Tired?” he asked Treize as he settled himself behind the wheel. The former general was staring out of the side window blankly.

“Hmm? No, just thinking,” Treize answered. He sat up a little, turning his head to look at the King. “Sorry, I’m just a bit… distracted.”

“It’s all right,” Zechs reassured as he reached for his seatbelt and clipped it into place, nodding as he heard the two matching clicks from Felix in the back and Treize at his side. “I’m just making sure we haven’t overwhelmed you yet.”

There was a soft chuckle from the redhead, matched by a graceful shrug. “You might have done that before I even got out of bed yesterday,” he confessed. “I’ll cope.”

“I’m sure,” Zechs agreed warmly. He put the key to the car in the ignition and turned it, feeling the engine purr to life immediately. “If you weren’t interested in that massage you should have said so last night. I told you not to let me bully you,” he reminded.

The younger man frowned for a moment, setting two small lines between his eyebrows before the expression cleared. “It’s not that I wasn’t interested, Zechs,” he corrected, “just that…” He broke off and sighed. “Look, I know you must be busy and I hate to ask you for any more of your time, but is there any chance we can talk when we get back to the Palace? In private, just the two of us? I think there might be some questions I should have thought to ask you before now.”

The King risked glancing away from his manoeuvring of the car out of the parking bay, taking in the intensity of his friend’s gaze and the tightness of his posture. Treize was expecting him to refuse, Zechs realised suddenly, and whatever these questions were, they were important to the younger man.

“Of course we can talk,” he promised immediately, being careful to keep his tone from showing his surprise that Treize would think he’d say no. “As it happens, I was trying to ask you the same thing when Une interrupted us and I did say last night I’d clear a few hours this afternoon. I told you yesterday, there’s very little of my workload that’s truly urgent and most of it other people can do if I ask.”

Treize seemed to have relaxed a fraction at Zechs’s reassurance. “You’re running a country, Zechs. I refuse to believe that isn’t time consuming. You even told me yourself that you’re in the run up to a big social function.”

“We are, but most of the planning for that was done months ago.” The King fell silent for the few minutes it took him to steer the car from the car park onto the main road again, and then spared Treize another glance. “What did you think of Une’s idea, anyway?” he asked, nudging the younger man to consider something Une had said to the two of them just before they’d been disturbed. “I’d like your input before I suggest it to anyone else.”

The younger man hesitated before replying, mulling it over in his head. “It would certainly seem to solve a lot of problems,” he admitted, recalling what the Lady had said. The notion was far-fetched and yet… “The idea has merit, but….”

“But?” Zechs asked. “I know the idea of becoming your own son has to be a bit strange to take,” he agreed, “but if you can stand it, I think there’s something to it.” He shrugged dismissively. “It answers for your appearance and your name perfectly, it does something to explain your age and your association with me and the rest of my family. It’d even cover any blood samples or DNA tests people might try to run in a pinch, and you could explain away any information you might have that you probably shouldn’t as something you read in ‘your father’s diaries’. It’d be a bit of a media circus, I’m sure, but the idea should be fairly easy for people to buy into. It’s more than plausible for you to have fathered an illegitimate child,” the King concluded, making Treize’s breath catch as he wondered why the older man would hold that opinion. “Your lifestyle before you died isn’t that much of a secret and the whole world thinks you and Une were a couple.”

Treize bit his lip at some of what his friend was saying – the suspicions that had bloomed in his mind in Une’s office were deepening almost with everything anyone said to him – and covered the reaction by looking down at his hands where they were gathered in his lap.

His wrist still hurt and he found himself rubbing it as he asked, “Isn’t Une risking a lot of bad press for herself by suggesting this? If people really do think we were a couple then….”

“Then the gutter press are probably going to trumpet the idea that she’s the mother of this supposed son, yes,” Zechs agreed. “I have no doubt that she’s aware of that, Treize. She’s an old pro with the media these days. She’ll probably just sue for slander. It’s not like they could produce any actual evidence of such a thing, after all.”

The King saw that Treize remained unconvinced and took one hand off the wheel to touch his arm lightly. “If you’re worrying about damaging her reputation, don’t be,” he insisted. “If we keep your birthday and your age, then you would have been born two months after the end of the war. For Anne to be your mother, she would have had to be heavily pregnant during the last battles and immediately afterwards and she was too much of a public figure for there to be anything but solid proof to the contrary. There must be thousands of photos taken of her around that time.” He shrugged. “There’s not even a way for the press to make a case for a fictionalised birth date. Anne’s never been pregnant and she’s never been out of the spotlight long enough to hide a pregnancy.”

The words soothed Treize for a moment, before they really registered with him. “Never been pregnant?” he asked, startled and frowning in puzzlement. That didn’t make sense. “What about Marie Chang?” he demanded, more convinced that his suspicions were right when he heard Felix bite off a sharp breath in the back seat. “Une has been pregnant and at about the right time, as well, surely?”

Zechs raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Treize… how old do you think Marie is?” he asked disbelievingly.

The general heard the tone and tensed against it. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I presumed about my age, perhaps a little older at first. I wouldn’t have said younger but for her to be…Une’s daughter then she must be,” he said carefully.

The King didn’t need Felix’s astonished, “Oh!” to realise what his friend was thinking. He heard the hesitation in Treize’s words, saw in one glance the taut, defensive posture and pulled the car to the side of the road, braking hard enough to jolt all three of them against their belts.

He killed the engine, flicked his hazard lights on – dimly aware that he was parked illegally – and freed his seatbelt to turn to face the younger man as much as he could. “Treize,” he started and stopped, meeting the redhead’s eyes intently and reading everything he could from them in the few seconds Treize gave him before cutting his gaze away.

Yes, it was there, Zechs saw; the idea, the doubt, the tiniest spark of disbelieving hope. Something today had triggered the wildest of notions in the former general and somewhere deep inside himself, the younger man was wishing it were true. Zechs wondered if Treize knew how clearly that hope was showing through.

The knowledge made something in the King twist in indecision. Treize was so wrong in his suspicions, and yet he wasn’t wrong at all. Wufei had been right to warn that the redhead would work out his wife’s true identity given the clues.

With sudden insight, Zechs knew what had happened. Treize had met Marie and recognised something in her; they’d bonded deeply and instinctively that morning over their music – a feeling Treize would be aware of without understanding. Later, he’d been forced to confess to his one night stand with Une, bringing the incident to the front of his mind, and then Une had calmly told him Marie was her daughter to explain her presence at a family wedding. The logic was obvious, if flawed, and Treize had drawn the stunning conclusion that Marie was his child by Une, the product of that quick, desperate encounter.

No wonder the younger man had been withdrawn. Conflicted probably didn’t even begin to describe how he was feeling. Treize was deeply old-fashioned in some ways and the idea that he could have left Une pregnant and alone to raise his child would be making guilt tear at him.

The misunderstanding needed to be cleared up but Zechs was at a loss as to how to split the thread of truth from the rest. Sitting in a car at the side of the main road, watched by Felix, was emphatically not how Zechs had planned to tell the story behind Marie Chang, and though he considered making light of it for a moment – tossing out some comment about how flattered Marie would be at having several years taken off her age – the blond knew just as quickly that he couldn’t. This was not a subject to mock or tease with.

Concluding that all he could do was correct the mistakes and not mention the truths, and that it would be best to do so simply and quickly, the King took a deep breath. “Treize,” he started again. “Marie is thirty-two. She’s Anne’s adopted daughter.”

There was a moment’s silence. “Ah,” Treize murmured softly. “Of course. I…did think her son was a little old for her to be…. Well. Silly of me,” he finished, forcing a quick, bright smile.

Zechs returned it as best he could. “I can see where you got the idea,” he admitted. He gave it a few seconds then added, “Anne adopted Marie when she was eight. I’m her Godfather. The two of us raising her is a good part of why the press keep speculating that there’s something going on between us, the way you heard yesterday.”

“I see.” The words were clipped tight, Treize wilfully fighting down bitter disappointment. For the sake of the conversation they’d yet to have, it made Zechs want to cheer with relief – he’d been by no means sure that Treize would react favourably to having a child – but it was hard to be happy in the face of the real pain in his friend’s tone. He would never have predicted Treize would take that well to the idea.

Before Zechs could say or do anything to try to soothe, Treize had unclipped his seat belt and was reaching for the door handle. “Excuse me,” he said shortly. “I need air.”

He slipped from the car onto the footpath gracefully, shutting the door behind him and not looking back as he took his first steps away from the vehicle.

Zechs, older and more observant, didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow as he did it but Felix, who was watching and listening from the middle of the back seat, had no such restraint. “Fuck me,” he swore uncharacteristically, scrambling for his own door handle. “What the hell is he thinking?”

“Let him go.” The King could read a lot from the set of the former general’s shoulders as he walked.

The doctor bridled, turning disbelieving eyes on his uncle. “You are joking, I hope?” he demanded. “After the morning he had?”

The blond kept his gaze on his friend. “Yes. You don’t understand.”

The younger man shook his head in amazement. “I understand you’re both cracked, Your Majesty,” he retorted sharply, briefly channelling his father. “He’s in terrible shape, it’s pouring with rain and it’s fifteen miles back to the Palace through a city he doesn’t know!” He wrenched his door open as he spoke and scrambled out of the car. “Treize!” he called, moving to go after the other man.

“Kitty,” Zechs said quietly, firmly, his voice carrying through the open door. “Let him go.”

Felix stopped almost mid-step; no one but Helen and Aleks called him that except on very rare occasions. Zechs’s use of it was enough to convince him the older man was serious. “Fuck me,” the doctor said again, his voice more terse than alarmed this time. He sighed noisily. “Sally’s going to lynch me. Treize!” he shouted again, unbuttoning his jacket and reaching into the inside pocket. “Catch!”

Treize turned at the command, in time to see Felix throw something at him with the skill of a childhood spent on the cricket pitch. His pilot’s reflexes allowed him to snare the object out of mid-air with one hand and he looked down at it with obvious curiosity.

“Star, one, dial when you get bored, yes?” Felix instructed and Treize raised an eyebrow as he nodded his understanding. He turned away again, pocketing the object, and Felix threw his hands up in exasperation as he shut the back door and opened the front to slide in next to Zechs.

“Your phone?” The King asked, somewhat bemused. “Quick thinking,” he said with approval.

“He might not think so when he realises that number will put him through to Aleks.” Felix gave his little airily dismissive wave as he brushed water from his jacket and reached for the seat belt. “You’re both mad,” he muttered disgustedly. “If he gives himself pneumonia, don’t blame me!” he warned.

Zechs smiled slightly. “From a bit of rain?” he asked lightly. “He’s a professional soldier, Felix. He’s in better shape than you’ve ever been.”

The younger man snorted rudely. “He’s a professional soldier that was dead five days ago,” he replied shortly. “But don’t listen to me. I’m hardly qualified to comment.”

The older man, about to restart the car, paused at Felix’s words, raising his eyebrows in surprise. Felix had a fine grasp of sarcasm but he was hardly ever ill tempered in its use. “Something wrong, child?” he asked quietly. “Don’t tell me you’re worried about Treize going through your address book?” he tweaked gently. It was a running joke in the family that Felix kept his proverbial ‘little black book’ in his sleek and rather pricey phone, though Zechs suspected he was the only one of the adults to know how much truth lay behind the teasing.

“Let him,” Felix answered curtly. “I doubt he’d be inclined to care and I’m sure I don’t.”

“He won’t. He won’t say anything, either,” Zechs promised neutrally. “The two of you are a lot alike in that regard. A great deal of what I said to you came from what he said to me when I was asking the same questions.”

The King had the dubious distinction of being the only adult male in Felix’s immediate family who’d ever been in any kind of relationship with another man. He hadn’t been entirely surprised when the younger man, feeling the first stirrings of physical desire not so very many years before and the usual accompanying confusion, had chosen to approach him about the subject rather than his own parents.

“I’d assumed.” Felix sighed as soon as he spoke, putting his head back against his seat wearily. “Sorry,” he apologised. “I’ll stop being a bitch. It was a tough morning, that’s all. It’s been a while since I had to do any clinical work that involved – which will only go to teach me not to take three month holidays.”

The older man nodded his understanding. “It’s all right. If you can’t vent at me…” he chuckled and shrugged to convey the rest of his meaning. He shot the boy a fond smile as he pulled the car away from the kerb, reaching out and touching his shoulder lightly as he felt warm affection rise. Felix was special, the eldest child of Zechs’s family and his own son’s closest friend. He was their darling, the one they’d made all their mistakes with, the first of their children of peace to complete his education and begin to make his mark as an adult. “You really are a doctor now, aren’t you?” he asked quietly.

“Rather,” Felix replied. “I should damn well hope so after six years of studying!” He rolled his eyes, taking those same six years off his age for a moment. “I just wish I knew what the fuck I was going to do next,” he sighed.

Zechs laughed at him softly. “Does your mother know you swear like that, dear boy?” he quizzed.

Felix tilted his head. “Who do you think I learnt it from?” he retorted, grinning cheekily. He frowned again almost immediately and looked at Zechs rather pleadingly. “Help?” he asked. “I have a fortnight to decide, unless I want to defer a year.”

Zechs spared him another glance. “Glad to, if I can. What I know about medicine is entirely from the patient end of things. I take it you don’t want to defer?”

There was a determined headshake. “Not if I can help it. I needed the break to get my head straight after the boards but I enjoy practicing. Working with Treize today just reminded me of that. Besides, it would be bad for my career. I have some very top-drawer offers on the table and I’d lose all of them if I deferred.”

The King nodded his understanding. “You need to make a decision, then. Have you come up with anything at all?” he asked, and set himself to listen as the younger man began to explain his thoughts so far. Aiding his younger relative was familiar ground, and served, at least, the purpose of distracting him from fretting about Treize.

Chapter Text

The capital of the Sanc Kingdom, Newport City, was a beautiful place.

Treize had gotten an impression of that the day before, when Zechs had driven him through the outskirts and taken him shopping, but walking through the streets on his own feet and at his own pace allowed him to see far more detail.

For the first couple of miles of his impulsive hike, the general passed through nothing but suburban housing communities – simple one and two storey homes that could have been found in any city anywhere in Europe. They were notable for their local ornamentation in places, and the fact that almost all of them were relatively new in appearance but that was all. It would have made for a rather boring view, if Treize had been in any mood for noticing it.

It was possibly fortunate, then, that he wasn’t. For almost an hour, the redhead’s focus was internal, on his own confused and riled up thoughts and emotions as he used the physical exertion to override them. His body, aching from the morning’s tests, was decidedly protesting the brisk pace he had set and the cold damp of the weather, but the rest of him found it soothing.

He couldn’t pin down why he’d felt the compulsion to be alone so suddenly. Why had it had been that particular moment that proved the trigger, rather than any of the other stressful events he’d experienced since he woke? Even having run it over in his mind a dozen times, he didn’t know. All he did know was that he’d suddenly had all he could take and that he was deeply grateful to Zechs for understanding the need and letting him go without fuss.

Felix, on the other hand, hadn’t understood at all. The young Doctor’s thoughts had been written all over his face when he’d thrown Treize his phone, saying as clearly as words that he thought the former general a blithering idiot who was going to make himself ill.

He was probably right, Treize admitted to himself as the initial driving urge faded away and he looked around. He’d made it as far as the city centre with his burst of energy and he smiled as he sank down to sit on a conveniently placed public bench and catch his breath, feeling better than he could recall doing for a long time. It was another impulse, as silly as the first, which made him tip his head back and close his eyes to feel the rain directly against his face.

The downpour of the morning had subsided to a fine drizzle as he walked, settling to form a glistening sheen on the wool of his coat instead of soaking through it. It was ticklingly light against his skin, and absolutely freezing cold.

It felt wonderful.

Slowly, Treize drew a deep breath through his nose, held it a moment, then let it go with an almost audible sigh. With the breath, he made himself release all the tension that had been building up and he felt every muscle in his body relax with the reduced load. He repeated the exercise again, twice, and then just let himself sink into stillness for a few minutes as he sought clarity.

He could admit to himself now that his suspicions about Marie Chang were ridiculous. The woman, whilst still stunning, was more than too old to be his child and the girl in the painting had been closer to a teenager than the toddler she ought to have been. Such rampant fantasying, he decided, was nothing but proof of his mind being pushed to exhaustion by everything that had happened – not least by the morning’s sheer unpleasantness.

Treize shivered as he thought over his physical, concluding that the only word to describe it was ‘brutal’. Clinically dispassionate hadn’t covered the attitude of the two medics as they’d proceeded to strip Treize raw, leaving the general with no part of himself untouched when they literally went over every inch of his body by hand, internally and externally. He’d been jabbed with needles, subjected to scans and x-rays, driven through stress and reflex tests and then ordered to produce samples of every body fluid from spit to semen for analysis.

Without turning a hair, Sally had interspersed all of it with a run of increasingly personal questions. He knew he’d blushed at those that followed his refusal to co-operate with her last command.

The only thing keeping Treize from labelling both doctors unfeeling monsters was the fact that everything had been carefully explained to him before it was done – including why they thought it was necessary – and that every time he was touched, it was with such gentle delicacy that it almost wasn’t a touch at all. The skill and deftness of the pair had kept even the round of highly invasive diagnostic procedures that had capped the physical side of the morning off within toleration.

A half hour’s rest, settled against a medical couch set to warm soothingly and covered by a blanket to counteract the chill from the anaesthetics had let him recuperate a little. Sally had then started on the psychiatric section of the exam.

By the time he’d been allowed to dress, Treize had felt beaten and overwrought; seeing Une had just knocked him even more and the photo had been the final straw.

Still, it was a silly idea he’d dreamed up, no matter how bad his morning had been. No wonder Zechs had looked at him with such pity.

Treize took another deep breath as he pulled himself up from his memory and opened his eyes to look around himself with interest. The forced exercise of his walk and the total solitude had done what he wanted them to and, given space to breathe, the resilience that had marked his career and gotten him through the war was coming to the fore.

As he turned his head, he realised he’d walked himself almost to the same place Zechs had brought him the day before and he found himself thinking of the little café on the top floor of the big department store with some fondness. The idea of an hour or so’s absent meandering around the prettily restored city centre followed by a hot cup of coffee seemed like the perfect way to settle himself completely.

It was pleasant to amble from one building to another, taking in the architecture and pausing to read the odd information plaque. He made mental notes for himself as he walked, promising himself that he’d come back another day and see the city properly. It had been a long time since he’d had such a large amount of free time; spending some of it enjoying the gothic splendour of the restored Cathedral or the elegant simplicity of the newly built arts centre rather appealed.

He headed back to the café as true exhaustion began to creep over him, only recalling the phone Felix had tossed at him as he finished his coffee. He fished it from his pocket to look at it consideringly.

A moment later, smiling impishly, he dialled the number he’d been given and waited to be connected.

______________________________________

Zechs registered the knock on his suite door only dimly, the sound drowned by the rush of the water as he tipped his head back into the spray of his shower to rinse the conditioner from his hair.

As was his usual habit, he ignored it. No one would bother to knock if it was important and his valet, Sebastian, had been aware of his preference for being undisturbed in the bath or shower for most of twenty years.

That didn’t stop him from shouting, “Come in,” in exasperation when the knock echoed a second time a minute later, unwilling to make his guest wait longer than they had to on the assumption that it was Aleks at the door.

His son had known from before he could talk that his father’s attention was his whenever he wanted it. Zechs’s only concession to defending what little precious privacy he managed had been to insist the boy knock and wait before entering his rooms, unless there was something immediately wrong. The King had finally drilled the need for the invite in a couple of years before – mainly by threatening to return the lack of courtesy in kind.

Aleks had promptly begun knocking, but he hadn’t yet gotten past his habit of seeking Zechs out in his rooms rather than his office when he wanted to talk about something. It was, Zechs acknowledged ruefully, one downside to being a parent.

Sighing to himself, he switched the water off and stepped from the shower cubicle, reaching for his towel and wrapping it tightly around his waist as he opened the bathroom door.

He used one hand to rake his wet hair back from his forehead as he went, not bothering to really look at the figure hovering at the door as he stepped towards his dressing table. “What do you want?” he asked directly, picking up his comb.

He suspected he already knew. He’d been expecting Aleks to approach him with a battery of questions for at least two days, especially after the night before at the dinner table.

There was a pause before the reply. “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to interrupt you.”

The King glanced over his shoulder in surprise, the apology telling him it wasn’t his son in the room with him before he really registered the voice. “Treize?” he questioned automatically.

The younger man was standing just inside the entrance to Zechs’s suite, one hand still on the doorknob. His gaze was firmly trained on a point on the carpet. “I’m sorry,” he said again, looking distinctly ill at ease. “Aleks told me you were up here but he didn’t tell me why. I wouldn’t have knocked if I’d known not to disturb you.”

“Aleks doesn’t think it is disturbing me,” Zechs answered honestly, passing on what he’d been thinking to himself just a moment before. He reached for the robe hanging on a stand near the dressing table, slipping it on and belting it closed. “Come in. Sit down,” he instructed as he dropped the towel and tossed it into his laundry hamper.

Treize shook his head. “I only came to apologise for this afternoon,” he said. “It was rude of me to walk off like that, I know.”

“Perhaps, but perhaps not unexpected. You made Felix swear at you rather a lot, I’ll give you that.” Zechs smiled a little, pulling his comb through the first strands of his hair. “And then at me because I wouldn’t stop you. Apparently, we’re both mad, you’ll have given yourself pneumonia and Sally Po will string him up by his heels when she finds out.” He looked over his shoulder again, frowning at the fact that Treize was still standing in the doorway. “Sit down,” he repeated firmly.

Treize blinked at him blankly, then moved to obey automatically, closing the door behind him as he crossed the room and perched on the edge of the wide bed, leaning back against the heavy, dark wood post.

Treize’s suite of rooms was more than comfortable, tastefully and expensively furnished, spacious and airy. Zechs’s was a study in Royal grandeur from the four-post bed to the wide sweep of the room to the priceless antique rugs over the carpet that Zechs was currently dripping on.

It wasn’t the room Zechs had occupied as a boy – that was over on the other side of the Palace – and it wasn’t, as far as Treize could recall, anything in style as he would have expected from his friend. Zechs had always been happy with simple comforts; he’d routinely baulked even at the level of luxury Treize had surrounded himself with. The former general wondered whether the room had been decorated like this in the restoration, whether Zechs’s tastes had changed drastically, or whether the room had been put together to please someone else and Zechs had just never bothered to change it.

But it was, if the bed was any indicator, wonderfully comfortable. As Treize sat down, he felt the mattress and the bedding yield to his weight and he had to put one hand on the post for balance.

Zechs caught the gesture out of the corner of one eye and smirked to himself. Noin had once likened spending a night in his bed to being cuddled to sleep.

“He might well be right,” Treize commented as he stabilised himself. “It probably wasn’t the most sensible thing I could have done.”

The King shrugged as he set his comb down and reached for the soft, boar-bristle brush he used to smooth his hair into its usual sheet of perfection. “Pneumonia can be treated,” he dismissed. He turned to look at the younger man properly, noting the wet hair and splash-marked shoes. “Have you only just got back?” he asked.

He felt fond amusement rise when Treize flushed a little. “Ah,” the redhead started. “Yes. I went…exploring. And then I went for coffee in the café you showed me yesterday.”

Zechs raised an eyebrow and nodded slowly. “Not so helpless, then,” he said quietly, as he looked back to his mirror. “I told Felix you could look after yourself,” he added, taking the sting out of the words. His point had been made without making Treize squirm.

He watched the younger man’s reflection critically for a few seconds. “You look better,” he offered.

Treize’s expression showed a moment of a confusion followed by a quirk of pleased agreement. “I feel it,” he replied. “Psychotherapy on the fly – a long walk in the pouring rain,” he quipped. “Cheaper than a professional, I suspect.”

“Definitely. More effective, too.”

“Oh, yes.” The younger man put his head against the edge of the post as well, resting his entire upper body against it casually. “If more tiring,” he said, and proved the point by yawning suddenly. “Oh, excuse me!”

Zechs chuckled at him softly, then couldn’t resist leaning over and giving him a push. Predictably, Treize couldn’t counteract the force and he tumbled backwards to sprawl less-than-gracefully across the sheets.

“Was that necessary?” he asked curiously, not moving. He’d closed his eyes on impact and didn’t look inclined to opening them again.

“Absolutely. Ask Aleks.” Zechs put his brush back on the table, laughing silently, and crossed the room towards his wardrobe. He found himself clean underwear first, bending to slide it on under his robe before letting that drop away as he hunted out the rest of his clothes.

It didn’t occur to him that he was standing in front of the younger man practically naked until he heard Treize make a soft sound of surprise from behind him. There was the noise of hurried movement, and Zechs turned to watch as the redhead tried to haul himself up from the surface of the bed. There was a distinct flush across his cheekbones and his eyes, as they had been on first arrival, were sharply averted.

Something about the sight irritated the King. He crossed the room again, caught his friend’s hand in his own to pull him back to the edge of the bed, and let him go just as quickly. “I realise I’m not quite in the shape I was twenty-five years ago,” he said rather more curtly than he would have liked, “but I’m fairly sure it’s not that bad!”

“What?” Treize asked blankly, looking up for a just a fraction of a second as he found himself abruptly sitting upright again. He shook his head sharply, taking his hand back as though he’d been burned. “There’s not a damned thing wrong with the shape you’re in,” he replied, just as shortly. “That would be the problem.”

He pushed to his feet, taking a deep breath and still keeping his gaze anywhere in the room but on the older man. “This isn’t appropriate,” he said uncomfortably.

“What isn’t?” Zechs demanded. “Why?”

There was no reply for a moment and the King rolled his eyes dismissively. “Good God, man,” he protested. “You slept with me fairly regularly for years. It’s nothing you haven’t seen.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that.” Treize bit his lip, the gesture betraying more than he would have liked. “That isn’t the point.”

“Then, what is?” Zechs enquired. “Have you developed a prudish streak for some reason?” he asked. “Are you going to fuss every time someone flashes a bit of skin at you?”

The former general’s flush deepened, annoyance flashing in his eyes for a second or two. “I doubt it,” he retorted, before he made himself relax. He shrugged and the gesture was heavy. “It doesn’t matter,” he said quietly.

“It obviously does.” Zechs sighed noisily under his breath, muttering something incomprehensible. “Get over yourself, Treize,” he insisted. “I’d expect this kind of nonsense from Aleks, not you. Why are you carrying on like one of the children?”

There was a weighted hesitation. “That isn’t fair,” Treize objected, so softly that Zechs barely heard him.

“Neither is the world,” the King replied. “Move on.”

The younger man flinched at the brusque dismissal and the blond, standing less than a foot away from him, caught the reaction with a pang of guilt. “Oh, for God’s sake!” he protested to himself. Shaking his head, he willed away the irritation and took a deep breath. “Why are you embarrassed?” he asked, as gently as he could manage.

Treize looked up at him briefly, the glance flickering to meet his and then away again. “I’m not embarrassed, Zechs. It’s just…awkward.”

“Awkward?” The blond gave a little shrug. “You’ve lost me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Treize replied. He visibly steeled himself. “I only came to tell you I was back,” he said. “I’ll leave you in peace now.”

“Hmm,” Zechs agreed and watched narrowly, thinking as Treize turned on one heel to walk towards the door. He waited until the younger man was as close as he was going to get, then reached out and caught his arm with one hand. “Awkward?” he asked softly. “Well, then….”

Without warning his friend, Zechs leaned in and down just enough to brush his mouth across Treize’s.

He let the pressure linger until the other man made some wordless sound in the back of his throat before letting him go and smiling. “There. Now you have a reason for it to be awkward,” he teased.

He wasn’t expecting Treize to stare at him for a heartbeat with both outrage and disbelief in his eyes, and then kiss him back.

Zechs, cautious even in his tweaking of his friend, had kept his kiss closemouthed and dry, chaste enough that Treize could dismiss it as nothing more than affectionately brotherly. The King was acutely aware of how Treize had reacted to a more directly romantic overture the day before and, though the devil in him hadn’t been able to resist using the opportunity to steal a more intimate touch, it wasn’t his intention to spook his younger friend any more than he already had been.

Whatever Zechs’s good intentions, though, Treize apparently had other ideas. He seemed determined to make his kiss nothing less than it had always been between them. Before Zechs even had chance to catch his breath, the younger man had stepped into him, winding one hand into his hair and latching the other onto one bare shoulder as he lifted himself up and pulled the King down the little distance he needed to draw them flush against each other.

For half a second, Zechs considered pushing the redhead away. Then Treize’s even, white teeth nipped at his lower lip gently and the sensation sent a spark of heat through his body that he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

It was thoughtless instinct that made him close his arms around the younger man and the same thoughtless instinct that saw him taking back control of their kiss, returning the nip and soothing it with the slightest touch of his tongue. It was an offer of more that was taken before either man registered it consciously.

Zechs’s breath caught in his throat as their kiss deepened. For twenty five years he’d fought to hold on to the memory of this experience, recalling in slowly fading glory in his darker or more desperate moments the last kiss he’d shared with his lover and Captain. It had become a guilty pleasure as he aged and the detail blurred, something to be indulged in on rare occasions, precious and fragile. Now, he remembered as though it were yesterday and he was stunned as he realised that Treize really hadn’t changed. He felt in Zechs’s arms exactly as he always had, he tasted precisely the same.

The King ran his hands in a slow caress down the line of Treize’s spine, shamelessly indulging himself in the feel of his friend’s body. The vital strength of a man in his prime and absolutely fighting fit was obvious even through clothing, clinging cashmere doing nothing to disguise the sleek muscle and warm skin under Zechs’s fingers. He repeated the touch, unaware that he’d begun matching his kiss to the lazy strokes until Treize relaxed against him.

The younger man felt suddenly weightless as he began to murmur wordlessly, his version of a cat’s contented purr. His hands softened their grip on the King, fingertips beginning to pet lightly as Zechs abandoned any sense of time, or location, or of anything other than Treize.

Slowly, so slowly that it was almost undetectable, their kiss began to change, shading away from those Zechs remembered to become something new. The King didn’t know the difference was coming from him until Treize moaned breathlessly, shivering head to foot. What was comforting familiarity for Zechs was a flood of new experience for Treize – a sharp learning curve to match the skill an extra twenty-five years of practice had given the blond.

For the first time, Zechs felt the way the balance between them had shifted as a physical thing, down to his core, and it was that, a clear jolt of reality, that made him draw back, breaking their kiss.

The younger man clung, tightening his hold and resisting as Zechs tried to disengage gently. The word ‘wow’ would never have crossed Treize’s lips but the sentiment was clear as crystal in his expression and in his eyes when they flickered open.

“That was unexpected,” the King murmured quietly, disturbing the stillness between the two of them.

There was another moment of silence and then Treize blinked slowly. “Yes,” he agreed hesitantly. “Gods, Miri,” he sighed. He looked dazed, the King could see, his blue eyes cloudy and his expression drowsy.

It made him chuckle warmly. “Well, it’s good to know I’m not completely rusty,” Zechs admitted. He took a steadying breath and made to step back completely.

He stopped when Treize tightened the hold he still had on the King’s arm. Sleepy sapphire eyes studied the older man’s face intently before Treize moved to close the gap between them, reaching up to kiss his friend again.

Zechs allowed only a moment of the contact before he took another step back. “Treize,” he murmured, catching his friend by the shoulders and holding him firmly. “Stop. This doesn’t need to be going any further just now.”

Treize blinked up at him again, apparently not expecting that as a response. His gaze cut away a second later, drifting to stare over Zechs’s shoulder and out of the window. “I know,” he admitted eventually. “I know. Old habits,” he offered as an explanation and his tone was uneasy.

The King raised a cool eyebrow, wondering what that meant. “Oh?” he asked. Had Treize been referring to ‘old habits’ between the blond and himself, formed when Zechs had been eager for any touch Treize offered him and wouldn’t have dreamed of stopping him, or did he mean his own ‘old habits’ of regarding sex as casual, not much more than something to do to pass the time with anyone who offered, a character trait the King had never liked in his friend.

The remembrance made his voice short. “You might want to work on losing those altogether,” he suggested.

He immediately winced – one kiss and he was already playing the bitch. He was well aware he had a possessive streak and whilst it had never been a problem in his relationship with Noin, there was no more place for it with Treize than there ever had been. Doubtless, the younger man wouldn’t tolerate it any more now than he had in the past and, given that it had been Zechs who left him all those years ago, he certainly wasn’t under any obligation to do so. The King cringed a little as he realised just how little claim he did have on the younger man.

In the years since the War, certain ideas and takes on events had become immutable ‘fact’ for the blond and his family. One of those was that, when it came to anything to do with Treize, Zechs was the acknowledged expert. No one had known the general as well; no one – not even Une or Dorothy – had as close a tie. For most of fifteen years, the two men had been key figures for each other and so custody of all things ‘Treize’ had slowly been vested in the King. Just as Heero was their computer expert, being keeper of Treize’s ghost was part of who Zechs was to his friends and relatives.

Even after the younger man’s arrival in the morning room, the attitude had prevailed. Dorothy had immediately sent for the King and the rest of the family had deferred to him in all Treize-related decisions as had come to seem natural for them. As a consequence, Zechs had continued his habit of subconsciously regarding Treize as ‘his’.

It had escaped him until that moment that, as a living, breathing person again, Treize was now more than capable of acting as his own avatar to the rest of the world. The King certainly hadn’t considered that the younger man might not want to be his.

He opened his mouth to say something to mollify his statement and stopped just as swiftly. If the King’s flinch had been internal, then Treize’s wasn’t. Zechs realised he’d felt it under his hands and it was written all over the younger man’s face.

“I’m sorry,” they said at almost the same time.

Zechs smiled. “We’ll talk about it some other time, hmm?” he offered and was both relieved and pleased when Treize nodded his agreement. “So, what did you do with yourself during your walk?” he asked as he finally stepped away fully. He turned back towards his wardrobe, aware of the redhead’s eyes on him as he selected clothing.

“Wandered aimlessly, mostly,” Treize answered slowly. “You did a lovely job with the restoration.”

The King raised an eyebrow, glancing over his shoulder. “I’m glad you think so. It’s been a long haul and we’re not done yet but we’re getting there. It’s gone faster than I thought it would, actually,” he admitted, letting his thoughts drift over his memories. “The capital, especially, was a mess at the end of the wars.”

“It was a mess the last time I read any reports on it,” Treize replied softly. “Two full scale assaults and fifteen years of neglect in between weren’t likely to have left it as anything else,” he pointed out. He shrugged uneasily before speaking again. “I remember the topic of the Alliance’s handling of Sanc coming up in several conferences, and always as an example of how corrupt they’d become.”

Zechs shot him another glance, then turned to face him properly. “Given that the second assault was at the orders of Romefeller, there’s a certain amount of irony in you saying that,” he commented neutrally, keeping his face from showing any feeling on the subject.

Treize’s posture, still languid from their kiss, tightened immediately. “Not my Romefeller,” he objected sharply.

“Was there a difference?” the King asked coolly. “One military dictatorship….”

The redhead tensed visibly. “You know perfectly well there was a difference!” he snapped. “I’d hoped you remembered that much about me! At least do me the courtesy of recalling that I resigned before the assault on your country, and in protest over those kinds of tactics!”

Zechs smiled sardonically, shaking his head. “You resigned because the creation of the mobile dolls threatened to take away your glorious victory,” he replied softly. “There was no moral superiority in a battle fought by computer, no chance to gloss it with pathos and tales of brave martyrs. Instead of high-sounding ideals, it became numbers, statistics and cold, hard fact, and you weren’t for dealing with it.”

“I wasn’t about to sanction something that made a mockery of everything I’d spent my career defending, no,” Treize agreed. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and folded his arms across his chest. The gesture should have looked confident but to Zechs, it was purely defensive. “Is that really what you’ve spent the last twenty five years thinking of me?” the former general asked. “That I ran when things got a little difficult?”

“Why not?” the King sighed suddenly. “It’s what the rest of us did. There’s no shame in it.” He shrugged wearily as he turned away again to resume his hunt through his wardrobe.

Treize stared at the back of his head in confusion, wondering how they’d ended up on this topic in the first place. He certainly hadn’t been intending to raise anything as guaranteed to be fraught. He’d had enough high and dramatic emotion already that day to last him the rest of his life.

“Where are you going?” he asked a few minutes later, as Zechs slipped a silk tie around his neck, under the collar of his dress shirt and began to knot it with the speed of long practice.

The King spared him a quick look as he walked back to the dressing table mirror to check his reflection. “I have a dinner engagement with Anne this evening,” he said, twitching the tie perfectly into place. He picked up the comb again and began gathering his hair in one hand at the nape of his neck.

Treize let his surprise touch his expression. “Oh?” he asked, trying to sound only mildly interested. “Are you taking her somewhere nice, then?”

“Only if you class my own dining room as ‘nice’,” Zechs laughed. “I have dinner with her quite regularly, time permitting. It’s a hold over from when Marie was younger and we alternate whether she comes to me or I go to her fairly randomly.” He tied a twist of silk ribbon around the swept-back hair and stepped away from the mirror. “I’m supposed to ask you if you want to come along, actually,” he added.

“Ah, no,” Treize said immediately, shaking his head. “No. I wouldn’t want to interrupt. If you’re dressing this formally for a dinner in your own home then….” The general let his voice drift off as his eyes widened slightly. “Why are you dressing that formally?” he asked, puzzled. “Was that reporter right?”

“Reporter?” Zechs quizzed back, frowning. He started laughing a moment later and shook his head. “Good Lord, no!” he chuckled as he realised what the younger man was thinking, that he was referring to the questions the journalist in the portrait gallery had asked about the rumours of a Royal Wedding. “It’s your day for wild speculation, isn’t it?” he teased lightly. “There’s nothing like that between Anne and I – if there’s anything to that rumour, it’s about Aleks, not me. I’m dressed like this because I have a meeting with my Prime Minister in half an hour, that’s all,” he explained.

Treize relaxed before he realised he’d tensed. “Oh.”

Zechs chuckled again. “Go and get changed, Treize,” he bade, coming to stand close to the younger man again. “Have a bath and stave off Felix’s promised pneumonia, or see if you can’t sleep for an hour or two. I’ll come and find you when I’m ready to.”

“All right,” Treize agreed. He drew himself up, taking a preparatory breath. “I am sorry I disturbed you. I’ll know not to take Aleks at his word in future.”

Aleks’s father smiled warmly. “He’s good to his word; it’s his perspective that needs work. It was worth it, though, don’t you think?”

To the King’s delight, Treize blushed.

Chapter Text

In something of a parallel, the knock on Treize’s door came just as the general was stepping out of his bath and reaching for the towels resting on the heated rack.

Puzzled, he glanced to where his wrist watch was sitting on the countertop, wondering if he’d spent more time lounging in the hot water than he’d thought.

In accordance with the King’s suggestions, Treize had decided to retreat to his rooms for the rest of the afternoon. Zechs had been fairly clear about the fact that he was going to be busy for a while, it was unlikely – so Treize had thought – that anyone else would disturb him and whilst he wasn’t especially tired, the idea of a good bath had appealed.

It wasn’t that he particularly needed to get clean – he’d showered that morning as he customarily did and then again, hurriedly, when he’d been released by Dr Po – but Treize had always found something inherently soothing about submerging himself in warm water. He’d indulged briefly the previous morning but the need to actually scrub himself from head to foot combined with the myriad questions running around his head had kept it from being a truly indulgent soak. This time, there was no need for him to do anything but close his eyes and relax, soothed by the gentle heat against his skin, the fragrance of the oil he’d added to the water, the soft music he had playing from the bedroom and the low lighting. Within a few minutes of stepping into the water, Treize had let his mind match the weightlessness of his body and slipped into the first in a series of meditative exercises, breathing slowly and deeply as his conscious mind shut down.

He hadn’t thought he’d been under that long but it was possible. The quick glance at his watch, however, told him his sense of time wasn’t that badly distorted and he frowned in puzzlement.

The knock came again, polite and unfamiliar, and Treize pulled the plug on his bath and wrapped his newly bought robe around his still-damp skin as he crossed the bedroom to answer the door.

He raised an eyebrow at the identity of his visitor; he hadn’t been expecting to see Felix again that day after returning his phone.

“Sorry to disturb you,” the other man said cheerfully, before Treize could even open his mouth to attempt a hello. “Can I come in a moment?”

Letting the second eyebrow match the first, Treize stepped back from the door, allowing the younger man past him, and turned to follow him. His hands tucked his robe more closely around his body as he moved, fastening the sash securely.

“Is this a professional call or a personal one?” the former general asked, using his fingers to swing the door closed again. Felix had taken a few steps into the room and was looking around with interest. The box he’d been carrying in his hands at the door was sitting on the night table, the younger man having apparently set it down first thing.

“A touch of both, if you’ll forgive me,” the doctor replied. “I’m sure you’re sick to death of all things medical.”

Treize nodded, knowing his face would show his feelings in any case. “A tad,” he agreed.

Felix chuckled, then gestured apologetically. “I’m doubly sorry for interrupting you, then. Were you in the shower?”

“The bath,” Treize answered, correcting automatically. “But I’d finished in any case. If you can stand the informality of my dress, I’ll tolerate the disturbance.”

He smiled as he said it, watching as Felix flicked his dusky eyes over him lightly for a moment before he smiled back. “I don’t have a problem with how you’re dressed,” he said softly.

Treize let his expression become openly speculative – that was the third time he’d heard his younger relative employ that tone of voice and there was no doubt about its context and meaning this time.

Well, if the younger man wanted to flirt…. Taking the opening Felix had given him with his assessing look, Treize gazed back at him, scanning him head to foot in a frankly appraising manner. Despite the conversations they’d had the day before and that morning at the clinic, Treize knew almost nothing about Dorothy’s son on a personal level, not even whether the boy was interested in men or women or both. The slow scrutinising stare would sort out that question as well as providing Treize with a few seconds mild enjoyment – a patently straight man would be horribly uncomfortable with it.

There was no question that the boy was easy to look at; Treize had noted that within minutes of meeting Felix the day before. Close to the general’s own height and nicely trim, with his unusual colouring and good bone structure, Felix was handsome without being typically so, appealing simply because he was interesting.

He knew how to dress, too. The former general had found his eye being drawn by Felix’s fashion sense every time he’d seen the younger man and this evening was no exception.

The doctor had changed clothes from his formal suit and the outfit might have looked uncaringly casual, if Treize hadn’t been just as choosy about his own wardrobe. The crisp grey scarf tucked around Felix’s neck was nothing particularly unusual – he’d been wearing something similar the day before as well – but the soft shirt, open at the throat, was simply beautiful. It fit faultlessly, showing the surprising strength and definition in his shoulders and upper body that kept Felix from looking lanky or coltish, something that would have been easy for him to do, slim and long-limbed as he was. The shirt had been chosen for colour as well, a dusty-rose shade somewhere between brown, grey and purple that shifted in the light to show up the striking amethyst of Felix’s eyes, the clear tone of his skin and the rich, warm hues of his hair.

The shirt tucked neatly into an understated black belt that was utterly unremarkable save that it fulfilled its intended purpose perfectly, drawing the eye to Felix’s narrow waist and from there, down.

The charcoal trousers the younger man was wearing were a miracle of tailoring, made from a fabric Treize didn’t recognise at all. Somehow, it managed to both skim the doctor’s body and cling to it, flawlessly showing off the lines and curves of his hips, backside and legs. The whole outfit was finished by smart, perfectly polished black shoes that matched the belt.

The total picture created was altogether pleasing. It was all subtle, done with hint and suggestion rather than with anything that deliberately clamoured for attention, but that made the effect all the more entertaining as far as the former general was concerned.

Treize let his eyes wander at their own pace, then lifted them back to Felix’s own, having the answer to at least one question in the lack of tension in the man’s body and the amused sparkle in his gaze.

“So nice to know the effort I put in was worth it,” Felix said, his voice holding the first notes of a laugh.

Treize gestured at him indicatively. “You’re gay?” he asked bluntly, already sure of the answer.

“Most of the time,” Felix returned, just as directly. He chuckled softly, the sound warm and mellow. “I’d ask if it bothered you but….”

“But I suspect you know enough about me to know better,” Treize finished for him. He smiled slowly. “I’m starting to think you have me at a disadvantage,” he murmured.

As he spoke, Treize let his gaze drop and his posture soften, folding his hands in front of him demurely as he bowed his head slightly, giving a perfect display of repressed shyness. It was a skilled bit of playacting, and entirely unconscious. Felix had somehow managed to hit a lot of old buttons for the general. He’d been extremely well trained, to the point where, under the right circumstances, such things were as natural to him as breathing, artifice only in the presentation.

And he was a good enough judge of character that, even as his body was showing vulnerability and timidity, the tone of his voice, deliberately pitched to be inviting and coy, suggested almost exactly the opposite, promising that he would be anything but inhibited when given the right stimulus.

There was a moment’s silence, and then a pealing laugh. “Damn!” Felix said, openly admiring. “And I thought I’d seen expert manipulation from my mother.”

Treize glanced up, jolted by the mention of Felix’s mother. For a few moments, he’d slipped and forgotten where he was, when he was, and had reacted to Felix as though he were the fellow Romefeller young blood he would have been if he’d been born three decades earlier.

As Treize watched, the doctor’s eyes glinted for a fraction of a second with keen intelligence, the steel-trap mind Treize had already learned was behind the dapper front noting the shifts and storing them for later analysis. It made him wince a little –just how much had the younger generation been told about the darker side of the Romefeller Organisation?

“Your mother?” Treize repeated, covering. “She was an apt pupil,” he replied honestly.

“I’m sure she was,” Felix agreed softly. He paused a moment, inhaling slowly as he studied Treize closely. “Out of interest, cousin,” he asked quietly, “how many people ever told you no?”

He was smiling as he said it, granting Treize the option to take it as lightly as he chose, to dismiss it as a slightly too-personal question about his sex life, but it wasn’t meant that way, and they both knew it.

“Not very many,” Treize answered eventually. If the boy could ask that question – suggesting that he knew far more than Treize suspected either Dorothy or Zechs would have been comfortable with – then he deserved the truth.

It sat better with the general in any case, to be frank with the younger man. If Felix was going to flirt, it was best he know what he was flirting with.

The doctor nodded slowly, expression thoughtful. “I’d assumed as much,” he replied.

A moment later, he smiled again, warm and friendly. “So, how much psychology did you have to study to be able to do that?” he asked.

Treize smiled weakly. “Not much,” he replied, but he didn’t elaborate. Honesty aside, there were certain things he wasn’t going to share, no matter how much Felix came on to him. He did not intend to discuss some topics ever again if it was left to him, and certainly not with Dorothy’s son. “You said this was a professional visit?” he prompted.

“In part,” Felix agreed, accepting the change of subject with only a quirk of an eyebrow. “Sally forwarded me some of your test results and asked me to discuss them with you, since you seem to react better to me than you do to her.”

Treize shrugged. “It isn’t personal….”

“I don’t imagine for one moment that Sally thinks it is.” Felix reassured. “Sit down, please.”

The general obeyed, taking a step past the younger man to settle onto the edge of his bed uneasily. “Come near me with a needle…,” he warned lightly, and won a laugh for his trouble.

“No needles, I promise. Not tonight. Here,” Felix said, opening the box he’d brought with him and offering Treize a folder. “That’s a full list of your results for you to read when you get chance. The gist of them is that you’re still in excellent physical shape, despite the healed injuries we found and despite being under your ideal weight by quite a bit.” He gestured lightly with his free hand. “There’s a touch of scarring to your lungs that might give you some unexpected shortness of breath with real exertion but exercise should help you compensate, and you are a tad anaemic, so we are recommending you adjust your diet accordingly. It’s nothing for you to worry about,” he reassured. “As long as you eat sensibly for a few weeks, it should correct itself.”

Treize nodded, taking the file with one hand. “I was expecting something like that,” he admitted.

“I imagine you were,” Felix agreed mildly. “It’s fairly standard after serious blood loss and I’m sure you’ve experienced that before.” He stopped talking, glancing away briefly before looking back at the general, and then suddenly sitting down on the bed as well. It wasn’t overly intimate – Felix had deliberately chosen to sit as far as he could from the other man and, when they both turned to look at each other, they were no closer than they would have been if he’d sat in the dressing table chair – but it did represent a change in the doctor’s approach to something more personal.

Treize raised a speculative eyebrow at the move but waited the younger man out in silence. He wasn’t expecting Felix to grin at him a moment later, the expression positively wicked.

The doctor reached for the box on the table, picked it up and balanced it in his lap. “Which brings me to the other thing I wanted to discuss with you,” he started cheerfully. “We need that semen sample from you to complete the physical.”

The former general winced at the bluntness. “Felix…,” he started, and stopped when the doctor shook his head.

“Hush a moment, please,” Felix bade. “I’m sure you don’t want to talk about it – I know I wouldn’t in your place – but it is important we have that sample. There are some tests we can only run once we have it. Sally didn’t push you on it this morning but she will, sooner or later, so I thought I’d overstep the bounds of the doctor-patient relationship a little.”

The younger man seemed to sober a touch, tilting his head to one side thoughtfully. “It isn’t very professional of me – in fact, I think Sally would have my head if she knew – but sometimes, it pays to get creative. I’m only guessing,” he explained, “but I got the feeling this morning that it wasn’t so much wouldn’t when you refused her that sample, as couldn’t.”

Treize all but confirmed his relative's guessing by colouring hotly. “Possibly,” he admitted uncomfortably.

Felix nodded. “I thought so,” he said quietly. He held Treize’s eyes solidly, noting the little reactions and shifts that betrayed the other man’s blistering embarrassment and mounting shame. “The first thing I need to say to you, then,” he began, “is this: Stress, exhaustion, depression, shock and physical trauma can all kill any interest you might normally feel, and you’re certainly no stranger to those. Even if that weren’t the case, some of the meds you were taking would, quite frankly, have played hell on the fittest day of your life. I actually doubt you have the problem you think you do,” he reassured. “Want a possible solution?” he asked, and when Treize nodded uncertainly, he smiled and held out the box. “Here.”

Treize took the box, blinked at it, and then looked back at Felix questioningly, waiting for him to explain. “What is this?” he asked.

Felix merely let his smile become a little coy. “Well, at risk of offending you horribly, I thought I’d gamble on us being as much alike in this as Uncle Milliardo seems to think we are. I’m blowing my own professionalism to hell to do it, mind, but I thought it might pay to do something that actually helps.” He shrugged. “So, call the possible solution a welcoming present if you like and have fun.”

Treize raised an eyebrow. “Fun?” he repeated, sounding doubtful. “Dare I ask?”

“Oh, probably not!” Felix laughed impishly, then gestured affectionately. “Just, try to take your time and relax. It’ll work better if you don’t force.” He stood up, taking a pace or two and turning around to gaze down at the older man, the look in his eyes positively mischievous. “Let me know if you get bored of that little lot, won’t you?”

Treize’s eyes widened as the light dawned. He looked down at the box again and then back up at Felix, just in time to meet the dusky gaze as one small, strong hand caught his face, fingers tucked under his ear and thumb against his cheekbone, and tilted his head back.

For the second time in as many hours, Treize found himself being kissed without any warning as Felix bent down to brush his mouth against the former general’s. Unlike Zechs, whose first kiss had been quick and dry, Felix made no pretensions to chastity. He bit lightly at Treize’s lips until the older man opened his mouth in unconscious response, then deepened their kiss swiftly and fluidly.

The King’s kiss had been stunning, overwhelming, layered with years of pent up feeling and longing, so intense Treize had almost felt as though he were drowning under it. Felix’s had none of that and, in some ways, was more welcome for it. This, a purely physical exchange, was familiar and comfortable for the older man. There was no pressure, no emotional weight, no complicated and often-fraught history smothering things, just a skilled and attractive partner offering an hour or an afternoon or a night of simple pleasure, as suited them both, with no expectation of anything but mutual enjoyment. Treize liked Felix, could see them becoming close friends in the future – it would be wonderfully easy, as very little else in his life had been lately, to take what he was offering and take him to bed.

Without real thought, he pushed the box from his knee onto the bed and reached up to pull the other man down, wanting to know if his mental picture of the doctor was anything like reality. It had been so long since he’d felt such a surge of un-tempered heat that he’d almost forgotten what it felt like.

Felix broke their kiss a moment later, laughing gently and affectionately. “Shh,” he soothed, his thumb stroking lightly. “Not after the day you’ve had. You wouldn’t enjoy it the way you should.”

Treize wanted to disagree, but he knew the other man was probably right. It was annoying, though, and he suspected his eyes, when he opened them, conveyed that fact because Felix laughed again as he stood up.

“I’ll keep, I promise,” he chuckled, stepping back slowly and then moving for the door. “I just wanted to give you a head start, so to speak. Have fun with the box, cousin,” he instructed as he put his hand on the door handle. “I think I’m rather going to enjoy having you around.”

Treize found himself snorting in dry amusement as the door swung closed behind the doctor and he sat in silent contemplation for a few seconds before getting up, crossing the room to lock the door again, and padding into the bathroom.

He straightened the smaller room automatically, then went delving into the cabinet above the sink for the little box at the back he’d found the previous morning, before making his way back into the bedroom.

The box went into the top drawer of the nightstand by the bed – where it should have been in the first place, if Zechs had been remotely practical when it came to such things – and Treize settled himself full length onto the neatly made surface of his bed. He propped himself on one elbow as he pulled the box towards himself and finally flipped the lid.

He’d been right in his suspicions of its contents. Felix had assembled quite the collection of materials – novels, illustrated stories, films, still photos, even taped books – and all of it was solidly adult rated. Quirking an amused eyebrow, Treize let his hand close around one of the books, drawn by the heavy, hardback cover and the old-favourite title embossed on the spine.

Choice made, he closed the box on the rest, slid it under the bed and settled down to read.

__________________________________

Chapter Text

Zechs was surprised by how smoothly dinner passed off.

Despite their earlier meeting at the Preventer HQ, the King was under no illusions that Treize and Une were completely comfortable with each other yet. Une was still dealing with the first initial shock of seeing Treize alive and moving – Zechs could personally attest to how long it was going to take her to get past that – and Treize was contending with yet more changes to yet another person he had once held dear to him. In fact, without the initial shock as a factor in keeping things smooth, the dinner should have been filled with awkward silences and conversational missteps.

Instead, Une seemed to have set herself to be friendly and warm, almost maternal in her approach to her old commander, and Treize, despite the roughness of his day, had been somehow more relaxed and affable than he had been at any point since his arrival in the morning room. Zechs had no idea what he’d done in the two and half hours they’d been apart, but it had served to make the younger man into almost his old suave, charming self.

The three of them had sat around the little dinner table, talking over their food almost as if no time at all had passed. They’d discussed Une’s solution to Treize’s identity and agreed on an approach, touched on a potted history of major world events since the general’s ‘death’ – with one or two key exceptions – and even managed to include Treize in a conversation about modern politics.

Finally, though, almost an hour after desert had been cleared, Une had gone back to her car to drive home and Zechs no longer had any way to delay the conversation he knew he had to have with Treize.

In one way, he was glad that the younger man was in such a good mood at the outset – it might lessen the overall severity of his reaction – but in another, he was sorry for it. However Zechs approached it, however Treize eventually took it, the former general was not going to be happy with anyone and anything involved and his relaxed cheerfulness was going to be shattered into pieces.

It couldn’t be put off any longer, though. Wufei had been bang on with his assertion that Treize had to be told as soon as possible – the man’s wild speculation about Une being Marie’s mother proved that. Zechs had already lied to the younger man once about Marie, he couldn’t do so a second time and expect Treize ever to forgive him for it.

Besides, with the plans to make Treize into his own son now more than likely to go ahead, he had to be told Marie was his daughter before any announcement could be made. Hearing the press clamouring at Marie for answers as to how she liked her new ‘brother’ was not the way for Treize to find out her identity.

Accordingly, steeling himself, Zechs stopped Treize as the younger man opened his mouth to say goodnight with a touch to his arm.

“Can I have a quick word first, please?” the King asked politely, internally wincing at how much he wanted the other man to beg off on the grounds of tiredness or some such.

Treize lifted a surprised eyebrow but he nodded his consent readily enough. There was no way he could know what was coming, of course, but even so, Zechs had been expecting some sort of wariness. That there wasn’t any was only, he supposed, more proof of his friend’s good mood.

With Treize following him on quiet feet, Zechs led the way across the Palace until they came to the little sitting room he’d first taken Treize to the previous morning. There were dozens of other rooms that would have been as suitable, of course, and a lot of them were closer to the dining room, but this one had the advantage of being at least a little familiar to the younger man, as well as being one of Zech’s own particular favourites.

He gestured the redhead to a seat on the over-stuffed old couch and crossed the room to draw the heavy drapes against the miserable night outside and light the fire someone had laid in the grate. Turning back, he took a few steps and picked up the phone from its stand, dialling a short number from memory and waiting for it to connect.

“Hello, Wufei?” he murmured, when it was answered. “Sorry to call you at this time but I’m assuming you still want to sit in on a certain conversation.” There was a pause for a moment, then, “Yes, I know it’s getting late but…. Yes, all right. I’ll wait.”

The King put the phone down again and came to sit in one of the chairs facing the younger man, his posture tense.

“May I ask what conversation you were referring to?” Treize asked quietly, when it became clear Zechs wasn’t going to break the silence stretching between them. He shifted in his seat, leaning forward intently. “From the look on your face, this isn’t going to be a ‘quick word’ at all.”

Zechs felt himself flush guiltily. “Ah, no,” he admitted. “Probably not. Sorry, but it is quite important.”

Treize nodded slowly, holding the King’s eyes with his own for a moment before looking away. “I did wonder how long it would take you to come around to this,” he said softly. “I suppose, after what you said in your rooms earlier, I should have been expecting it.”

The King, caught by surprise, took a moment to respond. “Sorry?” he asked blankly. “What do you think this about?” he wondered.

Treize shrugged, the gesture tight and uneasy. “Chang is a Preventer Officer now, isn’t he? I imagine that, along with the obvious, makes him as qualified as anyone else to judge me.”

“Judge you?” the older man spluttered. He sat forward in his chair, gesturing sharply with one hand. “You think this is an inquisition?” he demanded. “Into what, exactly?”

The former general didn’t look up. “Into whatever you see fit, I imagine,” he said quietly. “This is your country, after all, and I’m not naïve enough to believe that everyone in it is willing to see me walk free without at least justifying my actions. You made your own opinion of them clear earlier, after all, and if you have come to so harsh a conclusion, I can only imagine what others must have decided. Your sister, certainly, must have been pushing for you to wash your hands of me completely.”

The newly lit fire snapped in the grate as it burned merrily, the sound catching at Zechs’s ears as he stared at his friend in disbelief. “Treize,” he said softly. “That’s not what this is,” he promised awkwardly.

The other man glanced up and smiled weakly. “It’s all right, Zechs. Really.” He stopped, drew a quick breath, and shrugged again. “I’m only grateful that you didn’t hand me straight to Une and have done.”

“Treize,” the King said again, leaning forward more, until he could rest his hands over the tight clasp the redhead had made of his own and press soothingly. “Listen to me. I promise you that isn’t what this is. It hasn’t occurred to anyone to ask you to explain yourself, least of all Wufei. He said to me only this morning that he has no intentions of doing anything of the sort.”

Treize shifted under the touch uncomfortably. “Why not?” he asked. “He’d be justified in it. So would you.”

“Maybe we would,” Zechs agreed. “But no one is going to. The family won’t – there’s none of us pure enough to be casting the first stone – and no one else will know there’s anything to ask. Honestly,” he reassured. “That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve invited Wufei to be here only because he’ll be representing someone else.”

The tension in Treize’s body ebbed away a little at the King’s assurances but he was still on edge enough to jump at the knock that echoed through the door a moment later.

Zechs pressed with his hands again, intending the touch to be steadying, and then let the younger man go as he stood up to open the door and let Wufei into the room. The oriental man looked solemn as he stepped past the King but he nodded to Treize politely as he crossed the room to a second chair. Zechs followed him and settled into his own again before looking at the younger man closely.

“Have you told Khushrenada why we’re here?” Wufei asked abruptly.

Zechs shook his head. “Only that we need to talk. I thought it best to wait for you, rather than getting half way through and then having to start again.”

“Very well.” Chang made a little gesture that clearly said, “Well?” but he said nothing further aloud, apparently content to settle back in his chair and let the King handle the majority of the conversation.

Treize glanced between them, and then raised a curious eyebrow. The dancing around wasn’t helping the state of his nerves, if he were honest with himself, but Zechs’s promises that he wasn’t facing an enquiry into his actions during the war had relieved the worst fears in his mind. Really, what was left that he needed to fret about after that?

Zechs, seeing the enquiring look on the younger man’s face, drew a deep breath and steeled himself. “First off, I owe you an apology,” he began quietly. “I probably shouldn’t have left it so long before having this conversation with you. You may very well feel when we’re done that I should have told you everything I’m going to straight away. If you do, I won’t blame you. I’m only asking that you remember that I thought it in your best interests to let you find your bearings a little first.”

He bit his lip as Treize’s face showed open surprise for a moment, before shifting to guarded wariness. “I’m also going to apologise on behalf of both myself and Wufei for any discomfort we may cause you whilst we’re talking,” he continued, his voice softening. “Due to its nature, the conversation is likely going to get very personal but I do need you to be as honest with us as you can be.”

Treize’s expression switched back to surprise. “If you feel so strongly that you have to have certain information that you’ll go to this amount of trouble to get it, then I’ll do my best,” he replied. “What is it that you couldn’t just ask me yourself?”

Zechs nodded his appreciation of his friend’s willingness but he held a hand up to the question. “I need to give you a little background first,” he said quietly.

For a moment Treize looked as though he were going to resist any elaborate, roundabout approach, but then he leaned back into the support of the couch and gestured with his hands, opening them palm up where they were resting on his knees to indicate he was listening.

“What do you recall of the events leading up to your fight with Wufei?” Zechs asked carefully.

The redhead blinked; clearly that hadn’t been what he was expecting. “My memory is perfectly fine until the moment I hit the self-destruct,” he replied, noting that Chang tensed at his words. “It’s only between then and waking in your guest room that I’ve lost.”

Zechs shook his head. “Sorry,” he said. “I phrased that badly. I’m not questioning your memory. I’m just trying to establish what you saw and what you didn’t. I know you would have had your command feeds but I also know you would have been busy. I don’t want to assume you’re aware of something if you aren’t.”

“Fair enough,” Treize replied. He frowned briefly, then closed his eyes and let himself sink into his memories as he had in Sally’s office that morning. Wufei, across the room, shot a questioning glance at the blond but Zechs, aware of the technique Treize was using, shook his head to keep him from interfering.

“My forces were engaged with White Fang mobile dolls. Libra was threatening the resource satellite. The gundam pilots were targeting Libra, as was Peacemillion. Epyon was attempting to defend the ship. I remember Lady Une telling me that the gundams had switched their focus to Epyon and replying that I would have thanked them, if they’d been fighting on my behalf.”

Chang raised an eyebrow as Zechs flinched from his old commander’s words. However obvious it had been that Treize hadn’t approved of Zechs’s actions in those last few days, hearing the man himself saying he would have liked to thank those attempting to kill the King – whatever terms Treize was using – was bound to be a bit jarring.

“Epyon engaged with the gundams, and with a white Taurus I assume was Noin,” Treize continued. “Peacemillion rammed Libra, destroying the cannon, and the gundams forced an entry point into the ship.” The general stopped and opened his eyes. “I lose track of everything but Chang after that, I’m afraid.”

Zechs nodded. “All right. That’s more than I hoped you’d have followed actually.” He cut a warning glance to Wufei. “The gist of the rest is that Une surrendered on behalf of the Earth forces when she was informed of your death, but by that time, things had gone too far to stop easily. The last few minutes of the battle came down to almost single combat between the Wing Zero and Epyon and, with one thing and another, Epyon was presumed as destroyed as the Tallgeese, and I was assumed to be dead. The only person who knew differently was Lady Une.”

Treize accepted the hurried explanation silently, a curious tilt of his head his only comment.

“I’ll let you read one of the better studies of the final battle at some point,” Zechs promised him. “You’ll get a far clearer picture of everything that happened that way and the detail isn’t really relevant here in any case. What you need to know for the moment is that once the battle was over, Relena, with help, managed to forge a cease-fire treaty that all sides agreed to.”

“You had peace,” Treize said softly. There was something in his eyes and his voice that didn’t bear looking at too closely.

“We did,” Zechs agreed. “For about a year.”

It was obvious even to Wufei that the King’s flat statement caught the former general completely off-guard. “I beg your pardon?” Treize demanded. “For a year? What does that mean?”

“It means exactly what it sounds like,” Zechs replied calmly. “The Earth sphere had peace for almost a year, until Relena was kidnapped by a rebel faction in late November of 196 and held as the personal hostage of its de-facto leader. It started what has come to be known as the second Eve war, for the date of the last decisive battle, just like its predecessor.”

“Christmas Eve?” Treize asked.

“Yes,” Zechs agreed. “But I’ll get to that. Using Relena, the leader and her close guard took command of the Presidential residence in Brussels. Lady Une recalled both the gundam pilots and myself to try to solve the problem. Eventually, with a bit of inside work from the Lady herself, we succeeded. The failed attempt crystallised the global desire for peace and things have been quiet ever since.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Treize said, sitting forward again, “but what on Earth does this have to do with me? As much as I appreciate the history lesson, I fail to see how it could lead into a conversation I’m likely to find invasive and embarrassing.”

Zechs nodded. “I’m sure it seems odd,” he agreed. “Bear with me. There is a connection, I promise. There are two more things you need to be aware of before I can get to the point. The first is that not every gundam pilot fought with Une and the Preventers,” he said. “For reasons of his own, and they’ll be clearer to you shortly, Wufei fought with the rebel faction, not against them.”

The younger man shot Chang a startled look. “Oh?” he asked. “And the second?”

“The second is that you’ve met the rebel leader,” Zechs replied. “Though it may seem a touch bizarre at first.”

Several people had warned Zechs in the time since Treize had arrived that he shouldn’t underestimate the younger man, that he would have lost nothing of his sharply deductive mind. He proved them right mere seconds after Zechs stopped speaking by letting the look he was casting at Wufei shift from surprise to disbelief. “Marie?” he asked doubtingly.

He looked back at Zechs a second later. “Chang’s wife, Marie?” he asked again.

The King nodded slowly. “Yes. Wufei’s wife was the apparent leader of the rebels, although this was long before they were married.”

Treize shook his head. “You told me this morning that Marie was thirty-two,” he protested. “Unless my mental arithmetic has failed completely she couldn’t have been more than seven in 196!”

“Eight,” Zechs corrected, showing his agreement in his approving nod. “Her birthday is January 10^th. Mariemeia was born in 188.”

The King watched his former commander closely as he spoke. He’d deliberately used Marie’s full name for the first time, wanting to see if there would be any reaction to it or to the date of birth he’d just been given. It was rare for anyone to call Mariemeia anything other than ‘Marie’ these days, and Zechs had asked everyone to keep to it until Treize was informed of the truth as an extra layer of camouflage for her. Marie alone was a common enough name, but Mariemeia was distinctly more unique. Having known nothing of the girl’s existence before she announced her presence in the world media, having never even heard Treize mention an encounter with her mother, Zechs hadn’t been willing to dismiss the possibility that his friend had actually been aware he was a father. If that were the case, then the name would have been an instant giveaway.

His suspicions in that regard though appeared to be totally unfounded. Treize didn’t react at all to Marie’s name, other than to raise an eyebrow curiously.

“Why would someone want a mere child in charge of their rebellion?” he asked. “Aside from bordering on the abusive, it’s damned poor strategy. No matter how precocious, no eight year old could have hoped to win through against the forces arrayed against her.”

The dry tactical assessment made Zechs smile and Wufei raise an eyebrow. “That’s one way of looking at it, yes,” the King agreed mildly. He exchanged a swift glance with the oriental man, seeming to say something silently, then looked back at Treize steadily. “She had no real say in strategy, in truth – that was part of the role Wufei fulfilled – but she was certainly valuable as a figurehead for her grandfather, Dekim.”

Again, Zechs tossed the name out to see what reaction it got, offering it as bait to draw Treize into the line of the conversation that was needed. It was a bigger lure, too – there was no way Treize wasn’t familiar with this name.

The former general proved Zechs right in his suspicions moments later, by raising a puzzled eyebrow as he frowned. “Dekim?” he asked. “Dekim Barton?”

Zechs nodded slowly. “Yes.”

Treize shook his head, eyes distant as his mind worked. “Why would Dekim support a rebellion designed to overthrow an established world peace?” he asked. “That makes no sense. He was Romefeller; he helped fund Oz and its destruction of the Alliance.”

Zechs hadn’t known that, and thought nothing of letting his surprise show. “His game ran deeper than we thought, then, because he also funded White Fang.”

“And the Gundams,” Wufei put in from his corner, speaking for the first time. “Heavyarms, particularly. It was originally intended for his son, Trowa.”

It was Treize’s turn to look surprised. “Trowa Barton was going to be one of the gundam pilots?” he asked, and his tone of voice wasn’t far from open shock. “Are you certain of that?” he demanded. “I’ll admit I wondered at 03’s name when I first heard the transmissions Oz had hacked but I dismissed it as a pure coincidence, or a deliberate homage, much like Yuy’s use of his name.” He shook his head. “Trowa was rather open about his support for the colonies but he never gave me any hint that he was involved in any rebellion other than Romefeller’s.”

The redhead, about to add something else to his statement, stopped speaking as his companions exchanged meaningful looks. “Is something wrong?” he wondered uncertainly.

Zechs shook his head in denial but it was Wufei, his face a picture of disbelief, who asked, “You knew the original Trowa Barton?”

Treize nodded. “Of course I did,” he replied, frowning in puzzlement. “He was Romefeller, like all his family, and we were about the same age.” He scowled, gazing back at the King in confusion as both older men glanced at each other again swiftly. “Zechs, why is this important? It’s not as though you didn’t know Trowa was a friend of mine.”

The King returned Treize’s gaze but he was shaking his head doubtfully. “Didn’t I? I don’t recall ever….”

“Your friend?” Wufei spluttered suddenly, cutting off whatever Zechs had been about to say.

Treize nodded again, slowly. “Yes, my friend,” he agreed. “And rather a good one, at that. We were classmates at Lake Victoria before he dropped out and, before that, at the Ècole Militaire in Paris,” he explained.

Wufei shot Zechs a questioning look, confirming for himself that Treize was referring to the prestigious preparatory school both men had attended before joining the Victoria Academy.

The King nodded in reply, and then winced when Wufei’s eyes flashed dangerously. “I’m sorry, Wufei,” he apologised, hoping to forestall the inevitable outburst of fiery temper. “If Treize and Trowa Barton were friends, I wasn’t aware of it. I’d have said something years ago if I had been.”

Wufei’s expression quieted but now it was Treize’s turn to interrupt the conversation. “Don’t be ridiculous, Zechs,” he reproached. “Of course you were aware of the friendship. You must have met the man half a dozen times or more over the years and you must recall the conversation we had when he was murdered? You gave me the worst hangover of my life by pouring most of a bottle of my mother’s Armangnac into me,” he accused.

“You looked like you needed it,” Zechs replied, flashing an unrepentant smirk for a moment before he realised what he’d said. He blinked at himself, and then closed his eyes. “I’m going senile, I swear,” he said flatly.

“Apparently so,” Wufei agreed blandly. He did not look happy.

“Damn,” the King swore. “I remember that night, I remember that you were upset about something and I even remember opening the bottle for you. But I can’t for the life of me tell you what it was about.” He shook his head. “I really don’t remember Trowa Barton as anyone other than the man I currently know by that name,” he admitted, then shrugged. “Maybe that’s the problem. It was a long time ago and I’ve known Trowa for years now.”

Treize winced at the reminder, his expression setting and his posture tightening. “Maybe so,” he replied softly. “The point stands in any case. Trowa was my friend.”

The former general watched as Zechs and Wufei exchanged yet another meaningful glance and had to bite his lip to keep his annoyance from showing. “Might I ask, again, why that is so important a thing? And what does it have to do with Marie?”

Zechs flicked his gaze back to the younger man and nodded, but he held up a hand to put aside the questions again. “You were friends with Trowa Barton,” he stated. “Did you also happen to know his sister?” he asked carefully. He was watching Treize closely again, scrutinising him for the first, slightest, hint that he was starting to piece it all together.

Treize sat back on the sofa, the look in his eyes saying he wasn’t pleased at yet more questions without receiving an answer to his own even as he gestured expansively with his hands. “Which one?” he asked politely.

“He had more than one?” Zechs quizzed in return, looking startled.

“He had two,” Treize answered. “One older than he was and one younger. I knew them both, but which one did you mean?”

There was a moment of puzzled silence, and then Wufei sighed in irritation. “I don’t know, Khushrenada,” he said coolly. “Which one did you sleep with?”

Treize appeared decidedly non-plussed by the question. “I beg your pardon?” he demanded, openly astonished.

Wufei’s expression was implacable. “I said,” he repeated patiently, “which one….”

“Wufei!” Zechs interrupted, glaring at the Asian man in annoyance. “Enough!”

The King’s voice was harsh but Wufei’s only response was to shake his head stubbornly, folding his arms across his chest as he matched Zechs glare for glare across the space between them. “I warned you when I agreed to include you in this conversation,” Zechs continued, when the silence began to drag. “If you cannot be patient long enough to be tactful, then you shouldn’t be here!”

“There is tactful, your Majesty,” Wufei returned, matching Zechs for tone as well, “and there is dancing around and around a point until it never gets made. The information we need from Khushrenada can be broken down into three questions – four, if we want to be absolutely certain – but you will have us sitting here all night!”

“If that’s what it takes, then yes, I will!” Zechs snapped back. “Deal with it!”

“And Mariemeia?” Wufei asked coldly. “Is she just supposed to ‘deal with it’?” The Asian man gestured angrily, shaking his head and suddenly looking amazingly like the impetuous boy Treize had first met. “Don’t you think she’s waited long enough? She has the right to know who….”

“Shut the fuck up, Wufei,” Zechs hissed, silencing the other man with the venom in his voice instantly. “Right now.”

Side on to the King as he was with Zechs’s head turned to look at the Asian man, Treize couldn’t quite see the exact expression in his friend’s eyes, but it was sufficient to make Wufei blanch and look away, swallowing carefully around whatever he’d been about to say.

“My apologies,” Wufei murmured, after a moment had passed and Zechs nodded curtly. “My apologies to you, too, Khushrenada,” Chang continued, looking at Treize levelly. “I can only say that Marie is my wife and I care for her greatly.”

Treize glanced between the two older men, caught between annoyance and confusion. “I’m sure that you do, Chang,” he acknowledged. “And perhaps you can explain what that fact has to do with why Zechs wanted to talk to me, and with why my friendship with Trowa Barton suddenly seems to be so important.”

Wufei looked away, making no reply, and Zechs suddenly sighed wearily. “It’s complicated, Treize,” he said quietly.

“Is it?” the former general asked. He gestured lightly. “Chang seemed to think it could be broken down easily enough. Perhaps you might try his approach? I have no wish to sit here all night, either.”

Zechs blinked, automatically starting to shake his head to say no. He paused mid-gesture, hesitated, and then sighed again and turned to stare at the merrily crackling fire. “All right,” he agreed eventually. “Why the hell not? You’re not going to like it however I phrase it so I might as well just get it over with.”

“There is a certain amount of logic to that approach, yes,” Treize agreed mildly. “Especially if the information you need is as important to Marie as Chang seems to think it is. If I can help her, I would like to.”

Zechs smiled at Treize’s words, not needing a mirror to know it was a bittersweet effort at best. The younger man frowned at it a little but was almost immediately distracted by Wufei looking up at him intently.

“Thank you,” he said softly and Treize looked at him, acknowledging.

“Your questions, then?” he asked Zechs a moment later. “Chang said there were three.” He shifted in his seat as he spoke, crossing one leg over the other and folding his hands on his knee neatly.

It was a defensive posture, Zechs noted, watching. Treize was expecting to be embarrassed, even hurt. The King only wished he could reassure his old friend that such wasn’t going to be the case. “Three, possibly four,” he corrected quietly. “And, I’m sorry, but they are personal. Very much so.”

Treize tensed further but his face was still as he nodded his understanding. “We’re none of us children,” he said and left the statement to mean what it would.

Zechs forced another smile, and then locked his gaze with his former lover’s steadily. “True. All right, then. Leia Barton,” he began softly. “Did you know her?”

Treize raised an eyebrow curiously. “Trowa’s older sister? Yes, I knew her. I knew both sisters, although neither of them as well as I knew him.”

“Okay,” the King continued, his tone of voice still apologetically quiet. He gestured uneasily. “I promised you years ago that I’d never ask you this, I know, but… did you ever sleep with her?”

“Pardon?” Treize asked reflexively, and immediately shook his head to wave away his own question. He flicked his gaze from Zechs to Wufei and back again, searching for some insight into why he was being asked these questions. Wufei was watching him intently, almost rabidly, waiting for his answers as though they were vital somehow. Zechs, on the other hand, merely looked caught between his own discomfort at the situation – he really did feel sorry for breaking his word, then – and a sort of sympathetic sadness that managed to make Treize feel more nervous than anything else had done.

Letting the second eyebrow join the first to convey his thoughts on the question, Treize swallowed before answering, his throat suddenly dry as he replied, “Yes.”

Chang’s sudden harsh intake of air was loud in the stillness of the room. Treize glanced at him again before returning his eyes to the King. Zechs blinked, biting his lower lip for a moment, then clarified, “You made love to her?”

Treize was forced to laugh. “I wouldn’t call it that, Zechs,” he admitted honestly. “Love had nothing to do with anything we did, I promise you.”

There was a world of bitterness in Treize’s words that the mocking cynicism he was trying for just didn’t cover. Zechs wondered at the cause even as he was nodding his understanding of the information Treize had given him, because once upon a time, Treize wouldn't have turned a hair at this topic of conversation. The man had never cared for people being coy or cautious around the subject, and Zechs wondered when that had changed. General questioning shouldn't have been bothering him at all.

Specifics, though.... He'd made it equally clear, once over, that whilst he would answer any theoretical question without hesitation, specifics ones, particularly specific ones involving others, were absolutely off-limits. Accordingly, Zechs steeled himself for the next question and knew he was colouring with embarrassment as he asked, “When?”

Treize balked, as well might be expected. “I’m sorry?” he returned, and his tone made it very clear that he wasn’t happy with the question at all.

The blond tried to smile sympathetically. “Forgive me – I did try to warn you – but I need to know when. It’s important,” he encouraged.

The former general narrowed his eyes. “Then perhaps you might finally tell me why,” he suggested shortly. “Why is this such vital intelligence? Why do you need such detail on my relations with that particular girl, and what does it have to do with Marie, Dekim Barton and the war?”

Both Zechs and Wufei winced visibly, which did nothing for Treize’s nerves at all. Adrenaline was beginning to run through his body, enough to make his hands shake where they were resting, so that he had to tighten them to keep the reaction from showing.

“For God’s sake,” Chang exclaimed suddenly. “Put two and two together, man!”

“Wufei,” Zechs chided again, though he agreed with the sentiment. It was so bloody obvious where this line of questioning had to be going that Treize should have been all over it long before now. It was worrying that he wasn’t, but then, perhaps it was only so obvious when you knew the whole story. Treize didn’t, he had no reason to, and besides, Zechs had already all-but squashed the idea for him that afternoon.

Knowing that he was about to stun the unholy hell out of his oldest friend, and knowing that there was very little he could do now to mollify it, he took a deep breath and plunged in. “Treize, I told you that Dekim used Mariemeia as a figurehead during the second war,” he said. “You need to understand that he was only able to do so because of her parentage. Leia Barton was Marie’s mother – which is why Dekim had access to her.”

He paused a bare half second to give Treize a final chance to make the connection on his own and then said, as softly as he could manage, “What we’re trying to find out is whether you’re her father.”

Treize froze at the words, going so still that Zechs was reaching out to him before he’d really finished his sentence, moving to press his hand over Treize’s clenched fingers again.

The younger man jerked back from the touch, wide-eyed. “Her father?” he demanded incredulously. He shook his head vigorously. “No,” he insisted. “No.”

“No?” both older men asked, and at practically the same time. Wufei’s tone was sceptical – he’d clearly already decided he had his answer when Treize admitted to having been to bed with Marie’s mother – but Zechs’s was genuinely querying.

“Khushrenada, are you sure?” Wufei challenged, his voice harsh. “You admit you slept with her mother; if you could tell us when, then…”

Treize shook his head again as Wufei spoke. “No,” he repeated.

“You don’t understand!” Wufei exclaimed, frustrated, and Zechs was forced to wave him off with a hand when he opened his mouth to continue his protest.

“Wufei, for God’s sake,” he said tightly. He attempted to grasp Treize’s hand again and met with another reflexive flinch from the contact. “Treize,” he tried, and when that didn’t work either, he shifted from his chair to the couch, seating himself next to the redhead. “What do you mean by ‘no’?” he asked, when a moment had passed. “No, you don’t understand, no, it isn’t possible, or no, you’re not Marie’s father?”

The former general took a ragged breath. “I don’t know!” he snapped. He turned on the King abruptly, his skin flushing with sudden anger. “You lied to me,” he accused sharply. “You told me this afternoon that she wasn’t my child!”

Zechs grimaced. “I told you she wasn’t Une’s child,” he corrected carefully, “and she isn’t.” He cringed when Treize narrowed his eyes – he remembered that expression only too well. “I didn’t lie to you,” Zechs defended. “I just didn’t, quite, tell you the whole story. I didn’t think you hearing all this in a car on the side of the highway was the best idea.”

“And this morning, after I’d spoken to her?” Treize enquired, his voice deadly soft. “Or yesterday, before I actually met her? Why didn’t you tell me then?” he demanded. “Or were you not going to tell me at all until I started taking guesses that were a little too close to the truth?”

“Of course we were going to tell you!” Zechs protested. “It’s just…. It’s complicated, Treize,” he admitted, gesturing helplessly.

Treize stared at him for a moment, blankly. “Complicated?” he repeated dangerously, the single word practically vibrating with repressed heat.

Zechs winced – there was proof that he’d been right to think Treize wouldn’t take this well. The man didn’t lose his temper lightly but he sounded awfully close to it right now. “I’m sorry,” Zechs apologised. “I honestly did think it would be better let you find your bearings a little before dropping this on you.” He laughed a little, weakly. “God knows, fatherhood’s a daunting enough idea even when you’re expecting it,” he tried.

Wufei snorted delicately from his chair. “True enough,” he agreed. “And that’s when things are straightforward, which is not the case here.” He looked at Treize carefully. “If it is not too long a list, perhaps you could give us the dates you were intimate with Miss Barton?”

Treize glared at the oriental man, registering his words as an insult that Wufei probably hadn’t intended. “I don’t remember,” he said icily. “A gentleman doesn’t. If it’s not too hard a sum for you, perhaps you could take your wife’s date of birth and subtract nine months?”

Wufei smiled slightly. “I would, if I knew what it was,” he replied civilly.

Treize tensed, and then jumped when Zechs finally touched him to lock one hand around his right wrist and press down in anticipation of him trying to stand to confront the oriental man directly. “All right,” he said quietly. “Enough. Let’s give it a rest for a minute, before somebody says something they shouldn’t.” He stood up, shifting his grip to Treize’s shoulder as he moved. “Wufei, would you look at the fire for me?” he asked. “I’ll go and pour all of us a drink while you’re doing it. I assume you’re both all right with whisky?”

Wufei nodded, standing up himself and stretching before crossing the room to kneel in front of the fire.

Zechs waited until he’d done it, and then looked down at Treize intently. “You need to calm down,” he said softly, fixing him with the cool-eyed look he used on the children when they were acting up. “I know you weren’t expecting any of this and I know you’ve had a rough day but pitching a fit won’t help anything.”

Treize raised a frosty eyebrow. “You don’t think I’m entitled to be angry with you for this?” he asked. “How long would you have left it before telling me about Marie if I hadn’t thought she was Une’s child earlier?”

“I don’t know,” Zechs admitted honestly. “Until the weekend, probably. She and Wufei weren’t supposed to be here until then so there would have been no pressing need.” He shrugged. “As for you being upset about all this, yes, I do think you have the right but it’s not helpful right now. Hang onto your temper a little while longer, until we’re done here, and I promise I’ll listen to anything you want to say to me. If you want to scream at me about all this until tomorrow morning, you’ll be welcome to with my pleasure. It’d probably do you good to get it out of your system.”

“Do you think so?” Treize enquired softly. He shook Zechs’s hand off as he spoke and pushed himself to his feet with quick, restless movements. Everything about them suggested that it had been either move or lash out at something, and Zechs was well aware he was most likely the ‘something’.

“I disagree,” the former general continued quietly. “You should have told me,” he insisted. “My child, my family – and you thought I was better off not knowing.” He shook his head regretfully, and then took a deep breath, straightening his posture back to the parade-ground perfection it had slipped from with the repeated shocks.

Zechs frowned. “I told you, I thought you were better off getting a handle on everything else first,” he defended. “And Marie’s not a child,” he reminded cautiously. “She’s actually most of a decade older than you are.”

“I’m aware of that!”

The snap in Treize’s tone warned Zechs to be very, very careful in what he said next. “I’m sure you are,” he replied warily. “I did say it was complicated.”

“Complicated?” Treize challenged. He shook his head, pacing the length of the room slowly to twitch the heavy drapes back from one of the windows. “It’s not complicated. It’s impossible.”

“Biologically, yes,” Zechs agreed. He followed his friend across the lounge, stopping just inside touching distance and poised to jump back if he had to. He didn’t think Treize would react physically – he never had in the past – but it paid to be on your guard. “Otherwise… not especially.” He frowned, bit his lip a little, and then couldn’t resist asking, “Did it never cross your mind?”

“Did what never cross my mind?” Treize asked. He was leaning into the window now, his weight braced against the fingertips of the hand he had pressed to the glass.

“That you might have children,” Zechs risked. “With the… lifestyle… you led because of Romefeller, it can’t be so much of a shock that you managed to father a child.”

Treize shot the King a look over his shoulder that might have meant a hundred different things and then leaned forward to rest his forehead on the glass under his hand. “And surely it can’t be so much of a shock that I was extremely careful not to do just that.”

Zechs simply shrugged at that. “Nothing’s perfect, Treize. Most especially not Romefeller.”

“Close enough, for this,” Treize replied quietly. “Or are there other children you’ve yet to mention?”

The question made the King scowl. “Not to my knowledge, no, but what has that got to do with things?”

“Merely that it makes my point for me,” Treize answered. He turned away from the window to lean back against it and look at the older man levelly. “With my ‘lifestyle’, as you so delicately phrase it, a single child is more unlikely than almost anything else. Either the precautions I took worked, in which case there should be no child at all, or they didn’t and Marie should have several brothers and sisters.” He shifted in place, a transfer of his weight from one foot to the other betraying his discomfort with the topic that his completely level tone of voice had hidden. “I’ll spare you the exact figures and statistics, unless you particularly want them?”

“Give them to Quatre, if you want them double-checked,” Zechs replied as his scowl deepened and set. “Treize, are you saying you can’t be Marie’s father?”

Treize raised an eyebrow. “I’m not quite so far gone as to argue against proven fact, Zechs,” he returned mildly. “If you hadn’t had her claim authenticated, I might question it, but….” He stopped as Zechs winced.

“Ah, yes, but…,” Zechs began and stopped awkwardly.

“Ah, yes, but what?” Treize demanded. “You did have her claim authenticated, didn’t you?” He pushed away from the glass to close the distance between himself and the older man. “A simple blood test alone….”

Zechs held up a hand to interrupt his younger friend. “Was sufficient to prove her DNA is a match for yours, yes.” He sighed again, wearily. “As I keep saying – complicated. Come and sit back down for a minute, will you?”

The King took a step backwards before turning on his heel to usher Treize back to the couch, seeing the other man seated before going to pour the promised whisky. He handed Treize his glass in silence, waiting for Wufei to rejoin them as well.

The oriental man was no more than a few seconds and Zechs gazed at Treize levelly from the chair he’d settled himself back into as he spoke. “Yes, we had Marie’s DNA tested as best we could,” the blond began softly. “Both by matching her to the profiles of you we could find and against Dorothy as her only living relative. We can have it done again if you’d like, now that you’re here to draw from, but the results have always been pretty conclusive. As far as any test has ever been able to tell, Marie is your daughter.”

Treize shook his head, denying any need for further tests. “Then why ask me all this?” he wondered, his hands tight around his glass. “If you’re so sure of your results, then it’s hardly necessary – a simple explanation would have sufficed.”

“No doubt it would,” Zechs agreed. “But here’s where it comes to it.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Dekim Barton said something in the last few seconds of his life that cast doubt onto Marie’s identity. Having based his whole claim to the rebellion around the fact that Marie was your daughter, he chose in the last few moments, when he knew he was defeated, to announce at large that he had ‘created’ her, that she was ‘replaceable’ whenever he felt like it. Those words have always meant that there’s been doubt about her origins.” The King hesitated for a moment, then added, “There’s always been the possibility that she’s a clone, or, more likely, an in-vitro splice of your DNA and Leia Barton’s.”

Treize paled slowly, losing colour as he listened to his old friend talk. “There’s no way to tell?” he asked softly, sounding more than a little upset.

Zechs shook his head, giving a shrug that was anything but light and dismissive. “Not with any test that we know of,” he confirmed. “Genetically, Marie is your child but in actuality, she may not be. Dekim might have been lying – he may have said what he did purely to try to deprive Marie of everything he knew she would claim from Lady Une and myself as your child and only heir – or it may have been the truth. We’ve treated her as though she was yours, of course – we were hardly likely to have done anything else – but it would be nice to know for certain, one way or another. Marie, especially, will be desperate for the information. It’s bothered her for as long as she’s been old enough to understand the subject. She’d like an official birthday, for one thing.”

Treize frowned. “You told me her birthday was January 10^th,” he said. “But both of you have said you don’t know what it actually is.”

Wufei leaned forward in his chair. “January 10^th is the date Marie chose for her own birthday. We have no idea whether it’s at all accurate. The only person who can tell us that, Khushrenada, is you.”

“Me?” Treize gestured roughly. “I can’t tell you anything. I didn’t know I even had a child until a few minutes ago; how do you expect me to know the details of her birth? Paternal instinct?”

Zechs smiled knowingly. “Don’t discount it till you’ve experienced it,” he commented, then shook his head again. “We’re not asking you for her birthday, Treize. We know you can’t tell us that. What you can tell us, is when she was conceived.”

Treize stared at the King for a moment, blankly, then closed his eyes as he sank back into the support of the couch cushions and began to laugh emptily.

The two older men watched him, taken completely aback, and then exchanged confused glances. “Treize?” Zechs asked tentatively, shifting in his chair until he was poised to stand if he had to, to go to his friend. “Care to explain what’s so funny?”

“Not a thing,” Treize replied airily. “But there are times, Zechs, when I either laugh at you or shoot you, and since you’ve refused me my gun, I have little other choice.” He drew a deep breath and opened his eyes. “Please,” he continued, suddenly and sharply calm, “please tell me you know I can’t answer that question?”

“Why can’t you?” Wufei snapped, losing patience once more with all the prevaricating. “Half the point of this conversation was to finally obtain an answer to that question. If you can’t answer it, there was no point to all of this in the first place!”

Treize raised an eyebrow at the oriental man’s vehemence, and then sighed wearily. “Ah,” he said softly. “Then we have a problem.”

Zechs opened his mouth to ask why, caught the look in the back of Treize’s dark eyes, and closed it again without speaking, settling for looking over the younger man closely. There was no embarrassment in the former general now, no reluctance for the sake of propriety; what Zechs was seeing was pure seriousness and the slightest hint of regret.

“Treize?” Zechs prompted. “This really is very important to Marie. She’s spent her entire life wanting to know the truth behind her birth.” The King hesitated a moment, then swallowed before continuing. “Noin told us that Leia Barton was your nurse when you were injured during the L3 training mission in 188, and that there seemed to be some kind of chemistry between the two of you. Did anything ever come of it?”

The former general shook his head. “I don’t know,” he replied quietly.

Zechs blinked in surprise, hearing Chang’s harsh, indrawn breath and bracing himself for the inevitable outburst. Of all the things Treize could have said, that was the one they’d completely failed to anticipate, although he possibly should have - it hadn't been a good time for his friend, personally or professionally.

“You don’t know?” Wufei spluttered, a moment later. “How can you not know? Were you intimate with the woman or not, Khushrenada?”

“I don’t know,” Treize repeated patiently. He gestured absently with one hand, looking at Zechs more than at Wufei. “My recall of everyone I slept with, and when, is far from perfect at the best of times and the incident you’re talking about certainly wasn’t that. As Zechs should have been able to tell you, my Leo took a direct hit from a shoulder-fired missile and the results weren’t pretty. Between the pain meds I was taking and the concussion I suffered, the time I spent in the colony hospital is a little blurry.”

“So blurry you’d miss another person in bed with you?” Wufei demanded disbelievingly.

The younger man shrugged. “Possibly,” he admitted. “It wouldn’t have been the first time.”

Zechs, watching his friend closely in the firelight, held up a hand to stop Wufei before he could continue his frustrated inquisition. “You really don’t know?” he asked, shaking his head to negate the question when Treize gave him a look that said he didn’t much appreciate the cross-examination. “Damn.”

“Quite,” Treize returned. A moment later, he pushed himself to his feet and began walking across the room. “Your wife, Chang, where would she be at this time of night?”

Wufei stood as well, raising an eyebrow at the question. “In bed, on most nights. Tonight? She’s across the hall, with Ning and Dorothy.”

Treize nodded. “Thank you,” he replied, and put his hand on the door latch. “I trust you’ll both excuse me whilst I go say hello to my daughter?” he asked politely.

As seemed to be happening a lot that evening, the two older men exchanged startled glances. “Of course not,” Zechs said eventually. “But what are you going to tell her?”

The younger man shrugged roughly. “What I’ve told you, most likely. That she is my child, that I did know her mother, thanks to my friendship with her uncle, and that, to my knowledge, Noin was right.”

Zechs scowled. “And the rest of it?” he wondered. “When she asks, are you going to tell her the whole truth?”

Treize turned his head enough to give his oldest friend a chilling look. “Since when, mon ami, have I given a good God damn about the truth?” he asked coldly, and opened the door.

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

Zechs could still move fast enough that he was on his own feet and standing by the open door to the lounge by the time Treize had crossed the hall and knocked on the door opposite.

The King watched as the younger man was answered by a frowning Dorothy, who gazed at her cousin for a few seconds intently before breaking into a delighted smile. She turned her head to say something over her shoulder, and then opened the door fully and slipped past Treize into the hall as the former general stared at something over her head.

Zechs had just enough time to catch Dorothy’s eye before Marie appeared in the doorway opposite.

The King had helped to raise Mariemeia, had watched her grow from precocious child to brilliant adult, and he didn’t think he could recall a single occasion when he’d ever seen her look so nervous. Like her father before her, once Marie had made a decision about something, she followed through on it with no thought of hesitation. Even on the morning of her wedding she had been serenely self-composed.

Now, though, she stood a few paces from Treize, her eyes locked onto his face, her whole body screaming her uncertainty, hesitating even though Zechs knew it must have been killing her not to just demand the answers she had waited so long for. She seemed paralysed by the knowledge that Treize could just as well be about to tell her exactly what she didn’t want to hear, as what she did.

Zechs knew Marie well enough to know that it would have to be Treize who broke the stalemate, but he didn’t know whether Treize would realise that, or if he would be able to make the offering even if he did.

From the tilt of the younger man’s head, the line of his shoulders, Zechs could take a good guess at what Treize was doing, standing there as frozen as his daughter. He was looking at her in a new light, seeing in her – as Zechs had seen as Marie grew – the parts of her that came from him, and from other members of his family. As he hadn’t the day before, he would be realising that Marie’s wide midnight eyes were the twin to his own, that her clear, pale skin was the same as that Treize had sworn over repeatedly for burning at the slightest exposure to strong sunlight.

If he looked further, Zechs knew Treize would see that Marie’s tall, elegant figure was only the feminine reflection of his own long-limbed slimness. If he looked further still, he would see that her perfect face and cupid-bow mouth were those of his mother in her youth, as was her wonderfully curling hair, a trait Treize himself hadn’t inherited.

Nor was Odell Khushrenada absent from his granddaughter, either. His influence could be seen most obviously in the shade of her hair and the fact that her eyebrows were perfect, smooth arches above her eyes, but also, more subtly, in the cant of her head when she concentrated and in her obsession with family.

“You sound very much like your mother, you know,” Treize said suddenly, breaking the quiet of the corridor. “I’ve been trying to place your voice since you said hello to me last night, and not quite managing it.” He drew a deep breath. “Leia Barton had the most wonderful contralto range I’ve ever heard.”

Marie smiled shakily. “Really?” she asked unsteadily. “My voice isn’t that good but I do need to be able to hold a tune for my job.”

Treize put a hand out to her, catching her fingers in his own and winding them together carefully. “Fortunate that she really could then,” he replied. “I can’t sing a note.”

Marie looked down at their clasped hands, and then up again as Treize spoke, her breath catching as she realised what he was telling her.

“I see the irony in this morning’s conversation, now, too,” the former general continued softly. “Something to laugh at later, perhaps?” he asked.

Mariemeia nodded silently, then gave a little wordless cry as she stepped forward and freed her hand from Treize’s.

Zechs saw Treize tense, bracing himself for whatever reaction Marie gave. The King was quite sure his friend was expecting the woman to slap him as resoundingly as Dorothy had the night before; certainly, he wasn’t prepared for her to copy the other half of her cousin’s performance instead.

It took the former general a few moments to get past the shock of Marie throwing herself at him sufficiently to return the embrace. When he did, it was to draw her as close as he had Dorothy, one hand on her waist and the other in her bright hair, his head bent and his body shielding hers from the rest of the world.

The King watched knowingly as the younger man shivered. He could remember perfectly what it felt like to actually hold your own child for the first time and a pang of sadness made him bite his lip when Treize brushed a light kiss to the top of Marie’s head, shifting his weight from side to side under the command of an instinct he didn’t even know he had.

A small noise off to one side made Zechs look away from his former lover, to see that Dorothy had covered her mouth with the fingers of one hand, silencing herself as tears welled in her eyes. “Doro?” he asked softly, holding an arm out invitingly.

The blonde woman turned into him immediately. “It isn’t fair, Milliardo,” she whispered. “He should have been here.”

Zechs could only nod his agreement as Treize took a step back from his daughter, looking down at her before a moment before he let her turn and lead him into the sitting room.

Chapter Text

Treize wasn’t at breakfast when Zechs stepped into the dining room the following morning but the King wasn’t entirely surprised by it. For one thing, the weather was dreadful, nothing but torrential rain and howling wind sufficient to make anyone who didn’t have work to do consider staying tucked up in bed. In fact, Zechs had considered it even though he very much did have work to do.

The other reason for Treize’s absence, of course, was the fact that it had been very late when he’d gone to bed, meaning that he was most likely completely oblivious to the weather, still being asleep. Zechs didn’t know exactly what time it had been when he’d heard Treize’s door open and close, but it had been sufficiently into the early hours that he still felt sleep-deprived despite the considerable lie-in he’d granted himself.

He might have known more exactly what time it had been, he supposed, if he, Dorothy and Wufei hadn’t decided discretion was the better part of valour in this case and mutually agreed to leave Treize and Marie to it about three quarters of an hour after they’d disappeared into the sitting room. Dorothy had gone to tell the rest of the family the outcome of the evening, leaving Wufei to reclaim his peacefully sleeping child from his mother and Zechs to discreetly enquire whether either Treize or Marie needed anything.

Seeing his former lover and his daughter sitting together as they had been, the King wouldn’t have dreamed of intruding more than he had to, but he did wish he’d been there when Treize realised he had an eight year old grandson. He suspected the younger man’s expression had been rather priceless.

There was, however, some compensation for having missed that sight. Driven by some kind of contagious curiosity, for the first time in as long as Zechs could remember, almost every member of his family, including Sally Po, much to Zechs’s surprise, was sitting at the breakfast table when he arrived and all of them spent the meal glancing at the door to the room at least once.

Wufei managed to further disappoint most of the family by arriving a few minutes after Zechs with only his son for company. He blithely announced that Marie was spending the morning in bed and the glances at the door, and at Zechs, immediately doubled.

Zechs finished his breakfast and stood up to go to his office, only to have someone catch his arm and haul him back to his chair.

“Whoa, there, your Majesty,” Duo chided, not releasing his grip. “You aren’t really gonna leave us hanging, are you? What the hell happened last night?”

Zechs shrugged. “I had dinner with Anne, I told Treize who Marie was, and I left the two of them to talk.”

“That’s it?” Duo asked, disbelievingly.

“Well, yes,” Zechs replied lightly.

“No details, no descriptions, no sound bites?” Duo demanded. “Damn it, Blondie, at least tell us how he took it!”

Zechs canted a cool look at his friend and shook his head. “I would have thought that was obvious,” he said. “I’m not dead, am I?”

The quip made most around the table chuckle a little, which had been the King’s main aim.

“Seriously, though, Milliardo,” Quatre said from the far end of the table. “Duo isn’t the only one who’d like to know what happened and what he said. Was Lucrezia right or not? Is he Marie’s father?” he asked.

Zechs sighed and reached for the coffee pot. He’d been hoping not to have to answer that question, but he supposed he should have known he wouldn’t get away with it. If Quatre hadn’t asked, Relena would have, or perhaps Aleks or Felix. “Possibly,” he hedged. “Treize was shocked by the idea, of course, and a tad angry with me for not mentioning it to him sooner. He answered what questions he could, and then went to talk to Marie directly.”

“About what?” Relena asked from her seat at her husband’s side. Her hands were wrapped neatly around her cup, the manicured nails gleaming faintly in the light from the overhead chandelier. “Surely it was a straightforward question? Either he was familiar with Leia Barton or he wasn’t. If he wasn’t, then he isn’t Mariemeia’s father. If he was, then….” The Princess shrugged elegantly, conveying her meaning without completing her sentence.

The King shot Wufei a speaking look, warning him not to say too much of what they’d learned the night before. “Treize believes Marie could be his child,” Zechs said carefully. “Certainly, he’s more than willing to claim her as such. We found out last night that he actually knew the Barton’s quite well, and that he and Leia had met several times previously. He doesn’t clearly recall what happened during his time on L3 but he concedes that there’s a possibility he and Miss Barton were intimate.”

Zechs had phrased his reply as cautiously as he knew how but that didn’t stop the general reaction around the table from being much the same as his had been the night before. Though everyone had sighed and begun to relax with his first words, they tensed again with his last.

“He doesn’t recall?” Relena protested. “How can he not recall?” she demanded. “Surely, something like that would have stayed with him?”

The King looked down the table into his sister’s wide eyes, seeing her opinion of his friend, already precariously low, take another tumble. Relena had never been impressed by Treize, even all those years ago when she’d been his schoolgirl opponent, and she certainly wasn’t impressed by him now. Part of her dislike, Zechs could freely admit, was justified, but part of it stemmed from her own slightly prudish nature. She disapproved of the fact that Treize had been her brother’s lover, she disapproved even more of the fact that he’d also been in some sort of relationship with Une, and she positively hated what little she had seen of his faithless playboy lifestyle.

It was Felix who saved Zechs from having to defend the younger man to his sister. Taking a sip from his glass of water, he cleared his throat lightly and settled a firm gaze on his godmother.

“Actually, Aunt Relena, I find it very easy to believe Treize can’t recall a good space of time after he was injured. I’ve seen that portion of his medical records and the head injury he suffered was quite severe. Confusion and memory loss are classic symptoms of concussion and the medications he was prescribed might well have impeded his decision making even further. A mistake could easily be made under those conditions.”

Zechs kept the mild surprise he felt at his godson’s words to himself, making sure his expression was neutral as he glanced across the table at Quatre. The business tycoon had always had an amazing facility for interpersonal relationships, often able to predict and understand the actions of the people around him long before anyone else could and sometimes before the individuals themselves did. When the younger blond had said, several days before, that he was worried about how the children would respond to Treize, Zechs had chosen to ignore all the history that should have warned him to listen and insisted that Quatre was wrong in this case.

Felix’s words to Relena, however, were making him wonder if he should have paid more attention to his brother-in-law. Quatre had been anxious for all of the children, inasmuch as none of them had any true notion of whom and what Treize really was, but he’d named the two older boys as his primary concern right off the bat. They were close in age to the former general, both intelligent and attractive; very much, as Zechs should well know, in the mould of the young officers and aristocrats who had flocked to Treize a quarter of a century before.

So far, Aleks hadn’t had much to do with Treize, and a quick glance at him confirmed that he seemed as surprised by Felix’s words as anyone else in the room. If anything, from what Zechs could tell from across the table, his son looked as though he were leaning towards his aunt’s opinion of Treize. There were clear signs of annoyance in his eyes as he looked at his cousin.

Felix, though, was another matter. It hadn’t occurred to Zechs to think of it as such before now, but the doctor had spent a good few hours with Treize yesterday, a fair portion of it alone and in the forced intimacy the medical environment would have engendered. His reply to his aunt might have been prompted only by the professional side of him, in the role he seemed to have adopted as Treize’s physician, but Zechs rather suspected not.

Making a mental note to himself to keep an eye on the younger men over the next couple of days, Zechs turned back to his sister, bolstered by the fact that Sally had looked at Felix for a moment and then nodded her agreement with his words. “That’s almost exactly how Treize explained it last night, actually, and he might well be telling the truth. He was really quite unwell for a while afterwards, from what I remember, and he definitely had other things he would have been thinking about. His description of the time in general is ‘blurry’.”

“That blurry?” Relena accused doubtfully and Zechs had a sudden insight into how Treize must have felt the night before.

Quatre put his hand over his wife’s and shrugged. “I don’t suppose it really matters,” he soothed. “If he’s willing to accept Marie as his child, then why should any of us nay-say him? It fits what available information there was, so it certainly could be the truth and, since it’s the result Mariemeia most wanted, why not let it stand? It makes no difference to anyone else, after all.”

It was a reasonable point to make – in fact, almost the same point Treize himself had made, though he’d couched it more metaphorically and his delivery had been heated with anger – and Zechs was grateful to Quatre for stating it so precisely.

“Well, on the subject of Treize’s children fitting the available information,” the King said into the ensuing silence, “I had a word with Anne whilst she was here last night and we think we have an answer to Treize’s identity. She suggested it yesterday afternoon, actually, and it does make a degree of sense but I’d like your thoughts before I start having the paperwork drawn up.”

There were a number of surprised blinks around the table but not from those people whose opinion would most matter. Dorothy, in particular, seemed eager for anything that would help her beloved cousin and would doubtless have Duo’s support with whatever she said. Relena, soothed by her own husband, appeared to be content to listen now that she’d said her piece and Heero merely raised a characteristic eyebrow at Zechs and shrugged, leaving the older man to conclude the former pilot would do whatever his King and his Princess asked of him, as always.

Having confirmed that the adults were at least willing to listen, Zechs risked a glance the other half of the contingent that would be necessary. Still with his water glass in his hand, Felix didn’t appear to have moved at all since he’d offered his medical opinion to his Aunt. He was lounging against the back of his chair, managing to look almost as inscrutable as his look-alike had ever managed over breakfast.

Felix was flanked on either side by his sister and Zechs’s own son and, despite his current misgivings about involving the older half of the younger generation any more than they needed to be with the general, what Une was suggesting wouldn’t work if they weren’t going to play along.

“Well?” Duo prompted when Zechs took a little too long to marshal his thoughts. “Don’t keep us hangin’, Blondie.”

“Sorry,” Zechs apologised automatically. He glanced around the table again, then gestured lightly. “Anne makes the suggestion that the best place to hide Treize is in plain sight. Trying to keep his existence completely under wraps is asking for disaster – not least because Treize himself won’t long stand for being cooped up like that again – but an open announcement to the press that he ‘just turned up’ is only going to lead to wild speculation and doubt about his origins.”

“Agreed,” Quatre murmured. “The press has been slow lately – look at all this nonsense about you and the Lady conducting a clandestine affair for the last twenty years!”

Zechs smiled at his brother-in-law, waiting for the general chuckles of amusement to die down. What the Press didn’t know, the family did. Anne and her second in command, Trowa, had been partners in more than a professional sense for most of the last decade and speculation was rife as to just when Trowa would finally answer a challenge Une had set him years before and offer her a ‘perfect’ proposal.

What ‘perfect’ meant was a mystery to everyone but Une. She’d apparently gathered the notion somewhere in her late teens that every woman deserved at least one perfect proposal of marriage in her life before she said yes to any man and since, to Zechs’s knowledge, no one other Trowa had ever considered asking the formidable Lady to be their wife, it was Trowa who was stuck with the challenge.

“She’s planning to use that, you know,” Zechs chuckled. “Tactical smoke, apparently.” He let his smile fade. “Anne’s plan is to make Treize into his own son – unless anyone has a better idea?”

The King waited a moment or two to see if anyone had anything to contribute, and then continued, “Her reasoning is that it explains neatly all the things we either can’t or don’t want to change whilst allowing us to provide him with whatever background we think will fit best. It will also allow us to slot him straight into the family without having to make a show of a ‘learning’ process for us all.”

There was another moment of silence around the room and then the Princess leaned forward in her chair, her still-pretty face marred by the concerned frown she was wearing. Whatever she might have thought of Treize, apparently she was professional enough these days that she was still willing to use her wonderful brain to his advantage.

“I’m not sure it does cover the details we can’t change,” Relena said, almost as soon as her brother went quiet, “but I’ll come to that. Why would we have to ‘make a show’ of a learning process? In very real terms, Milliardo, most of us know nothing about Treize beyond what little contact we’ve had with him in the past few days and the same is broadly true in reverse. Even with those of us who were close to him before, so much time has passed that he can’t begin to know who you are now.”

Zechs nodded slowly. “Not yet, he can’t,” he agreed mildly. “He will, if we can just give him chance to get his head straight.”

“Can we do that?” Quatre asked, raising an eyebrow at his brother-in-law’s tone of voice. He shook his head. “We can’t guarantee his privacy that long. The press has seen him already, even if they haven’t realised it yet, and there are not one but three very high profile events coming up in the next few weeks. Unless you’re proposing he doesn’t attend any of those…?”

Zechs shook his head in return. “We’re proposing he most definitely does attend those events,” he replied, voice firm. “Aside from the fact that excluding him would leave him feeling very much as though he doesn’t belong, Anne is advocating that we expose him to the press and the public as much as we can manage without it seeming staged. We want the press going into the Halloween ball already having decried his identity to the world.” He shrugged. “It’s going to mean some fancy footwork to get his background in place quickly enough, but if we can, if we can let the press ‘discover’ him because we were ‘careless’ they’ll be so busy patting themselves on the back that it’ll be years before they think to really dig for details. By that time, he’ll have enough of a paper trail that it won’t matter.”

As the King talked, Quatre’s expression shifted to show his appreciation of the cleverness of the scheme. “Do you really think that will work?” he asked.

Zechs gestured expansively. “I have no idea,” he admitted. “But it’s got to be better than calling a conference and standing there saying, ‘Erm, this chap that none of you have heard about before, mainly because he appeared from nowhere, is going to be living with the Royal family from now on. Please just ignore the fact that he seems to know me really, really well and also ignore the fact that he looks an astonishing amount like my dead lover! Merry Christmas!” He shook his head. “Can you just imagine the headlines? Christ!”

The room chuckled, with Quatre conceding the point with a graceful bob of his head. “Admittedly, that I do not want to try to spin for you but you’re still taking a risk, I think. Why his own son? Why not a cousin or a nephew or something a little more distant? We know that the family resemblance breeds true.”

Felix snorted from his end of the table. “No, it really doesn’t,” he insisted but he lapsed back into silence immediately Zechs shot him a quelling look.

“As much as I hate to say it, Felix has a point,” the King said. “The similarity between the two of them is superficial. Striking, I grant you, but superficial. It wouldn’t hold up if anyone really did a point by point comparison however much I think we’re all going to be insisting on name badges for a while.” He shrugged. “It’s mostly a lack of options, to be honest. Treize can’t be his own nephew because he was very much an only child and he can’t be a cousin because all of his surviving family close enough to merit the term are in this room. It would be too easy to run a background check for that kind of data, whereas, thanks to Marie and to his rather scandalous reputation, the idea that Treize could have fathered a son will be easily swallowed.”

“Fair enough,” Quatre conceded, “but I still want you to think about this carefully, Milliardo – you and he, both – because there are other press stories that I won’t be able to spin.”

The younger blond had his eyes locked on the elder’s, the look in them intent and invasive, and Zechs felt himself flush under the weight of it. He knew exactly what Quatre was trying to get at and he was only grateful that his friend had been tactful enough not to say it straight out in front of the children.

“We’ll think about it,” Zechs said softly, “but I’m honestly not sure we have another choice in what we do with him. Short of major cosmetic overhaul, there’s no hiding who he is and there’s only going to be the fact that he hasn’t aged keeping people thinking he’s back from the dead. I think, if we don’t sell this as Treize being his own son, then we risk allegations that I’ve had him cloned for whatever purpose.”

Quatre looked at the older man for a moment more and then conceded the point with a good-natured gesture of defeat. “All right. I’ll start working on the background. Can I have Heero for a few days to help me?”

Zechs nodded. “He needs to be involved anyway, if we’re to follow Anne’s plan to the letter.”

“Oh?” Heero asked. “I do?”

The king looked over at the other former pilot and tilted his head, wondering how Heero was going to take this next stage in Une’s thinking. “Anne doesn’t just want to suggest that Treize is his own son, she wants to suggest that I knew about him from birth and that I’ve been involved in raising him the whole time. Again, it’s well-established fact that I stood guardian to Marie – it won’t be so far of a stretch that I’d do the same thing elsewhere. I think Anne’s even planning to falsify an addendum to Treize’s will where he asks me to assume the role.”

That comment got a few raised eyebrows.

Reaching for the coffee pot sitting in the middle of the table, Zechs refreshed his empty cup and took a first sip, appreciating both the taste and the warmth of the bitter brew.

“What Anne wants to do,” the King continued when he’d swallowed his mouthful, “is suggest that I knew about Treize’s ‘son’ from the beginning. That I knew the mother was involved with him, and was pregnant, and that one of the last things he asked me to do was take care of her and the child if something should happen to him. Anne wants to imply that the reason I was missing that first year after the war was that I was caring for the baby and that Heero vanished for the time he did after Noin’s death because I asked him to take the boy into hiding.” He sipped his coffee again. “Again, it’s tactical smoke. By feeding the press what seem to be answers to questions they’ve been asking us for decades we’ll pull some of the focus away from Treize himself.”

“Wow,” Duo commented softly. “And I used to think I could out-fox that woman.” He turned his head to look at his two children. “Let this be a lesson to you. Your Aunt Anne is a very scary Lady.”

“Sometimes,” Zechs was forced to agree. “She’s got the whole thing worked out, you know, not just the general outlines. I think she even has a list of names for the possible mother, though she did say she’d need Treize to look them over and tell her which he thought would be most plausible. Half a dozen minor Romefeller courtiers, all about the right age, all of whom he did have some dealings with, all of whom were Treize faction, and all of whom are dead with few, if any, surviving relatives.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little bit obsessive?” Relena asked quietly. “You and Anne seem to be taking all this very seriously.”

It took Zechs a few moments to catch on to what she was implying but when he did, and when he saw the guarded looks on the faces of the other adults at the table, the irritation and the betrayal that swept through him was so intense it almost left him breathless.

He glared across the table at his sister, his fingers tightening on the delicate china of his cup dangerously. “That,” he bit out, “is the last time a member of this family is going to make a comment like that. It’s bad enough that you think you need to question my mental stability, without having you do it in veiled hints and implications. I don’t appreciate it, and neither will Anne. If you have something to say, come out and damn well say it!”

Relena shifted in her seat, dropping her gaze from his. “You can’t blame us for being worried, Milliardo. You and Une both did terrible things because Treize asked you to and it doesn’t seem as though his influence has changed.”

“I assure you, it has,” Zechs growled. “Even if it hadn’t, he has.”

There was a rustle of movement around the table, then, “Are you certain of that?”

Zechs turned his head to look at the new speaker, unable to help his feeling of betrayal when he confirmed what his ears had told him. Sally, so far, had been completely professional about Treize and it was disappointing to hear her break that form. Treize didn’t need another detractor, particularly one with as much access to confidential information as Sally had been given.

“Seriously, Milliardo,” Sally continued, looking at the King levelly. “Are you sure? Because it would extremely bad for all three of you if you tried to return to your former pattern. Speaking as your personal physician, I have to say, I don’t think either your mind or Une’s could stand that kind of trauma again, not and recover, and Khushrenada’s isn’t much better. You all need to take this very slowly and carefully or you could end up inflicting irreparable harm on one another.”

All thoughts of Treize’s new identity forgotten, Zechs set his coffee cup down and put both his hands flat on the surface of the table. “Just what,” he demanded coldly, “do you think we’re going to do? Steal all the suits from the museums and reform Oz?”

Across the table, Aleks flinched, his body unconsciously leaning into Felix’s for comfort. It wasn’t often his father lost his temper but the Prince had learned at a young age to fear that particular tone, and to associate it with the man in all the media footage of the war, the proud Oz ace and the murderous White Fang leader.

As Aleks leaned, Felix automatically brought his arm up to wrap it around the younger man’s shoulders, reaching to draw his sister to him as well. It was a habit formed very early in his childhood, a subconscious decision that, as the eldest of the children, it was his duty and responsibility to protect his younger cousins from anything that might hurt them – even if that ‘anything’ was their own parents, acting from the wounds inflicted on them by the war they’d fought as children themselves. More than any other of the new generation, Felix was old enough to remember the period immediately after the war, before the family had pulled together, before the years of treatment, therapy and peace had begun to work their magic on the damage that was the legacy of the Eve Wars. There were some very ugly memories of those days buried deep in his subconscious where he hardly ever looked at them.

If the children were rattled by Zechs’s flash of ill temper, Sally was completely unfazed by it. Returning his glare with a cool-eyed look of her own, she tilted her head towards the little group of youngsters as much as to tell Zechs he was scaring the kids. “Of course not,” she said mildly. “I just want you to be aware of the danger, that’s all.” She waited a breath or two, and then shook her head determinedly. “I came up here this morning for a reason, Milliardo. Might you and I have a word in private?” she asked.

Zechs blinked at her, thrown a touch by the switch in conversational direction, but then nodded and stood up to step away from the table, gesturing that Sally should lead the way from the room.

It was perhaps shocking only to the boy’s parents when the King stopped behind Felix, slipped a hand under his arm and pulled him to his feet, away from his sister and cousin. “Doctor,” the King murmured. “I imagine you should hear most of this. Sally,” he called. “Would you mind? I know you’ve probably already talked to Felix about most of this but he can help interpret for the stupid.”

Sally glanced down the table to her younger colleague. “No, I won’t mind,” she said and Zechs nodded back to her determinedly.

Chapter Text

Zechs retreated to his office after his conversation with the two Doctors, both to start wading his way through some of the work that was piling up on his desk and to let his mind mull over some of the things the medics had told him about.

The exact details of their findings from the day before, they’d kept to themselves; the purpose of the conversation had been for Sally to ask Zechs if he would keep an eye on the general and be prepared to back Felix up if it was needed.

The King could understand her concern. Treize was a professional soldier, the product of the most elite military training the world had ever devised, with reflexes and instincts no child of peace could even begin to comprehend. If he ever really lost control it wouldn’t be pretty, and an untrained boy like Felix couldn’t even begin to understand what that could mean.

Looking at his nephew, Zechs had decided within a split second of Sally mentioning her concerns to him that he would also put Heero and Quatre, and Duo and Wufei whilst they were at the Palace, on notice as well. There was never any harm in the concept of ‘better safe than sorry.’

The other reason Sally had wanted to talk to Zechs was for the King himself. Sally had been the blonde’s primary medical carer for more than twenty years, seeing him though everything from the common cold to the agonising counselling that had followed his wife’s death. In very many ways, Zechs thought she probably knew him better than he knew himself and he wasn’t surprised that she was making house calls to check on how he was coping with this latest crisis. If anything had the power to undo all the good work she’d done with him over the years, Treize’s reappearance was likely it.

In between his ruminations, Zechs steadily worked through his pile of folders, reading and signing document after document almost on autopilot. He’d cleared well over half of it using the ‘one-touch’ method Treize had taught him a lifetime before, marking it all either ‘done’, ‘delegate’ or ‘destroy’ as was appropriate for whatever the contents were, before the rustle of clothing warned him there was visitor at his door a moment before someone tapped politely on the door.

“Enter,” Zechs called, not lifting his head from the farming report he was skimming through.

The door swung open on perfectly oiled hinges and his visitor entered the room on silent feet. “Good morning,” Treize said quietly, closing the door behind him again.

Zechs looked up, peering over his glasses. “Good afternoon,” he corrected mildly, smiling. “I’d begun to think you were going to sleep straight through.”

Treize shrugged lightly. “The thought crossed my mind,” he admitted. “It was certainly rather harder to get up than it should have been.”

“Why did you, then?” Zechs asked. He put down the pen he was holding and leaned back in his chair, feeling his back twinge in protest at the length of time he’d been working. “I would have come and got you if we’d needed you for anything.”

“Habit, mostly,” Treize answered, settling himself into the chair Zechs waved him to as he spoke. “I’ve never spent the entire day in bed unless I’ve been ill. I wouldn’t know how, I don’t think.”

“Never?” Zechs checked, surprised. “Really? Not even with someone… well….” The King trailed off, suddenly realising that he was the most likely partner for Treize to have spent a day in bed with and knowing they never had. “You should make a point to, when you next get chance. It’s about the most self-indulgently wonderful thing in the world.”

Treize smiled, a certain tightness to the expression suggesting he’d heard the sentence Zechs hadn’t finished regardless. “I’ll consider it but, to be honest, I was getting a headache from the lack of caffeine.”

Zechs found himself laughing outright at his friend. “Addict,” he teased gently. “Should I order you coffee?”

The younger man shook his head as his smile warmed. “No, thank you. I went down to the kitchens before I came to find you. Do you have any water?”

Zechs let his surprise show as he nodded to the carafe and glasses standing on a silver tray on a table by the door. The staff replaced the water three times a day, for the comfort of any guests that Zechs happened to have in his office, but the King himself hardly ever touched the set, preferring to drink coffee or fruit juice as he always had, and only drinking water when it was especially warm or when he was exercising.

“Getting to know the staff, are you?” he asked as the younger man stood and went to the table.

“Getting to know them?” Treize asked in return. He turned with the full glass in his hand and sipped it before saying, “You didn’t tell me you had people working here now who did before. I almost didn’t recognise your housekeeper until she hugged me!”

Zechs tilted his head. “I should have thought to warn you,” he conceded, “but, honestly, I’d forgotten you knew her. There are a few of the original staff still, mostly in the stables and what have you.” He shrugged as he changed the subject. “What are you planning to do with yourself for the rest of the day?” he asked.

Treize had crossed the room whilst Zechs was speaking, taking slow, meandering steps as he sipped from his glass and listened. Now, he was running the fingers of his free hand over the spines of the books on the shelves next to the window, frowning slightly as he tried to puzzle out what the ones in the King’s native tongue meant. “I have no idea,” he said in answer. “Is there anything I should be doing?”

Zechs raised an eyebrow. “There are any number of things you could be doing, and I’m sure if you were to make that offer generally you’d be inundated with suggestions, but really, there’s nothing. If you want to take the day and relax, feel free. No one will mind. If the weather were better I’d suggest you go for a walk or a ride but it’s miserable out there.” He stopped whilst he thought for a moment. “There’s the solarium over in the north wing – I find it a wonderful place to sit and think – or you could go swimming? There’s a full size pool just behind the solarium.”

Treize shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he thought. “I don’t want to swim, I don’t think.” He shrugged. “I may go for that walk anyway,” he said. “I’ll just confine it to the insides of the Palace rather than the grounds. I need to learn my way round the place anyway and I always did like exploring.”

“It’s an idea,” Zechs agreed. “The press and the tourists shouldn’t be too bad at this time.” He hesitated before continuing, his thoughts from breakfast that morning weighing in his mind for a moment, until he dismissed them ruthlessly. What harm could Treize really do to the children in any case? He was hardly likely to recruit them to his cause when he didn’t have a cause to recruit to. “If you want company, Aleks and Felix should both be at a loose end right about now,” the King offered. “You seem to be getting on well with Felix and, if I know my son at all, Aleks will be about to die of frustration. Other than dinner the other night, he’s barely gotten to speak to you.”

Treize turned, his expression one of curiosity. “Why would he want to?” he asked. “Surely, he hardly knows anything about me?”

The King responded with an affectionate chuckle. “Keep thinking that,” he laughed. “I guarantee it’s not true. ‘ Uncle Treize’ was a favourite topic for that boy until a few years ago. He drove the whole family mad asking questions about you and demanding we tell him stories. If there’s a detail about you he didn’t know, then I didn’t know it either. He read books, studied diagrams – there was a while there where he started looking at the specs of the suits you designed and, for a thirteen year old with no specialised training, he didn’t have a half bad grip on them. It was utter hero worship.”

Treize stared at his friend blankly, stunned by what the blond was saying. “But… why?” he asked, amazed. “What would make him do that?” The idea of anyone’s child regarding him as some sort of boyhood hero was a bit strange to take but for it to be Zechs’s son… Treize really couldn’t get his head around it, or around the idea that Zechs had allowed it.

“I’m not sure, to be honest,” the older man replied, opening his hands on the surface of the table. “He started with it not long after Noin was killed. Sally thought it was because Aleks needed some kind of saviour figure who could have helped his mother if he’d been around.”

Treize winced at the words. As there had been every time Zechs had spoken about his dead wife, there had been an echo of pain in his voice that hinted at just how awful a blow her death had been. Having his son suddenly conjuring visions of another dead lover as his knight in shining armour, rather than relying on his father for comfort, must have been salt in an already vicious wound for the King. “I’m sorry,” the general said helplessly, not quite sure why he was apologising.

Zechs shrugged roughly. “Hardly your fault. There was a lot of press at around the same time speculating about your motives for the war because we’d just hit the fifteen-year disclosure limit – we thought maybe he’d seen something or overheard something at school.” He shrugged again, his face stilling. “I never thought it was that simple anyway. I told you he and I haven’t always got along perfectly, and that he blames me for Noin’s death, didn’t I?”

Treize nodded mutely, watching the older man closely.

“I wasn’t kidding,” Zechs continued. “It hurts to admit it,” he said softly, “even to you, but there’s a part of my son that’s frightened by me. After Noin died, I was a mess for quite a long time and there were things I did and said that Aleks should never have been exposed to.” He dropped his gaze, hiding his eyes behind his hair and in the light reflection off the glasses he was still wearing. “I scared him badly, once too often, and he reacted in my pattern by getting mad at me and staying that way. I don’t think it co-incidental that it was about the same time he fixated on you. After all, what better person to protect him from the Lightning Count than the one man he couldn’t beat?”

Treize looked at the other man, at a complete loss for what to say. “Zechs, I’m sure that’s not the case,” he said weakly, but there were no grounds for his comment and they both knew it. Treize simply hadn’t been there to be able to judge one way or the other.

“I’m sure it is,” Zechs insisted. “It wasn’t ever Noin he was trying to save. It was himself.” He took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. “Water under the bridge now, of course. I just thought you should know what you might be walking into.”

Treize hesitated another moment, and then shook his head. “There are flaws in your reasoning,” he said firmly. “For one thing, I was never the one man you couldn’t beat. You were by far the better soldier. If Aleks was going to fixate on anyone for that reason, shouldn’t it have been Yuy?”

Zechs raised his eyebrows in surprise, then, suddenly, smiled warmly, reaching across the table to catch Treize’s wrist in one hand. “It isn’t your job to make me feel better about my lack of parenting ability, but bless you for trying anyway,” he said. “It really isn’t so much an issue anymore, anyway. If Aleks and I argue over anything these days, it’s Princess Isabelle.”

Treize, who had been looking at his captured wrist, lifted his head curiously. “Princess Isabelle?” he asked. “Is this the British Princess Felix and Helen were teasing him about the other night?”

Zechs nodded both confirmation and his approval of Treize’s recall. “It is, yes. Isabelle Pendragon, second in line to the British throne after her brother, James, and daughter of King George and Queen Sylvia.” He let the younger man go and stood up to walk to his bookshelf. “Isabelle is a year younger than Aleks. They met because Felix and James have been friends for years and Aleks and Isabelle took to tagging along on their outings.” He pulled a heavily bound folder from one of the shelves and held it out to the younger man. “Here, the current European peerage, correct as of last month. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it,” he added dryly.

Treize took the folder in his free hand and smiled down at it. “I probably will, actually. I always did find such things interesting.” He tucked it under his arm and looked back at the older man. “Didn’t Felix say Aleks was going to start courting the British Princess?” he asked and when Zechs nodded, tilted his head, clearly considering. “Does he not want to?”

Zechs blinked. “No, it’s his idea. It’s me that has objections to it. I think they’re far too young to even be thinking of marrying and he can’t start a relationship with the girl unless that’s the end goal.”

“Admittedly not,” Treize agreed. “That would be a disaster. How old is he, again?”

“Nineteen,” Zechs replied. “But it’s a young nineteen, for all that he’s very nearly completed his schooling. He’s not like Marie and Felix in that regard.”

The King reached up and finally removed his elegant reading glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose as he leaned back against his desk. “He’ll get his degree next summer and it’s always been the plan for him to transfer over to one of the major European universities for his Masters. I want him to follow that plan and stay on another year because I think, as much as I supported him taking the core of his education here in Sanc and as much as I’m proud of him for finishing his degree at nineteen, that he needs the polish another year will give him. It would be all the better if it came from somewhere like the Sorbonne or the Universita de Pisa. Aleks, however, says no. He’s decided that he’s done with school and that he has no need or intention of taking a Masters. He’s determined to get involved in running the country and, from somewhere, he’s gathered the notion that the first thing he needs to do to make that clear is get married.” There was a sudden snort of disapproval. “I suspect my sister’s hand, personally.”

“Why?” Treize asked, his eyebrows raised and a small frown settling between them. “Is she likely to be undercutting his education? It doesn’t seem in character for her.”

“Doesn’t it?” Zechs asked. “Remember, she left formal education at fifteen to deal with the war and never went back. She is, unfortunately, very much a product of her upbringing. Darlian had her accompanying him on diplomatic trips practically before she could talk and she’s always been annoyed by the fact that I wouldn’t let her do the same with Aleks.”

“Ah,” Treize replied carefully. “I see.”

Zechs narrowed his eyes at his friend, hearing something in the deliberate neutrality of his tone that he didn’t like. He opened his mouth to demand to know what but before he could speak, Treize tilted his head and asked him another question.

“So, Relena is of the opinion that it’s time Aleks stopped messing around and got down to the proper business of being Crown Prince. She’s saying he needs to finish school, get married and learn to rule. Has she mentioned him having children yet?”

Zechs nodded. “Oh, yes. So much so that I’m tried of hearing it.”

“I thought so. How much support does she have from your Parliament?” Treize pressed.

There was another weary sigh from the King. “Enough,” he admitted. “Enough that James and Isabelle have been invited to the Halloween Ball, and over the New Year, and enough that there’s to be a formal State visit by the British Royal Family to Sanc during the spring holidays next year to start the courtship officially.”

Treize nodded. “You might want to bow to the inevitable, my friend,” he said quietly.

Zechs shrugged. “That’s what Quatre said,” he replied.

“He was right. I don’t know the full political climate yet but it can’t have changed so much.” Treize set his empty water glass down, having drunk the contents whilst he and Zechs were talking, and gestured for emphasis. “Your son is the only bloodline heir to a crown very recently re-established. He was always going to have to marry and have children young in order to protect the line of succession, particularly since his only heirs – if I’m understanding things correctly – are either a women in her forties who abdicated once before or a little girl.” He smiled sympathetically. “Twenty-one or so really isn’t so young to be marrying, not in the circles he comes from. How old were you when you married Noin?” he asked.

“Twenty three,” Zechs admitted. “About six months before they made me King.”

“Well, then, there won’t be much difference. Be grateful that he at least likes the girl, Zechs,” Treize advised. “Because there would have been pressure for him to marry her whether he did or he didn’t. It’s a beautiful match, politically speaking.”

Zechs scowled. “And here I was, hoping you’d support my way of thinking.” He shook his head, waving one hand as though batting away a fly. “I should have known better. You’re a politician, too.”

Treize levelled the King a cool look, not impressed by the way he’d managed to make the title sound like an insult. “No, actually, I’m not. What I am, is aware of how the society around me works without naively thinking the things I don’t like about it won’t apply to me and mine. You made Aleks Crown Prince when you took the throne and that was always going to have consequences. Your sister and your Parliament are right, Zechs,” he said firmly. “If anything were to happen to Aleks before he had children it would be a disaster for Sanc in very real terms. You said yourself, the monarchy is a big part of the tourist draw to the country, and I think it unlikely that it could survive another questionable inheritance so soon.”

Zechs’s face was tight with anger at his friend. “Not that I appreciate you talking about the death of my son with such casualness, mind,” he said shortly, “but I have thought about this and I’ll tell you what I told Relena: there’s always Katerina.”

Treize shook his head. “Katerina Winner,” he replied. “Not Peacecraft. Not the line that has ruled this country for hundreds of years. It has to be Aleks, Zechs, and he could do a lot worse than Princess Isabelle as a wife. The British monarchy has been stable for centuries; it’s not going to hurt Aleks’s rule to bring that legitimacy and that political weight to his side, and it certainly won’t hurt his successor if he can claim a Princess Royal as his mother and a place in the British line of succession as well. The power that would grant in a couple of decades really isn’t worth passing up for the sake of giving your son another year or two to grow up, particularly when you can simply insist on a long engagement.”

Treize wasn’t really watching the King as he spoke, his eyes having gone distant and hazy as he span his mind through the possibilities. Consequently, he missed the angry flush that rose to Zechs’s face and the way his eyes began flashing with heat until the older man spoke again.

“And to think, I ignored them all when they said you hadn’t changed,” Zechs said softly. “What would you suggest after that? Assassinating Prince James and his children to guarantee my grandchild inherits the British Crown as well? Should I be warning George to keep his son away from you?” He shook his head. “There is no place for your empire building in the world anymore!”

Treize flinched, blanching white so quickly that Zechs didn’t see it happen. He stared mutely at the older man for a moment and then closed his eyes. “You go too far,” he replied. “You always did.”

He looked back at the King and his gaze was icy. “I’m well aware that there’s no place for me in this cosy little world you’ve built. That’s been made abundantly clear. The real question is, if I were ‘empire building’ as you put it, who do you have who could stop me? As far as I can see, you’ve all gone soft.”

He held out the folder containing the peerage. “Here, Your Majesty. I don’t think you really want me reading this. I might find a few other people I could assassinate to secure Sanc’s throne – unless that’s the idea? You never minded before,” he reminded viciously.

Zechs took the folder and tossed it onto his desk behind him in the same movement, not even looking to see where it landed. “Get out,” he growled, glaring at the younger man furiously. “Right now.”

Treize lifted his chin, matching the gaze in every way. “Gladly,” he responded coolly. He turned on his heel with a lifetime of military discipline and walked toward the door, reaching for the handle behind him as he moved through it.

The force with which it closed behind the general made Zechs jump. Treize had never slammed a door in his life.

Chapter Text

It was sheer co-incidence that it was Aleks who encountered Treize first.

The former general had marched from Zechs’s office at a hair less than a run, his breath coming in pants and his heart thumping in his ears. He couldn’t recall ever being so angry before. Another moment in that office and he would have lashed out at his friend, responding physically to an emotional impulse he couldn’t check in a way he hadn’t since he was still a child. Zechs had pushed his buttons a few times over the years, either starting or finishing some truly vicious rows between them, but he’d never before left Treize wanting to choke the life out of him in a very literal sense.

Aware that it wouldn’t be wise for him to encounter anyone else until he’d managed to calm himself down – and knowing that Zechs was just about stubborn enough to chase him to his room if he went there – the general made his way across the palace, bleeding off adrenaline with the movement. He stopped when he came to a little seating area located in front of a large set of panoramic windows, caught by the way the view – all black clouds and lashing rain – matched his mood, and sank down to sit in one of the chairs, his fingers locking around each other as he fought himself.

It took him a while before he felt steady enough to do more than just count the pace of his breathing, and he began to relax with a flurry of whispered insults aimed at the King’s head.

“…Fucking arrogant son of a bitch!” he cursed.

“Who is?”

Treize jumped at the voice behind him, completely unaware that anyone was that close by. He turned, started again at the flash of silvery hair and sighed when he realised it wasn’t the King, but the King’s son.

“Didn’t your father teach you not to sneak up on people?” he snapped.

Aleks merely blinked at him, his eyes wide and dusky in the poor light. “Should he have?” he asked seriously. “I’m sorry,” he offered a moment later. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wanted to know if you were all right.”

“I’m fine,” Treize dismissed tersely, then, because courtesy demanded it, added, “Thank you.”

Aleks nodded at him, frowning a little as he came closer and sat down on the chair opposite Treize’s. “Are you sure?” He put one hand out hesitantly. “You don’t look fine. Should I find my father?”

Despite himself, Treize couldn’t help the bitter chuckle that left him that. “I’d rather you didn’t,” he said shortly. He canted the younger man a considering look. “Who do you think I was swearing at?”

Aleks blinked in surprise. “Oh. Right. Maybe not him, then.”

“No, maybe not him,” Treize said. He sighed. “I’m honestly fine, Your Highness. I just needed to clear my head a little.”

“I told you not to call me that,” Aleks replied firmly. He leaned forward in his chair and used one long-fingered hand to sweep his hair back from his forehead for a moment. “So, what did my father do to piss you off?”

Treize smiled a little, tightly, looking back out of the window at the stormy weather. “It would hardly be appropriate of me to tell his son that, now would it.” He shook his head. “We disagreed over something, that’s all.”

Aleks’s eyebrows rose in affected surprise. “Wow. You ‘disagreed?’” He whistled slowly. “You’ve been sat here for at least the last twenty minutes looking like you were going to commit murder. If that was the two of you ‘disagreeing’, it’s no wonder you ended up fighting a war!”

The general’s head snapped around, so that he could stare at the younger man in astonished disbelief. “My God,” he said after a moment. “Are you always so stunningly tactless?”

Aleks merely shrugged and smiled. “When it suits me to be, yes.”

Treize cringed, and then gestured with his hand as though he were raising a toast. “Long Live King Milliardo,” he said mockingly. “For Sanc’s sake.”

Aleks laughed at him. “Amen to that, cousin,” he agreed. His expression turned mischievous. “Feeling better yet?” he asked quietly.

It took Treize a second or two of shifting in his seat to realise that, yes, he did feel better. Some of the tension in his shoulders had bled away and the fraught energy that had been driving his heart rate was ebbing in the face of the younger man’s deliberate gaucheness.

Aleks must have read his answer from his face, because he got to his feet and held out a hand to the older man. “Come on,” he said determinedly.

Treize took his hand, let himself pulled upright, and let it go again just as quickly. “Where are we going?” he asked, as Aleks turned on his heel and began making his way down the corridor with rangy strides. Wherever he was going, it was in the opposite direction to the sections of the Palace Treize had been spending his time in over the past few days in. In fact, if he recalled correctly, the only things in this area of the Palace were the grand ballrooms, the throne room and some of the formal reception rooms – nothing that should interest Aleks at this particular moment.

The Prince didn’t answer the general until they stopped in front of an unmarked door. “Here,” Aleks said impishly and keyed a code into the panel beside it so quickly that Treize almost didn’t catch it. “Kitty?” he called as he opened the door. “I brought a guest.”

Treize looked over Aleks’s shoulder as the Prince opened the door, curious about where the younger man was taking him. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting – perhaps some sort of sitting room, or even, maybe, the Prince’s bedroom – but it wasn’t what was revealed.

The room Aleks had brought the former general to was small, and certainly wasn’t a sitting room in the traditional sense. What had clearly started life as a storage room, or perhaps a security post, had been converted somewhat haphazardly into what Treize could only think of as a ‘den’.

“Which guest?” a familiar voice answered the Prince, and then Felix’s head and upper body lifted from a heap of big, mismatched cushions, making Treize realise that the doctor must be lying practically prone on the floor.

Felix propped himself on an elbow, twisting himself so that he could look over his shoulder at his younger cousin. His handsome face broke into a smile when he saw what Aleks meant by ‘guest’ and he sat up properly, folding his legs up Indian fashion and running a hand over his rather mussed hair. “Well, hey there,” he said warmly.

Aleks held the door open as wide as it would go and ushered Treize through it before letting it swing closed again behind the two of them, blocking out the light that had been flooding through from the corridor and dropping the little room into a welcoming dimness. Immediately, the blond kicked off his shoes and began walking across the thick, springy carpeting to another pile of cushions set a little way from Felix’s, where he dropped to sit much as his cousin was and reached out to retrieve a glass that was standing on the carpet next to him.

“Well, don’t stand on ceremony,” Felix encouraged, when Treize didn’t move. “Shoes off and pull up a cushion. Or several, as the case may be.” He gestured expansively to the rest of the space, indicating the stacks of unused pillows pushed somewhat arbitrarily against the empty far wall.

Feeling a little off-balance, Treize toed off his boots and stepped onto the carpeting, feeling it yield under his feet with an almost mattress-like softness. He crossed the room, selected a cushion and set it down at a mid point between the two other men, folding gracefully to sit on his heels at a nod from Felix.

Almost as soon as Treize was sitting, Felix rolled to his feet and went to the one of the cabinets fitted to the walls along from the door and adjacent to it, bending to open it and retrieve something from its inside. He turned back with a glass to match the one in Aleks’s hand and an unopened bottle of wine.

“Now then,” he said, coming back to his pile of cushions and pulling a bottle opener from where he’d hidden it under the bottom one. “How are you feeling? You took the new meds this morning?”

The older man blinked in surprise, frowning at the lack of discretion as he shot a telling glance at the third person in the room. Aleks’s nose was in his wine glass, his eyes closed as he drained the contents but just because he looked distracted, didn’t mean he wasn’t paying attention. “Fine,” Treize answered quietly. “And yes, I took them.”

Felix smiled. “Good.” He caught Treize’s second glance at Aleks and waved it off with a hand. “Don’t worry; he can keep his mouth shut. Any side effects so far? Any headache or stomach pain?” he asked. “What about nausea or vomiting?”

Treize shook his head. “I feel fine,” he repeated. “Completely so.”

“Excellent,” Felix said cheerily. “Tell me you’ve eaten today,” he instructed, setting the opener to the top of the bottle without bothering to strip away the foil protecting the cork.

“I’ve eaten today,” Treize replied automatically, watching as the doctor smoothly corked the bottle with all the flair of a professional sommelier. Felix discarded both opener and cork onto a small tray he had sitting next to him on the carpet, setting them down by his glass and several unmarked and opaque bottles and packets.

“Honestly?” he asked Treize, holding the bottle poised over the clean glass, and suddenly he was serious.

“Honestly,” Treize replied, and then realised the younger man had slipped into his professional role, checking for problems with the existing drugs in Treize’s system before he added another one.

Felix nodded and tilted his hand, making rich burgundy liquid spill from the bottle into the glass and stain the sides. “Here, then,” he said, holding out the glass.

Treize took it, sipped slowly and smiled warmly. “Now why,” he asked softly, “does this taste familiar?”

Felix returned his smile. “It ought to,” he replied. “That’s the last merlot you ever approved for release from the vineyards in Bordeaux.” He let his smile become a grin and dropped to the floor again to look at Treize from the same level, back to being his friend rather than his doctor. “So, what are you doing this evening?” he asked.

Treize shrugged, wondering if Zechs had anything planned before he recalled how pissed off at the King he was. “Nothing, why?” he answered.

“Excellent,” Felix said. He cast a speculative look at Aleks, who smirked back at him, and then put his hand on Treize’s knee suggestively. “Tell me you bought something designed to impress whilst you were shopping?”

“Define ‘impress’,” Treize asked carefully. “Who or what am I targeting?”

Felix set the bottle down on the tray and leaned forward. “Anyone you choose,” he said softly. “Any man or woman you’d care to spend the evening with.” He brushed his fingers along Treize’s cheekbone lightly, his expression intent. “Our friends, mostly. Us.” He let his hand slip into the same place it had been the evening before, a lightly controlling grip against the older man’s jaw line. “Me,” he murmured.

Treize gazed at his cousin, meeting eyes that were colour of a winter dusk for a moment before he put his glass down, caught the back of the doctor’s neck with his hand and pulled them together. He’d had enough of the passive role the day before and it wouldn’t hurt Felix to learn something of his true nature.

Felix made a small noise in the back of his throat, caught off guard by the sudden aggression, then yielded perfectly to it, opening his mouth to the older man’s and letting his body melt into it when Treize reached out with his free hand and wrapped it around Felix’s slim waist.

The former general came up on his knees to match the doctor, then bore down with his weight, pressing Felix until he sank back, shifting his body to drop onto his pile of cushions willingly, flat on his back with Treize half on top of him. His right hand was still on Treize’s jaw, feeling the muscle and tendon work as Treize kissed him, the other settled on the man’s shoulder, fingers fluttering under the waves of sensation.

They’d be a good pairing. Treize had suspected it the night before, and now he was sure. Felix was already shifting to match him, his pulse jumping in his throat, his breathing falling into rhythm with the older man’s in a silent, physical promise that he could meet and synchronise with Treize all the way and make their encounter one of truly mutual satisfaction.

Added to that, and even better in Treize’s mind, was the perfect balance of resistance and submission Felix was showing. He’d given complete control of their kiss to Treize with no hesitation at all but there was a strength in his touch that hadn’t melted with the rest of him, and Treize was finding he liked it. The confidence was reassuring, enjoyable on its own, because the absolute last thing Treize needed from a potential partner at the current time was the spectre of coercion. On either side.

At almost the same moment as Felix made a first wordless murmur of pleasure, his body starting to heat to Treize’s touch, and the former general felt the beginnings of a familiar humming trickle in the back of his head, the third person in the room shifted position and sighed loudly.

“All right, Kitty,” Aleks drawled. “Enough already. You can play with him later.”

Treize pulled back, not quite starting at Aleks’s words, and found Felix grinning up at him warmly.

“That was fun,” the doctor said quietly. “Here’s hoping Aleks is right for once,” he murmured.

Treize wasn’t quite sure of what he should say to that, so he contented himself with nodding silently and settling back onto his cushion. He picked up his wine glass and drained it half-dry easily, washing the taste of the doctor away with some regret but actively seeking the lovely buzz good red wine would give him after a couple of glasses as an antidote to the day’s ups and downs. Less than an hour and a half since he’d left his rooms and Treize already felt exhausted.

In his distraction, he missed Aleks and Felix communicating silently across the room, unaware of much until Felix tapped him on the knee with one finger.

“So, did you?” the younger man asked and Treize was forced to let a shrug and a confused look convey his puzzlement over the question.

“Buy anything designed to impress,” Aleks explained for him, with a little chuckle. “Kitty, don’t do that to the man!” he chided. “It isn’t fair. Not everyone can track conversations through ninety-thousand other things like you can.”

Treize lifted an eyebrow. He could – of course, he could – and he opened his mouth to correct the Prince before changing his mind. “That really does depend on where we’re going and who it is you want me to impress,” he said instead, pushing the point he’d been making when Felix had come on to him. “I’ve only had a few hours to replace my wardrobe and I wasn’t buying for any specific event.”

Felix nodded sympathetically. “True. Is it all similar to what you’re wearing now or did you buy anything more interesting?”

Treize considered. “There are one or two things that might do,” he answered. “I take it this isn’t something I can wear suit and tie to?” he asked, diffidently and won himself much the response he’d been expecting.

Aleks dissolved into laughter, shaking his head. Felix merely smiled softly. “No, definitely not,” he said gently and the very neutrality of his tone gave away that he was fighting to keep from reacting like his cousin. “We were thinking of taking you to the Blue Moon,” he explained. “It’s a cocktail bar-come-club in the town centre, somewhere we go quite a lot. It’s not as wild or as well known as some of the other places we go but that’s probably only because its owner is a fussy little bugger about his clients. It’s him you’d be trying to impress.”

Treize blinked, swallowing as he took that in. “I highly doubt I have anything at all, then,” he said, wondering if either Aleks or Felix had any idea how far out of his normal patterns of behaviour they were asking him to step. He'd spent time in bars and nightclubs – of course he had – but not recently. Romefeller had seen him inside them occasionally in his teens but, by age twenty, he’d been swamped with command responsibility for his Wing and, by twenty-three, for the entire of the Specials. If Felix wasn’t the same age as Treize had been when he’d replaced the doctor’s grandfather, it was only by a few months. What few truly free evenings he’d had during recent years had been spent with Zechs and neither man had been inclined to waste them in the noisy confines of a club.

For a few moments, Treize considered refusing the invite altogether. He had no particular wish to go somewhere so bound to be hectic. Before he could, though, he recalled Zechs’s insistence that he learn to blend in with his own age group. It would be so immensely satisfying to throw those words back at the blond after accompanying his son somewhere he was sure Zechs wouldn’t approve of.

And, there was always the matter of the unspoken promise simmering between himself and Felix.

“What would you suggest?” Treize asked the two younger men and Felix’s face lit with a smile even as Aleks groaned.

“Oh, you did not want to say that,” he explained, when Treize looked at him in surprise. “You’ve just offered yourself up as a living doll for the afternoon, cousin, and if it doesn’t end with us shopping, I’ll be shocked.”

Treize smiled softly. “That’s all right,” he replied. “I like shopping.”

______________________________

It took Zechs almost an hour after he’d thrown Treize out of his office to calm down enough to regret the words he’d exchanged with the younger man, and almost another full hour after that to start feeling really guilty.

When the reaction did finally set in, though, it hit like a ton of bricks and Zechs found himself sitting with one hand in mid-air, pen poised to write, as he recalled the expression in Treize’s eyes and the pallor of his face as Zechs had snarled at him.

One comment in particular kept replaying in his head. Treize’s voice had been cold enough to freeze reacting hydrogen as he’d said the words but his eyes and his body had told a different story, one that Zechs had missed at the time.

“I’m well aware that there’s no place for me in this cosy little world you’ve built,” the younger man had spat back. “That’s been made abundantly clear.”

It was enough to make Zechs cringe. If Treize felt that way so strongly, just forty-eight hours after waking properly in this time, then they were failing in their task of helping him adapt. Zechs had spent too many years never quite fitting in with the world around him to ever wish it on someone else, and that was without all the warnings Sally had given the King that Treize acclimating was vital. They could not afford for Treize to feel he didn’t belong, for both their safety and his own.

It was Sally’s professional opinion that Treize was on shaky ground psychologically. Isolation, she insisted, would worsen that state, exacerbating the traumas he had experienced and blocking any hope of recovery. If they didn’t anchor him here, quickly, if they didn’t give him a sense of friends and family, then she and Felix would have nothing to work with to treat him and it would only be a matter of time before he came apart completely.

It was a scary thought but Zechs had managed to forget it completely for the few minutes it had taken him to lose his temper with his friend over something Treize hadn’t really said in the first place. The King knew well enough why it had happened – it had been years since he’d been ignorant of his own mental issues – but that didn’t stop him wanting to shoot himself for his timing. Treize was emphatically not a good choice as target for one of Zechs’s stress-triggered emotional outbursts.

The King’s sense of his own stupidity, and the accompanying guilt and remorse, dragged on through the afternoon and well into the evening. He abandoned his work around dinnertime in an attempt to locate the younger man so he could apologise but he got nowhere and he was beginning to be seriously worried when he ran into Dorothy in his favourite sitting room.

“Oh, they’ve gone out,” the blond woman told him dismissively, not looking up from the book she was reading.

Zechs frowned at her. “Pardon?” he asked, taken aback.

“The boys,” she clarified. “They’ve gone out. Feliu popped his head around my door about two hours ago and told me he wouldn’t be at dinner.” She folded her book onto its delicate silver marker and smiled up at him. “I rather think he and Aleks have gone on one of their little escapades and they’ve taken Treize with them.” Dorothy laughed indulgently. “From the wine on Feliu’s breath when he kissed me goodbye and the wonderfully eye-catching way he was dressed, I’d certainly say they’re planning more than a quiet meal somewhere.”

Zechs grimaced, frustrated and annoyed with himself. On the one hand, it was good to know Treize hadn’t been as upset as he’d feared, but on the other, it left Zechs completely at a loose end. Neither Aleks nor Felix were known for their early nights.

He nodded his thanks to his friend and left the room, finding his feet taking him up to Treize’s room without thought.

Almost completely certain that Treize wasn’t going to be in, Zechs pushed open the door without knocking and nodded ruefully at the final confirmation that Dorothy had been right. The room wasn’t a mess, exactly – Treize would never have allowed that – but there were certain signs that it had been occupied, and by more than one person. The sheets on the bed were slightly rumpled, the nightstand had three used glasses on it and the left hand door of Treize’s wardrobe was standing slightly ajar.

Felix and Aleks had, unmistakeably, dragged Treize up here, dressed him up and taken him out to show him the town.

There was nothing Zechs could do, then, to offer his friend an apology except leave him a note saying he was sorry and asking him to contact the King when he was ready the next day. They had things to do that, really, needed an early start.

Sighing softly, Zechs closed Treize’s door behind him and went to join the rest of his family for the evening, his mind half on worrying about what trouble his son and his nephew would get the older man into.

It didn’t help that Treize still hadn’t returned to his rooms when Zechs fell asleep that night.

Chapter Text

The shift of his mattress dipping under the weight of another person and the scent of a woman’s delicate perfume woke the King the next morning, causing him to roll over in the warm softness of his bed and reach out automatically.

“Lucy?” he breathed, in the moment before he was truly awake, and opened his eyes to his sister’s quietly indrawn breath.

“Oh, Milliardo,” Relena murmured sadly, one of her little hands flitting to touch his mussed hair lightly. “Still?” she asked softly.

Zechs closed his eyes again as pain flashed though him. The woman sitting on his bed was not the one he’d wanted to see, as dear to him as his sister had become. Her pretty face, sea-change eyes and long golden hair were not burned into his soul the way Noin’s midnight curls, dusky gaze and timeless beauty had been and, for a moment, looking at them made him want to scream.

“Always,” he answered her carefully, and felt her weight shift again as she drew her other knee onto his bed to move closer.

How many days had Zechs woken to his sister’s slender form when he’d wanted his wife’s? Poor, brave Relena, her own heart broken by the disappearance of her first love, had been by his side every morning for more than a year after Noin had died. She’d never once let him wake alone to a world without her sister in law and, if her fragile courage was born of a different source to Noin’s tempered will, then it had proven itself just as unbreakable in the face of Zechs’s extremes.

How many mornings, Zechs wondered, had Relena’s efforts won her nothing but his temper, sending her running from the room as he howled his pain through fury at the world? How many had she found herself cradling his head in her lap as he sobbed helplessly, shattered by the loss of his love? How many had she been forced to accept that today was a day he just couldn’t face, leaving him to his drugged dreams as she went to tend to his son in his place? The King didn’t know but he’d always been boundlessly grateful.

“Is it really not any better?” Relena asked him, her voice layered with sympathy, and Zechs opened his eyes again to look at her.

“Yes,” he answered honestly. “Of course it is. There are just… odd moments.” He summoned a smile for her and put both hands down on his mattress as he pushed himself up to sit against his small mountain of pillows. “I suspect it’s Treize,” he admitted. “Having him here makes me wonder.”

It was the truth, as far as it went. Having Treize return seemingly from the dead had caused Zechs to have one or two dreams of Noin doing the same, even though he’d identified her body in the morgue and seen her into the ground himself. More realistically, though, Zechs knew it wasn’t Treize’s simple presence that was the issue.

“He has questions,” the King admitted to his sister, “and he doesn’t know not to ask them. They’ve been making me think more than I should.”

Relena nodded compassionately. “You could just tell him to stop,” she suggested. “Or I could. He’s a bright man; he should have no trouble understanding.”

Zechs considered but eventually shook his head. “The thing is, ‘Lena, he has the right to ask. Whatever else she was, Noin was his student and, later, his officer, just as much as I was. She was his friend. It wouldn’t be fair of me to refuse his questions about her just because it makes me uncomfortable.”

“Perhaps, but is it fair of him to make you uncomfortable for the sake of his curiosity?” Relena quizzed. She shrugged a moment later, and reached behind her for something. “Speaking of his curiosity, you need to see these. I suspect you’re going to need as much warning as you can get.”

She fanned a heavy stack of newspapers across his lap and Zechs blinked in surprise, pushing his hair out of his face with one hand as he bent to look at them more closely.

The palace was always supplied with advance copies of all the national newspapers every morning, a courtesy from the press to the monarchy that co-operated with them so readily and a thank you for the Royal Seal they all displayed in their top left hand corners. Zechs only ever really paid attention to the one or two more serious broadsheets he preferred but he knew both his sister and her husband, and Dorothy and hers, read every page of every paper, with the possible exception of the sports sections.

If Relena had managed to wade her way through the morass of papers by this time, then she’d been up unbelievably early but Zechs had the suspicion that she’d taken one look at the front covers this morning and brought the whole lot straight to him.

It was a suspicion confirmed by the fact that she was sitting on his bed in her pale silk nightgown and matching robe.

It seemed like Dorothy had been right in her guess at her son’s whereabouts the night before. All but one of the papers was carrying some shot or another of the boys – dressed to the nines and clearly ready to party – as their main image. The rag tabloids were focussing solely on the fact that Sanc’s only Prince and his wild child cousin-in-crime were back on the social scene, blaring headlines to that effect and promising ‘more exclusive photos inside!’ but the broadsheets and the classier tabloids were more discreet and had reporters who were far savvier. They might only have been carrying the story as a ‘continued on page two or three or seven’, but it was a far more accurate and, therefore, worrying tale.

Speculation was rife about who the newest member of the Prince’s circle of friends was and photos abounded of Treize in any number of groupings and poses. All three of Sanc’s notable society columnists had made him the focus of their writing that morning, and one of them – a man Zechs knew for a fact used to be an Oz intelligence officer – was dangerously close to the truth. He hinted heavily throughout his piece and probably only refrained from voicing his thoughts directly because he’d been threatened with the sack by his editor if he did.

‘A royal haunting?’ was the line he’d opened his column with, going on to remark repeatedly on how much Treize and Aleks together recalled his days in Oz and carefully adding in shots both of Treize and Felix side by side and with Aleks between them to emphasise that it wasn’t Dorothy’s son he was talking about.

The way he ended the article was even more damning. ‘One thing that is very clear about this latest addition to the cadre of young bloods surrounding the Crown Prince is his remarkable resemblance to Royal cousin, Feliu Maxwell,’ he wrote. ‘We may not know his name or his background but there can be no doubt that the relationship between this mystery man and the Royal Family is one of blood rather than mere acquaintance. One has to ask – who or what has King Milliardo been hiding all these years? When we know, so will you!’

Zechs read and re-read the article, and then put the paper down and cursed soundly. “When I said I wanted the press taking guesses, I was hoping for a little more lead time and a lot more inaccuracy,” he said. “Bugger!”

That Relena’s expression reflected Zechs’s feelings perfectly did nothing to soothe the King as he skimmed hurriedly through some of the other articles. “And they’re all taking the same tack, aren’t they?” he asked rhetorically. “Dare I ask if the internationals have this yet?”

Relena shook her head. “Not in this morning’s issues but they will by this evening and the press secretary has been screening calls from the breakfast talk shows since five.” She bit her lip. “Any thoughts on what you want to do, Milliardo?” she asked. “We’re ahead of most of mainland Europe and the Americas,” she reminded. “Another two hours and we’ll be being hounded for comments and reactions.”

“To a gossip column piece?” he asked, then shook his head to his own question. “I know,” he admitted. Anything that involved himself or any member of his family was news, particularly if it was a slow day, and it would only be a matter of time before someone floated Treize’s name in the media and then all hell would break loose. “What does Quatre say? Can we bury it?” he asked.

The Princess hesitated. “He says the domestic damage is done but we might be able to dull the roar internationally. If we’re willing to give the press something bigger to run with.”

Zechs narrowed his eyes. “Such as?”

Relena shrugged. “Lady Une and Trowa, maybe.” She tilted her head. “Aleks and Isabelle.”

The King glared at his sister the moment the words passed her lips, pushing his covers and all the newspapers back in a heap as he climbed from his bed and reached for his dressing gown. “No,” he said firmly.

“Milliardo, if you want to swamp this…” Relena began, trying to reason with him.

“No!” Zechs snapped. “Aside from anything else, there’s nothing about Aleks and Isabelle to leak yet and George and Sylvia will have my head if I plant rumours that there is. If you want a match between Aleks and the Princess, then you’re going to have to wait until the official visit before announcing anything.”

Whatever reaction to that Zechs had been expecting from his sister, it wasn’t for her to laugh at him. “Milliardo, George might be angry but, trust me, Sylvia would smooth things over,” Relena replied. “Isabelle and Aleks are so obviously stuck on each other that there’s really only you and George who still think they aren’t going to marry one day. I knew they would when they were fifteen,” she said smugly.

It was Zechs’s turn to laugh. “Oh, really?” he countered. “Can you see the future, then? Because I seem to recall that, at fifteen, Aleks was still trying to decide whether he was in love with Felix or not.”

Relena’s answering shrug was serene. “And?” she asked. “At fifteen, you were in love with Treize. That didn’t stop you from marrying Noin.”

Zechs stilled in place, his hand freezing over the hairbrush he’d just been reaching for as he looked at his sister with cold eyes. “Dirty pool, ‘Lena,” he warned softly.

“Perhaps,” Relena agreed. “Nevertheless, Quatre says that if you want to bury this story about Treize, those are your only two sure bets. Will Anne cooperate?” she asked. “If she won’t, then you may have no choice.”

Zechs considered for a moment before shaking his head firmly. “I won’t do it,” he said. “I won’t practically announce Aleks’s engagement before we’ve even formally received the girl at court. They both deserve better than that. If it turns out that it’s a choice between letting the speculation about Treize run or snowing it out by leaking the match between Aleks and Isabelle, then Treize will just have to cope.” He shrugged dismissively. “He should have known better than to make such a public spectacle of himself in any case. He’s far from that naïve about the press.”

Relena smiled a little, the expression tight and self-satisfied. “All right,” she said quietly. “You might want to wake him and warn him, then,” she suggested. “What do want the Palace’s position to be when we’re asked? Do we tell them who he is or do we stall?”

“Stall,” Zechs replied automatically. “Don’t ‘no comment’ – we can’t afford to stir the press that much so close to the Ball – but buy time with everything we’ve got.”

The King crossed to his wardrobe, opening it and rifling through it until his hands found the particular outfit he was looking for. “Would you run some errands for me?” he asked, pulling the protective suit case free of all the others and laying it across his dressing stand as he turned to root through his dresser drawers as well.

Relena came to her feet, brushing her hair back. “Of course I will,” she said.

“Good,” Zechs replied. “I need you to contact the major news stations and offer interviews to the breakfast talk shows – you, Marie and Dorothy.” He tossed a sweater and a pair of trousers onto his bed. “Talk about Marie’s music, the Halloween Ball, the latest ESUN meetings, I trust you to think of something,” he continued, “but talk, all three of you, and stay off the subject of family or Treize. If you can lock up the morning broadcasts, we’ll have time.”

The Princess raised her eyebrows at her brother appreciatively, nodding. “Clever,” she approved. “Consider it done.”

“Thank you.” Zechs grinned back at her. “Before you go on air, I also need you to combine forces with Quatre and decide who to invite to the press conference we’re holding tonight. Warn them we’ll be screening the questions,” he instructed.

Relena nodded again, taking Zechs’s assertion that they were having a press conference at all completely in stride. “They should expect that anyway,” she said. “Do you want anyone in particular?” she quizzed. “And do we give priority to print or live media?”

“No-one specific,” the King answered. “Though, given it’ll be Treize talking to them, you might want to weight to the live media, rather than print,” he decided. “He was always scarily photogenic and that won’t have changed. It’d be stupid not to take advantage of it.” He unzipped the suit cover and lifted out the contents to inspect them critically. “Who speaks the most natural French out of the family? Felix and I are both fluent but I won’t have much free time today and Felix has that awful Catalan whine to his vowels in anything other than English.”

“Trowa,” Relena said instantly, then blinked. “Treize?” she spluttered. “You’re going to let Treize lead the conference? Oh, Milliardo, I’m not sure….”

Zechs cut her off. “I’m not going to let him lead it – I’ll do that – but he is going to have to be there and he is going to have to talk and answer questions.” He shook his head at her doubting expression. “For God’s sake, ‘Lena, think who you’re talking about! He knows how to handle himself. He’s given more press conferences than I can remember!”

The blond woman still looked unsure. “Maybe so, then,” she allowed, “but things have changed. For one thing – will he be able to talk? His voice is so very obviously trained, and so distinctive,” she warned. “If anyone thinks to run a recording through an analyser….”

“Yes, that’s why I want a French-speaker,” Zechs explained. “It’s Treize’s first language.” He shrugged, apparently satisfied with the suit as he began putting it back into the cover. “If I can get him going to into the conference having spoken nothing but French for twelve hours, he should hold his natural accent long enough to fool an analyser. It’s quite a remarkable difference,” he promised, picking up his own clothes.

“If you say so,” Relena said. She bit her lip, and then sighed. “I speak French fairly well,” she reminded her brother. “Alice Darlian was a native. I could spend some time with Treize after I’m done with the talk shows, brief him on the press pack and the political climate at the same time? If Anne and Trowa come over this afternoon to finalise the details on his background, that will give him four people to speak to. The variety can’t hurt,” she reasoned.

Zechs, in the middle of discarding his robe in favour of the sweater he’d picked out, stopped, grinned at her and then leaned in and kissed Relena’s cheek swiftly. “You’re an angel,” he said softly.

Relena smiled at him. “I know,” she agreed, wondering what had possessed her to volunteer to spend the day with a man she definitely didn’t like. She averted her eyes as Zechs reached for his underwear drawer and took a step back. “I’ll go and get started on the organising,” she said. “Will you need Aleks, Helen or Felix or should I tie them up watching Katerina and Ning for the day?”

“Tie them up,” Zechs replied. “And tell them not to leave the private areas. They’ll get hounded to death if they do.”

“All right. I’ll see you later?” she asked.

Her only answer was a distracted nod.

________________________________

By the time Relena had crossed the Palace to inform her husband of their plans for the day, Zechs had finished dressing, placed three or four vital phone calls and was on his way down the corridor towards the rooms Treize was occupying.

A glance at a clock whilst he was dressing had told him that Relena really had woken him ridiculously early. Even now, almost half an hour later, it was barely after seven, and still dark outside. Treize most likely wouldn’t have thanked him for the hour even if he hadn’t been out with the boys the night before. Given he had been, Zechs was fairly certain he could expect a surly greeting and twenty-five years had not dulled his memory of what the former general could be like when he was wakened after too little sleep.

Smiling at some of the more remarkable things Treize had called him for other alarm calls over the years, Zechs didn’t bother to knock on the younger man’s door. Instead, he simply listened for sounds of movement and, on hearing none, pushed the door open smoothly.

Feeling the devil in him rise, Zechs flicked the overhead light on full as soon as he walked through the door, sweeping his eyes over the room automatically. “Treize?” he called, loudly enough to disturb.

Something in the heap of mussed sheets and comforters on the wide bed stirred, emitting something that sounded very much like a groan. “Treize?” Zechs said again. “Good morning. Time to rise and shine!” he added firmly.

There was another wordless groan, the bundle shifting again as though someone had rolled over. Zechs laughed silently, then crossed the thick carpet and dug one hand into the morass to strip it back in a single tug.

The King raised a knowing eyebrow at the sight that greeted him. Even if the pile of discarded clothes by the side of the bed hadn’t given it away, even if the lingering smell of smoke in the air hadn’t betrayed a habit Treize only indulged under very specific conditions, Zechs would have known his former commander had been close to blind drunk when he fell into bed simply from how he was dressed. When he chose to wear anything at all, Treize had a distinct preference for soft cotton pyjama bottoms as nightwear and he would never, under his own recognizance, have let himself sleep in the shorts and t-shirt he’d been wearing the day before. That he was dressed that way now was a sure sign that someone else had stripped him and dropped him into his bed.

“Good morning,” Zechs repeated, closing one hand around Treize’s shoulder and shaking him rather more roughly than he really needed to.

The noise he got as a reply resembled nothing so much as ‘urgh’ and the King couldn’t help but laugh. He let the younger man go and brought his hands together in a sharp clap a scant three inches from the end of his friend’s nose, in the first half of a routine he’d learned from a rather vindictive Duo the first time Felix had turned in drunk as a teenager.

As his cousin had nearly six years before, Treize jolted awake suddenly, his eyes opening wide as he jumped.

“Morning,” Zechs repeated again, cheerfully. “Up,” he ordered smartly. “You have an appointment with the Court dresser in twenty minutes.”

Unlike Felix, Treize had the benefit of a lifetime under military discipline. Zechs had no idea whether the younger man had understood a word he said, but that didn’t stop the redhead closing his eyes for a moment, and then opening them again as he rolled unsteadily to his feet.

He stood by the side of his bed, swaying, and Zechs chuckled as he made his way into the bathroom to turn on the shower, lay out a set of thick towels and fill a glass of fresh water.

They passed each other in the doorway, Treize muttering a stream of invective in French and English that had Zechs impressed despite himself, and then the King waited, head cocked in anticipation of the second stage of Duo’s custom morning-after treatment.

The distressed yelp a moment later sent him into peals of laughter. It seemed Treize hadn’t bothered to check the temperature of the shower before he got in it. If he had, he might have noticed Zechs had deliberately left it to run freezing cold.

Grinning wickedly, the King stepped back into the bathroom and leaned against the doorframe lazily. “Something wrong?” he asked conversationally.

Treize had jumped from the shower and was standing in the middle of the bathroom, glaring and dripping. “Bastard!” he swore viciously.

Zechs looked at him levelly. “Is that the best you can manage?” he challenged. “And you call yourself a professional soldier…” he taunted, tone dripping condescension as he baited his friend.

He wasn’t disappointed.

“Screw you,” Treize hissed, “dic...!”

He stopped, mid-word, and Zechs raised knowing eyebrows as the younger man turned a shocking shade of green. “Not feeling too good?” he asked sweetly.

There was no verbal response as Treize skittered across the small space and dropped to a crouch in front of the toilet.

Entertainment over for the moment, Zechs let his evil smirk soften to a genuinely sympathetic smile as the younger man retched himself dry violently, and then knelt, panting and sweat-soaked, leaning his forehead on one hand wearily and gripping for balance with the other desperately. He swallowed heavily as the blond leaned over him to press the flush and only looked up when the glass of water appeared in his line of sight.

“Done?” Zechs asked gently, waiting for Treize to take it from him.

“Screw. You,” Treize replied harshly, his reddened eyes flashing fire at the older man. “You did that deliberately.”

Zechs nodded. “Yes,” he admitted, unrepentantly. “I did. Drink,” he instructed. He moved back to the counter by the sink and rooted though the cupboard above it. “I needed you to get it over with. I can’t afford to have you feeling rotten for half the day,” he explained. “Here.” He offered the younger man two small aspirin tablets and Treize took them in shaking fingers gratefully.

He swallowed them with a mouthful of the water, and then put his head back on his hand with a groan.

Zechs laughed affectionately, bending down to drop a light kiss on the top of his friend’s mussed hair. “Take a proper shower and brush your teeth,” he said. “I’ll go order you coffee.”

Treize dropped back to sit on the tile floor and glared up at the King blearily. “Do you have any idea how much I hate you currently?” he asked mildly.

“About as much as I hated you the morning after you got me drunk for the first time, I suspect,” Zechs replied cheerily, and turned back into the bedroom.

Treize joined him a little more than ten minutes later, looking slightly too pale still but altogether more composed than he had any right to, considering. “Give me a moment,” he said, “and I’ll throw some clothes on.”

Zechs was sitting in the armchair by the desk, idly flipping through the book Treize had left on the nightstand. “There’s no major rush,” he replied. “I was kidding when I said you had an appointment with the Court dresser in twenty minutes.”

The look of relief on Treize’s face made the King chuckle. “The appointment’s at eight,” he explained. “And that won’t be the end of it, I’m afraid. What on Earth were you thinking last night?”

The younger man shrugged, rooting through his wardrobe for clean clothes. “I’m entirely sure I wasn’t thinking,” he explained. “By the time I’d calmed down enough not to be doing things out of sheer spite, your son and his partner in crime had poured most of two bottles of very nice merlot into me and then dragged me out into the city with them.” He skimmed into his underwear, sweater and trousers with the speed of a military man and picked up his comb. “I suspect I’d be in a better state this morning,” he continued, “if either of them had thought to warn me that the hydroponics-grown versions of most spirits are considerably stronger than their earth-side equivalents, before I was ready to fall over.”

Zechs winced, resolving to have a stern word with Felix and Aleks when he saw them. “That’s right, they took you to the Blue Moon, didn’t they? All you saw were the pretty cocktails, correct?” he asked.

Treize nodded ruefully. “I can judge my drink – when it follows the rules I’m used to.”

“Well, that at least explains the photos,” Zechs said. “I was starting to think you’d lost it when I saw the papers this morning.”

Treize turned to look at him sharply. “Photos?” he asked, his voice a bite. “What photos?”

The King sighed and pulled the newspaper he’d brought with him from his pocket, tossing it across the space to his friend. Treize caught it neatly, the hand-eye co-ordination of a pilot showing in the thoughtless movement, and opened it to stare down at the front cover in what Zechs could only describe as shock.

“That’s one of the tamer versions, believe me,” the King offered. “You should see what the tabloids are saying.”

“Oh, my God,” Treize breathed. “I had no idea….”

Zechs looked surprised. “About what? That there were photographers?” He tilted his head, frowning doubtfully. “Come on, Treize,” he chided. “You were out partying with the Crown Prince of the country and his cousin. Did it not occur to you that Aleks and Felix might be celebrity figures?”

Treize scowled back. “Of course it occurred to me,” he replied sharply. “I just didn’t notice anyone who was obviously press pack and there were no noticeable camera flashes.”

Actually, Treize had been quite relieved by that. He hadn’t been looking forward to the kinds of scrums he’d occasionally faced with the media in his years as General Catalonia’s poster child for the Specials.

Understanding dawned on the King’s face as his friend spoke. “You were looking for the rope lines and the flash bulbs you were used to, weren’t you?” he asked. “Oh, my Lord…” he sighed, realising that they’d hit upon another one of a million little things that had changed without anyone remembering to tell Treize it had. “ I’m sorry,” the King apologised. “The gossip media don’t work like that anymore,” he explained. “With the reduced need for security and the improved identity checks we have in place now, the press tend to actually be in the clubs and bars with their targets rather than hanging around outside, and they use little palm-sized digital cameras to keep it from being intrusive when they do take pictures. They’re built on Oz’s old surveillance kit, Treize. They don’t use a conventional flash even in bad lighting.”

Treize blinked as he listened. “When did the public get hold of that technology?” he asked curiously. The black-light micro cameras Zechs was talking about had been fairly state of the art during Treize’s military service, clever little toys he’d rather enjoyed the once or twice he’d had cause to use them.

“About ten years ago,” Zechs told him. “You’ll see a more traditional approach this evening at the press conference we’ll be holding.”

The younger man lifted his eyebrows but settled for nodding quietly. “Press conference?” he asked, a moment later, setting his comb down and reaching for one of the bottles arrayed on the dressing table he was standing next to.

“Yes,” Zechs said, then put a hand out. “I wouldn’t bother,” he suggested, before Treize could press the trigger on the hair product he was holding. “Our stylist is bound to make a fuss and you’ll only end up having to wash your hair again if you put stuff through it.”

“Stylist?” Treize asked, turning to blink at the older man worriedly. He shrugged a moment later and put the bottle down untouched. “All right,” he agreed. “It was about due for a trim in any case.”

Zechs laughed. “Hmm,” he replied, non-committal. “We’ll see. So,” he began, shifting in the chair, “given you’ve made rather a hash of my careful planning by getting your picture splashed all over the gossip columns, we’re going to have to speed up the process of announcing you to the world. Heero is compiling your background as fast as he can and my sister, Marie and Doro are stalling with the talk shows to buy us time. We’ll be holding a press conference and a photo shoot this evening in the Presence chamber to make the announcement. You’ve got about twelve hours to prepare.”

Treize raised an eyebrow, tilting his head. “Hence the Court dresser and the stylist, I presume?” he asked.

“Rather,” Zechs replied. “We’ve got to stop you looking quite so much exactly like you,” he explained. “Sounding like it, too,” he added. “Do me a favour – start talking to me in French,” he ordered. “I need you to pick up your accent again for the press.”

Treize winced visibly. “Zechs, my head already hurts,” he complained. “And talking to you now will not affect how I speak this evening.”

“It will when you’ve talked in nothing but French all day,” Zechs chuckled. “You wait and see.”

The younger man settled for grumbling wordlessly as he began cleaning up his room.

A knock on the door announced the arrival of Zechs’s promised coffee and the King stood to take the tray from the hands of the butler with a quiet thank you. He set it down on the desk, pressed the plunger on the cafetiere and poured the rich brew into one of the cups, adding cream and sugar automatically.

He held out the mug, smiling when Treize took it in one hand and sipped it without ever stopping in his tidying. “You might want to crack the window,” the King suggested lightly. “Not that I’m suggesting it reeks of one of your weirder habits in here, but….”

Treize shot the King a look over his shoulder that might have meant anything and nothing. “Given I was with your son and your nephew, shouldn’t you be thanking me for only smoking?” he asked, a little shortly. “I have a fair few ‘weirder habits’ I could have introduced them to, after all.” He stopped by his bed, looked at it critically for a moment, then set the coffee mug down so he could bend and use both hands to start stripping the rumpled sheets.

Zechs looked back levelly. “Just recall whom they have as parents before you do, hmm?” he suggested softly. “I’m rather protective of Aleks and Doro will gut you slowly and painfully for it if you corrupt her darling Felix.”

Treize laughed but the sound was short and entirely lacking in mirth. “What’s to corrupt?” he asked. He nodded at the book by Zechs’s elbow. “Where do you think that came from?”

“Good question,” Zechs replied promptly. “And one I was going to ask you.” He’d noticed the book whilst Treize was in the shower and been rather taken aback by its distinctly adult content. It wasn’t like Treize to leave such things lying around so carelessly.

“I know you didn’t buy it and I know it didn’t come out of the library,” the King continued, picking the volume up, turning it over in his hand, and then flicking it open to a random page. “Felix gave it to you, you say?” he asked. “Can I ask why? If you needed something to amuse yourself with you should have come to me,” he said reproachfully. “I don’t like the idea of you approaching one of the children.”

The moment he finished talking, Zechs knew his comments hadn’t been appreciated by the other man. The temperature between them dropped noticeably, the line of Treize’s shoulders stiffening as he dropped his bundled up sheets into his laundry basket.

“No, you can’t ask why,” the redhead replied coldly, “but you can carry on proving that assumption is the father of mistakes. What makes you so certain the loan was my idea?”

The King opened his mouth to answer his friend, stopped as Treize’s question really registered, and closed it again, frowning as he thought. He had been presuming Treize had gone to Felix uninvited, but if that wasn’t the case….

“I take it you didn’t ask for the book, then?” the King asked carefully, and was answered with a firm headshake.

“No, I didn’t.” Treize finished his tidying, picked up his coffee cup and turned to lean against his dressing table again as he looked at the older man steadily. “On the subject of assumptions and mistakes, may I offer you a word of advice?” he said quietly. “Stop referring to Felix as ‘one of the children.’ It’s incredibly insulting. He’s a fully qualified doctor and less than two years younger than I am. I’m sure it’s only habit on your part but if he hasn’t already begun resenting it, he will shortly,” Treize explained. “I would.”

Zechs raised an eyebrow, shaking his head. “I’m sure you would,” he allowed. He pushed to his feet, collecting up his suit bag. “Felix isn’t you,” he said flatly. “He knows well enough what I mean by calling him that.”

The King ignored Treize’s surprised expression and reached for the door. “Come on; you’ll be late,” he ordered.

It was only as the younger man stepped out into the corridor past him that Zechs realised what Treize had really been hinting at. ‘Stop referring to Felix as ‘one of the children. He’s less than two years younger than I am,’ flashed though his mind again, and he looked down at his companion in comprehension. Yes, Treize would resent being called a child, particularly from Zechs, who had always been younger than he was.

“I’m sorry,” the King offered softly. “I wasn’t including you in that,” he said.

Treize turned his head and blinked before answering. “Not yet,” he agreed, and wouldn’t be drawn further on the subject.

Chapter Text

Une arrived with Trowa whilst Treize was in the middle of being fitted by the Court dresser, a folder in one hand and the other tucked into her second in command’s easily.

“Good morning, Milliardo,” she greeted the King politely, nodding her neatly styled head at the blond man where he was sitting, watching, from a wooden chair. “How are things coming along?” she asked, not wasting any time.

“Hello, Anne, Trowa,” Zechs greeted in turn. “Coffee?” he offered, pouring when he got two grateful nods. “Reasonably,” he answered Une’s question. “Heero is seeding the web and the databases with false information and Quatre is doing the same with the financial records. They should be done in another hour or so. They had the top-level stuff a while ago, ready for when the talk-shows ended.”

“Good,” Une said, then took the cup of coffee that Zechs held out, turning on one heel to look at Treize, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was standing on a raised podium half-naked and with a pretty blonde woman kneeling at his feet.

“Good morning, Treize,” she said warmly. “Could you look at these for me and tell me which of them you think is most suited to being your mother?”

She held out the folder as she spoke, and Treize took it gingerly, his eyes wide at the greeting and his movements wary for risk of being stuck in a delicate area of his anatomy with one of the pins the dresser was wielding.

“I’m sorry?” he asked blankly, looking first as Une and then at Zechs. “My mother?”

“Yes, your mother.” Une smiled at him. “If we’re going to tell the world that you are Treize Khushrenada’s son, what do you think their first question will be?” she asked. “We talked about this at dinner, if you recall?” she prompted delicately, raising perfectly shaped eyebrows at him as she did so.

Treize glanced away from her, flushing a little at the reminder. “Yes,” he answered immediately. “Of course.” He turned his attention to folder he was holding, leaving Une to turn to Zechs with a curious expression.

Zechs laughed softly, the tone of it a touch cynical. “Don’t mind him,” he told Une and Trowa. “He’s sleep-deprived and hung-over. I’m expecting his brain to join the land of the living sometime today but it hasn’t happened yet.”

It was the truth – Treize had been half a step behind himself all morning, functioning on too little rest and too much coffee – but from the brief glance he shot the King, he didn’t appreciate Zechs phrasing it quite like that.

“Hung over?” Trowa asked, joining the conversation for the first time as he turned to rake his green eyes over Treize speculatively. “How did that happen? I thought he was out with Aleks and Felix?”

“I was,” Treize replied, looking up from the folder to answer the question before Zechs could answer for him.

“Oh.” Trowa scowled for a moment, his expression turning a little accusative. “Well, forgive me for saying this, general, but there’s a hole in your story. Neither Aleks and Felix could have kept pace with you well enough for you to still be suffering, particularly when they’re both fine this morning.”

Treize returned Trowa’s look evenly. “That might because they both knew what they were drinking. Since neither of them was courteous enough to warn me, I didn’t,” he said, repeating the explanation he’d given Zechs first thing that morning.

Trowa tilted his head. “Do you mean the hydroponic spirits?” he asked, and then shook his head. “What has that got to do with it? The boys would have been drinking the same thing, whether they were aware of it or not – the Blue Moon serves nothing else. It doesn’t explain why you’re such a mess when they aren’t. Aleks hasn’t been allowed to drink for long enough to develop any sort of tolerance and Felix has his father’s head for alcohol. You, on the other hand, were Romefeller. You’ve been drinking with meals for as long as you’ve been able to sit for them, and socially since you were, what, eleven?”

“Twelve,” Treize corrected tightly. He tapped the folder against the palm of his free hand, sighing. “Is there a point to this?” he asked curtly. “Given we’ve yet to be formally introduced, your inquisition is a little less than polite.”

Trowa smiled immediately. “Pleased to meet you, general, I’m Trowa Barton,” he said, without missing a beat. “And the point of this is that either you were intending to get blind drunk last night and you drank about three times what either Aleks or Felix did, or alcohol wasn’t your only poison. Which was it?”

Treize’s gaze hardened immediately, his body stiffening regardless of the dresser at his feet. He locked his eyes with Trowa’s for a moment, then shrugged roughly. “Does it matter?” he asked shortly.

Trowa returned the shrug in a far more casual fashion. “Not especially,” he replied. “I’m sure you’re more than capable of deciding what to do with yourself. I was just curious. I’d never gotten the impression that you were the type, that’s all.”

Treize blinked, taken off guard. “For what?” he asked blankly.

“Drowning your sorrows,” Trowa said. “Shows what I know, I guess.”

“Apparently so,” Treize agreed curtly. He glanced down at the Court Dresser intently. “Excuse me,” he instructed and stepped down off the podium as soon as she pushed to her feet, muttering about ‘being finished anyway’.

Setting the folder down for a moment, he stripped out of the half-pinned suit he was wearing and pulled his own clothes on roughly, then picked up the folder again and flicked it open to a photograph near the back.

“This one,” Treize said to Une, offering her the folder rather more roughly than was strictly warranted. “She’s the only one of the group I actually slept with in the six months before I died – the others I hadn’t been near for years.”

Une took the folder, looking down automatically at the photo of a pretty teenage girl with strawberry-blonde hair. “Sabine de Maury. It’s a good match,” Une approved. “She was French by birth, unimportant enough that she might have been ignored and she died about twenty years ago having never married. She even looks right.”

She turned the folder in her hands, showing it to Zechs and Trowa. “Blue eyes and that hair… If you get your stylist to put a blond wash through Treize’s hair, Milliardo, that will heighten the resemblance without it being too obvious.”

The King looked down at the photo and nodded. “That’s easily done and it would be nothing to let it fade out over time. Is it necessary though?” he asked, looking at his friend. “Leia Barton was a blonde and Marie’s hair is positively copper coloured. I was actually going to suggest reinforcing the red tone of Treize’s hair and taking the blond out completely, to heighten the resemblance between the two of them. If we keep it dyed in until the summer and then let it ‘bleach’ in the sun…?”

“It’s a thought,” Une agreed. She looked up. “Treize, do you…?” she started to ask, and stopped when she realised that the person she was addressing wasn’t in the room with them any more. “Trowa?” she said, puzzled.

Trowa shrugged lightly. “He went that way,” he said calmly, pointing out of the door and down the passing corridor outside it to the left. “I would have stopped him but I didn’t think it was necessary,” he added, his eyes guileless.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Zechs muttered, shaking his head “Wait here a moment, will you?” he asked Une and Trowa. “I’ll go and find him.”

“All right,” Une agreed, to Zechs’s retreating back, and then turned to the man still with her with a questioning look. “Trowa?”

Trowa kept his gaze on the path Treize had taken for a moment, then looked back at his lover levelly. “Was he the type, Anne?” he asked quietly, referencing the apparently off-hand question he’d posed to Treize and which, notably, had never been answered.

Une blinked before shaking her head. “He drank, yes, and I always suspected he dabbled with other things, but never like that. Never because he needed to.” She stepped towards Trowa, holding out her hand, and he took it immediately, drawing her closer as her lovely eyes closed in remembrance. “I don’t think I ever saw him drunk,” she continued, voice softening. “Not truly. Tipsy, sometimes, enough to relax him but never so that he was out of control. Milliardo might have – he knew him longer and they shared things I had no part in – but I never did.”

“So it was atypical of him to act as he did last night?” Trowa pressed.

“I’d say so,” Une agreed. She looked up. “I don’t think Milliardo had realised it until you said it, though. He seemed to have believed Treize’s story. Are you sure you’re not reading too much into things?”

Trowa shook his head. “You know better, Anne. I was watching Khushrenada whilst I was talking to him. He knew what he was doing last night and he did it deliberately. If he’d been inclined to it before, I’d have let it go, but given he wasn’t, I have to wonder what prompted him. I don’t think the boys, no matter how much they encouraged him, could have influenced him that strongly and I don’t think they would have tried, to be honest.”

“Neither do I,” Une agreed quietly. “He seemed perfectly fine when I saw him at dinner the other day,” she said sadly.

Trowa drew her closer still, folding his arms around her, grateful as always that she had learned to let him support her this way sometimes. “A lot has happened since then. I’ll see what I can learn this afternoon. Milliardo did say he wanted me to talk to him.”

Une nodded. “Thank you.”

“Save that a moment,” Trowa replied. “I’m probably going to regret this but make Khushrenada an offer this afternoon sometime, will you?”

“What offer?” Une asked warily, stepping back from her lover’s hold and looking up at him intently.

“See if he wants to stay with us for a few days when all this fuss has blown over. The Palace can be a real hothouse sometimes and, contrary to Sally’s opinion, a completely unfamiliar environment might be a kindness for him at the moment. This place has to be full of ghosts.”

Une’s eyes widened. “You mean that?” she asked, startled.

Trowa nodded. “As I said, I’ll probably regret it, but I lived through the consequences of General Khushrenada having a meltdown once before. I have no wish to do so again, now, if I can prevent it.”

“Well, that is your job, Preventer,” Une teased, her sudden smile glowing and delighted. “Thank you,” she said, and this time Trowa nodded to the words without protest.

________________________________________

Treize, it turned out, hadn’t gone very far. Zechs found him less than a hundred yards from where they’d started, sitting on one of the little chairs placed before a floor to ceiling picture window that gazed over the rain-washed gardens.

“This time yesterday, you were your son,” Treize said quietly, as Zechs approached him slowly. The King was surprised to hear his friend speak – he would have sworn the younger man was completely lost to his reverie.

“Oh?” Zechs asked, skirting around the edge of the second chair to stand with his back to the window so that he was face on to the redhead. “How did that happen?”

Treize merely shook his head, either not willing or nor able to offer any explanation, and Zechs found himself sighing in exasperation.

It had been the King’s intention that morning to leave Treize to the mercies of the Court Dresser and Stylist to go and assist the rest of the family with the preparations for that evening. There was a ridiculous amount that needed doing before they could even attempt the press conference they’d called – so much, in fact, that they should never have called it at all on such short notice. It would take every hand helping that could to manage it in any sort of style. As the lead for the conference, and the only one who really knew what the focus was going to be, Zechs should have been in the thick of the organising.

In the wake of his misstep whilst leaving the younger man’s room, however, Zechs hadn’t felt able to leave Treize alone with a team of complete strangers. The unintended slight seemed to have thrown the former general and the distant silence Treize had sunk into had left him peculiarly distracted all morning, needing constant prodding to keep his attention where it should have been. What was most worrying was that there had been a number of occasions when the Court Dresser hadn’t been able to get a response from him at all and it had needed Zechs’s voice to bring Treize back from wherever he kept drifting off to.

It was worrying, and it was frustrating. Treize had always kept his own council about personal matters, as reticent with his thoughts and feelings as he was demonstrative physically. As much as he’d listened for hours at a time to Zechs talking out his own troubles, the redhead had very rarely ever opened up himself. The King had been used to his friend’s hands on his body for years before he’d ever heard Treize mention any emotional involvement.

It had been, and, it seemed, still was, one of Treize’s more irritating traits. Unflappable inscrutability was a wonderful trait in a nobleman and an expected one in a general but it was dreadful in a lover. Coupled with Treize’s tendency to seek comfort through physical contact, it had led to some spectacular misunderstandings between the two men, with Treize needing Zechs closest at exactly the moments when the blond felt least like being around his friend.

Zechs had decided whilst he was waiting for Treize to wake that he wasn’t going to allow it to continue now. He was long past the adolescent angst that had seen him stand it before and his relationship with Noin had shown him how much difference it made when both partners were honest with each other. If Treize wanted any sort of future for the two of them, particularly if he wanted that future to include them as lovers, then he was going to have to learn to talk.

It was a stance that Sally Po had backed up whole-heartedly when she’d spoken to him the previous morning. She’d been concerned by Treize’s reluctance to share with her during his medical exam and dismayed to learn that it was characteristic rather than just an understandable concern about talking to a stranger. In her words, Treize had been adamant about refusing counselling when she’d offered it and downright hostile when she’d pointed out that he was a war veteran and should be treated as such.

Treize, it seemed, had made his decision about his need to talk. This was the third time in four days he’d simply walked away from a conversation he didn’t want to have, and that was without mentioning his response to the two of them arguing the previous afternoon.

The first two occasions, Zechs could understand, and he was in no position to comment on the day before, but this latest occurrence was different.

“You can’t keep doing this,” the King said to his friend now, letting his voice settle unconsciously into the firm tones he’d developed in his son’s teenage years.

It took Treize a moment to realise he was being talked to again. His gaze focussed on Zechs’s slowly and his expression was puzzled. “Pardon?” he asked. “Doing what?”

The King pushed away from the window and took a few steps to settle on the chair next to Treize, leaning forward and gesturing with one hand. “Walking away when something bothers you,” Zechs explained. “You’re near to making a habit of it and you mustn’t do that. It doesn’t help anyone, least of all you.”

“Oh? What would you prefer I do?” Treize asked politely, his expression neutral.

Zechs shrugged. “Open up a little,” he said. “There’s no one living here who doesn’t want to help you, Treize, and there’s no one here who hasn’t had problems of their own. We’ll get it if you tell us you need to change the subject and we’ll give you space if you say you need a minute to breathe,” he promised. “You just have to trust us.”

“Really?” Treize returned dryly. “Just like that, hmm?”

Zechs bridled – he’d never taken well to being mocked and that, unquestioningly, was what Treize was doing. The former general hadn’t moved a muscle, his tone of voice hadn’t shifted and his expression was still completely blank but there was something in the back of his eyes and in his choice of words that practically screamed that he thought the King was an idiot.

It took Zechs a second or two to answer the other man, and he had to draw a deep breath to level his voice when he did. “No,” he said, his tone reproving. “But you might start with me,” he suggested.

Treize raised an eyebrow. “I might,” he agreed. He looked away a moment later, and waved away Zechs’s shocked response before the King could voice it. “I do,” he corrected wearily. “I’m just….” He shrugged eloquently, and then shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does,” Zechs countered gently, the peaking irritation fading away in the face of the other man’s discomfort. “Of course it does. What were you going to say?” he asked.

Treize shook his head again. “It doesn’t matter,” he repeated.

The King sighed. “This would be exactly what I meant, you know,” he said. “Something set you off in the Dressing room and something is troubling you now. I might be able to help, but we’ll never know unless you tell me what the problem is in the first place.” He hesitated for a moment, then tilted his head to one side as he made a decision. He leaned forward a little more to put his hand on Treize’s knee and grip firmly. “You don’t have to be perfect anymore, Treize. No one here expects you to be more than human.”

Treize stiffened, whether at the contact or the words, Zechs didn’t know. “I know that,” he said sharply. “Your entire family is watching me and waiting for me to slip!”

“That’s not true,” Zechs countered swiftly. “And it’s not fair of you to say that it is.”

The reply won the King a hollow laugh. “Then tell me your sister wasn’t positively dancing on the ceiling this morning when she told you what I did last night,” Treize demanded, eyes flashing. “You can’t, and we both know it.”

Zechs let his friend go and sat back to gesture dismissively with both hands. “And Relena’s a bitch sometimes. What’s your point?” he asked in turn. “She might have had cause, Treize, and her behaviour does nothing to justify yours. In fact, the two aren’t in any way connected.” He gave it a moment, watching Treize for the minute tells that would give away his true feelings, then shrugged again. “So?”

Treize shifted in his chair. “So, what?”

“What set you off in the Dressing room?” the King asked. “You trust me, remember?”

The younger man shot him a glance brimming with betrayal, then shrugged roughly. “Does that mean I have to tell you everything?” he asked. “Because you have to know that won’t happen.”

Zechs smiled. “Would you be you if it did?” he wondered. “I don’t expect you to tell me everything – notice how I haven’t asked you about last night and what happened, or how you got dragged into it in the first place – but I do want you to try being a little more honest with me. This would be a good start, since I’m going to have to go back and apologise to the poor Dresser on your behalf.”

“No, you aren’t. I’ll make my own apologies,” Treize insisted. “I’m not unaware I was horribly rude.”

“That’s good,” the King agreed. “You’re avoiding the question.”

Treize pushed to his feet suddenly, moving towards the window and putting a hand against it. “Yes,” he admitted. “Change the subject.”

Zechs stood up a moment after his friend, following him across the space and stopping behind him close enough to feel the heat from his body. “Sorry?” he asked, his hand pausing in mid-air as Treize’s words made him rethink his intention to touch his friend.

“You said I could simply tell you if I wanted to change the subject,” Treize murmured, his breath condensing on the cold glass he was leaning on as he spoke. “I want to. Change the subject,” he repeated, “and back off.”

The older man had no way to know whether Treize meant his last instruction literally or metaphorically but that didn’t stop him taking a step away from the redhead as he considered the rest of his orders. He was ninety percent certain that Treize was testing him, asking him to drop this topic because Zechs had told him he could, but it was only ninety percent and that wasn’t certain enough for Zechs to risk calling him on it.

A certain amount of tension easing from Treize the moment Zechs moved away made the King more inclined to think the redhead was playing him fair. The King hadn’t stopped to think that a taller, heavier-set man crowding him from behind might trigger Treize’s unusual form of claustrophobia, but he should have. It was, after all, exactly what Treize had implied the guard had done to him and Zechs would have had to be blind to have missed the fact that Treize kept gravitating to windows when he was stressed by something.

The fact that Treize had told him to move, though, meant that the younger man was doing what Zech had asked of him first in his rooms and again just now. It made the King more inclined to buy Treize’s wish to drop the topic they were talking about as well, and he did so with a sigh and a shrug. “All right,” he said casually. “What do you want to talk about?”

Treize shifted his weight from one foot to the other for a moment, then turned around and looked at the King. “I don’t particularly,” he said quietly. “Zechs, I will tell you what I was thinking about. I just… I need time to phrase it so that I don’t say something I don’t mean.”

Zechs raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “You need time to phrase something?” he asked doubtfully. “You?”

“It happens,” Treize said dryly. “I did pre-write my speeches and rehearse my conferences, you know,” he reminded.

Zechs nodded. “Oh, I know. Or don’t you remember who you used to rehearse them at?”

It won him what might have been a smile, which had been the intention, and the ghostly expression made Zechs step forward again to touch his friend lightly on the shoulder. “You should know, though, that I’m not nearly so thin skinned as I used to be. If you start by telling me that you’re still half-drunk and that you don’t mean to mortally offend me, I’ll probably believe you.”

“I’m not still half-drunk,” Treize protested mildly. He leaned back against the window and fixed his gaze over his Zechs’s shoulder, looking at something on the far side of the room. “I don’t mean to mortally offend you,” he said softly, “or Une, or anyone else, but in the course of looking at those pictures this morning a thought occurred to me that rather knocked me.”

Zechs raised his eyebrows curiously. “That was obvious,” he said. “What thought?”

Treize hesitated a moment, then shrugged. “That none of you ever looked.” He flicked his gaze to Zechs’s for a moment. “I’m not,” he continued, looking away again, “entirely sure how that makes me feel,” he admitted.

“Looked?” Zechs repeated Treize’s words blindly, then shook his head. “What do you mean, we never looked? Looked for what?”

“My children,” Treize said quietly, shrugging a little. “I was careful, Zechs, when I could be but you said it yourself when you told me about Mariemeia – as much as I tried, as much as I was determined not to, it’s not so shocking an idea that I fathered a child.” He pushed away from the window to step closer to Zechs. “Did I?” he asked, and his voice was vibrating with the intensity of the question.

Zechs drew a slow breath, holding it a moment before he let it go and answered the younger man. “Not to my knowledge, no,” he replied gently. “It’s part of the reason Marie is so uncertain of her origins. She shouldn’t be an only child – not if she was a natural conception. We understood that long before you explained it to me the other night.”

“To your knowledge, Zechs?” Treize asked, matching the King’s tone. “I come back to my original thought – none of you ever looked.” He flicked his gaze back to the King’s and held it there, pinning Zech in place and demanding an answer. “Why not?”

Zechs stilled for a moment, then shook his head. “Treize,” he said quietly. “How on Earth would we have done that?” He gestured to stop him when it looked as though Treize was going to reply. “Seriously, how? A general call for any children of yours to come forward would have resulted in us being overwhelmed with frauds looking for attention and money and there was no possible way for us to conduct a more discreet enquiry of any thoroughness. We didn’t have half the information we’d have needed.”

Treize looked up at Zechs with a growing expression of annoyance. “You must have had some of it, Zechs,” he said shortly. “Une just managed to hand me a dozen photos of women she knows I slept with.”

The King tilted his head doubtfully. “You’d have had me compare notes with Une on how many times you betrayed me?” he asked coolly.

Treize blanched, his body jerking back reflexively. “I didn’t…!” he started, and Zechs cut him off by gesturing sharply.

“Yes, Treize, you did,” he said curtly. “If you consider that we were ever in any sort of relationship, then, yes, you did. I’m not saying that you didn’t have mitigating reasons,” he continued, “and I’m not saying that I don’t understand what they were but that doesn’t change the facts.”

The younger man’s eyes were wide in his face, his expression shocked and his skin pale. He shook his head a little in wordless denial, then opened his mouth to try to speak again. “Zechs – Miri – I swear I didn’t….”

The King stopped him just as he had the first time. “If you say so,” he agreed tiredly. “This is hardly the time to be having this conversation in any case.” He pushed the hand he’d gestured with back through his fringe, mussing the silky strands, and tilted his head back for a moment as he closed his eyes. “Regardless of whether I’d have been willing to raise that topic with Anne or not,” he said, when he was looking at his friend again “it wouldn’t have made much difference. We could only have traced those we knew about and I refuse to believe you confessed to every single person you ever took to bed. For one thing, by your own admission, your own recall isn’t clear.”

“It isn’t,” Treize confirmed softly.

“Well, then.” Zechs shrugged eloquently and shook his head dismissively. “There was no possible way,” he insisted.

The younger man looked like he was going to argue the point further for a moment, and then he sighed, the tension easing out of his shoulders as he shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I have no right to judge anything any of you did. I’m just… I’m troubled by the idea that there are children out there of mine, of my family, that have no idea what that means. I’d hate to think any of them suffered because I wasn’t smart enough to leave arrangements when I knew I should have. I think,” he said diffidently, “I think I just assumed that you, Une and Dorothy cared enough about me to step in if the situation ever arose.”

Zechs had frowned at Treize’s first words, caught between curiosity and concern and finding himself a little touched by the fact that his friend should feel such responsibility for children who might not even exist and who were surely grown men and women by now if they did.

The younger man’s final sentence, however, blasted the gentler feelings away under a wave of shock. “Excuse me?” Zechs demanded coldly, wondering if Treize really were only phrasing things badly. “I think you’ll find we did step in!”

He glared at his friend, not at all mollified by that fact that Treize was blinking repeatedly and shaking his head, or by his hesitant, “I’m sorry?”

“We did step in,” Zechs repeated. “Do you think Mariemeia raised herself?” he snapped. “Somebody had to feed, clothe and care for her. Eight year olds – even tortured genius eight year olds – do not survive alone!” He glared angrily. “And, yes, it would have been nice of you to plan ahead but colour me shocked that you didn’t bother. That would have meant you realising that your reckless playboy attitude could affect anyone other than yourself and your plans!”

Treize’s expression had shifted as Zechs snarled at him, crossing from shocked and uncertain to disbelieving and angry. He shook his head again, and this time the gesture was short and curt. “I’m boundlessly grateful for your care of my daughter,” he said shortly, “but I’d be even more grateful if you’d recall that I had no knowledge that she even could exist! I have no idea whether I slept with her mother or not, and even less idea as to whether I did so willingly – a theme that was entirely too common in Romefeller. I know you hated it,” he snapped. “I know that. You made it expressly, perfectly clear every chance you got, but I had no choice and you should probably be thanking me for sparing you the same sort of ‘reckless playboy attitude’! Or do you want me to admit that you were all of thirteen the first time I turned down an offer of support in a vote for a night with you?” Treize demanded.

The King blanched. “What?” he asked, the wind taken clean out of his sails. “How old?”

“Thirteen,” Treize repeated, and his flash of temper seemed to drain away as well, leaving him looking tired and miserable. “You’d been an officer for about three weeks.” He shrugged. “It wasn’t unusual, Zechs. Une was a little older, I think, but Dors certainly wasn’t. She was precocious in a lot of ways, and she paid for it even as it made her an apt pupil. It was all I could do, with her, to be sure that her first few times weren’t completely nightmarish. She got some pleasure out of them, I think,” he said, and looked away, his expression suggesting he was bone weary.

Zechs growled wordlessly, thinking dark thoughts about Felix, Aleks and Helen being subject to such a regime and what he would have done to anyone who tried, and so missed the exact implications of what Treize was saying to him.

When he looked back at his friend, it was with another question on his lips – one he’d never thought to ask, and probably should have years before. “Treize?” he said quietly. “How old were you?”

The King had never imagined half of the reality behind the Romefeller Foundation, never really thought at all in previous years that Treize was subject to anything more than an overactive sex drive and the morals of a cat. Certainly, it had never occurred to him to wonder if his friend did it all willingly, and he was still having trouble with the idea that Treize’s parents, Duke Odell and Duchess Anna, would have let their only child be used in such a fashion. They’d been fanatical about their son – the notion that they’d let his innocence be bartered away for favours from men like Dermail was not squaring in his head, every parental instinct he had rebelling against it.

“Not as young as Dors,” Treize replied softly, and Zechs let himself relax a little. He hadn’t thought so, but it paid to check.

In truth, he had another reason to think that Treize had been left alone until he was more of an age to cope, and that was the fact that he and Zechs had shared a very unique relationship as children.

Treize’s tendency towards physical affection had lead to him being completely open with his little blond houseguest, never much hiding anything that was happening with him. As he hit his teenage years, Treize had been careful to tone down some of the demonstrative affection he showed his friend, in deference to it no longer being as sweetly innocent as it once had been, but he’d done so with full explanations as to why it was necessary. He’d also, always, answered every question Zechs put to him on the subject with complete honesty, including those the boy asked when Treize wanted to be alone for a while, disappearing into his bedroom and locking the door behind himself.

The trend had continued as Zechs hit his own adolescence. Zechs had crystal clear recall of the conversations he'd had with his older friend, turning to Treize with every new development, with every unsettling feeling and overriding impulse. He'd been met with sympathetic, interested understanding and un-judging answers every time, however awkward and invasive his questions had been. There'd even, as Zechs aged, and graduated the Academy, and learned more of his friend's personal life, been the occasional, very gentle, hands-on demonstration.

In fact, it was the case that the first orgasm Zechs could recall ever having, he had woken on the edge of with Treize’s arm around his shoulders and his voice soft in Zechs’s ear, encouraging him to finish when the blond wanted to die from embarrassment and gently guiding him as to how.

It was Treize's words afterward, and his wide-eyed, slightly dazed expression, that were making Zechs so sure now that Treize hadn't been subjected to Romefeller as early as others. Though he'd told Zechs he wasn't still a virgin some months before – and, actually, couldn't have been for there to be any truth to Mariemeia's claims - at that point, Treize had been a long, long way from the jaded, careless hedonist he would become, and his reaction had proved it.

As Zechs had floated in the haze, Treize had shaken his head slowly and sighed, “Oh, Miri, I’ve never seen anyone so….” It suggested to the King that Treize's experiences to then had been mostly the odd rough tumble with one of his friends or the occasional girl he'd picked up somewhere, as would have been expected of any eighteen year old officer. The sordid sexual transactions of Romefeller were still in his future.

Pushing his memories aside, the King shook himself now, and turned an analytical gaze on his friend.

He didn’t like the results, but then, he’d known he wouldn’t and there was nothing much he could do about it in any case. Treize had set himself up for today with his behaviour the night before and there was little more than he already had that Zechs could do to make it better.

What he could do, though, was try to settle things down between the two of them, even if it meant giving an apology he wasn’t entirely sure was his to make. The King had learned that from his time with Noin, as well, that sometimes it was necessary to offer an olive branch however it could be and be damned to who should or shouldn’t be doing the offering or whose fault the fall out had been in the first place.

Accordingly, the blond put a hand out to the younger man invitingly and found a soft smile for him. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I know we’re pushing you. I’d let you have the day to yourself if I could.”

It took Treize a moment to answer him, his sapphire eyes refocusing on the King from somewhere Zechs couldn’t have followed him. “I’d need more than a day, I think, but thank you,” he replied. “None of this is quite real yet, I’m afraid, except when it’s too much so. I keep alternating between hoping and dreading that I’ll wake up and wondering whether this isn’t all the products of my dying neurons being electrocuted to death.” He shrugged tiredly. “Sable was a friend,” he said, completely out of the blue, “as much as anyone as fanatically Romefeller as she was could be.”

Zechs blinked, caught on the hop by the change of subject. There was certain amount of gallows humour in Treize’s confession that he thought they were all death shadows conjured by his tortured psyche, and he might have attempted to run with it if Treize hadn’t added his last comment.

As he had, though… “Sable?” Zechs asked, puzzled by the reference.

“Sabine de Maury,” Treize elaborated. “The woman I chose as my ‘mother’. She was a friend of mine.”

There wasn’t much Zechs could say to that. “Ah,” he commented, as noncommittally as he could manage. “Useful to know.” He glanced down at his watch, grimaced at the time, then tilted his head in the direction of the dressing room. “We need to get a move on, unless you want to attend this press call with wet hair and a half-finished suit. Une can pump you for details on your ‘mother’ as we go,” he said, using the tone of his voice to make the comment light with intended humour.

Treize didn’t respond to Zechs’s attempt, although he did give the window one last wistful glance before walking towards his friend on quiet feet. “Is that necessary?” he asked, resigned. “I’d like more than ten minutes to process that she’s dead before I have to talk about her.”

The King winced instantly, realising that his ill-advised stab at teasing had landed him smack in the middle of the subject Treize had been trying to hint around. “Oh, Christ,” the older man sighed, suddenly feeling as exhausted as Treize looked as the roller coaster that had been the last week thundered down on him. “I give up,” he muttered rebelliously. “Whoever said the road to Hell was paved with good intentions was smarter than they knew.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Treize agreed, before falling silent and closing his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said a few seconds later, his voice shadowed and soft. “I’m not trying to be obstructionist and I will talk to Une if you need me to, I just…” He stopped, swallowing heavily. “The irony of it is, the story you want to tell might almost be true, if given a suitably Romefeller twist. Sable was breeding stock more than she was anything else and the last conversation I had with her was about the rumour mill matching the two of us for her first contract.”

Zechs opened his mouth, shook his head and closed it again, not having the first clue as to what to say. Aside from anything else, Treize had just dropped on him an aspect of the Romefeller Foundation that he’d had no idea had existed. The idea of the young woman he’d seen in the photo being regarded in much the same light as a pedigree bitch was staggering; the idea that Treize had known and participated in such treatment even more so. The younger man had always been vocal in his support of equality between the genders, almost to the point of being openly feminist.

Zechs fought for something to say, and in the end found himself only channelling his politically-minded little sister as he asked, “How common knowledge would that have been?” as neutrally as he could make himself.

Treize shrugged a little. “Fairly, amongst the right circles. I’d heard it and Sabine was almost certain it was on the cards.” He shrugged again. “She hadn’t been told directly, and I hadn’t been asked, but then, we wouldn’t have been until it was near to a done deal. Ask Dors – if anyone had heard it, she would have.”

Zechs nodded. “I might just do that. There’s no point to circulating a story about a romance between the two of you if there’s an actual story out there that will work just as well.”

He started walking as he spoke, knowing Treize would follow him and also knowing that they really did need to push on with the afternoon. Things were progressing far more slowly than they needed to be.

Treize nodded. “I’ll tell Une what I can,” he promised.

Zechs tilted his head, considering. “It might be quicker to have you tell Heero and Quatre directly, all things considered. Unless,” he stopped as a thought occurred to him. “Did Doro know the girl?”

The question made Treize blink in momentary surprise, before he nodded. “Oh, definitely. They had a lot in common and, as I said, Sable was my friend, one of Johan's circle. The only reason I never introduced you to her was that she was Romefeller to her core and I didn’t trust her enough to risk your identity slipping to her.”

It was a strange notion to Zechs that Treize could regard as a friend a woman he professed not to have trusted but he let it go in favour of smiling at the younger man’s answer. “Oh, good,” he said. “We can let Doro talk to Heero and Quatre about her, then. Spare you the trouble and save the time.”

Treize raised a speculative eyebrow, then gestured his agreement. He passed through the dressing room door Zechs held for him with a smile of acknowledgement, then took a deep breath as he went immediately to the Dresser to offer his apologies and then to Une and Trowa to wish them a proper good morning.

The Dresser melted under his charm, exactly as Zechs had known she would, and Une’s smile was positively glowing, particularly when Trowa switched the conversation into French as he’d been asked to do and Treize quickly began laughing at something the older man had said.

Seeing that Treize seemed to be in good hands and was relaxing for the first time all morning, Zechs finally made his escape and crossed the Palace to find the rest of his family and find out how things were coming along.

Chapter Text

Some three hours later, Une and Trowa handed Treize off again, and this time to a far less congenial companion.

Citing the fact that they needed to prepare for the Press call themselves, the Preventer commander and her partner had left the little sitting room they’d been sharing with Treize for the last hour and went to join Zechs wherever he’d disappeared off to. It had left Treize alone for the first time all day, and the quiet, in conjunction with his lack of sleep and the soft cushions of the armchair he was sitting in, soon combined to have him dozing lightly, his newly cut and coloured hair bright against the deep blue of the chair.

Wrapped in his sleep was how Relena found him some forty-five minutes after Une and Trowa had departed, with not even the snick of the door and the click of her heels on the marble floor of the corridor making him stir from his dreams.

It was so unexpected a sight, the great general defenceless and unguarded, that it made the Princess stop in the doorway and really look at her unexpected houseguest for the first time since his arrival. She couldn’t help feeling a sudden wash of déjà vu as she recalled the first, and last, time she and Treize had ever been alone together, in a room not too dissimilar to this one for all that it had been on the far side of the continent and twenty-five years before.

As she had then, Relena found herself caught by Treize’s appearance and it softened something in her that she wasn’t really aware was there, leaving her with a feeling of distant shock as she acknowledged what she hadn’t ever really considered before.

Somehow, Relena had missed that Treize was human, too. Now, with him less than ten feet away, breathing softly in his sleep and showing the all-too-obvious signs of the strain he was under despite that fact, she had little choice but to pay it notice.

The feeling was wrenching, contrasting as strongly as it did with everything else she knew or felt about him, and the Princess almost dismissed it out of hand as ridiculous, except that she was no longer the spoiled little girl she’d been the last time they’d met. She tried hard, these days, to look for what her husband called ‘the balanced perspective’.

It was difficult, though, with Treize, to make herself do so. There was so much history between them that Relena wasn’t sure they’d ever be able to be more than civil to each other.

Relena had met, or, rather, been introduced to, Treize Khushrenada many times in her formative years. The way she’d been paraded by her Father – the man she had thought was her Father, at least – at dinners and dances and conferences all over the Earth Sphere during her childhood, encountering him had been inevitable. Especially when he and her Father had been political rivals.

She could recall so many conversations between the two men – guarded, carefully polite exchanges about nothing at all that really meant everything. Masters, both of them, and worthy rivals. She’d listened and learned, and learned to loathe.

Treize had set her teeth on edge by the time she’d been twelve, a side effect, in part, of the fact that she wasn’t as immune to him as she’d have liked to be. No one person should have so much influence, so much power, she’d decided, as to be able to control other people the way he did, seemingly on a whim. He changed minds and pushed emotional buttons just by willing it so, and Relena loathed him for it, well aware that she’d near to kill to have the same power.

He smiled and the room lit up around him, thrilled at his pleasure. He laughed and everyone laughed with him, effortlessly and joyfully. He expressed regret and made elderly dowagers cry.

He feigned anger, and dragged the whole world into a war.

Nobody, she was sure, who could do that was human. Not really, not like everyone else. A man, yes – by the time they were competing on the same stage, she’d been far from unaware of that fact, to her disgust – but not human. Not that could hurt and bleed and cry like the rest of them. He gave the impression that he was far above such ordinary things, always perfect.

And he was always perfect. There was never a hair out of place, never a blemish on his skin or a spot on his clothes. He was charismatic, confident, and brilliant. Inhuman.

On the afternoon so strongly in her memories, he’d come to her in her private rooms at the palace in Luxembourg, approaching her with the deference due to her station and his – Queen of the World and self-acknowledged traitor – and calmly, elegantly, removed her crown.

She’d been played, and she known it. He’d used her, as he’d used all those he surrounded himself with. He’d used Dorothy to whisper poison into her ears and twist Dermail’s will. He’d used Weyridge to create the idea of a Queen for Romefeller and he’d used Sanc’s suffering to make Relena angry enough to accept the foundation’s offer.

All the while, with knowledge no one else seemed to have, he’d been waiting for events to unfold, waiting for Relena to make blunder after blunder and waiting, ultimately, for Milliardo to be driven finally mad by the monster of a suit Treize had created and announce his challenge to the Earth.

And when he was done waiting, at precisely the right moment, as perfect in that as everything, Treize had simply stepped from the wings he’d been waiting in and back onto the stage of the world. Relena had suddenly found herself banished like the poor understudy to his brilliance she’d proven to be, from the role he’d used her to create, and back to being nothing more than a little orphan girl.

A quarter century on from that afternoon, Relena still found herself blushing at the scene that had followed her involuntary abdication. Treize had been nothing but charm and kindness to her all day but, caught between an overwhelming sense of relief and equally overwhelming anger, Relena had turned on him like a small, blonde storm cloud and raised hell, gesturing wildly and shouting at him.

Treize, ever the gentlemen, had borne it stoically. He hadn’t moved an inch from his pose by the window as she raged – his back to her, feet apart, hands clasped neatly, head raised – until she’d run completely out of breath, and then it had only been to look over his shoulder at her, sadly.

Relena recalled his expression in that moment with crystal clarity, something she had never forgotten. The smile that had touched Treize’s lips had been wrenchingly melancholy; the look in his eyes soft and shadowed. “Tellement comme votre frère,” he’d murmured and Relena had frozen.

So much like your brother.

The conversation that had followed had shattered so many of Relena’s previously held certainties that she’d departed the palace that day with her head spinning and her ears ringing. In the space of half an hour, she had come to learn that Treize and Zechs had known each other from childhood, that they’d been lovers and friends as well as pilot and commander. She’d learned that her brother had made a life out of his desire to protect her, that Treize had aided and abetted him all the way, and that a good part of the reason Treize had reappeared now was because he believed the last thing Zechs would have wanted was to have Relena stained by the harshness of war.

She’d also learned, from the way he’d moved and spoken, a world of feeling behind his voice and a river of tears born from loss and loneliness weighing every gesture, that Treize was just another man, as frail and fragile as any other.

The princess had shattered the general’s illusion and now, twenty-five years later, the same thing seemed to be happening again.

Over the years that had passed, Relena hadn’t often allowed herself to dwell on that afternoon, more commonly choosing to recall other meetings with her brother’s dead paramour. Accordingly, the image she’d built in her head had been more the faultless dictator of her childhood than the man of that afternoon, and with the resumption of the image had come the resumption of the hatred.

Unfortunately, Relena acknowledged as she moved towards the couch facing the chair and rang for tea before settling herself, it was going to be hard to hate the young man sleeping so peacefully in front of her.

He was very much the same Treize she’d been faced with in Luxembourg, and not only because less than a month had passed for him. As he had then, he looked tired now, shadows under his eyes betraying a recent lack of decent rest, and perhaps not entirely well. There was a set to his mouth that spoke of distress, a tension in his shoulders that suggested upset; Relena wondered what had caused it, if indeed it was anything specific.

Whatever else, though, this Treize was not the rising star she had encountered with Noin in the summer of 195, and he hadn’t been that day in Luxembourg, either. It made her curious as to what had happened to turn the perfect puppet into a living person. Unlike Pinocchio, Relena doubted Treize’s wishes had been answered, then or now.

A discreet knock on her door announced the arrival of the tea things and Relena gestured to the butler to set them down on the table between the couch and the armchair Treize was occupying before dismissing the man silently and pouring for the pair of them herself.

Covert observation of him at breakfast the past couple of days had taught her how Treize drank his hot beverages and she added the single sugar and dash of milk she knew he took with steady hands before rising from the couch and crossing the space between them.

She stopped just within touching distance of him – the space left as much out of respect for the soldier the man had been as out of any personal dislike – and reached to touch the back of one arm with the fingertips of her free hand lightly.

“General?” she asked quietly, at the same time, and wasn’t at all surprised when his eyes snapped open almost immediately.

The rich sapphire was cloudy for the first few seconds, dazed and still half-lost in whatever dream he’d been having, and then it cleared with all the speed Relena had ever seen from her husband or her brother. Treize shifted in his seat immediately, straightening his posture and running one hand through his trimmed hair as though to smooth it back.

“Princess,” he greeted her neutrally. “My apologies. How long was I asleep?”

Relena shook her head in answer, proffering the teacup as soon as he looked co-ordinated enough to take it without spilling it. She’d been wakened from enough mid-day catnaps in her time to know it could take the body a touch longer than the mind to come round.

“I’m not entirely sure, I’m afraid,” she replied, stepping back to the far side of table and collecting her own teacup as she sat back down gracefully. “I’ve only been in the room a matter of minutes.”

Treize nodded, then bent his head slightly to take a first sip of his tea. He looked slightly surprised to find it was exactly to taste and Relena covered her sudden feeling of smugness with a smile she’d known for years was disarming in its innocence. 

Relena copied him, and then set teacup and saucer back on the table delicately, clasping her hands in her lap neatly. “In honesty, General, if I’d known you were sleeping I would have left you longer,” she said quietly. “Whatever else, you must certainly be no stranger to working with a lack of rest. If you were tired enough to fall asleep like that in the first place, you must have needed it.”

Treize quirked an eyebrow at her, setting his own cup down just as carefully as she had. “Actually, I’m somewhat trained to drop off whenever I have the opportunity, either into sleep or into reverie, precisely because I was never guaranteed an unbroken night’s rest. I think your brother lost count of the times he had to wake me before he was fifteen.”

Relena felt her smile thin down, becoming a little icy at the mention of Milliardo and Treize sharing any form of intimacy, and she dropped her gaze, turning her head to camouflage it until she could hide it completely.

It was a trick that would have worked on almost everyone of her acquaintance but she had forgotten momentarily who her companion was. Treize chuckled dryly at her attempt and shook his head. “Politesse will not work with me, Princess. I taught the girl who likely instructed you.”

Caught, and not appreciating it, Relena replied to Treize’s comment by levelling him a chilling look, reminding him that he was both younger than her now and her social inferior, a nothing compared to her very-much-a-somebody. “My father taught me, General. No one else.”

Treize tilted his head curiously. “How so, Princess? He died before you were three years old.”

The comment should have made her angry, Relena knew that. Treize was tossing out mention of the murdered King Stephen precisely to enrage her and make her slip so that he might hold the advantage in the conversation. Unaccountably, though, her only reaction was a sudden feeling of delighted challenge and she knew it was showing her face and body when the man opposite her blinked slowly, reading it from her.

“Try harder,” she replied coolly. “I’m not a fifteen year old ingénue anymore. Taunting me will get you precisely nowhere.”

Treize’s expression shifted subtly, showing his own pleasure in her response. “Oh? That would have worked on your brother,” he said calmly. “Even now.”

“I’m not my brother,” Relena returned gracefully, stating the obvious. “And, really, General, shouldn’t you more than anyone be aware that Milliardo is the political equivalent of a train wreck?”

It made him laugh. Relena found herself raising perfectly groomed eyebrows in surprise as Treize leaned back in his chair and chuckled again, this time more warmly. “Touché,” he said quietly. “Although, I think I was assuming the intervening decades would have done some good in that regard.”

Relena smiled a little. “Some good,” she admitted dryly. “Not as much as one would have hoped. He still had some spectacularly gauche moments.”

“Would he be Zechs, otherwise?” Treize asked. He shook his head. “Truthfully, I despaired of teaching him politics years ago. He has no head for it.” He chuckled a third time at something suddenly. “On the evidence of yesterday, neither does his son.”

Relena, about to pick up her teacup again and take another sip, stopped her motion and scowled delicately. “Aleksander?” she asked. “How so?”

Treize waved her away, the gesture light and fluid. “Merely something he said to me to try to snap me out of a temper. I rather think he was trying for shock value, actually, and that he isn’t truly as unpolished as he came across. We’ll see,” he dismissed. “He’ll have fun with the British next year if he is that rough, though,” he commented off-handedly.

Relena’s reaction was immediate, subtle, and telling. Treize tilted his head, watching her closely and suppressed his knowing smile with practiced ease.

“Milliardo told you about the Aleks’s intention to court Princess Isabelle, I see,” she said eventually, and her voice had slipped back to its frosty distance. “No doubt you disapprove.”

Treize nodded. “He told me, yes,” he confirmed. “Although I seem to recall Aleks waxing lyrical over the girl last night. Why do you immediately assume I disapprove, Princess?” he asked, genuinely puzzled by her presumption. “Surely you don’t think I’m as politically naïve as your brother?”

It was Relena’s turn to laugh at a comment, and she did so delightfully, the sound bubbling from her light and joyful, pleasing to the ear. It was trained, just as surely as Treize’s was unless he was really caught off-guard, but that didn’t mean the emotion behind it was false.

“Never, General,” Relena said honestly, a moment later. “If there is one thing I am sure you are not, and never have been, it is naïve. I’ve lost to you too many times to hold you in such contempt,” she allowed, her expression just touching on rueful before it smoothed back into neutrality. “Tell me, though, if you don’t disapprove of matching Aleks to Princess Isabelle, do you, then, actually support the notion?”

She sounded quite eager for his answer, Treize noted in the back of his mind, recalling what Zechs had told him about Relena being quite vocal in her opinion.

He shifted in his chair as he considered what answer to give her, running his hand back through his newly shortened and slightly restyled hair with a grimace at the feel of it. “To a point, yes,” he said eventually, choosing to answer the woman with as much of the truth as possible. Lying would accomplish nothing and it seemed silly to throw away what good will he could gain from her by genuinely supporting one of her ideas for the sake of piquing her with his opposition. “I’d choose to meet the girl before I gave a final opinion, of course, and I’m judging with somewhat limited and dated information, but I’d be inclined for rather than against at the current time.”

He grimaced diffidently for a heartbeat. “It was saying so that caused the temper Aleks had to talk me out of yesterday,” Treize explained. “Your brother and I exchanged some rather, ah, harsh words on the subject and certain others related to it. He didn’t seem to approve of my considering his son’s marriage a matter of state.”

Relena raised a perfectly shaped brow at him for a moment, and then sighed softly and shook her head slowly. “Milliardo, though I love him dearly, is sometimes the absolute bane of my existence,” she said, and sounded genuinely wearied as she did so. “I am sorry, General. I’m afraid you walked right into the middle of an ongoing family dispute and caught the backlash. Whatever Milliardo said to you was probably what he hasn’t felt able to say to me on the topic.”

Treize smiled at the apology, dipping his head to acknowledge it even as he dismissed it with another fluid wave. “Please, Princess, no apology necessary. I’m fairly certain I made my own bed in this instance. I really should be able to read him better than I did yesterday. I should have dropped the subject as soon as he made it clear that he disagreed with it. Although,” he added, letting his voice shift to something a little coy, “I was rather amused by his accusing me of being ‘a politician, too.’ He seemed rather unconvinced by my insistence that I wasn’t.”

“Oh, I wonder why?” Relena asked him, and there was sparkle in her eyes that was rather fetching. “Come now, General. Even I can admit you were – my apologies, you are – one of the finest political thinkers of your generation. Milliardo could hardly fail to be aware of that fact, as closely as the two of you worked all those years.”

Treize let his eyes show his acknowledgement of both her intentional slip of the tongue and her feint at his former relationship with her brother. “Political thinker, perhaps,” he replied smoothly, “but I really was never a true politician.” He smiled wickedly. “More a… benevolent despot, wouldn’t you say?” he tweaked.

Relena returned his smile with one of her own that was surprisingly warm. “A despot, certainly,” she agreed. “But benevolent?” she asked in turn. “Were you ever placid enough for benevolence, General?”

The redhead considered for a moment, then shook his head. “Doubtful,” he admitted honestly. “Princess,” he continued a heartbeat later, “you really needn’t keep calling me General, you know. For one thing, it’s inaccurate – I resigned that title when I resigned my commission back in September and I never resumed it. For another, it would be meaningless now, in any case.”

Relena blinked her lovely eyes at him slowly. “True enough,” she agreed. “What would you have me call you then?” she asked.

“Simply my name would suffice, I think,” Treize answered steadily. “Or if that’s too familiar for you, the correct honorific for my rank, the old ‘Your Excellency’, or perhaps, merely, ‘cousin’. It is what we are, after all, and it seems to be giving Aleks and Felix no trouble.”

For a moment, Relena’s face closed into an icier stillness than anything Treize had ever seen from her before, prompting him to wonder what he’d said to trigger it, then she shook her head minutely and found her smile again. “Not ‘cousin’, I don’t think, though I was aware of the blood tie between us. Forgive me, but the people I call that are either those I truly dislike or those few who really are family.” She picked up her teacup again and took another delicate sip. “You aren’t the latter, I’m afraid, and I’d prefer to think you won’t resume your role as the former.”

Treize lifted a knowing eyebrow at her, his eyes warm. “Unvarnished honesty, Princess?” he commented.

“When it suits me, yes,” Relena answered primly. She canted her head, shifting in her seat to uncross her ankles and re-cross them the other way. “Treize, then,” she agreed, after a short silence. “’Your Grace’ would only lead to confusion the moment we have any sort of formal function and ‘Your Excellency’ is almost as bad as ‘General’.”

Treize inclined his head in acknowledgement. “Thank you, Princess,” he said gravely.

To his surprise, Relena replied by sitting forward and shooting him a sharp look. “Oh, no, no,” she said briskly. “If I’m to call you by your name, then you must use mine. I won’t let you hide behind titles whilst I have to be familiar.”

“I wasn’t hiding,” Treize protested, amazed to find it was true even as he said it. “Princess simply suits you so perfectly I have trouble imagining you as anything else. You’ve always had Royalty about you, even as a little girl.”

The blonde woman held her face in neutrality but her wide blue eyes sparkled. “Poor flattery, Treize,” she said. She scowled lightly a heartbeat later. “Is that true?” she asked, uncertainly. “Only Milliardo called me Princess, too, the first time I spoke to him.”

Treize found himself caught off guard by the question, and he shifted in his chair to try to cover it. He lifted a hand to run it though his hair again, frowned as he realised what he was doing and stopped himself before he could complete the gesture. The sight of himself in the stylist’s mirror when the man had done with him had thrown him a little but there was nothing he could do about it now, even if he did think the brighter colour and looser cut were too similar to how he’d looked in his adolescence.

“I would have thought,” he said to Relena, coming to back to topic, “that by the time you and your brother actually spoke, you’d long announced yourself to the world. What else should he have called you?”

Relena shook her head. “By then, certainly, but I wasn’t talking about that. This was years before the war – I was scarcely eleven – and Milliardo can’t have been more than fifteen or so. There was a rebel attack on the J.A.P. point and one of them took me hostage. Milliardo was the one to rescue me and his first words to me were, ‘Are you all right, Princess?’ Didn’t he tell you?” she asked, her face showing genuine puzzlement. “I’d rather gathered the impression that he told you everything.”

Treize laughed softly. “Far from, I’m afraid. And certainly not when it came to you. I had no idea that you’d survived until the night of Une’s attack on your school. Lucrezia told me your real identity knowing I would immediately suspend the assault.”

Relena’s face was slack with open surprise and her body language was thrumming with it. Treize blinked at her, caught by the strength of the reaction. “Have you never talked about those days with anyone?” he asked, bewildered. “Une could have told you I called off the attack with no warning, although perhaps not why, and Noin certainly knew the truth. You would have died that night, if not for her intervention.”

The Princess shook her head, the gesture a little clumsy. “I think you overestimate how much we do talk about those days, Treize,” she said flatly. “One doesn’t willingly recall the darkest days in one’s life years after the fact and when there are always other, better things to consider. Milliardo built the War Exhibit up on the second floor – that was sufficient penance for all of us.” She gestured dismissively. “Regardless, as I said, I’m talking about years before that. I believe it was the July of 191, if I recall correctly. I remember my mother receiving a call from a general to say that the local base was under attack but I didn’t pay it much mind and when I went for a walk in the garden I fond myself being taken hostage by a fleeing rebel pilot. Milliardo was the Specials Officer who’d given chase and….”

Relena broke off her explanation suddenly, noticing that her companion had gone very still and perhaps seemed to be a shade paler than he had been when the conversation had started. “Treize?” she asked carefully. “Is something troubling you?”

The former general drew a harsh breath as she drew his attention back to her and the present time, then let it out slowly. “July 191?” he quizzed, his voice low. “The Alliance base just outside Auckland?”

“Why, yes,” Relena confirmed. “Did you hear something of the mission, then?” she wondered.

Treize laughed, the sound bitter and not at all happy. “Princess, I was there,” he said bluntly. “I was the mission commander. Zechs had just come back to my Wing from a secondment to China and I’d taken him along to assess how true all the rumours I’d been hearing were. He went haring off after that pilot with no explanation and came back empty-handed with even less of one. He never said a word about having encountered anyone else, much less his supposedly dead little sister! Damn him!” Treize finished viciously, then pushed himself out of his chair and began to pace with barely-leashed aggression.

Relena was a little wide-eyed at the sudden direction things had taken but she held her composure with the practice of a lifetime in politics. Her innocent questions seemed to have caught her a tiger by the tail, one she knew had nicely sharp claws when he wanted them. “I’m sure he had his reasons, Treize,” she soothed gently, adopting the tones she used with her daughter as she moved to moderate any threatening explosion.

“His reasons?” Treize repeated hotly. “Oh, I’m sure,” he agreed cynically. He turned to face her sharply, shaking his head. “I realise that you were never military, Princess, and so the full implications of it will be lost on you but what he did that day was reckless in the extreme. I broke my collarbone and three of my ribs in that fight, because he left me without a wingman in the middle of an enemy unit. Worse, I wrote off a brand-new mobile suit, and then had to lie through my teeth and pretend that Zechs’s vanishing act had been at my orders or he would have been court-martialled! Those two together damn near cost me my command, if not my career total. General Catalonia had no time for incompetent idiots and, by the time I’d covered for Zechs, that’s exactly what I looked like!”

He shook his head again, the gesture tight with anger, and resumed his pacing. “We fought about it for months, Princess – we never really stopped fighting about it, if I’m honest – and he apologised, several times, but he never explained. Not one word. Nothing about where he’d been, or why he’d gone off in the first place. He never so much as mentioned there being anyone else involved, much less that he’d met you. Certainly not who you truly were!” he spat.

He gestured furiously, throwing a hand out to one side recklessly. “I’d have forgiven him instantly, if he’d told me,” he insisted shortly. “He needn’t even have told me the full story. Going after the escapee to protect a civilian child would have been more than enough! But, no, no, he had so little trust in me, that…. Damn him,” Treize said again abruptly, but it was soft this time, and sad rather than fuelled by anger. “Damn him.”

He stopped pacing again, and stood still with his head bowed until Relena grew concerned enough that she stood up and went to him to put a careful hand on his arm.

“Treize?” she asked cautiously. “I’m sure it wasn’t his intention to cause you injury in any form. However little I’ve liked the idea over the years, I’ve never doubted that my brother loved you beyond all rationality,” she said honestly. “Your death broke something in Milliardo that not even Noin could heal.”

She drew a bracing breath and continued in a softer voice. “I don’t know where the world would have been if you’d survived,” she admitted, “but I do know that Milliardo was happier and more stable when he was with you than he ever has been without you.”

Treize shivered, his muscles, already taut with tension, locking up completely. “Is that so, Princess?” he asked, voice forlorn. “It seems telling on the subject that nothing since my death has driven him to attempt genocide.”

“It does,” Relena agreed. “It seems telling to the point that there’s been nothing he cared enough about. His wife, the mother of his son, was murdered in front of his eyes, and he grieved and raged, but her death never caused anything like the fury he felt at yours. Milliardo had passion enough for you that he was willing to scorch away the oceans to destroy you,” she explained. “And then he was willing to plunge the Earth into a nuclear winter to punish it for taking you from him when he’d wanted you to live after all.”

She relinquished her touch as she finished speaking and stepped back, hoping to break the moment they seemed to have gotten dragged into. Emotionally open heart-to-hearts were the last thing Relena wanted to be having with Treize, though she couldn’t deny him one last measure of comfort. “I’ve always believed that it was the thought of what you’d say to him if you could that made him so determined to destroy the section of Libra he dropped,” she said more conversationally, as she began to turn away from him and back towards the couch.

Treize’s twist to face her, his reach to hold her, was so sudden and so fast that Relena found herself stumbling a step. She made a wordless sound of pure shock as the former general’s hands tightened on her shoulders, pinning her helplessly as he glared into her face, his expression wild and darkening with a mounting anger unlike anything she’d ever encountered in person.

“Say that again?” Treize commanded of her, shaking her roughly. “Zechs did what?” he demanded harshly.

Relena stared up at him helplessly, wide-eyed, and realised what she’d done far too late. “Oh, my God,” she exclaimed hopelessly, her voice shattering with fear. “You didn’t know.”

Chapter Text

Dorothy felt her hackles lift the moment she walked into the Presence chamber, puzzled by the reaction even as she tensed with it. There was no reason for it that she could see at all. It certainly wasn’t being caused by Felix, walking a pace behind her.

The afternoon was rapidly drawing towards a tumultuous evening, the weather having not let up one iota over the past few days. The rain and the wind were still lashing at the Palace, howling around corridors and rattling windows. The Presence chamber should have been a blessed relief for her nerves – the windows were reinforced and covered in thick, soundproofing drapes – but instead, she found herself feeling as though the storm had somehow crept through the gaps in the doors and joined them inside, and now was looking for somewhere to break.

It was a baffling sensation considering that the only other person actually in the room, besides herself and her son, was Treize. Her erstwhile Uncle was already dressed for the press call in the deep brown suit Zechs had commanded the Dresser to restyle for him and was up on the dais at the far side of the room. He had his eyes closed and one hand out in front of him as he leaned back against the podium that would be used for the actual conference.

His posture was relaxed but for the one hand moving slowly from left to right, and he appeared to be talking to himself. It took Dorothy a moment to realise that he was running through the seating chart, placing the 2D grid of names Quatre had given him earlier that day into the 3D reality of the room, forcing his highly trained memory to assimilate the information.

It was something she’d seen him do dozens of times as a girl, loitering with intent behind curtains and in out of the way corners as her father and grandfather prepared for conferences and summits. Treize had always insisted on having whatever venue he was expected to speak in to himself for half an hour in the run up to big events. Seeing him at the same trick he’d employed then, now, threw Dorothy back decades, to a time when she’d been little more than a child and had asked him what he was up to.

“What the devil is he doing?”

The question from her son, directly into her left ear, made Dorothy shiver with déjà vu. “Learning the room,” she said softly, giving Felix exactly the answer Treize had given her thirty and more years before.

“Eh?” Felix asked blankly, dropping into an informality he wouldn’t have allowed himself with anyone else.

“He’s teaching himself where all the reporters will be sitting – what they’re called and who they represent,” Dorothy explained, “so that when they ask him questions, he’ll be able to talk to them personally and tailor his answers to their different requirements. He’s always been good with the press,” she elaborated, “and one of the reasons they like him so much is that he won’t give a tabloid gossip columnist the same style of answer he’d give a serious political broadcast anchor. He makes their jobs easier for them, he makes them feel as though he cares about their opinion and they love him for it. I’ve seen him have a hostile pressroom eating out of his hand in under half an hour.”

Felix snorted delicately. “Nice trick,” he acknowledged. “There’s a reason Aunt Relena is so green with jealousy every time someone mentions him, then?”

Dorothy nodded. “Somewhat. Relena is a political powerhouse, well trained and very clever, but she never could stand up to Treize back then. Watch tonight, if you can,” she encouraged her son. “You’ll never see another like him; he’s rather the last of his kind, an untarnished Romefeller star. They very literally don’t breed them like him anymore – I should know,” she added, tipping Felix a mischievous wink. “What he can do with a crowd of people is unbelievable. He’s the definition of charm and charisma.”

Felix snorted again. “He’s the definition of ‘newtype: psy’,” he answered conspiratorially, lifting reddish eyebrows at his mother meaningfully.

Dorothy stopped dead, mid-step, whirling in a flurry of skirts and knee-length hair to stare at her child in disbelief. “Pardon?” she asked, breathless and grateful for it for keeping to a whisper what would otherwise have been an echoing shout. “He’s what?”

Felix grinned wickedly. “A psionic, like Uncle Quatre, and a fair powerful one at that. It was all over his brainwave charts during his physical the other day. Think he knows?” he asked, genuinely curious. “He didn’t say anything but Sally thought he probably didn’t know he’s supposed to.”

Dorothy paused in her reply to consider, eventually being forced to nod her head slowly. “He knows,” she admitted reluctantly. “I doubt he knows it by that term, or even that he knows it as more than a strange quirk in his make up, but he knows there’s something. Milliardo slipped that much when Treize first got here – he was raving about Treize having an unusual ‘ability’ that he kept trying to enhance with illegal drugs. He insisted it was the reason Treize built the Epyon, to try to do with technology what he couldn’t with chemicals. I thought he was losing his mind at the time,” she confessed, a little embarrassed, “but perhaps not.”

She tilted her head to one side gracefully, still frowning elegantly. “Why didn’t he say something sooner?” she wondered aloud. “If Milliardo knew Treize had newtype genetics, he could have saved Wufei and Marie all that heartache over Ning last year by warning them when he was born!”

To her surprise, Felix, instead of agreeing with her confusion, answered her by laughing a little, the sound darkly knowing. “Oh, I know that,” he quipped. “When has Uncle Milliardo ever been comfortable discussing his private life,” he said dismissively. “Can you even imagine him confessing the details of his sexual encounters with Marie’s father to Wufei?” he asked. “He’d have had to, as proof of what he was saying.”

Dorothy lifted one elegantly shaped brow inquisitively. “Oh?” she asked archly.

Felix nodded immediately, his face still alight with impish glee. “Yes, oh,” he repeated. “It’s likely the reason he had so much exposure to it – Treize seems to instinctively use his ability on his partners, to read what they want from him in bed.”

It was Dorothy’s turn to let her expression turn fiendish. “Does he, now?” she asked lightly, and then closed in for the kill with a merciless smile. “And how would you know that, son of mine?” she wondered.

Felix choked, losing his grin and flushing hotly. “Ah,” he managed, and stopped. “Yes, how would I know that?” he stalled, and then shook his head reflexively. “I haven’t slept with him,” he answered honestly, yielding under his mother’s remorseless gaze.

“If you say so, Feliu,” Dorothy returned politely.

 “I haven’t!” Felix repeated, more insistently. “Truly!” He scowled suddenly, his eyebrows drawing together into a stubborn set that belonged entirely to his father’s genetics. “Why would I lie about it?” he asked, his tone of voice piqued.

Dorothy laughed at him softly, putting one small hand out to pat him on the arm. “To keep your mother from knowing the more sordid truths of your life, mijo,” she soothed. “Like any good Catholic boy who loves his Madre.”

To Dorothy’s delight, Felix rallied well at her teasing and rolled his eyes at her. “Because I haven’t known keeping secrets from you is impossible since I was six, have I? Particularly if Aleks knows anything about it.” He smirked for a moment, then sobered. “I haven’t slept with him,” he said again, his voice even and his gaze direct.

Dorothy answered his moment of seriousness with her own, letting him see and acknowledge her acceptance of his words as truth before she lifted a playful eyebrow at him and smiled sweetly. “Well, why ever not?” she asked lightly.

For a split second, Felix’s jaw literally dropped and his expression in general was so scandalised that Dorothy couldn’t help but dissolve into pealing laughter at the sight of it.

“Mother!” he protested, all the poise and polish she’d helped him cultivate over the past few years deserting him in his shock. “You can’t say things like that!” he spluttered.

Dorothy moderated her laughter to an affectionate chuckle and patted her son on the arm again. “Of course I can, querido,” she corrected him fondly. She glanced across the room reflexively, noted that the combination of the size of the Presence chamber, its clever acoustics and Treize’s own distraction was serving nicely to keep him unaware of the fact that he had company, and decided it was safe to keep talking.

“You’re a grown man now, not a child,” she said plainly. “It’s perfectly natural for you to want that sort of company – why should I deny that?” Dorothy shook her head, then tilted it to one side delicately, looking up at her son inquisitively before seeming to come to some sort of conclusion. “Treize is wonderfully good fun to play with, Feliu,” she said softly. “He’s talented and very generous. He could teach you a lot.”

Felix couldn’t help but bridle a little at that statement. “That’s a vote of confidence, mother,” he said dryly, oblivious in his sarcasm to the more shocking implications of Dorothy’s comments. “Thank you.”

The blond woman merely lifted her eyes towards the ceiling for a moment as her answer. “Shush, Feliu,” she bade. “You knew well enough what I meant.” She waited until he blushed a little again in response and then let her eyes flash with wickedness. “Besides, you were terribly obvious last night,” she said lightly. “Very much the cat after the saucer of cream, Kitty,” she tweaked, “so you needn’t pretend your intentions are innocent. How far have things gone?”

The look Felix shot her suggested he wanted to be talking about just anything else but he shrugged casually enough. “Not very,” he answered quietly. “We’ve kissed a few times, that’s all. There hasn’t been time for much more.” He bit his lip for a moment, then added, “I’ll admit, I was intending last night to change that but Aleks babbled on about Princess Isabelle all evening, and then Treize was way too drunk to even think about it.”

Dorothy gave Felix a sympathetic look. “I doubt he was intending to be, mijo. He had something of a falling out with Milliardo. I suspect he was a little upset about it.” She considered for a moment, then nodded. “Make love with him, querido. You’ll both enjoy it and I rather think he’ll be grateful for a friendly hand in the middle of all this. I trust you to keep your head and not make more of it than it is.”

The doctor canted his mother a curious expression before he smiled ruefully and shrugged loosely. “I could lose my head all I wanted and it wouldn’t matter, mother,” he said firmly. “I’d have to be blind not to know where he’s going to end up eventually. It only wants for Uncle Milliardo to get over himself already.”

Dorothy couldn’t help but laugh. “Granted,” she agreed, then gestured that they should be fulfilling the task they’d come into the Presence chamber for in the first place.

Her conversation with her son had neatly distracted Dorothy from the feeling of foreboding and alarm she’d felt on first entering the room but as she and the Doctor crossed the space, it grew darker and more ominous until she felt near to smothered by it.

“What is that?” she breathed, drawing to a final stop at the bottom of the dais. Felix was once again just behind her and he shot her a confused look as she spoke aloud.

“What’s what?” he asked, puzzled. “Hello, cousin,” he added, pitching his voice slightly louder in volume so that Treize would register that he was being addressed.

The older man opened his eyes at Felix’s call, and the moment he did, Dorothy found herself flying instinctively in the face of all the encouragement she’d just given her son to pursue closer ties with Treize as she stepped in font of him, shielding him with her body from the expression in the former general’s gaze.

“Treize?” she asked helplessly, at the same moment that Felix closed his hands on her shoulders and made a question of her title.

The older man in the room fixed his eyes on her levelly and the rage surging behind them was blacker than the storms outside the palace and just as endless as far as Dorothy could see. To her knowledge, she’d never, never seen Treize this seethingly angry. In combination with what her son had just told her about Treize being psy, it explained her reactions to the room perfectly – he was broadcasting this as surely, she realised suddenly, as he’d always broadcast all his emotions.

“Dorothy,” he said calmly, before she had opportunity to say anything else. “I was wondering when I was going to see you today. Did you have anything to do with it, Dors?” he asked quietly.

Dorothy tensed, felt Felix do the same behind her, and wished he wasn’t here. “With what, Treize?” she returned, calm by sheer force of will and genuinely puzzled.

“Libra,” he answered her, and Dorothy felt herself turn as cold as the ice in Treize’s voice. “Did you contribute to that insanity?” he demanded. “Or was it Zechs’s violation alone?”

For a heartbeat, to her eternal shame, Dorothy considered lying to him. When and where during this day Treize had found out about the Libra and Zechs’s attempt to drop a section of it onto mainland Europe, she didn’t know, but she was honestly frightened by his reaction. They’d known – they’d known – that Treize, with his duellist’s honour code, his vicious hatred of ranged and remote weaponry and his deep, abiding love of the planet Earth and the human race it supported, was going to respond badly to learning of the incident but they’d never predicted anything close to what she was facing currently. This was General Khushrenada in full measure, and he was furious.

Taking a deep breath, Dorothy drew herself up to her full height and looked back at him levelly. “I was his lieutenant, Treize,” she answered evenly. “Whatever he did, I could have stopped. I didn’t,” she said plainly.

Dorothy hadn’t pulled the slap she’d given Treize in the anteroom before dinner that first night; no more, now, did Treize pull his. His hand cracked across her cheekbone hard enough that her head whipped round and she stumbled a few paces, even with Felix’s supporting hold, dizzy from the force and hearing only Treize’s murderous voice over the sudden ringing in her ears.

“Faithless bitch!” he snarled. “That you would have made my legacy?”

“Of course not!” Dorothy protested, then exclaimed again when Felix let her go, his face a mask of his own anger, and stepped in front of her to grab for Treize’s arm. “Feliu, no!” she cried, catching the sleeve of his shirt before he could make contact with his older cousin. What reaction it might trigger in Treize, she didn’t want to find out. If he was livid enough to hit her, a member of his family, then he was beyond the limits of any code of behaviour she’d ever previously seen from him.

Treize watched her movements with sapphire eyes darkened near to black with his anger, then snarled wordlessly and strode from the hall, leaving mother and son alone.

Felix exhaled in relief immediately. “Oh, my God,” he breathed noisily. “Where did that come from?” he wondered.

Dorothy shook her head sadly. “A lifetime of dreaming and honour betrayed at the last moment by the two people who always should have known better than to do what we did,” she replied, her heart breaking.

She steeled herself a moment later. “Leave me be, Feliu,” she instructed, when the Doctor began running gentle fingertips over skin that was already beginning to swell and darken. “I need to go and warn Milliardo.”

Some three quarters of an hour later, it transpired that Relena had already done just that, leaving Dorothy only to fill in Treize’s reaction to her.

 Zechs took the news relatively badly, swearing under his breath for a moment before leaning over a small table in the staging area attached to the Presence chamber, his breathing ragged. “Damn it,” he cursed viciously. “This we do not need. Not tonight. If he was angry enough to take a swing at you, Doro….” he said, and didn’t bother to finish the sentence. He’d drawn the same conclusions Dorothy had – Treize’s behaviour was so far off normal patterns that none of them would be able to predict him at all.

“Do we cancel?” the King asked heavily, a heartbeat later. He was directing the question to everyone in the room but he got no immediate answers.

“We can’t,” Relena said eventually. “Not without explanation. The press would crucify us.”

Quatre immediately shook his head at his wife. “I agree, but if we can’t trust Treize to stay with the script, can we run the risk of what he might do?” he asked. “We could hold the conference without him – Milliardo could make the announcement of his identity, give a little bit of background and promise a future conference in a few days time?” he suggested.

“They’d still know something was dodgy, surely?” Aleks asked. “Wouldn’t we normally pre-record something like that with one network and send video copies to the others? Why all this fuss for something so lame?” He stopped, considering. “Do we have anything else we could give the press instead – pretend the conference was for that all along.”

It was an idea – but it was one they’d considered that morning, and rejected. Zechs shook his head slowly. “The only thing we have that warrants anything like this would be a Royal birth or an Engagement or some such. There’s nothing like that we can feed them.”

“I could….” Aleks started, and subsided when Zechs glared at him.

“No,” the King said flatly. “For one thing, you haven’t even asked the girl yet. Nor do you have her parent’s consent. Or parliament’s. We’d solve an immediate problem by causing an international scandal.” He shook his head again, rubbing his eyes wearily. “If he goes off-script, I’ll cover somehow. If he doesn’t show at all, I’ll manage without him. We have no choice.”

The weight of the silence in the room suggested general agreement before a voice from the doorway made almost everyone jump.

“You really do know nothing about me, don’t you?” Treize asked darkly.

Zechs turned his head to regard the younger man, noting that his appearance was immaculate, down to the makeup needed for the cameras, and that Dorothy had been dead on right in her description of the waves of hostile energy coming off him. Zechs had known Treize angry, he’d known him vengeful – he’d never felt anything like the boiling, blistering fury his friend was broadcasting.

“Excuse me?” he answered, as neutrally as he could manage.

“You,” Treize fired straight back. “Did you always know so very little about me or have you just forgotten it all over the years?”

Zechs raised an eyebrow. “You tell me,” he ordered sharply. “The man I knew would never have raised a hand to a member of his family.”

Treize laughed. “Really? Well, since the man you knew was also a Pacifist, according to that drivel you call the Eve Wars Exhibit, I think we’re safe to say we’re talking about someone other than me!”

“A certain amount of post-war spin, Khushrenada….” Quatre put in, softly.

“To the point where you’re describing a man who didn’t exist! Yes, Winner, I’d detected your pitiful attempts at emotive rhetoric in the writing. ‘At heart, Treize Khushrenada was a Pacifist who fought for the Peace he truly believed was the birthright of every human being. When called to it, he was not afraid to sacrifice his own life in the cause, to make his message clear to all,’” he quoted savagely. “Leaving aside the fact that the basic standard of English would be lacking from a dim-witted ten year old,” he snarled, “and that I had a million better ways to 'send a message'  than that if I'd wanted them, did none of you notice the ever-so-slightly oxymoronic tendency of the phrase ‘a Pacifist who fought’?”

Somewhere in the room, somebody chuckled and hurriedly turned it into a cough.

“To say nothing of the fact that I was never a Pacifist in the first place,” Treize continued, just as harshly as he’d begun. “I was a career soldier, and by choice. I didn’t join the Specials for any nobler reason, as Zechs did – if bloody vengeance is nobler – I joined because I wanted to fly, to fight. If later I had other goals, I still never chose the most bloodless path. I chose the most expedient, always, regardless. I was instrumental in the attempted assassination of at least three people in this room alone and the successful removal of several others – beginning with General Noventa, the great-grandfather of the girl you want to marry, Aleks.”

Zechs wasn’t sure what reaction Treize was hoping to get with his words but he was fairly sure it was more than Aleks merely shrugging disinterestedly.

“I’m not an idiot, Treize,” the Prince replied evenly. “I have read the odd history text book.” He tilted his head, the expression in his eyes very much one he’d inherited from his mother, direct and unflinching. “What’s pissed you off this time, anyway?”

Zechs put a hand out to silence the boy at the same moment that Relena snapped, “Aleksander!” Her voice was ringing with her disapproval of his language, as well as the same fear that Zechs was feeling – that Aleks was going to provoke Treize more than the man already was.

Treize chose not to answer the Prince, fixing his attention firmly on the adults instead.

Quatre countered his scrutiny with the serenity he was so well known for, still not raising his voice from its quiet murmur. “As I said, Khushrenada, a certain amount of post-war spin. I’m very well aware of your true nature, believe me, but my goal in the writing was to paint Milliardo in the best light we could manage. He was associated with you so much during the war that any reputation you had reflected very strongly upon him.” He shrugged lightly. “As to the exact phrasing, blame the general public. That was the word combination that scored highest in our field tests.”

Treize snorted rudely. “Explain to me, Winner,” he spat, “how you paint attempted genocide in any light at all?”

Quatre might well have replied but Zechs had abruptly had enough. As much as he understood that Treize was shocked by the events at the end of the war, appalled by what Zechs had done, and as much as he also understood that those events were very recent to Treize’s perspective, they weren’t to the rest of the world. To the King and his family, the younger man was throwing a fit about things that had happened half a lifetime before, issues that had been done and dealt with decades ago. He wasn’t inclined to have the patience for it – not when they had other, immediate issues that did need their attention.

Accordingly, he fixed Treize with the same repressive gaze that had long been Aleks’s warning of impending doom and shook his head. “Enough, Treize,” he ordered bluntly. “No-one’s interested. You can take it up with me later, if you really must, in private and when we aren’t all scrambling to fix the results of your previous hissy fit.”

He cut dead any come back from his former commander by the simple expedient of turning his back on him to address the rest of his family. “We’ve got less than an hour,” he said firmly. “Anyone not yet dressed and ready needs to be in the next few minutes – and, yes, that includes you, children. You may not be needed for the actual press call but I’ll be shocked if the photographers don’t want you involved in the group shots. Aleks, Relena, I had Sebastian visit the vault, so don’t waste time going down there – I’ll leave it to you, Relena, whether you have Katerina bother or not.”

Relena nodded graciously, then turned on her heel and hurried from the room with her husband and daughter in tow. Aleks was barely a few steps behind her, brushing past Treize without so much as meeting his eyes, and Felix and Dorothy were on his heels, giving just as little acknowledgement.

Treize watched after the three of them for a moment, then turned back to the antechamber to see that most of the rest of the family had emptied out of a second door, leaving him alone in the room with Zechs and, hidden in the shadows in the far corner, Heero Yuy.

Zechs looked at Treize coldly, his face set and dark with his anger, so that the King seemed almost a stranger to the younger man as he folded his arms across his chest and drew a measuring breath. “In a moment,” he began quietly, his voice thrumming with restrained violence, “I’m going to send you to start drilling answers with Anne and my sister. I do so in the full understanding that you will approach them with every drop of courtesy in your body, ready to give them your absolute and undivided attention.”

Treize blinked, caught off guard. “Naturally,” he snapped, his answer hot with his own roused temper. “Would I do anything else?”

“You tell me,” Zechs countered silkily. “I seem to have cause to wonder.” He pinned Treize in place with his gaze meaningfully, then released him dismissively as he continued speaking. “Before I pass you to them,” he said levelly, “I want you to take a moment and give that same attention to considering why you thought it acceptable to strike Dorothy as you did, understanding as you do so that, after the press conference, I am going to let Dorothy’s husband ask you for your answer, as is his right.”

The King waited a beat, until Treize’s eyes widened a little as comprehension dawned, then let his voice soften even further, until it was nothing less than menacing. “What happens if he is not satisfied with that answer will be entirely between you and Duo,” he said ominously. “The only thing I have to say on the subject is this: Do not make the mistake of thinking that our history means you can harm my family with impunity. It doesn’t, and if it ever comes to a choice between you and them, you’ve already lost. Whatever you might once have been to me, if you ever, ever lift a hand to hurt a friend or relative of mine again, I will shoot you myself and walk away without checking whether you still breathe or not. Is that clear?”

Treize lifted his chin stubbornly, though Zechs could see the uncertainty masked in the sapphire eyes. “Is that a threat, Your Majesty?” he asked icily.

Zechs merely smiled. “Of course not, Your Excellency. Consider it more a… warning from history,” he suggested with an airy wave of one hand. “You may go,” he added, a heartbeat later, granting the younger man a regal dismissal.

The use of Royal protocol wasn’t lost on Treize, as Zechs had known it wouldn’t be. The redhead froze in outraged indignation for a moment, then brought his hands to his sides sharply, bowed gracefully and turned on his heel to stride from the room.

Zechs watched him go, letting his own stiff posture sink into weariness as soon as the redhead was out of earshot. “Damn it,” he sighed tiredly.

“That’s one way to put it,” Heero agreed, drifting up from his corner to stand next to his King. “He won’t soon forgive you that,” he commented neutrally.

Zechs chuckled bitterly. “Are you kidding?” he asked rhetorically. “He may never forgive me that but what choice did I have?” He shook his head. “Wufei’s livid, Aleks is murderous, and Duo’s positively ready to gut him in his sleep – if I hadn’t censured him, one of them would have, and I’m not entirely sure he’d have lived to tell the tale.”

“And yet Dorothy thinks his reaction was justified,” Heero said mildly. He looked up at the taller man in puzzlement. “I’m not convinced by that, Zechs,” he admitted.

The blond man glanced at Heero reflexively, then reached out to put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re not?” he queried, surprised that even Heero – who sometimes seemed so much on the same wavelength he was that Duo accused them of scripting in advance – did not understand what was obvious to him.

“He had cause, Heero,” Zechs said sadly, when the shorter man shook his head doubtfully. “What we did with Libra, back then, it went dead against everything Treize ever believed in, everything he tried to teach us. I’m not surprised he’s angry. It’s just unfortunate that he ran into Dorothy before he did me. If he’d taken that swing at me instead of her, I don’t think we’d be having half the fuss we are now. I doubt any of you would have cried foul over him clouting me, which only means the real issue is Dorothy being a woman rather than another man.” He forced a weak smile. “I have the same issue, don’t get me wrong, but I think both Dorothy and Treize would be horrified if you explained it to them like that.”

Heero raised an eyebrow, considering, then nodded slowly. “It goes against the grain to accept that but you may be right,” he said eventually. “Regardless, do you think he’s done?” he asked warily. “You’ve left him alone with Anne and Relena. Anne might be able to manage him, but Relena….”

Zechs shook his head. “He’s far from done,” he admitted honestly. “Very far from, but I’ve just guaranteed that the only person he’s gunning for is me.” He sighed again. “He wouldn’t dream of lifting a finger against Relena or Anne, in any case. Doro’s… different, in his head. She was actively Romefeller, his protégé, and they’ll both see all this as nothing more than the teacher disciplining the student for making a fatal error, regardless of the current age gap. As much as I threatened him with it, if Duo does try for Treize over what happened, he’s likely to find himself having to go though his wife to do it.”

Heero let his second eyebrow match the first, and grinned as he processed all that. “That should lead to fireworks,” he said cheerfully. “Duo being so fond of Dorothy being able to back him down the way she does.”

“Absolutely,” Zechs agreed. “As for me,” he added ruefully, “I’m fairly certain he’ll wait till we’re through with the press before he comes for me, in which case I’ll let him have at until he feels better.” He gave a shrug that wasn’t as casual as it was intended to be, and tried for a touch of gallows humour. “Do me a favour – keep the kids out of the fallout zone, will you? It’s likely to get noisy.”

Heero laughed, surprised. “Absolutely, Your Majesty,” he agreed immediately, and fell into step when Zechs moved to begin readying himself for the evening ahead.

Chapter Text

“Long tailed cat; Aunt Maryse’s rocking chair.”

Pacing steadily back and forward across the antechamber, running over and over the answers he’d so recently drilled with Anne and Relena, Treize started visibly at the words, jumping at the sound and feel of another person so close to him when he would’ve sworn he was alone a bare few seconds earlier.

“What?” he asked uncharacteristically, spinning on his heel to put himself face to face with a smiling Dorothy.

“You,” the woman said lightly. “You’re coming across as nervous as a pussy-cat stuck in a room with old Aunt Maryse’s rocking chair. Afraid someone is going to squash your tail?” she tweaked.

Resenting both the interference in the first place, and the specific nature of the comment, Treize shot his niece a look brimming with irritation and waved her off dismissively. “Shut up, Dors,” he ordered brusquely, half-turning away again before something pulled him up short.

He turned back immediately. “I’m sorry,” he apologised hesitantly, his eyes softening as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other uncertainly. “That was uncalled for.”

“Somewhat,” Dorothy agreed archly, but she was still smiling. “So?”

Treize shook his head. “I don’t have a tail to squash,” he pointed out, stating the obvious. He rubbed his thumb against the forefinger of his left hand uneasily, then began pacing again, forcing Dorothy to move with him if she wanted to keep talking to him.

“Self-evidently,” she agreed. “Though you might consider the addition – I think it would be rather charming. I was speaking metaphorically.”

“I’d assumed.” Treize flicked the blonde woman a fleeting glance over his shoulder as he pivoted at one end of his orbit around her. “A literal answer to a metaphorical enquiry, Dors, is generally an allusion to the notion that the material isn’t available for discussion.”

Dorothy tilted her head. “Oh?” she queried. “Well, premeditated ignorance of that allusion is indicative of a refusal to capitulate so willingly.” She canted Treize an eyebrow, symbolically passing him the baton as she waited for his response, wondering if he would run with the challenge she had set.

It was an old game they were playing, one started when Dorothy was still really quite young. Obsessed with her older cousin’s grown-up sounding way of talking, and by how much more seriously the adults around them seemed to take him because of it, Dorothy had deliberately set out to learn as many big and complicated words as she could, seeking every opportunity she could to use them. It hadn’t taken her long to realise that most of her guardians found it precociously charming, cooing over her attempts in a way that she could manipulate shamelessly.

Treize, though, had taken them entirely differently. At fourteen, he’d been singularly unimpressed with what he termed mindless mimickery, accusing her of being little more than a performing monkey and demanding that six-year-old Dorothy define every word she used to him that was a product of her thesaurus-swallowing. For a while, she’d been up to the challenge but as the struggle dragged on, and she was forced to learn new words ever faster, he’d begun catching her out.

Eventually, they’d hit the afternoon when Dorothy had, inevitably, slipped in her usage, tossing out a word in desperation that made no sense in the context she’d applied it and which she didn’t have a hope of defining to him when he so ordered her. Standing in the library of his parents’ house, sweating under the cool-eyed gaze he would later make the signature of his command-style, Dorothy had cracked, and dissolved into helpless, angry, frustrated tears.

She’d expected him to smile triumphantly and turn his back on her – rejecting her as the unimportant girl-child she was to their family at that time. Instead, he’d gone to his knees on the rug in front of her, offered his starched linen handkerchief to dry her eyes and pulled her little body against his own in their first ever hug.

“Don’t cry, Dors,” he’d begged. “You kept up longer than I thought you could. It was a good game.”

“A… game?” she’d wondered. He’d thought they were playing a game?

“Well, yes – to see which one of us caught the other out first, of course.” Treize had set her back from himself a little and smiled at her. “I had to know every word you used, as well, to know if you were getting them right, and you are a lot younger than me.” He’d hugged her close again, putting his chin on top of her head and stroking one hand down her silky white hair slowly. “Words are important, Dors,” he’d said softly, as though he was confiding something very important to him. “Their meanings and their subtleties vital. What we say, how we say it, defines how the world sees us. We make our mark with our actions and our presence, but our legacies will be written, recorded and talked about. A whisper in the right ear at the right moment will always be more powerful than any mobile suit.”

He’d sighed gently, kissing the top of her head lightly. “You started memorising vocabulary because you saw what effect mine had on others; you kept at it because you wanted to prove to me that you were smart. If I offered to play another game with you, do you think you could learn to love the language we’d be playing with?”

Dorothy had considered carefully, and then nodded, already aware that she’d grown to enjoy the act of looking up new words and seeing how they fit in with all the others she knew. “Yes, please,” she’d answered.

“All right, then. Here’s the rules, then….”

Slowly, making sure she understood, Treize had explained his new game – a challenge of synonyms and meanings. Dorothy had thrown herself into it and the whole thing had grown organically as the two of them aged, evolving to take account of further education and the fact that both players were fluently multi-lingual by the age of ten.

When Treize began public speaking at Romefeller Convene’s, nine-year-old Dorothy had delighted in listening to him, eagerly stealing his draft copies and hand-written notes as soon as he would let her have them. He’d made a Christmas gift of his first keynote speech to her one year, bundling all the rough copies up with a clean draft in his own hand, annotated with all his influences and intentions.

At age twelve, Dorothy had finally mastered Treize’s last remaining unique skill - his art of insinuation. The moment she grasped how to twist a phrase to say anything other than what it actually did, the game between the cousins had stepped up again, becoming one of interpretation as well. The love of language became one of the strongest bonds between them, the source of many moments of shared, secret humour, and, eventually, a valuable, irreplaceable tool during their years of Romefeller service and during the wars.

As Dorothy had realised a decade after the fighting ceased, when Treize was apparently years too dead to share it with, the constant challenge between them had fundamentally shaped who they were. That Treize would always have been an unstoppable force was obvious – but would he have been one quite so young without his seemingly effortless ability to turn exactly the right phrase at the drop of a hat? Similarly, Dorothy could never have been anything but an agent for Romefeller – but could she have had her success as a honey-trap infiltrator if she hadn’t been skilled at spinning even pure poison to sound like the sweetest of pillow talk?

She rather thought not.

Whether Treize would be interested in resuming their challenge now, though, remained to be seen. In countering his intentionally obfuscated phrasing with her own, she’d thrown down the gauntlet.

Her efforts won her a smile, at the least, which was more than he’d done in the rest of the time he’d been pacing the antechamber.

“Another time, Dors,” he replied eventually. “I need to concentrate to play with you, and I need to concentrate on Zechs’s press conference as well.”

Disappointed, but also understanding, Dorothy nodded to him and turned her attention to the original reason she’d come to his side. “You needn’t fret so,” she said softly. “The Press these days isn’t nearly so waspish as they used to be and they’re hardly going to be gunning for you in the same way. They actually like the Royal family, particularly the younger members. Smile and be charming and they’ll fall for you, too.”

“I’m not fretting,” he denied sharply, belying the words with his relentless pacing.

“Really?” She bit her lip delicately, being careful not to either smear her lipstick or stain her teeth. “Forgive me, Treize, but you look a little like you’re going to be ill,” she said quietly. “If you need anything….” she offered.

The man stopped his pacing for a moment, then sighed and shook his head. “Given my treatment of you today, that’s more kindness than I deserve,” he admitted wearily. He put a careful hand out to her, brushing sensitive fingertips across the right side of her face, where the darkening bruise left by his slap was just visible beneath her makeup. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I should never have.”

Dorothy met his eyes with hers and shook her head. “Of course you should,” she replied. “As I told my husband, and will tell him again if I have to. It’s no different to what I did to you at dinner the other night.”

“It is,” Treize insisted but he didn’t elaborate. “In my defence, I hadn’t thought there was anything much to the war that I’d missed. Zechs had told me some details, but not that there was something so significant.” He frowned, then dismissed his own words with a shrug. “I can’t ever recall being so angry,” he confessed.

Dorothy laughed musically. “Is that why you look so pale beneath the powder?” she teased.

“As opposed to the hang-over?” Treize asked in turn, mocking himself with all the panache of a born cynic. “Or the stage-fright?”

“Stage fright?” Felix asked, closing the gap between himself and the former general from the other side of the room to his mother. Treize jumped visibly at the unexpected voice, turning his head to look for the speaker and leaving Dorothy free to glare at her son for his stealthy approach over Treize’s shoulder. He was edgy enough already, without Felix making him worse.

The Doctor returned her look with his own, his expression completely free of apology. Apparently, he wasn’t inclined to be kind towards the other man at the current time. “Stage fright?” he repeated, his voice just as incredulous as it had been the first time. “You? I don’t believe that,” he denied. “You gave hundreds of speeches in your career.”

Treize nodded willingly. “I did – and I felt dreadful before every last one of them. Ask Une.” He shrugged tightly. “It’ll go away as soon as we start. Until then, I simply have to grit my teeth and bear it. Or smoke,” he added, contemplatively. “But Zechs will raise hell if I try that in here.”

He glanced around the room as he spoke, then down at the watch he was wearing around his right wrist. “Where is he, anyway?” he asked, showing a flash of his ill temper with the older man. “He should be here by now.”

Dorothy looked around herself, then gave a graceful shrug of her shoulders, rustling the fabric of her velvet coat as she moved. Few women either would, Treize thought privately, or could have worn what she was, particularly for a formal photo call but Dorothy was carrying off her call-girl-chic designer suit with predictable flair. “He’ll show when he’s ready,” she reassured, “as he always does. You needn’t worry, Treize,” she laughed, “he’s had a fair amount of practice at this sort of thing over the years.”

Treize nodded, then frowned and grimaced uncomfortably as he made some small wordless noise and turned away. Felix immediately made a move towards him but Dorothy shook her head – the former general didn’t need cosseting; most likely, he just needed leaving alone.

They waited in silence, Treize pacing restlessly with Felix and Dorothy watching him closely, until the door to the room opened from the other side to admit a sudden flood of people.

Marie and Wufei were first, with Ning by his father’s side. All three of them were in traditional Chinese finery and Treize couldn’t help but be taken off guard by how his daughter looked in the fine, screen-printed silk dress she was wearing, her fiery hair swept up and back and held by ornate, jewel-tipped chopsticks. She smiled at him warmly, detaching from her husband long enough to come to him and embrace him lightly, a gesture he was more than grateful for.

Une was behind her adopted child, with Trowa by her side, both in the Preventer Dress uniform they’d been wearing since their arrival at the Palace. Trowa was chattering to Duo and Heero, both of whom were suit-clad and riding herd on Helen and little Katerina.

The youngest Peacecraft was Treize’s first clue that he might have slightly misjudged the formality of the occasion. The girls were dressed similarly to all intents and purposes, if with a tad more maturity in Helen’s case, but where Helen had her silky blonde hair pulled back with twin barrettes again, Katerina’s was brushed to a smooth waterfall and arranged around the band of a delicate little tiara. It wasn’t an obvious marker of Royalty, except that the other three women in the room were bareheaded in comparison.

Treize immediately began looking around for Relena, seeking to confirm or deny his suspicion, and found it instead in the form of Aleks as the Crown Prince stepped into the antechamber behind his cousins.

The boy wasn’t wearing the formal Court dress he might have been, the white and brocade suit that he would have inherited from his father along with his title, and for that, Treize was unspeakably grateful. He didn’t think his mood would have easily stood the flood of memories the sight might have triggered.

Aleks was, however, wearing a narrow metal band under his pale hair; a scant, sapphire-set, platinum inch showing against his forehead, between the falls of his untidy fringe. It was the first time Treize had seen any real evidence of the boy’s status. It was also rather a wrenching sight, because the last person he’d seen wearing that circlet was a very young Milliardo, almost fifteen years before.

Breathing deep to hold his composure against the wave of emotion that rose, Treize closed his eyes for a moment, sinking into the darkness and the illusion of privacy. It was a trick he had indulged in often and one that might have worked now if, when he looked up again, Aleks hadn’t already stepped aside for his father.

The men of the party were, to a one, wearing modern business suits made from high-quality wools and linens, all clean lines and flattering, if subtle, tailoring. Zechs, on the other hand, seemed to have dressed from another century, abandoning the contemporary look of his family for the timeless elegance of the European Nobility. The frock coat, breeches and polished black knee-boots still looked better on him than any ordinary suit could have; his still trim, still powerful body was very evident under the fine smoke grey cloth of his jacket.

And if the colour of the coat made Treize think of Zechs’s days as the commander of White Fang, then the impression was gone as quickly as it had come. As with his son, after the first breath, Zechs’s clothing was completely irrelevant; it was the glint of metals and jewels that drew the eye.

It wasn’t, Treize knew immediately, the full Crown of State that Zechs was wearing – that was a great, heavy thing with a velvet lining that was hundreds of years old. Like Aleks, Zechs had chosen a smaller, less elaborate signature of his rank, and probably as much for personal comfort as any other reason.

The circlet he was wearing, though, was probably the real prize of the Sanc Crown Jewels. It was a beautifully crafted weave of platinum and gold that looked as though it had been spun straight from the ore, so that fine strands of the metals chased each other through the King’s loose hair, enhancing its pure silver-gilt colour and being enhanced by it in turn. Somehow, the crafter had worked with the metal as it cooled, shaping it intermittently into the oak-leaf and shooting-star pattern heraldry of the Peacecraft Royal House and lacing together the support at the centre of the band for a single, exquisitely cut red diamond. The stone, the Red Shield of Peace, had been in the Peacecraft family for centuries, coming to them though channels no one was quite sure of, renamed many times and recut at least once in its journey. The legends surrounding the stone suggested that no one but the true Peacecraft Monarch could don it without being cursed.

Seeing Zechs wearing the stone so casually now was a powerful reminder of all the changes in his childhood friend, making it so that Treize could no longer blind himself to them as he had been doing. The former general had heard Zechs called King Peacecraft several times in the past few days but he hadn’t really acknowledged what that meant until that moment. When he did, it was crushing – the boy Treize had loved so much was lost almost completely in this new version of Zechs.

The wrench of it made Treize catch his breath but Zechs either didn’t notice, or chose to give no sign that he had. Instead, he flicked his eyes around the room assessingly and gave a single nod. “Relena and Quatre have been warming the Press,” he said steadily, when he’d gathered everyone’s attention to himself with his gaze. “There’s anticipation but Quatre says there’s also a certain amount of resentment from some reporters,” he warned. “There’s a sense that we’ve been lying to them, and that we’ve been intending to dupe them further. I need everyone to be very careful what they say – stay on script, please.”

There was a murmur of general agreement and Zechs’s eyes fixed squarely onto Treize. “Are you ready?” he asked intently. “I have to warn you – there’s a segment in there that’s actively hostile to the idea of you.”

Treize steeled himself with the fire of his anger towards the other man, met his gaze, and nodded curtly. “I’ll be fine,” he dismissed. “I’ve handled worse. Trust me a little,” he suggested, then forced a smile he knew was cold. “I’m good at this, remember?”

Zechs smiled back uncertainly. “I do,” he answered.

A moment later, he nodded to Heero, and the man threw open the second door.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” his voice rang out into a sudden wall of sound. “His Serene Majesty, King Milliardo Peacecraft of Sanc!”

-----------------------------------------

“…Your Majesty! Was it your intention to lie to the general public…?”

“…Your Majesty! Is this the start of a new bid for power…?”

“…Your Majesty! Is it true you had General Khushrenada cloned...?”

“…Your Majesty! Are you sleeping with the son now that the father is dead…?”

Treize drew a steadying breath as he stepped back from the podium and the room erupted into pandemonium, glancing across the press pack fleetingly and being sure not to make direct eye contact with any of the television cameras scattered about.

The conference had begun smoothly enough, the weight of Zechs’s royalty in his own Palace more than enough to quash the initial ruckus. The King had spoken first, detailing the intention of the conference and asking that all questions be held until after Treize had been given chance to introduce and explain himself. He’d done little more than give the Press Treize’s name and there’d been uproar. Treize hadn’t been able to speak over the noise for a full five minutes.

When he had been able to talk, he’d relayed his own concocted history. Yes, he was the son of the late General Treize Khushrenada. No, his mother was not Lady Une, but Countess Sabine de Maury by way of Romefeller breeding contract in the summer of AC 195. No, he had not recently approached King Milliardo; his father had apparently asked the King to care for him in the event of his death and he was eternally grateful to His Majesty for honouring that final promise to his friend, both on his own behalf and for his sister. No, he was not going to start another war. No, he was not going to resurrect Oz. No, he had no desire to fight. No, he…. The barrage of questions had been endless.

And the moment Treize had stepped away from the podium again, the Press had turned back to the King, shouting and gesticulating wildly for his attention, until Treize could only make out one word in three.

Zechs somehow slipped himself between Treize and most of the press, gaining control over the crowd by the simple expedient of standing silently and answering none of them until they all settled down again. It was a trick Treize had taught Zechs personally, years before, but he hadn’t thought to use it himself today.

“Either ask your questions in an orderly fashion, one at a time, or I’ll answer none of you,” the King said firmly. “And be reminded of the conditions of this conference – any vile or slanderous accusation or insinuation will result in the revocation of that individual’s access to the Palace. My children are in the room, ladies and gentlemen. Behave accordingly,” he warned. “I’ll also remind you that there will be ample opportunity for you to take photographs and ask more detailed questions of the Family post-briefing.”

He inclined his head as he finished speaking, and a raft of hands shot into the air.

“Emmeline Arnold, Your Majesty, from the British World Service,” the first woman Zechs gestured to said politely. “Given the absolutely astonishing resemblance between the Treize standing with you today and the late General Khushrenada, do you maintain they are natural father and son? What would you to say to anyone thinking you’ve had your former lover cloned?”

“That they need to have their eyes tested,” Zechs answered fluidly. He waited for the chuckles to die down. “Of course I maintain that they are natural father and son – I absolutely deny any possibility that Treize is a clone and I invite any detractors to examine the images taken here tonight against any archive footage of His Excellency. There are numerous differences between the two men, as will be obvious on such comparison. If it is merely a matter of fathers and sons looking too much alike, well…” He turned to the back of the dais for a moment, beckoning. “Aleksander, come here a moment, will you?”

There was a rustle across the room as Aleks stepped from his place in a chair at the back of the dais. Zechs’s inclusion of his son was a change from the schedule – Treize had been given to understand that any accusations of cloning and similar nonsense were to be answered by denying them and moving swiftly on. It wasn’t, as Relena had pointed out when Treize had expressed doubt about the success of that policy, as though they had to worry over the Press stumbling on the truth. That was so incredulous no one would ever believe it.

The Press rumbled and snapped photographs as Aleks drew level with his father, the puzzlement in his amethyst eyes masked by a winning smile for the cameras. “Yes, father?” he asked politely.

Zechs drew his son against his side with a gentle hand and looked back towards the British reporter directly. “It’s been commented on before, but I’d like to point out that my son and I look rather strongly alike as well. Would anyone care to suggest that is due to cloning?” he asked quietly.

The momentary hush that fell told Treize that Zechs was hinting at something more than was obvious, tapping on some bit of history Treize wasn’t aware of.

“Of course not, Your Majesty,” the reporter answered swiftly, adding to Treize’s suspicions. “But, with respect, the evidence of Queen Lucrezia’s pregnancy was incontrovertible. That is not the case here. Given that there is some doubt still over the true origins of General Khushrenada’s daughter, can you blame anyone for wondering about his son?”

Zechs opened his mouth again to field the question, and closed it again sharply as Treize stirred next to him.

“Mariemeia is not a clone,” the redhead said, voice pitched to carry. “My mother, Lady Sabine, was a personal friend of my father’s, in addition to being a full member of Romefeller. She commented several times in my hearing that General Khushrenada would not have been pushed for the contract that produced me if Romefeller hadn’t been troubled by the presence of his only child and heir in the hands of Dekim Barton and the colonies. That child was Mariemeia, product of an encounter between my father and Miss Leia Barton during his stay in the Barton Family Hospital.”

There was another shocked flurry from the reporters and Treize sighed under his breath. He was sure he didn’t recall the press being this excitable.

He waited for them to settle down again, much as Zechs had, using the time to cast furtive glances at the rest of the family. Zechs’s expression hadn’t changed, and neither had Relena’s, or her husband’s. Aleks was staring at him openly, Felix from under veiled eyes and Dorothy was smiling secretively. Une looked quietly thrilled and Mariemeia herself was looking back at him with eyes sparkling through tears. He’d confirmed his belief in her identity when they’d talked half the night before last away but hearing it stated so bluntly, in public and to the world press, must mean an awful lot when she’d wondered as long as she had.

Either the reporters hadn’t noticed her reaction, or they weren’t for giving the time for it. There were shouts of her name, demands for her to answer questions. Gracefully, she shook her head and refused them all.

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” Zechs called, after a few seconds. “Thank you, Miss Arnold,” he dismissed, and the British reporter sat down, quietly scribbling notes to herself. Zechs gestured again, and a dapper, greying man got to his feet.

“Patryk Kaminski, the Royal Sanc Clarion,” he introduced himself. “I knew your father, Your Grace,” he added slyly.

Treize flicked a glance at Zechs, who nodded imperceptibly, apparently thinking the redhead was seeking conformation of a suspicion. Treize let his look harden to a meaningful glare before he turned back to the reporter, who was watching the by-play avidly. Since Zechs hadn’t bothered to warn Treize that the Patryk Kaminski on the press-list was one he would know, something Treize would have caught himself if he hadn’t been so otherwise distracted, Treize had been given no chance to warn Zechs to keep the man away from him and now was left with no choice but to try to do damage control as best he could.

Working to that end, Treize drew a deep breath and faced the reporter calmly. “Did you now, Captain Kaminski?” he asked steadily.

He immediately heard the several sharp breaths taken by the Royal family and hoped the few wiser heads amongst them would prevent the others from doing something disastrous. It only appeared as though he’d made a fatal error.

“Captain?” the reporter fired back immediately, his voice heavy with calculated doubt. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace, but how would you know that was my last military rank?”

Treize smiled, forcing himself to keep his expression light and neutral rather than the predatory smirk the other man would be too familiar with. “Diaries, Captain,” he answered easily. “You were mentioned several times, for your skill and your dedication to your duty.”

As Treize had intended, the older man seemed thrown by the comment, his attention deflected away from the Treize on the stage and onto the one he had served with, so that he wouldn’t realise they were one and the same. “Oh,” Kaminski said flatly, then, “Ah. Nice to know,” he admitted. He squared his shoulders and found his polite smile again. “To get back to topic, Your Grace, I was one of the reporters there last night when you were out with Prince Aleksander and Doctor Maxwell. What possessed you to do something so guaranteed to reveal your identity after keeping it hidden for so many years?”

They’d been expecting the question. Treize let his smile shade to one of embarrassment and bit his lip. “A touch of youthful stupidity, I’m afraid,” he said, with the air of one confessing a sin. “Although,” he continued, flicking a glance over his shoulder at Felix before he carried on to reveal one of the biggest out and out lies of their story, “you have seen me before. You just didn’t know it.”

As would have been predictable even if Treize hadn’t already decided modern reporters were hyper, the room veritably exploded at that, becoming nothing more than a seething mass of shouted questions and flashing bulbs.

Chapter Text

An hour and a half later, Treize was even more certain that reporters had mutated in his absence. The press corps of his day would have long since moved beyond the chatty, informal interviews they were holding around the Presence chamber in favour of either going home, their work done, or mobbing key individuals until they got the answers they wanted.

Instead, various groups of reporters were hovering around the hall, moving between individual members of the Royal family to take pictures, shoot film and ask questions. Treize was tired of answering the same enquiries over and over again, particularly when he knew he’d already gone over the points he was stating in the main interview, but that, at last, was familiar.

It would help, he supposed, if his hangover hadn’t chosen the last half-hour to really flare to life again. Aggravated by the stress of the press-call, the adrenaline of his bad temper earlier and the fact that he hadn’t really eaten much all day, the nagging heaviness in his head had tightened to a vicious, throbbing band that was making every flash bulb a torture. Coupled with the sore throat he’d developed from too much talking and the fact that his feet and back were aching from standing too long, and he was starting to want this evening over with in the worst way.

A warm hand on his shoulder made him start, and he turned to glare at the individual responsible. His nerves were shot enough, without outside help.

Felix canted an eyebrow at him quizzically. “Sorry,” he said, as quietly as he could over the background hum. “Didn’t mean to startle you.” He smiled. “Though you are awfully jumpy tonight. That’s the second time I’ve caught you like that. Are you really that nervous?” he asked.

Treize shrugged tightly. “I’m in a room full of people I don’t know at all, without any form of visible security and without any clear line of sight or protected approach angle to compensate. Forgive me if all my experience with this sort of thing is screaming ‘perfect assassination venue!’ There are so many high-profile figures in here it’s unreal.”

Felix laughed, surprised. “You’re not serious?” he asked lightly, shaking his head when he saw that Treize absolutely was. “Oh, come on. No one’s going to take pot shots at you, cousin. For one thing, where would they get the gun?”

Treize responded by levelling Felix a cool-eyed stare. “Oh?” he wondered. “Is that what you all told Lucrezia?”

The younger man lost his smile immediately. “That’s not remotely funny,” he said softly.

“It wasn’t intended to be,” Treize answered him. “If I was at all of a mind to cause international chaos, something like this is exactly where I’d start. In one room, we have the King of Sanc,” he said, pointing to Zechs’s tall figure in the far corner, “both his possible heirs, his sister, who’s also the Foreign Minister responsible for interaction with the colonies, and her husband, the owner-director of one of the biggest employers and producers in the Earth-Sphere. Then there’s Une and Trowa, head and second of the Preventers, and Marie, by her own admission, an international celebrity for her music. I have no idea what your father and mother do these days, or Wufei, or Heero Yuy, but I doubt it’s nothing at all and they would still be known names if it was. Add to them all the reporters, and one well-placed explosive would be disastrous.”

Treize had turned slowly as he spoke, gesturing at the various people he was talking about. He was pleased to see the Doctor’s eyes widen slightly as he took on board the implications of what he was being told, and disappointed when the younger man shook his head in denial a moment later.

“It’s not a risk,” Felix insisted. “The room was swept before we started, I’m sure, and there aren’t all that many people anymore that would know how to do something like that in the first place.”

“Aren’t there?” Treize asked. “If I told you that there’s at least one person in this room right now who would definitely have the experience and the knowledge to get an explosive powerful enough into the Press conference, and who might or might not have reason to do so if he knew who I really was, what would you say? And I’m not counting any member of your family,” he clarified.

Felix flinched, glancing around warily. “If you’re trying to give me a complex, you’re doing a very good job,” he joked feebly. “To think I only came over here to offer you some aspirin for that headache.”

Treize raised an eyebrow curiously. “It’s that obvious?” he asked, surprised.

Felix grinned at him sympathetically. “To trained eyes, yes. You’re carrying too much tension in your neck and shoulders, you’re flinching from strong light, and you and Uncle Milliardo both have the same telltale way of pressing your fingertips to your temples. Rather the giveaway,” he explained. “Do you want the meds?”

Treize sighed wearily. “At this point, I’ll take just about anything you hand me, I’m afraid. I’m trusting to your honour that you won’t try to poison me.”

Felix smiled but the expression wasn’t warm, or friendly. “I should,” he answered, “for what you did to my mother. I’d love to hear your explanation for that, cousin,” he said flatly. He was fishing in his inside jacket pocket as he spoke, withdrawing his small fingers a moment later with a darkened plastic bottle gripped between them.

“You and most of your family,” Treize acknowledged, holding his hand out for the two tiny pills Felix shook out. “Ask your mother,” he dismissed.

“I have,” Felix said. “That would be why I’m willing to speak to you at all. You should take those with water,” he instructed. “You probably aren’t drinking enough in any case, particularly after last night. The waiters aren’t there for decoration,” he pointed out.

“Champagne?” Treize asked dubiously. “Isn’t that just going to make things worse?”

Felix smiled conspiratorially. “Smile sweetly and let the waiter hand you the glass,” he suggested. “Most of the family don’t drink at functions like this. It just looks like they do.”

Treize blinked knowingly. “Ah. That old trick. Sparkling apple juice?” he asked curiously.

“Close,” Felix answered with an approving grin. “Cloudberry cordial, from the fruit bushes in the Palace orchard, mixed with fizzy spring water. We sell the stuff in the Gift Shop, so even if we do get caught drinking it, it’s only good advertising.”

The impish light in the other man’s eyes made Treize chuckle a little as he signalled to one of the circulating, uniform-clad wait-staff and was handed a glass exactly as Felix had promised. “When did Zechs become so clever?” he wondered as the waiter stepped away again.

“He didn’t, I don’t think,” Felix answered, sipping the foam from his own glass. “Uncle Quatre runs a lot of the business side to the family, as a sideline to Winner Enterprises. He did, even before he and Aunt Relena were married.” He touched Treize lightly on the shoulder with his free hand. “Take your aspirin,” he instructed quietly, “and come and find me if it doesn’t start working in the next fifteen minutes or so. I’ve got a few other people I need to go offer a dose to.”

Treize nodded, lifting his glass to wash down the two tablets he’d been given. “Thank you.”

Felix nodded and started to step away. As he did so, the milling Press pack seemed to notice that the two of them were standing together – the first time they’d done so all evening – and they descended on them, preventing the Doctor from leaving by surrounding them.

Bowing to the inevitable, Felix smiled sweetly at the cameras and came back to Treize’s side, putting the hand back on his shoulder as they found themselves in the middle of a mass of microphones and flash-bulbs. Patryk Kaminski was leading the pack, clearly looking for follow up to his earlier questions, as well as several others. One man, Treize thought he vaguely recognised from the night before but he couldn’t be sure. All of the Press were dressed in the smart business suits appropriate to the occasion, a far cry from anything the man would have been wearing in the Blue Moon club.

“Your Grace, have we really…?” Kaminski began, at the same moment as the second man opened with, “Your Excellency, how…?” and both of them stopped mid-sentence, abruptly realising the awkwardness in what they’d done.

Treize had to bite the inside of his mouth to keep from laughing. As whom he was pretending to be, his correct form of address was ‘Your Grace’ for the Ducal title and rank he’d have inherited from his ‘father’, a man who’d never really been addressed correctly. He was entitled to the same honorific as himself, had been for years, but by the time Odell Khushrenada had died, Treize had been too well known by the honorific for his boyhood title of Marquis to change it. Even though he’d passed the junior rank to Zechs decades before, not needing it with his mother's blood lineage – forming the basis for his pseudonym of Marquise – Treize had remained ‘Your Excellency’ to the masses.

Unfortunately for the reporters right now, Felix, as heir to his mother’s Duquesa, also held the equivalent junior rank of Marquès and was accordingly styled ‘Your Excellency’ in formal conversation. To complicate matters further, the vast majority of ordinary people had no idea how to wade their way through the complexities of formal address, simply calling every noble male ‘Your Grace,’ rather than risk offence.

Treize had heard Felix called ‘Your Grace’ more often than not the night before, and by the reporter standing in front of him at least once. Taken together, it meant that none of the four of them was clear as to who was addressing whom, giving the impression that the reporters might just have called Treize by General Khushrenada’s title.

It could have been a stunning faux pas, if Treize hadn’t chosen to find it surprisingly funny. Smiling, he looked at both reporters for a moment, murmured, “Oops, gentlemen,” at them quietly, and then turned his head to grin at Felix. Knowing Kaminski, at least, spoke decent French, he canted a wicked eyebrow at the younger man and leaned into his hand as switched to his native language to comment.

“Should have known that was going to happen, Kitty,” he said playfully. “Should I wind them up about it, or not?”

Felix, bless his quick brain and his mother’s training, caught on immediately, grinning right back as he shrugged. “Depends how much you want Uncle Milliardo to yell at you later,” he replied.

Treize didn’t answer him; he didn’t need to. He’d accomplished what he wanted with the comment in the first place. He looked back at the reporters and shrugged. “Which one of us were you talking to, please?” he asked politely.

The reporters exchanged looks, then pointed at their intended quarries quietly. “I’m sorry, Your Grace,” the new man said to Treize softly. “I didn’t mean to…”

Treize waved him away elegantly. “I know,” he offered. He took a step to the side, focusing his attention on Kaminski as cameras went off again. “Captain?” he asked, indicating his willingness to talk.

Kaminski smiled in a way Treize remembered only too well from taking reports from the man and tabbed the button in his sleeve that would start his recorder. “Your Grace,” he said with a rueful quirk of his eyebrow. “Have we really been seeing you when we thought it was Feliu Maxwell all these years?”

Treize nodded. “I’m afraid so. King Milliardo, in conjunction with other members of the family and my mother, decided very early on that my identity was to be kept secret whilst I was young, for my own sake. By the time my mother died, my resemblance to my father was so remarkable and the situation surrounding my sister so unstable, that it was safer to continue in the same vein. Particularly in the wake of Miss Noin’s murder.” He smiled winningly and shrugged. “Fortunately, my resemblance to my cousin was also fairly remarkable and my Aunt Dorothy hit on the idea of substituting me for her son on occasion, to keep me from being completely isolated.”

“Why do you think no one ever noticed the switches?” Kaminski pressed.

Treize shrugged again. “I suspect people see what they expect to see. They expected to see Feliu Maxwell by his mother’s side, so they did. We had to be careful occasionally – I am two years older than my cousin – but for the most part….”

Kaminski nodded. “Will we be given a list of the occasions it was yourself and not Feliu? For the curious?”

“There’s no plan to do so,” Treize answered. “You might run a competition to see if anyone can work it out,” he suggested slyly, “but, truthfully, I don’t think anyone can remember exactly.”

There was a moment of silence whilst Kaminski’s cameraman adjusted his focus, then, “What about the infamous incident with the replica uniforms at the Halloween Ball a few years ago?” the reporter asked. “Feliu Maxwell’s resemblance to the late General was remarked upon at the time and in light of this revelation, people are bound to wonder if it was you at the Ball rather than him. What prompted you to impersonate your dead father?”

Treize let his expression turn cold. “I didn’t,” he said icily, “and I find the suggestion that I would distasteful in the extreme, Mr Kaminski. Do you think me so lacking in respect? Excuse me, please.”

Treize made to step away and was stopped by a hard hand on his arm. He turned back, his face a mask of outraged surprise, and found Kaminski staring at him with pleading in his eyes, his cameraman standing a few paces away, with the recording light definitely switched off.

“Your Excellency, please!” the reporter hissed. “I know who you really are!”

Treize forced himself to blink in confusion. “I’m sorry? Let go of me, please.”

Kaminski’s blue eyes bored into Treize’s desperately. “Your pardon, sir,” he managed, “but you don’t understand! How did you manage it?” he asked breathlessly. “You don’t look a day different than you did but you can’t be a clone, and you’re sure as hell not some Romefeller breeding contract! I heard what you said to the Maxwell boy about the state of the room – I know it was me you were talking about. You couldn’t have learned that from diaries or video recordings!” He shuddered, as though caught in a blast of cold air. “There were rumours that Lady Une had found your body, sir, for years, and that she’d had it frozen. Did they bring you back for some reason? Is it time?”

Treize freed himself from the older man’s bruising grip by giving a hard tug with his arm. “What are you talking about, man?” he demanded. “Time for what?”

“To re-activate Oz, sir. To put things right. It’s been such a long time, Your Excellency, and so many of us lost faith, but those who are left have waited and kept our oaths of loyalty, even though it’s been so hard sometimes…” Kaminski broke off and drew a breath that sounded dangerously close to a sob. “I got my job here to know, to be able to watch Lady Une and Colonel Marquise. We knew you’d call on them first, before anyone else and we wanted to be ready. What message should I give your soldiers, sir?” the older man asked fervently.

Treize looked at his former subordinate, feeling suddenly sick to his stomach. The man’s eyes were shining with the taint of madness but that didn’t negate his devotion. He’d served to the end, a driven young man in his late twenties back then, running messages right under the Alliance’s nose in the early days of Oz, and then again as part of the loyalist ‘Treize Faction.’ He’d helped to secure Treize’s communications lines during his house arrest and sourced parts for the Epyon – but for this man, those weeks in Luxembourg might have really seen Treize lose his mind. It was a poor way to repay all that, what Treize was going to have to do now, and it hurt to do it.

Steeling himself, Treize shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr Kaminski,” he bit off as tersely as he could manage, “but I suggest you be careful what slander you spread regarding Lady Une. She has no part in any plan to ‘put things right’ and I advise you not to have, either. My father wanted peace, and that is exactly what we have. Forget any wild notions and go back to your life quietly,” he instructed firmly, hoping it would do some good. “You served well, and loyally. Don’t throw that away now for a fantasy,” he entreated.

Kaminski shook his head rapidly. “Oh, what have they done to you?” he pleaded, his voice sorrowful, as though his heart was breaking. “They’ve brought you back for their own selfish ends but they haven’t told you…! The camps, Your Excellency, where they put the old soldiers who won’t rest. The dead zones that have been left to rot. The colonies left frozen in space. Make them tell you about those!” He gestured frantically, making a grab for Treize’s arm again. “They weren’t what you wanted! It’s no different than it was under the Alliance!”

Treize avoided the man’s grip by stepping back but he stumbled doing it, his balance deserting him as his headache flared into blinding agony suddenly, flashing images stealing his vision in a flickering wave.

“That’s enough!” Aleks’s voice rang in Treize’s ear loudly, his hands strong on Treize’s back and arm as he braced him. “You are no longer welcome here!”

Kaminski paled. “Your Highness, I….”

“Leave!” Aleks commanded, and Treize shivered as his memories tried to tell him it was Zechs standing next to him, barking orders across a wind-swept parade field. “How dare you torment our cousin with such vile slander?”

“It isn’t slander!” Kaminski protested passionately. “How can the truth be slander?” He tried to step towards Treize again and stopped when Felix appeared at his side and put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Your Excellency, please!”

Dimly, Treize was aware that every eye in the room was on the scene they were making, cameras flashing and whirring dizzyingly as they recorded in still and video film everything that was happening. It was exactly the kind of media they didn’t want, and with Aleks and Felix in the frame, doubly to be avoided.

Dredging the reserve from somewhere, Treize slammed shaky barriers down on the buzzing in his head, refusing to see the images dancing in front of him for the only one he knew could be real. “I am not my father, Mr Kaminski,” he managed shakily. “Whatever you may think. I have no goals beyond a peaceful life and I know nothing of the Alliance or fighting or war. I am grateful to have been born after the end of such ugliness in the world.”

Kaminski’s expression was stricken. “Your Excellency!” he pleaded, and Treize had to look away to shake his head in refusal.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” he said softly, closing his eyes as Une and Trowa appeared from somewhere and restrained the reporter to take him away. “So sorry.”

There was absolute silence in the room as the door closed behind the Preventers and their prisoner, the weight of the scrutiny a crushing weight on him even with his eyes closed and his head bent. Treize knew he had to say something, that no one else would move before he did, but it was taking more than he’d thought to make himself do so. Finally, he looked up, and sought out one face of the many staring at him.

“Dr Po,” he said quietly. “Would you go after them and see if there’s anything you can do? The man is obviously suffering some illness and you’re an expert in the care of ex-soldiers. I’d like….” He stopped himself and corrected unsteadily. “I’m sure my father would’ve liked him to be looked after.”

Sally’s blue eyes were gentle, saddened, and wisely understanding. “Of course, Treize,” she said immediately and he nodded his gratitude. She’d been a commander herself, he recalled. Perhaps she knew why he’d asked.

Her departure stirred the room to life again, giving Zechs an opportunity to step forward and call most of the attention to himself with the suggestion that the family would pose for a few group shots before the evening was wound up.

Aleks let Treize go abruptly, moving to obey the renewed calls of the reporters, leaving Felix to step close in his place.

“What was that about, cousin?” Felix asked quietly, his eyes intent on Treize’s face. He was between the older man and the rest of the room, for the most part, offering him a measure of privacy but Treize couldn’t do more than shake his head silently. How could he explain the betrayal he’d just perpetrated to a boy who’d never been a soldier? And how could he explain the ringing, swilling heaviness in his head that was screaming times and places he’d never been at him, triggered by the words of his old subordinate?

“Is any of it true?” he asked shakily. It was, the howling in his mind told him it was more certainly than any words, but he needed to hear one of them say it, to know they weren’t lying to him again, glossing over an ugly truth with pretty deceptions. If he’d fought and suffered and sacrificed what he had, only for the very people he’d fought with to become those they’d despised so much, he thought he might finally go a little mad.

“Is what true, cousin?” Felix queried, frowning. Treize’s gaze was vacant, his skin dead white. “God, you’re a terrible colour,” the Doctor said. “Do you feel all right?” He waited a beat with no response, then brought his hand up and snapped his fingers in front of Treize’s face. “Treize!”

The sharp cracking sound made Treize flinch visibly, his eyes coming back to the Doctor’s dazedly. “Kitty?” he wondered. “Is it true?”

Felix’s scowl deepened – what the hell was the older man asking? “Christ, Treize, I don’t know,” he dismissed roughly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He reached out and snagged the glass Treize was still somehow holding from nerveless fingers, fishing in his jacket pocket to retrieve a small bag containing a thimbleful of white powder. He dumped the powder in the glass and swirled it. “Drink,” he ordered. “You can’t come unstuck like this in front of the press. We’ll never explain what’s wrong with you.”

He glanced across the room as he spoke, wondering how much time he had. The press might give them a few moments, out of respect for the fact that it was one of their own who’d stepped so badly out of line, but there was only so long they were going to be distracted by the way Aleks and Helen were smiling and posing for them. Treize was the subject of the conference, after all; it was him they’d come to see and him they’d want the pictures of. Attention-seekers that they were, there were no shortage of pictures of Felix’s sister and the Prince already.

From the way Milliardo was flicking his eyes back and forward between the two of them and the reporters, he thought the same thing. Felix shrugged at him minutely in response to an enquiring tilt of the head and looked back to his cousin.

Treize, at least, was obeying his instructions, emptying his champagne flute with the flourish of a lifelong drinker even in his current state. The Doctor just had to hope it would be enough. The powder was an emergency rescue drug concocted by Sally some twenty years before for those members of the family who’d been exposed to the operating systems in the Epyon and Zero mecha, a potent combination of fast-acting stimulants and various psycho-actives.

Felix’s father had pressed the little bag, taken from Dorothy’s supply and not needed for years, into his hand just before they’d walked into the press conference, quietly bidding him to, “Take it, just in case. I don’t like the way Milliardo looks.” Felix didn’t imagine for a moment that Duo had intended the powder to be used on Treize, and he wasn’t even sure that it would help, but he couldn’t think of anything else he could do in the next minute and half that might force the other man to pull himself together.

Assuming he didn’t heave the stuff straight back all over the Presence chamber floor first, as he looked dangerously like he might.

“Feliu? Treize?”

Dorothy’s voice was imperious as she called to them, warning her son that he was out of time. “Just a moment, Madre,” he answered her. He kept his eyes on Treize, then sighed noisily as he made a snap decision. If the press needed pictures that badly, let them have them.

Praying that his family would one day forgive him for it, Felix put his hand against Treize’s face, leant forward, and kissed him full on the mouth.

There was no mistaking the Doctor’s intent as platonic or as merely friendly, not least because – after two agonizingly long seconds of immobility – Treize shuddered under the touch and began to respond. He felt like a drowning man breaking the surface of the ocean to Felix, his breath coming in ragged pants as he reacted to the only stimulus that the younger man had been able to hope might break whatever funk he’d slipped into.

Making sure his hold was actually as supportive as it looked passionate, Felix stepped into the other man, drawing him close as he deepened the kiss. Treize moaned softly into it, shivering, then latched onto Felix with his free hand with a strength he didn’t look as though he should have. Within a split second, Felix knew he’d been right in his guesses about the older man’s psy abilities. No one had ever kissed him so perfectly, exactly how he wanted to be, shifting with him from moment to moment effortlessly. If Treize could do this continuously while he was in bed with a body, it was no wonder Milliardo was still hung up on him.

The sudden blaze of flashing lights told him that the press were getting their pictures even with his eyes closed. Aunt Relena was going to murder him for the headlines in the morning but Felix couldn’t make himself care. His reputation in the gossip rags was pretty much scandalous anyway and he didn’t see the harm in the son appearing to be a little like the father on Treize’s behalf. The doctor suspected the two of them looked like theirs was a relationship of some standing in any case, thanks to Treize’s talents, and in the end, all that did was cast another layer of illusion over the older man’s true identity and origins.

Dorothy must have seen the same potential, because she sighed loudly a heartbeat after Felix thought it and said, “Really, querido. Was this the best way to announce your relationship? A little more subtlety would have hurt you, I suppose?”

Felix had to take her prompt. He broke the kiss with a warning pinch at the older man, delivered hard and exactly on a nerve cluster, and turned to face her and the reporters with a breathless, charmingly excited smile. “Sorry, Madre,” he said, trying to sound chastened.

He failed, deliberately, and half the press pack chuckled indulgently. Felix used the distraction to cast Milliardo a warning glance, trying to tell him not to let the Press start in with their questions again, and found him staring at Treize with a worried frown, seeing all the same things that had worried the Doctor, and which had not gone away with Felix’s impromptu amorous advance. He was near to a dead weight against Felix’s supporting arm, his eyes distant, the sweat pouring off him and his breathing a ragged rasp.

The King turned to the reporters a moment later and forced a smile for them. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for coming,” he said smoothly. “Any follow up questions may be directed through the Press office in the morning, as may any requests for interviews or other information. A full official dossier will be released to you in a few days time about the upcoming Halloween Ball and about the Remembrance Ceremony on the 1st November, so keep an eye out. Heero will show you the way out, if you’ll all follow him.”

There was a murmur and a rustle as the Press sketched bows and bobbed curtseys, and then they were flowing from the room like water, following Heero and leaving Felix to face the shock and the anger of his family without their shield.

Chapter Text

Zechs rattled off his closing words to the Press without even thinking about them, his attention entirely riveted on his oldest friend and the family’s eldest child. For something that had been a certain disaster from the start, the Press Conference had gone as well as could have been expected, even with that ugly little interlude with the reporter.

Poor Treize. It was no wonder the other man looked so green around the gills. Zechs hadn’t thought warning his former commander there’d be another Oz veteran in the Press pack would matter until Treize had shot him that angry glare when the man had introduced himself, and by then it had been too late. Treize had handled Kaminski well until the man had shown his true colours, and then he’d been forced to do the only thing he could. The betrayal of an ex-comrade must have stung, feeling as it had to that they were punishing a loyal soldier for only doing what he’d been trained to do. Zechs wasn’t happy about it, either, but short of explaining everything to Kaminski, there’d been no other choice. He was only grateful Treize had seen that.

As for Felix’s little show… The King assumed the boy had extenuating reasons for what he’d done but he was more concerned with how Felix had known that he could kiss Treize like that at all, and by how it had looked very much like it hadn’t been their first kiss at that. When, exactly, had the two of them become that intimate, and what the hell was Treize doing, getting that intimate with one of the children in the first place? If he’d played the same mind games with Felix he once had with Zechs himself, Zechs might just find himself making good his earlier threat to shoot him and walk away. This wasn’t Romefeller anymore, and there was no place for Treize’s sluttish behaviour.

He opened his mouth to demand answers and found himself interrupted before he could start by Felix’s commanding voice.

“Somebody get me a chair,” the Doctor ordered, as soon as the room was clear of anyone but family and the door was firmly closed. “Hellion, run and find Aunt Sally and tell her I need her, please. Aleks, there’s a metal fruit bowl on the credenza in the antechamber. Bring it in here, will you?”

Zechs blinked along with the rest of the adults at Felix’s tone. Where had that snap of authority come from? And when? Even Dorothy, who could usually be counted on to know the deepest nuances of her mercurial eldest child, looked startled, though she’d been the only one not so thrown by the kiss.

“Now, damn it!” Felix bit off, and Zechs realised they were all staring at him blankly instead of doing as he’d asked.

Immediately, the two teenagers split off in opposite directions, Aleks jumping from the dais to the chamber floor rather than taking the little steps and Helen gathering up her skirts in both hands as she clattered down them in her heels. Quatre was the first of the rest of them to move to find the asked-for chair, dropping from the dais in a similar, if more graceful, fashion to his nephew and crossing to the nearest wall, where the chairs had been stacked earlier on.

Duo exchanged puzzled glances with his wife, then followed his comrade off the platform and onto the floor, making his way to his son and the former general. Felix still had one arm around Treize and was working clumsily to free his suit jacket and tie with the other hand.

“Son,” Duo asked, slowing his approach as he drew level with the younger men. “You wanna explain what you know and we all don’t?”

Felix glanced up for a heartbeat, shaking his head. “Not right now, no,” he said tersely. “I’m a little busy. You might look,” he suggested, pointing at Treize for a second with one finger.

From the stage, Zechs bridled at Felix’s tone, then forgot all about the reaction as Duo raked his eyes over Treize once and tensed.

“Hey, Big Blondie,” he said, his voice quiet and carrying with unspoken intensity. “Get the kids out of here, will you?” he asked calmly. “Wuffers, Ning needs to be with his mother, right?”

Zechs felt himself turn cold at the other man’s words. Questions they might have been, but the King had known Duo personally for over twenty years and hadn’t often heard him use that tone of voice. Whatever he was seeing that the rest of them weren’t, it had him worried. Quickly, he turned on his heel and looked at his sister. “Relena,” he said firmly. “Take Katerina and….”

The Princess was nodding before Zechs had really started speaking. “Absolutely,” she said. “I trust one of you will keep me posted,” she commented intently. “Marie, why don’t you and Ning come and keep me company?”

Mariemeia looked for the world as if she was going to protest, until Wufei stepped forward and whispered something into her ear, pressing a gentle kiss to her cheek. He was always, ever the only one who could so handle Treize’s fiery daughter and it was constantly touching to watch.

“…he’s my father, ‘Fei. If there’s something….” Zechs caught, and felt his heart twist.

“We’ll take care of him,” Wufei promised. “He’d be the last to thank you for putting his grandson in danger for the sake of your own feelings, girl child. You know that. Be what he needs you to be.”

Marie hesitated another moment, then nodded her bright head slowly, bent to pick up her son and fell into step beside Relena.

Down on the chamber floor, Quatre had freed one of the chairs from its stack and brought it to Felix, and Duo was still watching Treize like a bird watching a snake about to strike. The moment Felix got Treize seated in the fragile, spindle backed chair, Duo got a grip on his son’s arm and started pulling him back from the former general.

Predictably, Felix didn’t take kindly to the move. He’d been taller than either of his parents since his fifteenth year, and he used every one of his extra five inches as he yanked his arm free and glared down at his father. “What the hell are you doing?” he hissed frantically.

“You need to come away,” Duo replied, just as intently. “Don’t argue with me, Felix,” he added sharply, when Felix opened his mouth again. “You don’t understand what’s happening and you don’t understand what could happen.”

Felix raised a cold eyebrow at his father. “I don’t?” he asked dangerously. “I understand just fine that you’re trying to keep me from my patient,” he warned, folding his arms across his chest, his hands gripping his sleeves viciously.

Duo just shook his head. “I get that you like the guy, son – none of us missed that – but you’re out of your depth here. We’ll look after him – you get Aleks and go and keep your Aunt Relena company.”

“Excuse me?” Felix demanded. “I’m out of my depth?” He spluttered incredulously. “Six years of med school and a doctorate and I’m out of my depth? You’re kidding, I hope?” He shook his head, his eyes flashing stormily. “Get the hell out of my way!”

Duo lifted his chin stubbornly. “No.”

Felix stared at him for a moment, shaking his head again. “I don’t believe you’re doing this.” He turned on his heel to take in the rest of the room, Quatre, standing by Treize’s chair, Wufei, Zechs and his mother still up on the dais. “Raise your hand if any of you understand the following, please,” he challenged angrily. “My patient is pyrexial and diaphoretic, experiencing cephalalgia, hyperventilation and tachycardia. Seven days ago, he suffered severe trauma resulting in significant haemoptysis, which caused a state of hypovolaemic shock and prolonged unconsciousness. His current symptoms may well mean nothing, so that he would be completely fine in your care, or they may be the precursor to a serious medical event such as a CVA or a Myocardial Infarction, in which case his life could be in danger in a matter of minutes. I don’t know which, and you certainly don’t.” He turned back to his father. “Still think I should leave?”

Duo looked as confused as Zechs was sure the rest of them felt – what Felix had just rattled off made very little sense – but he didn’t back down. “Yes, son, I do,” he insisted quietly. “I’ll admit I don’t have the foggiest what all that meant but it doesn’t matter.” He put a hand out to the younger man again and gestured meaningfully with the other. “The general’s in system-shock, Felix,” he explained gently. “And as much as you don’t want to hear it, he’s dangerous like this, kid. If he takes you as a threat, he’ll hurt you.”

Felix snorted rudely. “A threat? Five minutes ago I was kissing his lights out – he doesn’t see me as a threat.” He took a step back, away from his father and towards Treize. “Even if he did, I’d still have a duty to care for him. I’m a Doctor; he’s my patient. There’s no one else in the room who has any real kind of medical training. You’ve all just admitted you didn’t know what I was talking about when I described his symptoms.” He looked at Duo steadily for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he added quietly, “but you raised me to honour my word.”

Duo’s expression flashed from worry and anger to utter shock in the matter of a heartbeat, leaving him staring helplessly after his son as the younger man turned around a third time and took the half-dozen paces that brought him back to Treize’s side. Smoothly, he dropped to one knee by the chair, one hand curling around Treize’s wrist to monitor his pulse, the other prying loose the other man’s empty wine glass and handing it off to Quatre, who was standing a little distance away silently.

“Felix,” the blond man started gently, and Felix shook his head determinedly.

“No, Uncle Quatre,” he said flatly. “I’m going nowhere until and unless my patient is stable again or Dr Po tells me I may.”

“I was going to ask if you wanted me to fetch anything for you,” Quatre finished, smiling softly. “Do you?”

Felix blinked blankly, then nodded, “If you would, I could use my bag from my rooms. I need my stethoscope and my sphig, and I’d like my drug kit on hand in case he does start throwing symptoms that are more serious. I gave him aspirin about half an hour ago for the headache and Sally’s rescue powder about ten minutes ago, but I don’t think that’s going to stay down much longer and I’ve nothing else on me.”

Quatre nodded his understanding and turned to leave the room. He near to collided with the returning Aleks, who was panting a little as he held the fruit bowl out to his friend.

“Here, Kitty,” he said, and Felix had to grin at him. He’d brought the bowl, fruit and all.

“Thanks, Aleks.” The doctor dumped the fruit onto the edge of the dais by Zechs’s feet as the older man came close enough to bend down and see what was happening, then handed it back to the Prince. “Hold it for me, will you?” He quirked a mischievous eyebrow at his younger cousin. “You’ll know if I need it, I think.”

He reached to finish what he’d started before his father interrupted him, unbuttoning Treize’s jacket and removing his tie, but when he moved back to strip the jacket away completely and loosen the top button of Treize’s shirt, he found Zechs’s hands in the way, already working on the same task with infinite gentleness.

“Let me,” the King said. “I’ll be quicker. I’ve done it before.” He flicked Felix a speculative glance. “Unless you have, as well?” he asked neutrally.

Felix couldn’t help the blush that rose to his face. “No,” he answered honestly. “Nothing of the sort. We’ve kissed, that’s all. I was looking for a way to keep the reporters from realising what state he was in,” he explained. “Kaminski really knocked him for a loop.”

“Kaminski and the flash-bulbs,” Wufei said, appearing on Felix’s other side silently. He looked steadily down at the pale-faced former general for a moment, then up at the hovering King. “We didn’t think, Milliardo,” he said regretfully. “He told us Tallgeese shorted out at the end, that he was electrocuted, but we none of us thought that bright, unpredictably flashing lights could be a problem for him. We’ve triggered post-trauma symptoms in him with the association.” He shook his head. “Some clinician I am,” he muttered derisively. “I should have made him sit down with me for exploratory work days go.”

Zechs shrugged tightly, one gloved hand stealing out to flit lightly over Treize’s newly dyed hair. “He doesn’t even know you’re a clinical psychotherapist, Wufei, much less one prepared to treat him. He thinks you’re with the Preventers. I suspect he thinks you’re an Agent.”

“He’s hostile to counselling as well,” Felix put in from his crouch. He was taking Treize’s pulse again, staring at his wristwatch as he spoke. “He near to flipped his lid when Sally suggested the idea. He’d be a combative patient for you, to say the least.”

Wufei smiled a little. “Let him be. I’m prepared to take on shared care if you’re willing, Doctor,” he said. “If you’ll let me have his notes and a list of his medications?”

Felix nodded. “Sure, as long as he doesn’t outright forbid me.” He frowned, standing up and brushing his hands against his trousers quickly. “Do you have any idea why he’s so non-responsive?” he asked. “He’s agitated physically but it’s not being reflected. We’re talking right over his head and he’s not reacting. He doesn’t strike me as that passive a person.”

The oriental man laughed dryly. “I should say not. He was never passive a day in his life.” He took a half step forward and bent down a little, analysing. “He’s dissociated, I think, and it could be either the Stress Reaction or the system-shock causing it. If it’s the former, he’ll come out of gradually. If it’s the latter, well…” He smiled wickedly, gesturing expressively at the younger man. “Don’t make him jump,” he instructed. He tilted his head. “I knew what you were saying, by the way. I chose to let you make your point.”

Felix’s fading blush returned full force. In his outrage at his father, he’d completely forgotten that he wasn’t the only Doctor in the room. Wufei was a psychiatrist, not a physician, but that still meant he knew far more than the average layman did. “Ah, thanks,” he said awkwardly.

Wufei nodded slowly. “You’re welcome. It was well said, child,” he approved quietly. “Respect for one’s Elders is one thing but so is knowledge and the commitment to use it. Are you really worried about heart-attack and stroke?” he asked curiously, prompting horrified gasps from Zechs and Dorothy with his words. “He’s young for it and very fit, and with aspirin in his system already…?”

Felix shrugged a little. “I’m not majorly concerned, no,” he admitted. “I certainly don’t think he’s in any danger of a heart attack. His pulse is too fast, but it’s strong and steady and there’s nothing in his history to suggest a risk. His ECG the other day was textbook, too.”

He looked up at Zechs and his mother, who had one hand pressed to her mouth in fright, her fingers white with the pressure. “I was talking more for the shock value,” he confessed. “Myocardial Infarct – heart attack,” he explained.

Dorothy made some wordless sound of grief, prompting Duo to go to her, and Zechs looked at the Doctor gravely. “And the other?” he asked uncertainly. There was something in his eyes that betrayed the feelings he was keeping buried. Brave, loyal Pagan had died of a series of strokes, Felix suddenly remembered, some ten years before, his fine mind and stalwart personality being stripped from him with each one until they killed him. It was no wonder Zechs was so afraid of the same thing happening to Treize.

Felix shook his head immediately. “There’s a greater risk – his MRI was a Christmas tree and he’s been getting headaches – but it’ll be one chance in a thousand if he does stroke. Honestly, I’m more worried about seizures,” he explained. “I think this is a drug reaction. We started him on a lot of new meds yesterday and if he was going to hit problems with them, it would be right around now that he would.”

Zechs relaxed minutely, looking down at his friend again helplessly. “Are the symptoms right?” he asked. “Because….”

Wufei cut him off, raising a silencing hand. “Peace, Milliardo. Let me.” He fixed Felix with a dark-eyed look and squared his shoulders. “Your patient is suffering system-shock, Felix,” he said firmly. “As everyone in the room can tell you. I’ve seen it dozens of times and it is unmistakeable. Look at his eyes,” he instructed.

Felix glanced down at Treize reflexively, frowning when he noticed the subtle silvery sheen to Treize’s flickering sapphire gaze. “You might be right,” he acknowledged “but assumption is the father of mistakes. Until I know for sure, I’m not going to risk missing something. I don’t know how to treat system-shock anyway,” he confessed. “I don’t even really know what it is.”

There was a moment of silence as the older people in the room exchanged speaking glances. “You already have treated it,” Dorothy said eventually, looking at her son with her eyes sparkling behind tears. “You gave him Sally’s powder – that’s all that can be done,” she said emptily. “Treize has to do the rest himself. He’ll bear it, or he won’t.” Her voice broke on her last words and she turned into her husband’s hold, hiding behind her hair.

Duo stroked the long tresses soothingly. “He’ll be fine, Doro. He was last time, and that was when he’d just woken up. Wasn’t it, Blondie?” he asked, nudging the King as well.

Zechs blinked, distracted from his unblinking stare at his friend. “What?” he snapped, then drew a deep breath. “Oh. Yes. Perfectly fine.”

“You need to understand, child,” Wufei picked up quietly, when it became clear that neither the King nor Felix’s parents were going to continue. “System-shock is a trauma entirely of the mind, and the soul. The programs of the Zero and the Epyon were designed to interface with the subconscious of their pilot, bypassing all higher thought and reasoning. They purported to show the truth of a situation, with that ‘truth’ being subjectively dictated by the desires of the individual user. For Heero, that was to tell him who his enemy really was; for Quatre, with his empathic senses, the cause of all the pain and suffering he could feel.”

He bent down again, looking at Treize’s eyes, noting the way they were flitting side to side as though he was reading; rapid-eye movement like a waking dream.

“Zero was the cruder system, less powerful and less damaging,” he continued, when he straightened up again. “Somehow, Khushrenada refined it for Epyon, changed its coding to make it go a step beyond its original intent, to show the truth of the future, rather than just the present. It ripped apart most people who tried to use it completely, driving them mad and leaving them prone to flashback fits we’ve come to term ‘system-shock.’” He shrugged. “We didn’t know whether Treize would be susceptible to the syndrome or not, until just now. His mind, after all, synchronises with the Epyon AI perfectly, though it’s only ever done so twice. There’s something unique about him but we’ve never known what, however much we’ve guessed.”

Felix nodded slowly. “You didn’t know, then,” he said, looking at Zechs intently. “I – we – thought you might have guessed, especially after Ning….” He gestured at Treize. “He’s a psionic,” he explained gently. “Like Uncle Quatre. It was all over his EEG results.”

Wufei frowned speculatively at the news; Zechs just shook his head. “I knew there was something like that,” he murmured. “He never exactly admitted as much to me but I always knew. His family were so secretive about certain things, so protective. His father used to spend hours and hours alone with him when we were children and he was always exhausted when they reappeared. He never told me what they were doing but I suspected.” He swallowed carefully. “When Marie didn’t show any sign, I thought I must have been wrong, but then Ning had that seizure last year and the moment I saw him, I knew I’d seen Treize do exactly the same thing, show exactly the same symptoms, hundreds of times. He was just better at repressing them than Ning could possibly have been, and he knew what they were. That was what his father was doing with him all that time – training him to control a quirk of family genetics that gave them all abilities they shouldn’t have had.”

Wufei nodded. “It’s likely. At least now we’ll have a tutor for Ning in his talents.” He frowned suddenly. “Presuming Khushrenada doesn’t crack under the system-shock, of course.”

Felix had been listening with interest; now he snapped his attention to the oriental man, and scowled. “What the hell do you mean by that?” he demanded.

Wufei shook his head sadly. “It’s as we said earlier, child. There’s very little anyone outside the experience can do to ameliorate system-shock. Certain drugs help, but in the end, it’s down to the will of the individual to break through the pattern of the program and rejoin the real world. Either Treize will manage that, or he won’t. He may come out of it relatively unscathed,” he explained, “or he may suffer a full psychotic break, as Milliardo and Quatre did. We have no way to predict which it will be before it happens. That’s why your father wanted everyone civilian out of the line of fire,” he added, looking at the Doctor levelly. “Your devotion to your Oath is commendable, but you – and Aleksander – really should not be here.”

Felix shook his head stubbornly. “We’ve been through this,” he said curtly. “I’m going nowhere.”

Wufei held his gaze for a moment, and then nodded, turning to look at Aleks speculatively. “Your Highness,” he started. “Perhaps you should…”

The Prince had been standing with his back to the dais, fiddling with the metal bowl he was holding as he listened. He started as every eye in the room was fixed on him, straightening his posture determinedly. “What?” he interrupted flatly. “Perhaps I should, what? I’m not leaving if Felix doesn’t,” he informed the room. “If it’s safe for him, it’s safe for me.”

Zechs gazed at his son with narrowed eyes, never having been fond of the side of himself Aleks was currently displaying. It had been like to get him a smacked rear and an early bedtime in his younger years. “It isn’t safe for Felix,” the King countered shortly. “That’s the very point we’ve been trying to make.”

“You’re still letting him stay,” Aleks argued.

“Because he’s an adult and he has a professional qualification that both obliges him to be here and that may be of use. No such conditions apply to you.”

Aleks flushed scarlet. “I’m an adult, too,” he complained. “However little you like admitting it!” He put the bowl down on the surface of the dais and folded his arms defiantly, tossing his head to make silky blond hair flare around him in a gesture he’d had since he was a very little boy. “I can make my own decisions,” he told his father curtly, “and I say I’m staying. Felix might need my help or…something.”

“Aleks,” Zechs started tiredly. The last thing he needed was his son being stubborn but he could hardly say the boy didn’t come by it honestly. “An adult wouldn’t needlessly risk their safety and complicate an already fraught situation with their presence. Your Aunt Relena didn’t protest, did she?” he asked

“Only because she had to see to Katerina,” the Prince fired back. “She wouldn’t have left otherwise and she’d been more at risk of harm than I am. She’s smaller and older than me and never had even the basic training Wufei gave me.” He glared at his father. “Would you have told her to leave or would you have let her make the choice for herself? You’re not telling Aunt Dorothy she shouldn’t be here and Treize has already lashed out at her once today!” he pointed out haughtily.

“Doro’s Treize’s family,” Zechs returned coldly. His face was closing, hardening as he argued with his son. “Enough, Aleksander. Go, now!”

“No!”

The two Peacecraft men stared at one another across the space separating them, violet eyes locked with wintry blue. Felix glanced between them, wondering which of them would win this round in their endless clash of wills before snapping his attention to his patient as Treize shuddered visibly, giving the quietest of breathy moans.

“Treize?” Felix asked sharply, dropping to one knee again by the other redhead. “Treize, look at me,” he ordered.

The change silenced the building argument between father and son, and had everyone moving towards the chair as Felix put a hand out to touch the former general. He settled the backs of his fingers against Treize’s chest and rubbed hard. “Come on, cousin. Wakey, wakey.”

Aleks snorted rudely. “‘Wakey, wakey?’” he repeated. “Is that a technical term?” he wondered.

Felix paid him no attention. “Shut up, Aleks,” he said mildly. “Treize? Come on, snap out of it. Treize?” He rubbed again, more vigorously, and won himself another whimpering moan. “That’s it,” he encouraged. “Stay with me.”

The older man stirred in his chair listlessly, his expression forming a pained frown for a second before he seemed to lapse back into stillness.

Felix shook his head. “No,” he chided gently. “You need to wake up now. Come on.” He reached up, moving to pat Treize’s cheekbone, falling back on traditional methods of rousing an unresponsive patient. “Treize?” he called again. “Damn it, where’s Uncle Quatre?” he hissed. “I need my bag!”

Zechs shook his head, coming within a pace or two of the two younger men as he watched with poorly concealed concern. “Your rooms are on the other side of the Palace,” he reminded. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Not really, no. I knew I should have brought the damn thing with me!” Felix cursed. He patted harder, provoking another frown. “Yes, good. Come on, cousin.” Treize shifted uneasily again, lifting one hand to try to push away Felix’s clumsily, and the Doctor smiled. “That’s it, good man. I’m annoying, aren’t I?”

Zechs moved a half step closer, reaching towards the Doctor as though to restrain him. “Be careful, child,” he said softly. “It might be safer to let him be.”

“I want him awake,” Felix answered, flicking his favourite Uncle an appreciative glance. “It’s a lot, lot easier to triage a patient when they can tell you what’s wrong and, from what you were telling me about the Epyon system, the more interactive with the real world we make him, the safer he’ll be.” He smiled. “I’ve worked A&E shifts on Saturday evenings, you know. I’ve dealt with hazardous patients before.”

“I’m sure you have, but….”

“Shh. I know what I’m doing.” He patted at Treize a third time and when it didn’t garner a response, shifted in his crouch to lean closer to him. “Treize, come on,” he said firmly. “Enough now. I need to talk to you.” He brought his free hand up to grip the older man’s shoulder and shook him roughly. “Treize?”

Treize moaned again, more distinctly this time and his hand groped aimlessly, finding Felix’s arm by good luck rather than judgement. The Doctor nodded approvingly. “That’s it,” he pushed. “Look at me, Treize. Treize? No, here,” he demanded, as Treize let his eyes slip closed properly.

“Damnit!” Felix swore. “Treize! Wake up! Treize!” he repeated, then, sharply, accompanying it with a pat that was hard enough to sting. “General!”

“Felix, no!” Zechs exclaimed. He reached for his nephew, but not nearly fast enough.

Reacting entirely to the use of his title, Treize’s eyes snapped into focus on Felix’s face and his grip on the younger man’s arm tightened to bruising point. Off-balance, Felix couldn’t break the hold, and a moment later, he froze completely as the light sparked off something silver in Treize’s other hand.

“Felix!” Zechs shouted in alarm as Treize leaned into his nephew and pushed him to his feet slowly. The former commander moved with the boy, his gaze never wavering, and the flash of the knife he was holding to the Doctor’s throat made ice run in the King’s veins.

“Jesus Christ!” Duo swore behind him, his voice stretched with incipient panic. “Milliardo!” he said tightly, making the name he almost never used a demand for the King to do something.

Zechs shook his head helplessly. He hadn’t even seen Treize move to retrieve the knife and had no idea where it had come from. Treize had always carried a boot knife, as many Specials pilots had, but he wasn’t wearing the knee boots and breeches he would have needed for that to be the case here and Zechs was almost sure he hadn’t seen the other men reach for his leg in any case.

It might have been in a concealed sheath under his shirtsleeve but where the hell would he have gotten something like that from? And what on Earth was he thinking, walking around armed like this anyway! Zechs recognised the blade, at least, and felt instantly sick with guilt. He’d given the knife back to Treize the day before, along with his duelling sabre, and thought nothing of it, never imagining Treize would turn on the family like this.

The blade was a relic of a different era, a custom-made, razor-sharp assassin’s weapon capable of slicing skin and muscle in the blink of an eye. Treize, blooded Romefeller agent, Specials soldier, was definitely capable of using it and Felix, child of Peace, had no idea at all of the immediate and deadly danger he was in. His ill-advised, completely understandable attempt to rouse the other man with his old title had triggered responses in his cousin that he couldn’t begin to understand.

Ignoring all the reasons why it was move doomed to failure, Zechs took a step forward, readying himself to intervene, and stopped when Felix caught the gesture from the corner of his eye.

“Don’t,” the Doctor said softly. He was white as a ghost, his voice shaking, but his eyes never moved from Treize’s face. “Just don’t,” he begged. “He won’t hurt me.” He belied his own words by swallowing convulsively against the sharp edge of the blade but he moved with Treize easily enough as the former general pressed him backwards across the room. “He has no reason to.”

“Felix,” Zechs breathed. “You can’t know that, surely?” he asked quietly. He didn’t – he was near to certain that Felix had no clue what he was talking about – but there was a part of him that desperately wanted the younger man to know something he didn’t.

“No, of course I can’t,” the Doctor admitted, with a terrified, high-pitched laugh. “But I’d rather you didn’t try anything that might make his hand slip, thanks. He’s really terribly close to my carotid artery.”

Too damn close, Zechs recognised, wishing that his old commander were just one inch less well trained. An amateur would have put the knife flat to the front of the Doctor’s neck, giving them a possible fraction of an opening, but Treize knew better than that. He had the blade to one side of Felix’s Adam’s apple, directly against his pulse point, and tipped down to cut into the fragile tissues at an angle. The blink of an eye, and he could slice open Felix’s throat beyond any hope of repair.

Standing next to him, Zechs knew the moment that Duo – their knife-fight specialist – drew the same conclusion by his frustrated hiss. He tensed, readying himself to move, but a heartbeat later, Felix spoke again, probably intending to be reassuring, though that wasn’t how he came across, and his voice froze his father in his tracks.

“Really, Uncle Milliardo,” he managed, his voice breaking into a terrified giggle. “I’m not dead yet, am I? And I could be, if he wanted me to be.”

Dorothy, behind Zechs, moaned in terror and Aleks seemed to have frozen in place, his dusky eyes wide with fear as he stared at his beloved friend and cousin being held at knifepoint.

Wufei coughed softly. “He has a point,” he said, barely lifting his voice from a whisper. “If Khushrenada knows how to use that blade at all, then some part of him is choosing not to kill at this point.”

“He knows,” Zechs answered darkly, then bit his lip as he fought to think clearly. He knew he should be doing something, planning something that would resolve the situation but his mind was blank. He’d warned Felix to be careful but he’d never, in a million years, thought Treize was capable of something like this. What was going on behind those sapphire eyes that he would pull a knife on a defenceless boy he barely knew? The King drew a deep breath to try to steady himself, and had his efforts blown out of the water by a piercing scream from the far doorway.

Zechs’s head whipped round to see Helen standing in the doorframe, her face a mask of horror and her eyes tearing as she stared at the scene in the Presence chamber. Even more sheltered than her older relatives, too young yet to have gone out into the world alone as her brother had, Helen had known little more than the safety of her home, her schools and the Palace. Only in her history books had she encountered the sort of sight she was facing now and the reality of it was causing her to panic.

“Kitty!” she screamed again, and Zechs swore as Treize shuddered at the sound, blinking rapidly.

Felix tensed unbearably, shivering as Treize’s hand slipped, but his eyes never left his patient as he began talking softly to him, so softly that Zechs, still just a few paces away, couldn’t hear what he was saying.

Helen’s scream was followed in seconds by heavy, running footsteps, and then there was surge of movement and voices and noise pouring into the room.

Une reacted fastest, assessing the situation with trained eyes behind her glasses and immediately clamping her hand over Helen’s mouth to prevent her from shrieking again. The girl was almost as tall as the Preventer Captain but Une pinned her into stillness regardless and firmly ordered her to be still, her tone one that none of the children would willingly cross.

By her side, Heero had his sidearm out of its holster as soon as he’d scanned the room. He raised it, two handed, and sighted down the barrel. He was the only person in the building carrying a gun – Une never did, for the statement it made – and also the one most likely to use it if he thought it was necessary. Zechs immediately felt the tension rack higher – Felix had some cover now, but only at the expense of putting Treize in deadly danger as well.

Quatre, right on Une’s heels with Felix’s black medical bag, paused in the doorway, then began sliding his way around the edge of the room. He came to Zechs’s side cautiously, put the bag down and blinked slowly, taking in Duo practically vibrating at the King’s side before speaking.

“What on Earth happened?” he asked quietly.

“Felix called him general to try to rouse him. Treize pulled the knife and grabbed him,” Zechs explained rapidly. “I don’t know why.”

“Threat perception, from Epyon?” Quatre wondered tersely, looking at the two redheads with analytical eyes. He was the most gentle of them day to day, but that didn’t belie the master strategist that lurked beneath the blond hair and pretty blue eyes. When called for, Quatre could be more cold-blooded than almost anyone else. “Why would he see Felix as a threat?” he asked the King, and Zechs knew his brother-in-law was already theorising and discarding reasons.

He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he repeated. “Felix was leaning over him, shaking him to get his attention, nothing that should have triggered him like this. I don’t under….”

The King stopped mid-sentence as the answer came to him. “Oh, fuck,” he said softly. “He’s claustrophobic,” he breathed. “Felix, Treize is claustrophobic,” he called to his nephew, hoping the new information would help the Doctor somehow.

Wufei turned his head to stare at the King in confusion. “Sorry?” he asked blankly. “Milliardo, I don’t mean to doubt your word but what are you talking about? A mobile suit pilot with claustrophobia?” he doubted. “Even if he was, there’s more than enough space in here that he shouldn’t be having trouble.”

Zechs waved a hand. “It’s not true claustrophobia,” he explained. “I don’t know what you’d call it correctly. One of the guards during his house arrest in Luxembourg used to trap him in a room with them. He has issues now with other people crowding him.”

“Ah.” Wufei’s expression turned grave in his understanding. “Yes, not claustrophobia. A form of haptephobia, a fear of being touched, perhaps and not unusual after such… traumas. This, I should have been told,” he reprimanded, pinning the King in place with a look, making the blond realise that Wufei had drawn the same conclusions as he had initially. “For now, it may be that all he needs is to be reassured he will not be hurt again.”

“Wuffers,” Duo suddenly growled from Zechs’s other side, “you can use all the psycho-babble you like but if the bastard doesn’t drop that blade in the next ten seconds, I’m gonna tell Heero to shoot him. Felix was trying to help him, for God’s sake!”

Wufei blinked slowly. “A touch of patience, Maxwell,” he advised. “The reaction Khushrenada is caught in is involuntary and entirely understandable. Punishing him for it would be unnecessarily cruel.”

Duo’s eyes widened in fury, his hands clenching. “Voluntary, involuntary, I don’t give a fuck!” he hissed, his voice vicious for all its soft pitch. “He’s holding a knife to my child’s throat!”

Zechs made a grab for the smaller man, knowing suddenly what he was going to do. “Duo!” he hissed. “Don’t…!”

It was a futile effort. Duo had always been able to move like smoke on water when he wanted, and this time was no exception. He simply wasn’t where Zechs was grabbing for by the time the King made the move.

Zechs watched, his blood running cold in his veins, as Duo dropped into a crouch and crept up behind the former Oz commander on silent feet, not even the movement of the air around him betraying him. Felix’s eyes widened as he saw his father, and Zechs had a terrifying moment where he thought the Doctor was going to telegraph Duo’s presence to Treize, a feeling so real he could almost see the sudden spray of blood and falling bodies, and then Felix steeled his expression, resolutely looking away.

The whole thing couldn’t have taken more than a few seconds, but it felt like a lifetime. One moment Treize and Felix were locked together, the knife gleaming menacingly; the next, Duo had leapt through the air in an agile arc and knocked the blade clean from Treize’s hand, his bodyweight taking the Oz commander to the ground.

Treize hit the marble floor frighteningly hard, his head impacting with a sickening crack as Duo landed with him and twisted like a striking snake to pin him down. Felix stood exactly where he had been, frozen into immobility for a heartbeat, wide-eyed and pale, and then he drew a deep breath and reeled, bending double to put his hands on his knees as he gasped for air.

“Kitty!”

Zechs took a step towards his nephew to help him and was beaten to it by a flashing blond blur. Aleks was across the room like a shot, throwing his arms around his cousin and hugging him as much as he was supporting him.

Zechs heard the click of the safety as Heero holstered his gun, and the squeak and clatter of heeled shoes as Une let go of Helen, but his attention was mostly on his younger relative. He took the boy’s arm as he reached him and drew him upright gently.

“Come here, child,” he said softly. “Let me look at you.”

Felix yielded to his guidance willingly, his eyes dazed as they looked at Zechs. The King used his free hand to tilt the Doctor’s head to one side a little, inspecting the faint, shallow scratch on his throat closely before smoothing back mussed reddish hair and dropping a soothing kiss onto his forehead. “You’re not bleeding,” he comforted. “There’s barely a mark.”

Felix nodded shakily. “Jesus Christ, Uncle Milliardo…” he managed breathlessly. “What did I do?”

“Hit a button none of us realised he had,” Zechs replied honestly. “Deep breaths, child. It’ll help.”

“I’m all right,” Felix protested, but he closed his eyes as he forced his breathing to slow and deepen. “God.” He was shaking from head to foot.

Zechs hugged him close for another moment, rubbing lightly between his shoulder blades before releasing him to Dorothy, who was tugging imperiously at his shirtsleeve.

“Mi querido!” she exclaimed, embracing her son to within an inch of his life as she dissolved into a babble of Spanish. Felix answered her in kind, and Zechs stepped away from them to go and deal with the other injured party.

Treize was still sprawled on the floor where Duo had put him, his rangy body a crumpled mess across the marble. He was clearly unconscious and the King chose not to wonder too long on whether he’d hit his head hard enough to cause that, or whether Duo had simply chosen to clock him afterward. He wouldn’t exactly blame the man if he had – Treize had managed in the space of one evening to hurt and threaten both Duo’s wife and his son.

“Good Lord, Treize,” he sighed wearily, dropping to his knees beside his former general. “Nothing’s ever simple around you, is it? You couldn’t just have had a bout of screaming hysterics like the rest of us?” He looked around the room. “Where’s Sally?” he asked, turning his head as he scanned for the female doctor.

Lady Une came to Treize’s other side gracefully, smoothing her skirt as she knelt to press a hand to the man’s chest, feeling for his breathing. She shook her head in reply to the King, long experience letting Zechs see the tension in her, and her voice was shadowed when she spoke. “Sally went with Trowa,” she said regretfully. “They’re taking Kaminski to Preventer Headquarters for the night. He suffered some sort of breakdown almost as soon as we got him out of the room and Sally said she needed to stay with him. We didn’t know there was anything wrong until Helen found us. I’m sorry,” she apologised. “If I’d known all this was going to happen….”

“None of us knew all this was going to happen,” Zechs dismissed. “Can you call her? Someone needs to look Treize over and I’m not asking Felix to do it. For one thing, he probably needs checking himself. He’s hardly used to being in mortal peril,” he acknowledged ruefully.

Une nodded, pulling her little phone from the clip on her belt that held it. Before she could dial, Felix appeared at her shoulder and leant over to snatch the phone from Une’s hand.

“Don’t disturb Sally if she has a patient to attend to,” he instructed calmly. “I can still do my job.” He closed the phone and offered it back to the Lady steadily. “Where’s my bag?” he asked, glancing around for it curiously.

Duo growled warningly and Zechs found himself echoing the sentiment behind the sound if not the actual expression itself. Felix was still a shade too pale, his eyes dilated enough from the shock he’d taken that their dusky jewel tone was all-but hidden by the black pupil; nevertheless, he was standing un-aided and his hands were, demonstrably, completely steady. “Felix…” the King managed incredulously. “You aren’t serious?”

Felix took the bag that Quatre handed him gratefully and bent down beside Treize smoothly. “Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked levelly. “I am still a Doctor, and Treize still, definitely, needs medical care. I’d be obliged to help even if his attempt to hurt me had been intentional.”

The Doctor had his head bowed as he rooted through his bag for something, making it safe for Zechs to glance past him to the boy’s mother with a look that spoke eloquently of the sudden surge of pride he was feeling. Dorothy returned it with a smile, her composure restored despite the drying tear marks on her pretty face.

Duo, apparently, was not inclined to see Felix’s self-sacrificing nature as a good thing. He glared down at his son and shook his head, making his heavy braid lash behind him. “You’re not obliged to put your own safety on the line!” he snarled. “’Specially not twice in twenty minutes!”

“I’m obliged to help,” Felix repeated coolly. “I’m not in any danger,” he pointed out, unfastening Treize’s shirt cuff and rolling the sleeve back. “The man’s out cold.” He glanced up from the blood-pressure cuff he was setting to run against Treize’s upper arm and smiled impishly. “Honestly, father,” he chided. “All that trouble to get him to come round and you end it by knocking him senseless. If you’ve fractured his skull,” he tweaked, “I shall be cross with you!”

Duo glared at the teasing. “If I’ve fractured his fuckin’ skull,” he rumbled ominously, “it’ll be no more than the bastard deserves!”

Felix raised a quelling eyebrow. “Charming,” he murmured drolly. Quick, practiced movements stripped away the cuff, the Doctor grimacing darkly as he noted the reading. “Oh, dear, no,” he said softly. “That won’t do at all.” He reached for his bag again and withdrew a clean hypodermic needle and a little glass vial to go with it.

“What are you doing?” Zechs asked worriedly. Any Doctor uttering the words, ‘Oh, dear,’ had long been a cue for concern in his book.

Felix raised his free hand, wordlessly asking for silence as he agitated the yellowish fluid the vial held deftly, reading the label with rapid right-left flicks of his eyes. “Somebody double-check my maths,” he ordered. “I don’t want to overdose with this stuff. The initial recommended dose is 0.25 milligrams for each kilogram of body mass; Treize weighs roughly 62kg currently. 0.25 by 62 is…”

“Fifteen point five,” Wufei replied smoothly.

Felix nodded. “Yes. So, 15.5mg for his weight, against a solution concentration of 5mg per millilitre. I need approximately 3ml, yes?” he asked, and Wufei nodded his agreement.

“Give or take,” he said.

“Good.” The Doctor quickly broke the seal of the vial with his needle and drew up the drug, tapping the barrel to knock out any air bubbles. He set the sharp tip against the exposed vein in the former general’s inner elbow and pressed it deep, pushing the drug very slowly into his bloodstream.

“Felix,” Zechs said, and forced himself to bite his lip when the younger man shook his head, not looking up.

A minute later, Felix withdrew the needle and discarded it immediately into a small box in his bag. “There,” he said.

“Felix,” Zechs repeated, more urgently now. “What are you doing?”

The younger man glanced at him. “Trying to get his blood pressure down. He’s acutely hypertensive.” He shook his head. “It's never a good thing, and it's definitely not after the last half hour.” He flicked his father a dark-eyed look. “I really wish you hadn't knocked him out. I'd be a lot happier if I could asses his neurological function right now. Or if he could tell me if anything hurts. We never have explained the blood loss he arrived with adequately and hypertension presents a risk for some nasty internal haemorrhage.” He shrugged. “The last thing he needs is any more serious bleeds.”

Zechs nodded, trying to appear more together than he was starting to feel. “All right.”

Aleks’s nervous little laugh from behind him a moment later tested that goal to stretching. “When you say ‘serious’, Kitty,” the Prince said uncertainly, “what do you mean? Because he’s already bleeding from somewhere.” He pointed to the floor beneath Treize’s head. “Look.”

Felix followed his friend’s gesture, leaning forward to look at the gathering pool on the marble hurriedly, slipping a hand into the other man’s hair a moment later, feeling gently. “It’s nothing,” he announced a minute later. “Just a cut from where he hit the floor.”

He freed his hand, prompting startled gasps at the scarlet fluid coating his fingers, and rolled his eyes at the reaction, particularly aiming at Aleks, who’d turned sheet white at the sight. “Oh, please,” Felix muttered. He reached for his bag again, finding a clean gauze pad and tearing open the packaging neatly. “Head wounds bleed like a bitch,” he reminded gently. “It’s really nothing. A dab of sealant or two, at most.”

He pressed the pad against the back of Treize’s head, staunching the flow. “Will you settle for said sealant and a possible concussion, instead of the skull fracture?” he asked his father cheekily, as he secured the dressing and set the blood pressure cuff to run again.

Duo glared wordlessly, caught between his anger and his gaucheness in contrast to Felix’s obvious professionalism. “If I must,” he grumbled tightly.

“Good,” the Doctor said. He looked at the monitor. “That's better. Here, father, carry this for me,” he commanded, handing over his bag. “Uncle Milliardo, would you help me, please? I need Treize off this floor and somewhere I can examine him properly.”

Zechs nodded willingly, shucking his frock coat to hand to Wufei in readiness. The Doctor helped the King gather up his former commander, providing a stabilising hand once or twice, then looked past the father to the son. “Aleks,” he directed cheerfully. “Stop having fits of the vapours over a little blood and bring that bowl, will you?” He grinned at his friend. “I strongly think you’ll get to be useful tonight after all.”

Chapter Text

Some five hours after he’d scooped the younger man off the Presence chamber floor, Zechs tapped on Treize’s bedroom door and poked his head around it when a blurry voice from the other side bade him enter.

The bedroom was dimly lit and noticeably warmer than the rest of the Palace – Felix had insisted on both conditions quite strenuously – making an already welcoming space all the more so.

“Hey,” the King said quietly, looking across the room at its occupants. “I was on my way to bed. I thought I’d see if you needed anything?”

Felix looked up from the book he was reading by the only light in the room, the reading lamp on Treize’s dressing table, and smiled a little. “Nothing you can bring me, Uncle Milliardo,” he said, his voice soft in deference to his patient, “but would you mind spelling me for a few minutes?” he asked. “I promised Sally I’d keep her posted.”

Zechs nodded immediately. “Of course I will,” he answered. “I told you to call if you needed anything,” he reminded sternly.

Felix let his smile become a grin. “I know,” he admitted. He stood up gracefully, setting his book down on the table, open at his page, and stretched lithely. “Thank you,” he said. “I shouldn’t be too long,” he promised, “and there’s nothing for you really to do. He’s been asleep for the last couple of hours and I’m not expecting that to change.”

He gestured to the bed as he spoke, the wide antique frame and matching nightstand surrounded by unfamiliar medical paraphernalia. Zechs followed the gesture automatically and shook his head pityingly. “I’ll be fine, dear boy,” he told his younger relative. “I may not have your training but I’ve done more than my share of keeping bedside vigils over sick family. I know when to scream for help.”

Felix laughed softly, nodding as he stretched again and made his way across the room. “See you shortly,” he said, and closed the door behind himself carefully.

Zechs waited for his footsteps to fade away along the corridor, and then made his way to the bed, skirting the clutter silently to look at its occupant.

Treize was curled on one side under his sheets, half buried under a mass of extra blankets and propped carefully amongst a mound of pillows intended to cushion and support his body. Looking at him in the low light, the only evidence of the night’s dramas was the pallor of his skin and the presence of the neat, white pad covering the sealant Felix had applied to the cut on his head. That aside, he looked, as Felix had said he was, merely to be sleeping peacefully.

One good look at him, however, and Zechs knew better. “I know you’re faking,” he said affectionately. “I promise I won’t tell if you don’t,” he added conspiratorially, bending down a little.

Treize smiled slowly, then let his eyes flicker open, the deep blue drowsy and soft. “What gave me away?” he asked throatily, his voice blurry with relaxation.

Zechs chuckled, sitting down on the edge of the bed carefully. “How long have I known you?” he countered. “Felix might not know you’re the lightest sleeper in the world but I do. I never once slipped into your bedroom without waking you, much less had a conversation with someone else.”

Treize quirked an acknowledging eyebrow. “Old habits,” he offered by way of explanation. “He might have had me drugged,” he challenged quietly.

“He might,” Zechs admitted, “but he didn’t. How are you feeling?” he asked intently. “Any better?”

Treize shrugged – or Zechs thought he did. It was hard to make the motion out for all the layers the younger man was tucked under. “I’m all right,” he allowed. “Wonderfully warm and comfortable, at least,” he said with a little laugh.

Zechs nodded. “I should think you are. You have practically every spare pillow and cover in the Palace there, I think. We weren’t sure whether Felix was trying to put you to bed or smother you alive.”

“A touch of both, I suspect,” Treize confided. “But it counters the cold, so I shan’t complain too loudly.”

Zechs snorted fondly. “I dare say not,” he agreed, and kept any other thought from his expression carefully. It wasn’t cold anywhere in the Palace and Treize’s room had been no exception to that even before Felix had commanded the heating be turned up. That hadn’t stopped Treize from shivering hard enough to rattle his teeth in his head almost from the moment he’d first come round, not stopping until the Doctor had buried him soundly in duvets and blankets.

The cause was likely only shock, Felix had explained, almost entirely psychological with just a touch of a real fever to complicate things, but whatever the origins, the reaction had been genuine enough to be a worry and Zechs had been grateful when his former commander began to settle.

Cautiously, Zechs put one hand out and touched the backs of his fingers to Treize’s forehead and cheekbone, pressing lightly in both spots and checking for heat under the skin. “You’re still running a touch hot,” he said quietly. “Do you feel feverish?”

Treize shook his head carefully. “Not particularly. And I am under all this stuff,” he pointed out, tugging at his covers with one hand. “That’s likely to make me feel a little bit warm.”

“Probably,” Zechs agreed. “As long as you aren’t actually coming down sick. That would be about all you need after the last few days.”

The younger man laughed softly, then rolled onto his back gingerly and put his hands down to lever himself more upright. He stopped when he was at about forty-five degrees and let his body settle back against his mound of pillows with a scowl. “Ach,” he winced. “Dizzy.” He closed his eyes for a moment, opening them again with a deep breath.

“It would,” he agreed, apparently answering Zech’s comments, “but I’ve been given to understand it’s about inevitable that I will.” His tone was a touch rueful and he shrugged before continuing, “Sally and Felix were both at pains to explain that my immune system is twenty-five years out of date and I should expect to suffer accordingly. The moment I’m exposed to something that’s developed whilst I was out of the loop, I’ll sicken for it, at least until my body learns how to fight back.”

Zechs blinked – both Doctor’s had briefed on an overview of Treize’s condition and on what he should be watching the other man for signs of, but neither of them had mentioned anything along those lines. “Are you now?” he wondered. “You do feel hot, and Felix said earlier you had a temperature.”

Treize raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think so,” he answered. “It’s more likely reaction to all the vaccinations they gave me the other day. The Specials inoculation boosters always had me a touch feverish for a few days, as well.”

Zechs raised an eyebrow, but since he recalled enough from Aleks’s childhood to know that a mild temperature post jab was a good thing, a sign of the immune system reacting to the virus it had been exposed to, he said nothing else on the subject. Instead, he shifted his weight on the mattress, pushing some of the mass of duvets aside a little as he made himself comfortable. “So,” he said conversationally, “how many other members of my family have been in here waking you up? Doro, I’d bet on and Marie. What about Une?”

Treize smiled just slightly, the expression perhaps a touch bittersweet. “Marie and Une, yes. Wufei and your sister, surprisingly. Not Dors, but I’m hardly shocked. She’s likely furious at me, I should think, and with reason.”

Zechs registered what Treize wasn’t saying with his words and reached to pat him through the covers, letting his hand settle against his leg. “She’ll come round,” he promised. “Just give her a day or two. You frightened us all rather badly and Doro has never dealt well with the feeling.”

Treize shrugged tightly. “Given I threatened the life of her firstborn,” he said lowly, “I hardly think fear is what’s causing her temper. I’m only grateful she hasn’t gutted me with a rusty knife yet.”

The comment made the King laugh softly. “I don’t think you’re in any immediate danger. She loves you too much to ever hurt you,” he pointed out. “I’ve never seen her as weepy as she has been this past few days. You always were the only thing that could make her cry.”

“And that’s a good thing?” Treize asked. Both Zechs and his sister seemed to be determined to make Treize think the negative emotional reactions he caused in others were signs of their affection for him, things he should be proud of, but it was hard to see past the actual reaction itself.

Zechs merely shrugged at him, leaning onto one elbow lazily. “To a point,” he confirmed. “Shouldn’t you be happy we all still care so much about you?” he asked curiously, looking at his fingertips as he stroked the younger man a little, wondering if the gesture could be felt through all the layers. They’d sat like this so many times, in earlier years, curled under the covers or in the middle of them, petting each other lightly and thoughtlessly as they talked. Most of the time it had been only what it was, closeness and companionship but sometimes….

Zechs stilled his hand as he cut the thought off before it started. If, once, this would have been the prelude to more intimate activities, then it wasn’t anymore. For one thing, Treize wasn’t up to any such thing, not with that knock to the head.

In his musing, he missed Treize’s shocked reaction to his words, and so started a little when the younger man jerked back from his touch.

“Of course not!” Treize protested. “Do you think I wanted any of you miserable? I’d have had you forget me completely first!” he insisted.

Zechs looked up and smiled softly, catching the reference easily. Treize, with his love of language, had long been an avid poetry fan and had introduced Zechs to it at a very young age. “Rossetti?” he asked. “I didn’t think you liked her work,” he commented lightly.

Treize stilled, perhaps implying that the half-quotation had been accidental. “I don’t, much,” he agreed, “but it’s apt. And accurate. I agree with her, ‘Better by far you should forget and smile, Than that you should remember and be sad,’” he quoted quietly. “If I made you angry and Dors cry, what does that say about me? And what does it say now, that I’m causing the same thing again, when everyone else is quick to tell me neither of you behaves that way without me. Perhaps I should have stayed with the Tallgeese,” he said bitterly.

Zechs tensed, sitting up. “That’s not true!” he snapped harshly. “And you mustn’t say that it is! If you had any idea what I would have given to have you back…” He shook his head. “Ask me if I ever got over you,” he challenged. “Ask my family if they think I did. Ask Une and Dorothy if they don’t still look for your approval in everything they do. Anne built the Preventers for you. Dorothy spends her time chairing dozens of charities trying to aid all those still suffering the consequences of the wars. Would you have predicted that future for either of them, from what they were when you met them? You made all of us look for our best selves. We had to, to be worthy of you.”

Treize shook his head, angrily. “No, you didn’t,” he managed, but his voice betrayed him, breaking under the strain. “You should all have told me to go to hell years ago! I didn’t merit that kind of loyalty from anyone!”

Zechs smiled sympathetically, easing himself down from his momentary panic. Treize kept implying there was more to his intentions aboard the Tallgeese than had been obvious and it was more than a little disturbing. “You didn’t have to,” he explained gently. “Treize, we served willingly. We still would.”

Zechs’s words were an echo of Kaminski’s in the Presence chamber, a declaration of an oath that should have been laid to rest decades before. Hearing another of his old soldiers insisting they still held to that oath wrenched something in the redhead, particularly when that old soldier was Zechs, whom he’d thought had abandoned him months ago.

Feeling suddenly almost as shaky as he had when facing down the reporter, Treize drew an unsteady breath. “What happened to him?” he asked weakly.

“Who?” Zechs asked. He’d narrowed his gaze at Treize as soon as the older man began showing signs of distress, seeing the incipient symptoms of the system-shock in his eyes and in his mannerisms. The King had been on the wrong side of more than a few run-ins with the syndrome himself, and knew only too well what the other man was experiencing. Treize would be emotionally vulnerable for days, easy to hurt and easy to rouse, prone to slipping back into the full fugue state of it all too readily.

“Treize, who?” he demanded, sharpening his tone to snap his friend back to the present. It was only now, knowing what it was he was seeing, that Zechs realised what should have been obvious all along. Zechs recognised both the intermittent dissociation the other man had been showing since his arrival in the morning room and something the King had previously written off as Treize just being particularly deep in thought, a quirk of personality that had characterised some of his more precious moments with his lover.

“Captain Kaminski,” Treize replied, shaking himself a little as he re-surfaced. “What happened to him after Une and Trowa took him away?”

Zechs bit his lip, then steeled himself to give the other man the truth. “He had a breakdown almost as soon as he left the room,” he answered honestly. “That’s why Sally isn’t here – she stayed with him. She thinks he snapped because he was suddenly faced with twenty-five years of repressed combat stress trauma with nowhere left to hide from it. He’d fixated so much on you, that your rejection was the last straw.” He put a hand out again as Treize swayed against his cushions. “She doesn’t know whether he’ll ever fully recover.”

“Oh, God,” Treize murmured softly. “I… couldn’t see any other way, but… I owe that man my life,” he managed. “Patryk was my mole during my time in Luxembourg.”

Zechs hissed through his teeth – he hadn’t known that. “I’m sorry,” he offered helplessly. “But whatever happened between the two of you, something would have triggered this in him eventually. Sally’s been digging up his medical records and he’d never sought treatment, never enrolled in any of the programs that were offered to ex-military personnel. We’re not quite sure how he slipped the net on that – as senior as he was and as close to the heart of things, he should have been a top priority – but that he did means that he’s never been stable.”

Treize shook his head helplessly, closing his eyes in rejection of what he was being told. “You can’t know that,” he countered breathlessly. “Not everyone chooses to confess all their dirty laundry to a professional. Just because someone hasn’t done so, doesn’t mean they can’t cope or that they’re dangerous! It just means they chose privacy.”

The King tilted his head, then nodded sagely. “Felix told me you were hostile to the idea of counselling,” he commented neutrally. “Treize, we had hundreds of thousands of ex-military men and women to contend with,” he explained. “For the first year or so, everything seemed to be fine, but then the Barton Rebellion threw in our faces, short and brutally, the fact that we’d overlooked the obvious. All those professional soldiers, lifelong rebels – what was supposed to happen to them now that there was no more fighting? Some were absorbed by Une’s Preventers, but not nearly all, and a lot of them knew no other trade. We both had to acknowledge that, and do something about it. The programs we have now are a result of that, and of a lot of trial and effort.” He shrugged lightly. “It’s part of what Dorothy does with her time – overseeing two of the big foundations we started. They’re still very active, even after all these years. We’ve absorbed a lot of existing Veteran’s clubs, taken over the provision of medical care and support payments. It works,” he said, shrugging again.

Treize had frowned deeply as Zechs spoke. “Does it?” he asked darkly. “And what do you do with those who don’t co-operate?” he wondered. There was something in his expression that suggested there was more to the question than was obvious, and it left Zechs matching his scowl as he replied.

“Assess them, mostly,” he answered, still being perfectly honest. “The vast majority are left free to go their own way, as best they can, with suitable warnings expressed to their families and placed on their citizenship files. Those few who are deemed to be dangerous are… detained. Usually by the Preventers.”

“Detained,” Treize repeated flatly. “Is that the modern euphemism for saying you take anyone who doesn’t agree with your vision for the world and lock them away for the rest of their lives? Will you do that to me if I challenge you too often?” he asked. “Patryk was right,” he said in disgust. “You’ve all been lying to me, blinding me with your pretty visions of an idyllic peace, and instead you’ve built a façade on the souls of those who fought hardest for it.”

Zechs recoiled from his old friend, sitting abruptly upright as his face closed in cold anger. “That’s not true!” he snapped hotly. “Not true at all, and I cannot believe you think me capable of it! You’re taking the word of a man who’s blatantly unhinged as the basis for that accusation, Treize!”

“How is he blatantly unhinged?” Treize fired back. He sat up himself, and suddenly looked more like the Treize of Zechs’s memories than he had at any point in the last four days, his face and eyes glowing with the strength of his conviction. “He saw me for who I truly was faster than anyone else has. He, alone of all of you, never believed I was anyone other than the Commander he’d served so long, despite everything we’ve done to prevent exactly that. If that’s unhinged, then sanity is no prize!”

“He saw what he wanted to see,” Zechs spluttered. “You could have been your own son, and he would have done exactly the same thing. He’s been waiting for you to come back to him like some Messianic saviour for a quarter of a century. The man needed a reality check in the worst way, and couldn’t handle it when he got it,” he dismissed scornfully.

Sapphire eyes flashed stormily as Treize tilted his head down to look at Zechs from under raised eyebrows. “Shouldn’t you be more tolerant of mental illness?” he asked, his tone falsely light. “Or were you in your right mind when you decided to commit genocide?”

Zechs growled, pushing himself off the bed with uncontrolled anger snapping in every line of his body. “Oh, you know how to wind me up still, don’t you?” he bit off. “What are you counting on? That I won’t smack you senseless because you’re already injured?”

Treize shook his head. “No,” he fired back. “That I don’t think you could if you wanted to,” he answered shortly. “You’ve gone soft, all of you. Politicians, diplomats – monarchs,” he mocked. “Exactly what we fought to destroy. You’re no better than the Alliance was! Kaminski was right – anyone who disagrees with you, you call mad and lock away. Was he right about the rotting cities and the abandoned colonies as well?” he demanded harshly, his breath coming in pants, his eyes silvering. “And don’t consider lying,” he warned. “I know well enough what I saw.”

“What you saw?” Zechs enquired sharply. “Treize, you haven’t been anywhere to see anything except parts of Newport City and the Palace!” He shook his head vigorously, folding his arms sternly across his chest. “I never,” he said coldly, “at any point, told you that things were perfect now. They aren’t. Yes, there are sections of some cities in the world where regeneration efforts haven’t had the drive they’ve had in Sanc and, yes, there some colony structures that have been evacuated and left empty. The world fought a fifteen-year conflict that killed a good portion of a generation and left the rest wary of having children during such instability. Populations have plummeted.”

He shifted his weight and his expression darkened thunderously. “As for the rest of your hysterical accusations, they are just that – hysterical. It was an ugly interlude with Kaminski and it triggered some very nasty post-traumatic symptoms in you. Take a deep breath,” he advised shortly, “and calm down before you throw any more allegations like that around, please. I don’t take well to being likened to the people who slaughtered my family!”

The warning would have been clear to anyone else in Zechs’s family – certainly, Felix and Aleks would have been scrambling to apologise as fast as they could, to stave off the inevitable explosion. Treize, however, either didn’t pick up on the hint, or just flat didn’t care. Folding his arms to match the King – and giving Zechs a first look at the IV line he had in the back of his right hand – Treize matched his glare icy intensity for icy intensity.

“You’re the one who made ‘Politician’ an insult yesterday, not me,” the redhead said derisively. “If it applies to me, it also applies to you.”

Zechs blinked, rolling his eyes in frustrated disbelief. “What?” he asked automatically. He waved a disdainful, dismissive hand almost immediately, sighing noisily. “Oh, for God’s sake, Treize,” he muttered, at the end of his patience for the evening. “Lay off with the melodramatic angst, will you? Grow up a little.”

Treize’s eyes widened, shocked. “Excuse me?” he choked, staring at the King in utter incredulity.

Zechs blinked, wondering what had prompted him to make that comment to his friend when Treize had all but been an adult before he was an adolescent.

Yet, as Zechs looked at Treize across the room, he was forced to acknowledge that there was more truth to the thoughtless comment than he would have liked. Subconsciously, the King realised he’d been thinking it for the last three or four days, beginning in the department store in Newport City with the acknowledgement of how young Treize was in literal years, scarcely older then Zechs’s own son, and strengthening with every new incidence of vulnerability or temper on the former general’s part.

He knew, too, when the thought had crystallised – only a few hours before, when Aleks had backed the outraged former general down in the anteroom. Treize’s angry ranting had been fronted by Aleks’s acerbic calm and in that moment, the Prince had been the more adult of the two of them. Given that Zechs didn’t especially think his son was overly mature for his age, the comparison was damning.

“Grow up?” Treize demanded a moment later, his voice vibrating with the intensity of his words. “I am not one of your damned children!” he shouted.

Zechs raised a curious eyebrow, letting his cool gaze turn quelling. “No, you aren’t,” he agreed mildly. “You’re just young enough to be.” He held up one hand, palm facing the younger man, to stop any further spluttered protest and shook his head. “Treize, has the year really sunk in for you yet?” he asked, as levelly as he could. “It’s October 220. Your next birthday should be your fiftieth, not your twenty-fifth, and I’ll be forty-five in a six weeks. You are, quite literally, young enough to be my son and it may be that you’ll have to learn to forgive me for treating you accordingly from time to time.”

“No, I don’t think I will,” Treize answered curtly. “Regardless of chronological age, I haven’t been a child in a very long time. Command responsibility for ten years will do that to a person,” he reminded, then smiled slowly. “The last men who forgot that were Noventa and Dermail,” he added silkily.

“You don’t do a lot to prove your maturity by threatening me, Treize,” Zechs retorted sharply. “I know your history,” he acknowledged. “I know you aren’t a child, but you are young. Your accomplishments don’t negate that fact – if anything, they prove it. We had to be young, to think what we did would be possible in the first place. That kind of focussed romanticism wears off fast once you hit thirty.”

He shrugged, letting a deep breath out slowly. “It was probably the Alliance’s biggest mistake that, you know,” he said, forcing his voice into softer tones, “assembling a force of elite soldiers all in their teens and early twenties and then letting you have command at barely twenty-three. If they’d stopped and thought ahead, seen beyond your youth and then factored it in, they would never have let you rise through the ranks so fast. If they’d kept you junior another few years, kept you answerable to some grey-haired, fussy old general, you’d have aged enough to jade that idealistic intensity that made you so persuasive a leader and the Alliance would probably still be around.”

Treize’s face set into the frosty lines Zechs remembered so well from his dealings with the Alliance, the expression that, inevitably, meant someone else had joined Treize’s list of those slated to die in his cause. “Are you accusing me of being naïve, Milliardo?” he asked softly. “Of playing outside my league? Of being unaware of how the world really works?” He laughed gently, looking away for a moment before pinning the King in place with his gaze. “If only. I was brokering back room political deals at fourteen and ordering men to their deaths at fifteen. I haven’t been naïve or idealistic for a very long time.”

He sat up a little more, pushing some of his covers back from himself. “You, on the other hand, have no head for politics and never have had. You could be fifteen, forty-five or a hundred and five and I’d still be able to plot rings around you in my sleep. You bleed your own instability over other people too much to ever understand their motives. Do you want to know why you keep fighting with your son?” he asked bluntly.

Zechs raised an eyebrow, rocking back onto his heels as he smiled bemusedly. “Go on,” he allowed, entertained by the notion that Treize thought he could comment on a relationship he knew nothing about.

“Because you continually strip him of his identity,” the younger man answered. “He’s clumsy because you keep him so, the perfect little Pacifist Prince, dutiful child of his mother and everything you wanted to be as a boy. You’ve done a good job raising him, Zechs, but now you need to step out of his way before he rots in your shadow. You think he’s not ready – he’s more ready than you’ve been in your entire life.”

“For what, Treize?” Zechs asked, suddenly weary. It had been a long day and he was suddenly exhausted. He’d come in here only to make sure Felix was all right, not to get into yet another argument with his oldest friend. He was tired of dealing with Treize’s temper today. Whatever sins Treize felt they’d all committed, they’d served out their punishments for them long ago – as he’d tried to make clear in the antechamber earlier. “To help you start another global rebellion?” he queried. “Because, from where I am, that’s about the only thing you might be qualified to judge him for. Certainly, you aren’t entitled to comment on my parenting,” he bit off. “Currently, your total experience of parenthood extends to a day and half with a woman more than full grown and, believe me, that’s not nearly enough. Get back to me when you’ve raised your own child.”

The King had intended the words as a put down, a dismissal of the younger man’s opinion with enough decent reason that he might actually shut-up on the subject. He hadn’t intended them to be wounding, and so was completely floored when Treize seemed to buckle under them.

“That’s not fair,” Treize murmured brokenly, dropping back into his heap of pillows as though his strength had deserted him. “Do you think it doesn’t hurt, knowing I wasn’t here?”

“Sorry?” Zechs asked blankly. Where in hell had this switch come from? Treize had flipped from angry to upset in a matter of a second.

“Mariemeia,” Treize explained. “Do you think I like knowing I abandoned her? I should have been here – I wish I had been – but there’s nothing….” He stopped and shrugged helplessly. “What do you want me to do?” he asked unevenly.

Zechs went still, looking at the younger man and realising he’d seen almost exactly that same expression years ago, every time he’d walked away from his lover in anger, denying his friend out of spite when Treize had made it all too clear he needed him to stay. “Oh, lord,” he murmured under his breath. “Treize, I didn’t mean it like that,” he said hurriedly. “I know you weren’t aware you had a child. Please,” he said, “I’m just tired. It’s been a hell of a day and I’m not thinking before I speak. I only came up here to see if Felix needed anything before I went to bed,” he added, explaining his own, earlier thoughts.

Treize nodded shakily, dropping his gaze to the weave of his covers. “All right,” he replied softly. He looked up again a beat later and forced a smile that was definitely unsteady, wrenching in the lie it tried to tell. “Good night,” he said courteously enough.

Zechs hesitated, reluctant to turn his back on Treize when he looked as he did now. He’d done so once too often in previous years, fuelled by his own teenaged angst into missing what he was doing to his lover with the rejection.

“Good night, Zechs,” Treize repeated, his voice more certain. It was an instruction, an order to leave, and it made the King frown until Treize lost the smile and shook his head. “By your own insistence,” he said quietly, “you are twenty five years too old to be the boy I needed to stay with me.”

Zechs felt his eyes widen. “Treize…?”

“Don’t,” the redhead begged, then, “You wouldn’t stay then; I don’t want you to now. You were right – you’re old enough to be my father, and that makes you a man I don’t know at all.” He shrugged limply, the fight taken clean out of him by some combination of the last few minutes or days. “I don’t trust this side of myself to strangers,” he explained carefully.

Zechs choked. That was the last conclusion he’d expected or wanted Treize to draw from their exchange. They weren’t strangers – they’d never be strangers no matter the distance or differences between them.

He opened his mouth to insist on that point and stopped when he caught the glassiness of Treize’s dark eyes, the shine betraying the younger man in a way Zechs had always, previously, missed. “Treize?” he asked carefully.

Treize shook his head angrily. “Good night, Zechs,” he said a third time, and this time his tone was firm enough to brook no argument.

The King was left with very little choice but to turn on his heel and leave the room, though it hurt something deep in him to do it.

He almost ran smack into Felix as he closed the door behind him, the Doctor returning from his errands with a smile, and he bade the boy good night as well, refusing to acknowledge the puzzled look Felix gave him as he walked away. Let him think what he would – Zechs had enough of his own issues to deal with tonight.

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Felix watched Zechs until the blond turned the corner of the corridor that would take him to his own rooms, then shook his head and opened Treize’s bedroom door, retuning to his patient.

Treize was curled on his side under his covers, seemingly asleep and all but buried under the layers. It was exactly as Felix had left him, and yet there was something not quite right. In conjunction with how upset the King had been in corridor, it was more than enough to have Felix’s instincts screaming at him.

“Treize?” he asked quietly, pitching his voice not to disturb the other man if he really was asleep. There was no reply, and Felix sighed softly. “All right, cousin. Have it your way,” he murmured.

Dimming the lamp down as low as it would go, he kicked off his shoes and pulled off his jacket, tie and belt, making himself as comfortable as he could in his formal clothing. Yawning, he sat on the edge of the wide bed for a moment, then turned, stretching out before rolling onto his side as well amidst all the blankets.

He curled himself against the other redhead, wrapping one arm around Treize’s waist through the sheets and folding the other one beneath his own head as he settled. “If you aren’t one for cuddling,” he murmured softly, still talking to the apparently unconscious Treize, “you’ll have to forgive me. You seem to have stolen all the covers.”

His only response was a noticeable shiver from his patient, and a momentary hitch in his breathing. Felix cuddled him closer and dropped an affectionate kiss onto the back of his neck, then closed his eyes and let himself drop into a light doze.

Chapter Text

Treize was red-eyed and pale at breakfast the following morning, flinching every time he caught one of the wary looks the various others at the table with him kept shooting in his direction. If Zechs had thought the night before – and if he’d thought that Treize would actually listen to him – he would have told the younger man not to come to the table this morning but to ask the kitchens to send food to his room. Breakfast was, inevitably, when every member of the family gathered to discuss the previous day’s excitement when there had been some and, as with a couple of days previously, this morning was no exception. Zechs could see from the impatient, fidgety way people were lingering over coffee cups that they were only waiting for Treize himself to finish his meal and leave, so that they could start dissecting the events of the evening before.

It had to be making him feel wonderfully unwelcome, Zechs realised, the sheer level of the vibes he must be picking up on and he was grateful when Relena seemed to come to some sort of decision. His sister picked up her cup and moved three seats down the table to talk to the redhead, leaving her husband to stare after her with an expression of fond puzzlement.

Treize startled at her sudden presence, his hands turning white knuckled on his own cup, but he returned her greeting civilly enough, tilting his head to listen to her as she spoke to him with a small smile on her pretty face.

He started again, a moment later, and Zechs found himself wondering what his sister was saying, to make the unflappable former general react so visibly.

He’d never have believed it if he had known.

_________________________________

“Good morning, Treize,” Relena greeted warmly, settling herself into the chair next to his and taking a sip of her cooling coffee.

The behaviour of her family had been annoying her in its gracelessness. It was incredibly bad manners, the way they kept staring at him this morning, something Relena had always been irked by and which Treize himself had never been culpable for. Too, either Treize was one of them, or he wasn’t – if they hadn’t had the sense to withhold their judgement until they could make an informed decision, then tough. It wasn’t fair that they keep changing their minds on the subject with everything he said and did now. He had a hard enough job already, without that uncertainty,

As if to prove her point, the redhead jumped at her greeting, visibly starting in surprise, but he returned it in polite enough fashion, even if he was still calling her ‘Princess’.

“You’re feeling better this morning, I hope?” she continued, casting him a concerned glance from under her long eyelashes. He looked dreadful, if she was to be honest, but it was hardly done to say so.

“Relatively,” he answered, shrugging lightly. “Truthfully, I don’t recall feeling particularly unwell yesterday evening,” he said quietly. “More… extremely pissed off.”

Relena couldn’t help the surprised laughter that bubbled from her at his comment. Such unvarnished, unqualified honesty was rare from someone so steeped in politics and, accordingly, was delightfully refreshing to hear.

“I noticed that much,” she replied, just as bluntly, and enjoyed seeing the answering softening of the tension in his body.

Somewhere during the course of the day before, Relena had been surprised to discover, she had decided she actually liked Treize Khushrenada. Removed from the circumstances which had made them opponents and removed from her own girlhood insecurity, she could view him in a different light than she ever had before, seeing him for the charming, clever man he was without needing to demonise him. His unequivocally furious response to what Zechs and Dorothy had done at the end of the war hadn’t hurt that change of opinion at all – it had strengthened it. It had been so nice to finally have someone in the family as blatantly horrified by White Fang’s actions as she was, without them immediately jumping for all the psycho-babble reasons that, supposedly, justified them.

“I have an offer for you,” she said warmly, taking a sip of her coffee at the end of the words.

Treize looked at her, curiosity lighting his eyes. “Oh?” he asked, obviously intrigued.

“Yes.” Relena set the cup down. “Have you given any thought to what you might like to do with yourself, now that you’ve been announced to the world? Quatre and Heero assure me they can grant you just about any qualification you’d actually be interested in possessing, so you needn’t worry about that, but it might be wise to have something in place before the Press start doing any real deep digging.”

Treize blinked, his expression shifting to one of mild confusion. “Honestly, Princess, I have to admit I hadn’t thought about it at all. I’ve been so busy just working out where I was and what was happening to me, that any thought of the future in a longer sense had escaped me completely.” He shrugged, self-deprecatingly. “Unlike me, I know,” he admitted ruefully.

Relena tipped her head, acknowledging his comment with a small smile. “Most definitely,” she agreed. “Perhaps we could trade?” she wondered, when Treize was looking at her again, his eyes steady and light with curiosity. “I’ll help you with your problem if you help me with one of mine?”

Treize raised an eyebrow but nodded willingly. “For what use I’ll be,” he said cynically.

Relena picked up her coffee cup again. “I’m sure you will be,” she said cryptically, then took a sip before continuing. “I’m having a little trouble with my staff,” she explained innocently. “A member of my team resigned last week, to take a post as Chief of Staff to the Trade Minister, and I’ve been struggling as to how to replace him. Thómais was a senior aide,” she elaborated. “My Communications Secretary and, worse, my chief speechwriter. I’m glad for his promotion, but I’m cursing him for accepting it coming into an election year. I’ve been asked to stand for Vice-President, you see,” she confessed, with a sudden air of a child sharing a secret.

Treize blinked, acknowledging all the subtleties of what Relena was telling him and tallying it with what he’d already learned of the political climate – including the fact that the current President was wildly popular but also close to retirement age.

Relena acknowledged his sudden look of understanding with a wicked little smile. “Yes, but keep it to yourself, please,” was all she said to confirm his suspicions. She sipped again, before carrying on her tale of staffing woe. “I was going to replace him internally,” she said, “promote one of my junior assistants and bump up an intern to fill their spot. The trouble is, none of them are ready for it, and worse, none of them can write worth a damn.” She sighed softly. “It’s a serious concern – it could sink me before I start. I need someone with a good political head on their shoulders and the ability to spin fast and reliably to shape my public message. I’ve been the Foreign Minister on and off for most of fifteen years, and the Vice Foreign Minister before that. There’s bound to be concerns that I won’t know how to work outside that field.”

Treize nodded immediately but his eyebrows were drawn together as he thought. “You’ve also been instrumental in rebuilding and running Sanc,” he replied after a moment. “If you can force the public to see that you could bring that expertise to the post, extend your success here to the rest of the Earth-Sphere, you shouldn’t have any trouble. How qualified is your opponent?”

Relena raised a perfectly plucked brow. “He’s the current VP,” she said succinctly. “So you see why he’ll be tough to beat, and also why I must.”

Treize nodded again. “Oh, yes, quite,” he agreed – and he was telling the truth. Relena could be in real trouble before she’d even announced her intent to stand.

It was political reality that the current incumbent of any office always had a major advantage in an election unless they’d screwed up badly in the post. They had a proven track record, after all, and the polls very much followed the old adage of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. It made her chances of winning her election slimmer right out of the gate.

It also meant that she was right to say she needed the win to fulfil her obvious, ultimate intention. With the current President standing down at the end of his next term in a few years, there would be no sitting candidate for his job at that time. The favourite, then, would be the next most powerful person down the chain – the Vice-President.

Relena, a lifetime politician who was also a world hero and a celebrity darling, was a good candidate in any election. Coming from the position of Vice-President, with a successful term in that post under her belt, she’d be nigh-on unbeatable from day one of the Presidential race.

Coming in as an outside challenger to an existing VP, though, with only her Foreign Ministry experience, she had far less of a chance, and Treize was sure she was smart enough to realise the she would only get one shot at a Presidential bid.

“Could you not recruit from outside your own team?” Treize asked, contemplatively, letting his thoughts split down the two courses neatly and then concentrating only at that most immediately to hand. “If none of your own people are ready,” he said, “and I can see why they might not be – there’s going to be a lot of pressure on whomever takes that post – then perhaps there’s someone a colleague could recommend, or someone not currently working in the political field at all.” He picked up his own coffee cup, staring at it thoughtfully. “If Aleks were a few years older, I’d suggest him as a good choice but he needs a little seasoning first, I think.”

Relena’s smile grew, taking on a very satisfied air. “You do think he has a head for politics, then?” she asked.

“Aleks?” Treize asked, then nodded. “He will have, when he’s given chance to.” He shrugged casually. “He certainly isn’t easily intimidated or afraid of saying no to power. That’s a good start.”

The princess nodded appreciatively. “He shouldn’t be, should he?” she laughed delicately. “You’d support me if I offered him an internship in my office over the summer, then?” she asked a beat later, letting her expression sober until it was perfectly serious, her blue gaze direct on Treize’s.

“Certainly,” Treize agreed readily. “Not that it has anything to do with me,” he pointed out lightly, “but if you want moral support against your brother, I’ll give it. The boy has to learn sometime, whether Zechs likes it or not, and he seems ready enough to me.”

“And you would be as fine a judge of that as anyone I’ve met,” Relena acknowledged. “I’d appreciate that, Treize. Really, I would,” she said. “Though I’m hoping it will have quite a lot to do with you.”

The redhead blinked slowly, puzzled by the Princess’s statement. “Oh? How so?” he wondered, interest peaked.

Relena smiled at him again, warmly and invitingly. “I said I had an offer for you,” she reminded, “and I do. What would you say to taking Thómais’s job?”

Treize started visibly, his body jolting as his eyes widened in surprise. “I’m sorry?” he managed, obviously shocked. “What?”

Relena’s sudden peeling laughter only made Treize’s confusion deepen, despite his sudden certainty that she meant it affectionately rather than mockingly. “Quatre rather thought that would be your reaction,” she said to him gently. “I had to see if I could manage it.” She shook her head as she calmed, then tilted it, sending her hair flowing across her silk blouse as she looked at him more levelly. “I was being completely serious, though. What would you say to taking Thómais’s job? By your own suggestion, I need to recruit externally and you’re more than qualified, to say nothing of being free to start immediately.”

Treize’s expression, all too clear in the grey light streaming through the wide windows, was still one of utter and absolute surprise. Relena watched as he swallowed nervously, then licked his lips before speaking.

“Princess, forgive me if this sounds… but I’m having a little trouble. To be clear, you – you of all people – want me working in politics again?” he asked uncertainly. “Shouldn’t you be insisting I do anything else at the top of your voice and exerting all your considerable influence to make certain of it? You’d be opening a door for me with this you couldn’t close again,” he warned.

Relena took a moment to reply, pausing first to refill her cup from the silver service sitting in the middle of the table, offering it to Treize and looking mildly surprised in her own turn when he refused her politely. “I’m aware of that,” she answered him, when she’d sipped from her fresh cup. “And, truthfully, I considered it for quite a while before I made the decision but, in the end, if you truly wanted to cause trouble, you’d find a way and, in the meantime, you might as well be working for my benefit rather than a rival’s.”

Treize couldn’t help but smile at that. “A fair point,” he acknowledged. “I have no plans to cause trouble,” he promised. “What did you have in my mind?” he asked.

“A straight replacement of you for Thómais to begin with. I saw you yesterday – you’ll have no trouble with his role at all and it will let you gain a grip on the current political field from the shadows. From what my husband tells me, you don’t need the money, but it may suit you that he was rather well paid, commensurate with his education and certainly more than you were earning even at the height of your career in the Specials.”

The redhead nodded pensively. “Nice to know,” he murmured. “I have more capital now than I had before but I also suspect I’m going to need most of that for… one or two things I have planned.” He glanced away for a moment, then looked back at Relena directly. “In the longer term?” he asked.

The Princess raised a speculative eyebrow but made no comment on Treize’s rather cryptic statement. “In a few weeks or months, when you’ve bedded in more firmly here and the initial fluster has died away, I had in mind something of a promotion. Thómais was supposed to be my campaign manager for the upcoming election. If you’re comfortable with it, I’d like you to take that post as well. You’re certainly no stranger to planning on that kind of scale and you have something of an unbeaten track record,” she quipped off-handedly.

There was a momentary silence, the temperature between the two of them cooling noticeably. “Not true, Princess,” Treize said quietly. “Things would hardly be as they are if it were.”

Relena frowned delicately. “You wouldn’t have sought peace?” she asked, obviously puzzled. “Milliardo has always led me to believe it was your ultimate intention.”

“It was,” Treize agreed. “But it would certainly have been of a different style to the one you have now. I was Romefeller, Princess,” he said, tapping one long forefinger on the table edge to emphasize the point. “Willingly so, for the most part, and my ideological differences with them stemmed mostly from their military tactics, not their political goals,” he warned. “I had no dispute with their notion of an educated, moneyed elite controlling the Earthsphere, but I do have a certain amount of issue with Everyman politics. Not the least of which is that living with the restrictions and requirements of any high office takes training almost from birth,” he added with a light shrug. “Unless you want gaffe after gaffe in the full glare of the Media.”

The Princess’s scowl had darkened at Treize’s insistence that he’d ever supported Romefeller, her mouth pressing into a small, tight line before she softened again as he continued. She sat back in her chair, lifting her coffee cup to her lips before smiling knowingly. “Agreed,” she said quietly. “To an extent, but… ‘the future is not inherited. It is achieved,’” she quoted firmly. “Romefeller eschewed as much talent as it fostered by its closed door policies. Bloodline should not be weighted with more importance than talent in any field, and unquestionably not in Government. Free election, and free candidacy, are the only certain ways to prevent a slide back into a dictatorship. Oligarchies, historically, do not work.”

Treize returned Relena’s smile with a smirk of his own. “John Kennedy, pre-colonial Politician,” he commented quietly. “And be mindful of what happened to the man,” he teased. “I agree, as it happens – bloodline should not matter. The trouble is, it does. Hereditary traits are just that – hereditary. Intelligence is a genetic trait, Princess, as are many desirable characteristics, and a wealthy, well-positioned family will, by sheer default, be more likely to produce children who can reach their full potential. Oligarchies have provided the bedrock for some of the most enlightened periods in human civilisation and the only true alternatives are tyranny or a proposal of rule by mediocrity, which is simply ridiculous.” He paused to draw breath, then quirked an eyebrow. “‘For a people to be free it must have a strong government which possesses sufficient means to free them from popular anarchy and the abuse of the powerful,’” he quoted in his own turn. “Simon Bolivar.”

“Circular logic,” Relena chided gracefully, but she was still listening.

“Perhaps,” Treize agreed, “but consider this in favour of Romefeller’s principles – and Sanc’s, incidentally – Popular rule has its flaws in that it is popular. ‘There ought to be a principle in government capable of resisting the popular current. This check is a Monarch.’ Alexander Hamilton. His terminology is dated but his concept stands. If leaders are subject to the whims of the public then there can be no stability. What happens to your Peace in fifty years when the general public takes a fancy to another glamorous war, if there is no-one in power to counter that movement?” he asked shortly.

Relena had been listening intently, clearly caught by some of what he was saying, but his last statement stiffened her spine, quite literally. “War is hardly glamorous, Treize!” she snapped, her tone thoroughly chilly. “You of all people should know that!”

Treize looked at her steadily then shook his head, his eyes half-closing as he touched his empty cup lightly. “Oh, but it is, Princess,” he answered, his voice low. “Tragically, terribly, perfectly so. I, of all people, should know that!”

The Princess’s expression hardened completely. “I seem to be having breakfast with General Khushrenada,” she sneered, “and he is not a companion I care for at all. Good day, Your Excellency,” she said frostily, and began to stand up, pushing back from the table.

Treize caught her arm in his hand, holding her in place. “Care for him or not, Princess, at least acknowledge that he knows the subject at hand. I built my career on this, Relena,” he added, more softly, using her name for the first time. “Planned, funded and controlled a revolution on it. It shouldn’t be so, I agree,” he admitted, “but it is. War is glamorous in the eyes of the public, and will grow more so as time passes.”

Relena shook her head again, freeing her sleeve with a firm tug. “Nonsense!” she insisted. “No-one in their right mind would want that back again! War is nothing but death, destruction and suffering!”

They were drawing attention, Treize noted absently. Quatre was watching them carefully from behind his coffee-cup; Dorothy and Duo were gazing at them levelly and Zechs, across the table, was actively staring at them. It was probably close to suicidal to continue this discussion in current company with the poster child for Peace but Relena was wrong and it wasn’t in Treize to let her stand uncorrected.

Particularly when he could feel his mind coming fully to life for the first time since his arrival, relishing the political debate with an opponent who might be worthy of him.

Painting his expression with shades of dignified regret and certain knowledge, Treize folded his hands together on the tabletop and slowly shook his head. “I beg to differ,” he said evenly.

He couldn’t have silenced the room more effectively if he’d fired his gun into the delicate plaster mouldings of the ceiling. The only sound was that of Duo snorting rudely into his breakfast, muttering something that sounded dangerously like, “You would!”

“How so, General?” Relena asked him coolly, looking down her nose at him evenly. “If you can find a way to tell me how combat doesn’t cause pain and torment, I’ll concede the point.”

Across the table from his sister, Zechs stirred uneasily, watching his former commander closely as the younger man’s eyes fluttered and closed for a moment. “Relena,” he warned softly. After last night, asking Treize a question that even vaguely touched on his military experiences could not be considered a good idea.

Relena acknowledged Zechs by flicking him a glance but she did nothing to alter how she was sitting or to otherwise indicate to Treize that she’d withdrawn her question. In fact, she seemed quite intent on her answer.

It took Treize a few seconds to find it for her, his eyes flickering back and forth under his closed lids as he thought. “I can’t,” he admitted plainly, eventually. “I can’t tell you that, Princess, not without lying to you directly and I don’t wish to do that. Armed conflict is a terrible thing and a battlefield is a truly horrific place.”

Unvarnished, unglossed honesty – and not what Zechs had been expecting Treize to say at all. Such bluntness was something the redhead had once reserved only for those closest to him. When had he and Relena gained such a rapport that he’d be so open to her now?

Treize opened his eyes again and looked at the Princess directly, but there was a distance in his gaze that suggested he was seeing something other than the room around him. Zechs tensed, wondering if he was going to have to intervene to save his sister from her own bloody-mindedness. If she’d triggered Treize into another run-in with his system-shock, or with the untreated combat fatigue Wufei had diagnosed the night before, the King thought he might just do something unfortunate to her.

“Understand, Princess, please,” Treize continued softly. “I’ve been a soldier for more than ten years and with Romefeller for longer. I’ve served in a dozen theatres of combat, carried out scores of operations. I’ve destroyed my enemies, seen my comrades ripped apart, sent my own men to their deaths more times than I can recall. It’s a soldier’s fate to bleed and suffer and I’ve been no stranger to that, both as victim and cause. I’ve felt my body broken open, been senseless from mortal terror, been crippled by the guilt of the blood on my hands. I’ve even died, once,” he said dryly, forcing a humourless smile.

No one laughed at his comment. The room had gone utterly still, listening to him, half its occupants caught by this insight into a life they’d never known, the other half finding their own experiences of it suddenly far too close.

Treize didn’t appear to notice in any case. “All of which should mean that you’re right, Princess. Combat is cruel and brutal and it isn’t glamorous,” he agreed. “The trouble is, I never said it was. I said war was glamorous, war in the all-encompassing sense that history texts use, that civilians use after the fact. ‘There’s a war on, don’t you know?’” he mocked gently, perhaps imitating some fossilised relic from his Romefeller days. “The fact that the reality of it is so appalling only adds to the mystique, and so to the draw.”

Relena shook her head rapidly. “That argument doesn’t even make sense!” she protested, interrupting the redhead.

Treize shrugged lightly. “Sense or not, it’s true,” he replied. “For thousands of years, the human spirit has been drawn to the military ideal, whatever form that has taken. The ancient Spartan brotherhood making their final stand, the God-fearing Templars crusading for Christ, the doomed cavalryman charging the guns,” he listed. “The lone teenage pilot against the might of the world,” he finished, tipping his head to Duo, Quatre and Heero sitting around the table. “It doesn’t matter. War fascinates us, even as children, and that fascination has always been the downfall of peace.”

“Corruption and prejudice have always been the downfalls of Peace,” Relena countered him coolly. “If there is intolerance, inequality, hardship, mankind seeks to correct it. Violence becomes inevitable when other routes fail, or when those in charge see it as an acceptable, expedient solution. If the population can be taught that violence is no solution, and that bigotry and brutality are unacceptable, then Peace is untouchable.”

Treize raised an eyebrow at her, a small smile touching his lips for a moment. “Peace is untouchable if all the world knows is Peace?” he asked softly. “That ignores both the Little Man principle and basic human nature, as pretty as it sounds.”

The Princess bridled. “As opposed to your solution,” she snapped. “Which was to trigger the worst war the world has ever known?”

Treize nodded gracefully. “It wasn't, but, yes. Trigger it, to control it,” he said softly. “Or do you not agree that the Alliance needed to be destroyed?” he asked levelly.

Zechs, still sitting across the table, and watching the back and forth between his sister and his former lover with morbid acceptance, shook his head at that and stood up. “Enough,” he commanded quietly, putting his hands on the wooden surface in front of him. “Both of you,” he added, when Relena looked at him, her eyes flashing. “The breakfast table is not a suitable location for a political debate. I, for one, do not want to listen to anymore of it. What happened is in the past, and none of us can know the future.”

To Zechs’s surprise, both Treize and Relena looked like they wanted to argue that point with him, their expressions settling into matching stubbornness for a moment before they both sat back and smiled emptily.

“As you wish,” Treize said mildly. He turned his head to smile at Relena, getting to his feet and offering her his hand. “If the breakfast table is not suitable, perhaps we could continue this elsewhere?” he asked. “I confess, Princess, I was rather enjoying that.”

The absolute last thing Zechs was expecting his sister to do was smile and nod. “Quite,” she replied. “But whether I can, in good conscience, continue will depend on your answer, Treize. It wouldn’t be fair to hear all your arguments in advance, if you’ll one day be my opposition again.”

Treize’s smile both broadened and softened. “Considerate of you,” he said. “But, yes,” he agreed.

Relena immediately got to her feet. “In that case, then – lead on.”

Zechs was left staring at the back of the two of them as Treize tucked his sister’s hand into his arm and escorted her from the room “What the hell…?” he asked the air.

“She offered him a job,” Quatre said, from down the table. “I rather think he just accepted. Can’t blame him,” he added, laughter colouring his voice and making it warm. “Not many get offered the post of Chief of Staff to the President over breakfast.”

Job? Chief of Staff? President? Zechs stared at his brother-in-law blankly for a moment, then shook his head in denial as he sank back into his chair and closed his eyes, willing the world to rewind itself and give him another shot at the heads-up he’d surely missed.

Relena as President, Treize as her Chief of Staff – Zechs didn’t know whether to be thrilled or terrified. Individually, Treize and Relena had re-shaped the world; in opposition, they’d all but torn it apart. What they’d be capable of working together, Zechs dreaded to think. It would certainly make the next few years interesting, to say the least.

Chapter Text

In the end, Treize spent almost three hours with Relena, their conversation ranging from political debate to the weather to an agreement that Treize should accompany her to her offices on Monday morning to get a feel for the place before he made any final decisions. The Princess had made it clear that, whilst she wanted him to take the post that she’d offered over breakfast, she’d understand if he didn’t want to commit so heavily, so soon and that she would welcome his input on whatever level he wanted to give it. She was serious in her assessment of him as one the best political thinkers of his generation, and if that generation was now one behind where it should have been, then that could work to both their advantages.

She’d let slip, as they talked, that she really had been thinking about his future long and hard over the past couple of days. There had been real hints in their conversation that, if Treize was willing to let her, then Relena was prepared to work with him, not just to make him an integral part of her administration, but to make him her running mate one day and, eventually, her successor.

It was, she’d summed up succinctly, where he was likely to end up anyway, because supposing he’d let a little thing like dying affect his political ambitions was the height of stupidity.

Treize hadn’t been able to keep himself from laughing at that and he’d excused himself from her presence chuckling and relaxed.

His good mood prompting him, he found himself heading down to the kitchens, and then up to the third floor of the North Wing and the section of the Palace occupied by Dorothy and her family.

Far from being grouped together as would have been expected, the semi-permanent residents of the Palace were scattered all over the building, forming little family-groupings in suites of rooms in various Wings and on various floors. It had arisen organically, Treize had learned, as restoration work was completed and people moved in, moved out and had children, but it worked, allowing a sense of privacy and personality to seep through for all of them whilst keeping them all in the same building. Accordingly, Felix’s rooms were those he’d occupied for most of his life, halfway across the Palace from Treize’s own but scarcely a few doors down from his parents and his sister.

Felix had stayed with Treize until the early hours, dozing for the most part and occasionally rousing himself to prod the older man awake and check his knock to the head wasn’t causing complications. When Treize had declared himself slept out for the night a little past five, Felix had grumbled at him good-naturedly and disappeared off to his rooms to actually get some sleep, leaving Treize with a clear idea of what possible symptoms he might experience and firm orders to wake the doctor if any others cropped up.

Now, approaching noon, Treize was of a mind that the doctor should be waking for the rest of the day or there wouldn’t be a rest for him to bother with. Accordingly, he had retrieved fresh coffee from the kitchens and was hoping the smell would be enough to entice Felix from between his sheets.

He knocked at the doctor’s door politely, pleasantly surprised when the smooth baritone bade him enter almost immediately.

“Good morning,” Treize greeted, closing the door behind himself with one hand and balancing his tray with the other.

Felix was sitting propped up in his bed, an open book on his lap. “Good morning,” he returned warmly, smiling at his patient immediately. “Is that coffee?” he asked immediately, turning his head a little and stretching to try to see more clearly.

Treize smiled back, nodding. “Of course. I’d already gathered you’re as caffeine-addicted as the rest of us. You missed breakfast completely, and I thought I might stand more chance of getting you to move if I bribed you a little.”

Felix beckoned the older man closer, using one hand to clear a space for the tray on his somewhat cluttered nightstand. Unlike Treize’s rooms, which were still dreadfully impersonal, and Zechs’s, which were arranged with a precision only obtainable through regular visits by his valet, Felix’s rooms showed every sign of regular habitation by a man not much out of his teens. They weren’t untidy, precisely, but neither were they spotlessly neat; certainly, there were clues enough to Felix’s personality and lifestyle if anyone cared to look.

“Here,” Felix offered, when there was enough room. “Put that down.”

Treize obeyed the instruction readily, setting the tray down carefully and then stepping back. He would have turned to go and sit in one of the armchairs Felix had positioned in the far corners of the room, but the doctor caught his hand as he moved and pulled him to perch on the edge of his bed instead, much as Zechs had settled on Treize’s the night before.

“Thank you,” the younger man added, as he poured a first cup from the gently steaming pot. He brought it to his lips and paused. “I’d offer to share but….”

Treize tilted his head, nodding. “But I should avoid excess caffeine for a few days. Yes, I remember,” he reassured. “I’ve been good, I promise. I had one cup with breakfast and no more.”

Felix sipped and swallowed, and then raised an eyebrow impishly. “It’s for your own good,” he reminded, “and it’s only for a couple of days. If your blood pressure levels, I’ll withdraw the diuretic in 48 hours and you can drink as much coffee as you want. Until then, caffeine is not your friend – it’ll just exacerbate the side effects. Stick to water, or fruit juice. How are you feeling otherwise?” he asked, changing the tone of his voice as he changed the topic.

Treize shrugged lightly. “Well enough, considering. This sealant of yours is marvellous stuff,” he said, gesturing in the general direction of his head.

“It is,” Felix agreed, nodding his agreement. “Much better than putting stitches in.  You lost the dressing in the shower, I take it?” he asked. “Has it bled at all?”

“Not that I’ve noticed,” Treize replied.

“Good. Forget about it, then. The sealant will dissolve as the wound heals.” The younger man set his cup down for a moment, putting his hands over his head as he stretched lazily. “What do you want to do with the day?” he queried, settling back into himself.

Treize shook his head, shrugging. “I have no idea,” he said honestly. “I have no plans. I suppose I should go and see if Zechs needs me but he didn’t say anything at breakfast and I would have expected him to if there was anything important.” He frowned suddenly, his eyes unfocusing as his expression turned pensive. “Actually, he didn’t say much to me at all. No one did.”

Felix bit his lip, his face showing his feelings of sympathy as he closed his book and began climbing from his sheets. “That’s not really surprising. You scared us all rather badly last night, Treize,” he said, as gently as he could. “It might take people a few days to move past that.”

Treize stilled in place, his body suddenly singing with tension as he dropped his gaze to the weave of Felix’s sheets. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I am. I have no idea what prompted me to do what I did. I….”

Felix winced, apparently realising that his comments, which had been intended to mean Treize’s own illness, could just as readily apply to the older man’s actions in threatening him. “Stop it,” he ordered gently. “You apologised last night, and I’d be a poor bloody doctor if I didn’t know when my patient was acting from an altered mental state. You didn’t hurt me, and it wouldn’t have been your fault if you had.” He smiled engagingly. “You don’t seem the type to go around hurting people on purpose,” he offered kindly.

There was a moment of silence between them, and then Treize blinked, his head snapping up at the younger man’s words as he fought to repress the disbelief welling through him. “I’m sorry? I don’t seem what?” he choked. He stared at the Doctor blankly for a moment, then shook his head slowly. “Good God, tell me you’re not that naïve?” he demanded roughly, gesturing fluidly and for emphasis. “Felix, I’m Romefeller!”

The doctor returned the gaze levelly, turning on his heel to answer the older man. “You were Romefeller,” he replied emphatically, stressing the past tense. “Romefeller doesn’t exist anymore,” he reminded. “And, so what if you were? My mother was Romefeller. So was Uncle Milliardo, and Lady Une, as well.  So were James and Isabelle’s parents, for that matter, and the parents of half my friends,” Felix dismissed with a careless shrug. “It doesn’t actually mean much, except that you’re not new to the Aristocracy.”

Treize blinked, wide-eyed. “My God,” he breathed. “Is that really what you think?” he asked, amazed.

Felix lifted an eyebrow in a gesture that might have been mocking. “Well, yes. What am I supposed to think?” he wondered. “Don’t misunderstand me – I know Romefeller actually had power and I know it was behind a lot of the nastier parts of the Eve War, but for the most part, it was just a social club for blue-bloods and, honestly, the cloak and dagger nonsense only manages to make you all seem a little pathetic.”

“Pathetic?” Treize repeated quietly. He was still wide-eyed but there was something in the sudden stillness of his body and the blankness of his gaze that made Felix catch his breath a little, reminded suddenly of the man who’d threatened him the night before.

He rallied with the bravado he’d inherited from both parents, tilting his chin in a gesture that was purely his father shining through. “Well, yes,” he answered bluntly. “I’m sure your little secret society was very nifty, Treize, but, honestly, it was all a touch melodramatic, don’t you think?”

Treize smiled softly in reply. “Not particularly, no.” He pushed to his feet, straightening his shoulders automatically, the talk of Romefeller triggering old habits in him subconsciously. “Whatever your parents may have chosen to tell you about their pasts is not mine to interfere with,” he said quietly. “I can’t correct all your misconceptions about Romefeller without revealing detail they would obviously prefer you not to have. I can, however, clarify one key point for you.”

Felix blinked slowly, curious despite himself. The idea of Romefeller had fascinated him as a teenager, and the little hints and insights he’d gathered had only fuelled the fire, at least until he’d been too old for such things anymore. Treize was similarly intriguing now – Felix would admit openly that part of his draw to the older man was Treize’s somewhat archaic mannerisms and the enigma he presented – but that didn’t mean the doctor was still young enough to buy the air of mystique hook, line and sinker without at least thinking about it first.

Accordingly, it took him a breath before he nodded his agreement to Treize, wondering whether the older man could actually add anything new on the subject before deciding it would be rude not to listen anyway. “Go on,” he encouraged, and was rapidly glad he had.

Treize noted the pause only by veiling his eyes for a moment, assessing the doctor so intently that Felix shifted under the pressure of it. “It’s simply this,” Treize began, his voice low. “Milliardo was never Romefeller. Lady Une was, yes, and your mother and I certainly were, but not Zechs. I kept him out of those Halls at all costs.”

“Sorry?” Felix checked immediately. “Uncle Milliardo wasn’t Romefeller?” he wondered, and he was clearly surprised. “He’s never denied the association and he was definitely an Oz pilot. Oz and Romefeller were the same thing, weren’t they?” he asked sharply, frowning as he obviously began to doubt his knowledge.

Treize shook his head gracefully, still looking at the doctor with that assessing gaze. It was enough to make Felix feel as though he was being weighed in some way, facing a test he hadn’t been warned about. It bordered on unnerving.

“Not precisely, no,” Treize answered levelly. “Zechs was a Specials pilot, and an Oz affiliate. The Specials were an Alliance unit; Oz was the tactical wing of Romefeller. The four were separate bodies, however much it appeared otherwise.” He raised an eyebrow quizzically. “How much of a history lesson do you need, then?” he asked briskly. “I’d expected you to understand that much, at least.”

Felix shrugged back. “I’d thought I did understand it,” he confessed. “Maybe not.” He bit his lip, hesitating before asking, “So, what was the difference, then? If the Specials were a part of the Alliance, why do all the textbooks say they were a Romefeller unit? The books use ‘Specials’ and ‘Oz’ almost interchangeably, as if they were the same thing.” He tilted his head. “Even my parents, and Lady Une, and Uncle Milliardo… no-one’s ever said they were different before.”

Treize sighed, wishing he’d never raised the topic and, perversely, also glad that he had. He’d never dreamed that his friends had left the younger generation in such a state of ignorance – he’d gathered, in fact, rather the opposite impression. Felix had seemed to know what he was talking about.

“The answer to that is both very simple and incredibly complicated at the same time,” Treize hedged, trying to think through an explanation that would be both concise and clear. “I don’t know….” He measured the younger man again, weighing the bright intelligence in his eyes and the steel he’d shown the night before against the untarnished clarity Felix seemed to radiate. “How much do you understand military structure?” he asked. “And how much political training have you had?”

Felix’s expression showed his surprise but he still took a moment to think about his answer before he gave it. “I know the basic structure of the Preventers, which I’m told is somewhat like Oz’s used to be,” he said. “I don’t know if that’ll be enough to help. As for political training – I had my mother as my mother,” he reminded. “What do you think?”

Treize was forced to smile at that – it was a fair point and one he should have thought of himself. “Ah,” he commented neutrally. “Politics won’t be a problem, then.” He drew a deep breath, ordering his thoughts again. “Romefeller is more than just a social club for bluebloods,” he started. “It may have begun that way, at some point, but certainly in the last two or three hundred years, it’s been a body with considerable force and influence. It’s likely, actually, that Romefeller was instrumental in the re-ascendancy of the Aristocracy – there’s a fair amount of evidence to suggest that in the last few decades pre-colony, moneyed industrialists used the baths and smoking rooms at the Convene’s to marry into the last of the Old Blood and give them new power. There’s a certainly a match or two like that in my family tree around then, and in yours.”

Felix nodded pensively. “I can see that happening. Uncle Quatre being his brother-in-law certainly doesn’t hurt Uncle Milliardo’s political clout any – there are too many people worried about losing Winner Enterprises support for them to alienate him readily.”

It was a good parallel; Treize canted the younger man an approving look. “Yes, exactly so. Now, imagine that happening simultaneously all over the planet. Companies with Aristocratic links suddenly become more successful – they get contracts approved, funding released, generally preferential treatment, because they have people working for them in the right places who know which favours to call in and who to bribe – and those bluebloods with industrial links have more money with which to pursue their political agendas and so become more powerful. That was the formation of the modern Romefeller, and it hasn’t much changed.

“I didn’t think it had much to do with anyone outside the Nobility, though?” Felix asked, his scowl back as he considered. “From what little I do know, what few non-Aristo’s held membership were frowned on considerably.”

Treize shook his head. “It depended heavily on the individual. Dekim Barton was as welcome as any of us, despite his utter lack of a pedigree, because he knew how to behave appropriately. Zayeed Winner would have been accepted for the same reasons, if he’d ever been tempted to join. There was only ever an issue with those who didn’t know how to conduct themselves, and that applied equally to the nobility as to anyone else. King Stephan, for example,” he commented softly, bringing up Zechs’s late father and making Felix start with the reference. “He should have been Romefeller, he was Romefeller for a time, but the man had no tact and no sense of when to keep his mouth shut. He fell out once too often with the Council over their involvement in military projects and some of their more questionable tactics and they asked him to resign. He should never have agreed, but he was stubborn.”

That statement, it appeared, had really shocked the doctor. Felix was wide-eyed as he looked across the room at Treize, shaking his head in denial. “King Stephan was Romefeller once?” he asked numbly. “I don’t believe that! Are you sure?”

Treize raised a quelling eyebrow. “Certain,” he answered steadily. “I was young at the time, yes, but I’ve been trained for my place in Romefeller all my life. I remember the arguments between my father and King Stephan over the subject of his resignation quite clearly and I understood them even then. My father was the King’s friend,” he said, his gaze turning a little distant, as it had the other times Felix had seen him recall something. “He tried desperately to make King Stephan see reason, to make him swallow his pride enough to back down, but the King wouldn’t.”

Felix swallowed against a suddenly dry throat, wondering how global politics could so often come down to the will of individuals, their friendships and hatreds. It was part of the reason he’d never considered a career in the field. It had always seemed to him that decisions made on that scale should have more influencing them than that, even as he’d equally always known that wasn’t the case.

A moment later, he swallowed again as another thought occurred to him. There were others who should be hearing this conversation, because Treize was touching on things that Felix was suddenly certain no one else knew, not even his mother.

Accordingly, he took a deep breath and summoned the nerve to ask, “Listen, would you mind if I went and got Aleks and Helen? We’ve never been able to get straight answers on this stuff from anywhere, not even the history textbooks, and we obviously haven’t got right even what we have learned,” he explained. “I know they’ll have questions of their own and they’ll kill me if they don’t get chance to ask them! If you’re going to carry on talking about this, that is,” he added quickly, seeing Treize’s face close off into a frown as he spoke.

“But I’m not,” the former general said shortly, causing Felix to check the step he’d already taken towards the door, obviously not anticipating that the older man would say no. “Already, I’ve told you more than I’d intended to. I’m not going to continue giving you information your parents clearly haven’t wanted you to have.”

Felix matched the frown like for like, gesturing entreatingly. “But why not?” he quizzed. “It’s ancient history, Treize,” he pointed out. “None of us are going to be shocked or traumatised by things that happened years before we were born! Unless it’s going to bother you to talk about it, where’s the harm?” he asked honestly.

Treize shifted his weight, bringing his right hand up to rest on his hip, fingers shifting to touch something that didn’t seem to be there. “The fact that it will bother me is irrelevant,” he answered, just as truthfully. “That’s not my reason for refusing.”

He sat down on the edge of Felix’s bed again a moment later and gestured for the younger man to do the same. “Surely you understand that it would be ill done of me to reveal secrets that your parents have kept for twenty-five years – secrets that might be embarrassing or painful, or both – only for the sake of satisfying your curiosity,” Treize continued. “I’ll finish my explanations to you, because I’ve started them and because you may need a better understanding of who and what I am before too much longer, but no such criteria apply to Aleks and your sister. Given that you are an adult, and given my reasons, your mother might, one day, forgive me for speaking to you, but nothing about this is suitable for a child’s ears. She’d murder me in my sleep for discussing any of this with Helen, and rightly so.”

Felix blinked slowly from the perch he’d taken up on the far side of his bed but nodded his understanding. “I get that, I suppose,” he admitted. “And my mother will understand,” he promised, smiling suddenly. “Remind me to tell you what she said to me about you last night, will you? She embarrassed the hell out of me,” he chuckled. He waited a breath, then asked, “What about Aleks, then? He’s not a child, anymore than I am.”

Treize sighed softly. “He isn’t,” he agreed, “but my answer for him is still no. I’m sorry for it, but I’m not willing to antagonise Zechs further for something so trivial. Aleks’s inclusion isn’t really appropriate anyway, since it’s his father and grandfather we’re talking about most directly.”

Felix nodded reluctantly, consoling himself with the notion that he could always tell Aleks and Helen everything Treize told him later anyway. “You were talking about King Stephan,” he prompted quietly.

Treize flicked him a sharp glance, as though he knew exactly what Felix was thinking, but he sighed again softly. “I was,” he replied, folding his hands together in his lap. “Zechs has always been far more like his father than he knows,” he said, smiling wistfully. “All that stubborn determination, political blinkeredness and that damned temper…. His father was exactly the same.”

He lost the smile and shook his head. “The last time King Stephan and my father spoke, it was here, in the Palace. We’d come for the mid-summer festival, the year I turned nine, and things were pretty much at breaking point. The Convene was the following week, the King was going to resign in high dudgeon and my father was desperate to stop him. The argument they had the last night we were here literally shook the chandeliers in their mounts. I don’t think they spoke again after that until… well….” Treize shrugged. “It was a fatal mistake, King Stephan leaving Romefeller, but he wouldn’t be convinced of that. He insisted that he couldn’t remain true to his ideals of Pacifism and remain with Romefeller when the Council was increasingly using Oz agents to achieve its aims. What had happened to Heero Yuy at the Alliance’s hands didn’t seem to scare him.”

Having seen the spat between Milliardo and Treize the night before, it was all too easy for Felix to imagine the scene Treize was describing, irate nobleman and stubborn King. It made him wince at the thought of it.

Treize noticed, because he inclined his head. “Quite,” he said. “It should have, of course. Away from Romefeller, King Stephan had no protection from the Alliance, either. He was dead less than two years later.”

Felix felt his eyebrow rise as surprise rolled though him. “Wait – are you saying Romefeller could have prevented the attack on Sanc?”

There was a moment when Treize hesitated, but then he nodded slowly. “I believe so, yes. Certainly, there were others that opposed the Alliance just as openly that didn’t suffer at their hands – the aforementioned Dekim Barton, as just one example. Romefeller had a fair amount of influence on the Alliance, at least until the last year or so. General’s Noventa and Ventei were nominal members, after all, and didn’t openly break away until after General Catalonia was assassinated and Duke Dermail joined the Council. I’ve always thought Noventa was convinced that the seat should have gone to him, as the most senior military man available, and was determined to get his own back.”

“Really?” Felix asked. “The textbooks all say that he started his campaign for Peace with the colonies because he regretted what had happened to Sanc.”

Treize blinked at that, and then began to laugh out loud. “And people believe that, do they?” he asked mockingly. “How many pacifists were there in this war, then? Odd that we ended up fighting, if we all wanted Peace!”

He had a point, Felix had to admit. “Blame it on the author’s, I guess. Calling someone a warmonger isn’t good for your publishing chances. All of the people they’re talking about still have relatives and friends in powerful places, after all.”

Treize had to acknowledge that. “Admittedly. Regardless, that was Romefeller – a coalition of noblemen and industrialists brokering back room treaties and power deals. Zechs was never a member, mainly because I didn’t think, and still don’t think, that he would have survived what they asked of us.”

The doctor bit his lip at that, part of him dying to ask what Treize meant since it fed so solidly into all the hints about a shadowy side to Romefeller that had interested him as a teenager. The other half of him, though, perhaps the more professional side of him or the more grown up side, was captivated by the history he was learning and firmly overwhelmed the impulse. “I still don’t understand how Uncle Milliardo could have been an Oz pilot but not Romefeller,” he said, frowning lightly, “when you, yourself, have just described Oz as the Romefeller tactical wing. Surely, being one meant you were also the other?”

Treize nodded readily. “Generally, yes, but not always.” He paused for a moment, drawing breath and looking at Felix in that assessing way again. “Bear with me for a moment, will you?” he asked abruptly. “It’ll be easier to tackle this from the other end. Do you understand what the Alliance was?”

Felix blinked but answered willingly. “A political dictatorship that rose to prominence in the early after-colony era from amongst the more affluent world nations, given power by the fact that they controlled all of the military arms in the Earth-Sphere.” He shrugged. “That’s what we’re taught in school, anyway.”

“Close enough,” Treize agreed. “It’ll certainly do for now. The Specials – the United Earth Sphere Alliance Special Assault Wing, to give us our full title – were formed in AC 173, at the behest of several key Alliance officers, both to provide a home for the wave of personnel coming though who exceeded standard unit requirements to a ridiculous degree and to provide a testing ground for the new Mobile suits that were going into production. General Catalonia – your Grandfather,” he added, gesturing to Felix with an acknowledging smile, “was one of those officers, and the wing commander from day one. My father was their senior designer. Both were Romefeller to their toes, so it should be no surprise that the Specials quickly became inundated with personnel whose first loyalty was not to the Alliance.”

“Not surprising, no,” Felix chuckled, shifting how he was sitting to make himself more comfortable against one of his pillows. “I know most of this already,” he admitted. “My mother has told me about my Grandfather and Uncle Milliardo and Aunt Lucrezia explained the history of the Specials to me years ago.”

“Ah, good,” Treize said, smiling a little. He drew another breath. “Here’s where it gets a little complicated, then,” he warned. “Romefeller, like many powerful political bodies over the course of history, quickly decided it needed a branch of itself dedicated to more aggressive means of accomplishing things than a heated floor debate. It began, very early in its existence, to either recruit or train members in various skill sets not commonly associated with a political body. That body of members became known as Oz.”

“Organisation of the Zodiac, right?” Felix broke in, his unusual eyes sparkling. “In reference to the astrological names of the mobile suits you all used?”

Treize looked at him for a moment, then smiled slowly and shook his head. “No.”

“No?” Felix repeated blankly. “But….”

“No,” Treize insisted. He shook his head again, then stood up and stretched for a moment before re-settling himself. “I wondered if that particularly bit of misdirection had survived,” he admitted, sounding curiously impish. “It was a logical enough conclusion for people to draw, I suppose, but why would a Romefeller secret organisation name itself after weapons used by Alliance troops?” he asked.

The doctor shrugged. “I didn’t think the Alliance did?” he returned. “I thought only the Specials used most of the suits.”

“The Leo was in general use for years before the Specials were ever formed,” Treize corrected, “and whilst it’s true to say that most of the later suit types were restricted to the Specials, it was far from an exclusive arrangement. Romefeller might have owned the suit factories but they’d never have gotten away with supplying only one unit. It would have been far too obvious a trick even for the Alliance to miss.”

The tone Treize delivered that last statement in was dry enough to take moisture from a desert and Felix couldn’t help but laugh at it. “No need to ask what your opinion of the Alliance was, I guess,” he chuckled.

Treize lifted a curious eyebrow. “That was in doubt after I engineered their utter destruction?” he asked, voice still sardonic. He shook his head. “Oz did stand for Organization of the Zodiac, yes,” he continued, more conversationally, “but the title only had to do with the mobile suits inasmuch as they were named to provide a deliberate smokescreen. The original reference was to the codenames used for the different uses of the wing.”

Felix was biting lip, his eyes intent as he listened and learned, concentration clear in his expression. “The star signs?” he asked and Treize nodded.

“Yes, still the star signs,” he agreed. “There were twelve possible mandates for an Oz agent, each one represented by one of the astrological symbols.” He shrugged. “There were many like Lady Une, your mother and I, who were full, blooded agents, but there were many more like Zechs and Miss Noin. They were affiliate agents, selected for their demonstrated aptitude in one or more mandated skills. Zechs was highly prized as a Leo, and Noin was infamous as the White Taurus long before she painted her mecha that colour.”

Felix’s eyes widened, letting Treize know the younger man was at least familiar with that title for his deceased Aunt. It had been less well known to the general public than Zechs’s more hyperbolic ‘Lightning Count’ had been but the opinion of the general public had meant very little in the circles Treize had moved in. Certainly, Lady Une had been as jealous of Noin for her reputation as she had been of Zechs for his.

Thoughts of Noin were not wise, though. Treize had done his best to keep away from the subject over the past few days, knowing that some part of him was deeply upset by the fact and the nature of the young officer’s death. She might not have been as close to him as Zechs and the Lady had been but they had still been friends and comrades for a good number of years, and he would mourn her deeply and genuinely in that light – if ever he was given the space for such considerations.

Felix shaking his head distracted Treize from his thoughts, making him fix his attention back on the doctor as he spoke again.

“So, wait,” Felix said, gesturing as he phrased his thoughts. “Leo was the code for, what? Pilot?”

Treize nodded gracefully. “After a fashion, yes. A ‘Leo’ was an Agent serving in the regular military forces. Une, Noin and I carried the designation as well, but they were never our primary mandates. Noin’s ‘Taurus’ designated her a specialist in communications – signals and code breaking, relaying messages and information from source to recipient.”

Felix sat forward a little, his eyes flashing like they had the first time Treize had met him, with a peculiarly charming and entreating enthusiasm. “All right,” he said brightly. “So what was, ah, Capricorn?” he asked.

Treize raised an indulgent eyebrow. “Romefeller Internal Affairs,” he answered neutrally.

Felix blinked. “Very KGB,” he commented, displaying a commendable knowledge of pre-colonial history and a quick grasp of the facts Treize had left unspoken. “What about Aries?”

“Electronic warfare,” Treize replied. “Surveillance, jamming, computer security and hacking, that sort of thing.”

“Right,” Felix said, then grinned wickedly. “Bet they were fond of Heero, then,” he suggested slyly.

It took Treize a moment to realise just what the younger man was saying, but he matched his smile when he did. “Not hardly,” he agreed. “He annoyed the unholy hell out of the entire branch for months. Some of the finest minds in the Earth Sphere and still nothing was secure. I was never sure whether they wanted to murder him slowly or just fall at his feet and worship him as a God.”

“Interesting image,” the doctor chuckled, shaking his head. “Might have made the Eve War go a little differently.” He waited for Treize to acknowledge the comment, then wrinkled his nose as he returned to his quizzing, clearly having to think. “Leo, Taurus, Capricorn, Aries, right. What about, ah, Cancer?”

Treize raised an eyebrow, wondering if the doctor was going to go through every star sign one by one. “Reconnaissance work.”

“Virgo?”

“Personal protection and security,” the older man said. “The Virgo’s were our bodyguards, for the most part. Occasionally, they were used to guard valuable political prisoners,” he added, unaware that his voice had softened as he fought to repress the memories that were making him wince internally. The last thing he needed was Felix cross-questioning him on that particular subject.

The doctor didn’t miss the reaction, he was too well trained for that, but he chose to say nothing about it for the moment. Wufei had shared the information Zechs had given him the night before regarding Treize’s time under house-arrest, and whilst the doctor hadn’t immediately assumed the worst, as everyone else seemed to have, he was smart enough to know there was certainly more to the tale than Treize was telling. He was also smart enough to know that there was a place and a time for tackling such issues, and sitting in his bedroom, still in his night clothes, with his patient still recuperating physically from his last run-in with emotional trauma definitely wasn’t it. The whole thing was probably best left to Wufei in any case. He was the professional psychiatrist, after all.

Accordingly, Felix ignored Treize’s obvious discomfort and persisted in his quizzing of the older man. “Bodyguards? It’s been years since anyone had one of those,” he commented off-handedly, then tilted his head as he thought. “Let’s see, what about… Pisces?” he asked.

Treize blinked at him. “Counter-Intelligence,” he answered. “And Scorpio was the code for any long-term undercover operation, before you ask.” He gestured lightly. “Ask your mother to write you a list sometime, if you really must know them all. We’re wildly off-topic.”

Felix grinned. “We are, but this is fascinating. Which one were you?” he asked curiously.

Treize froze, his body sinking into utter stillness for a fraction of a second as something flashed behind his eyes. “I wasn’t any particular one,” he answered carefully. “Most full agents fulfilled whichever mandates they were asked to, and I was no exception.”

Felix frowned delicately, lifting reddish eyebrows. “Really?” he checked. “Sorry, but I can’t see you ever being someone else’s bodyguard – you were never that unimportant – and I can’t see you sneaking around breaking into people’s offices and bedrooms, either. You might have been involved in the communications side of things or the electronic warfare but that doesn’t seem very you either, somehow. You come across more proactive than either of those roles would call for.”

The former general tilted his head at the younger man, wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue in a betraying gesture. “I could point out that you have less than a week’s experience of me to judge by,” he said quietly.

Felix shrugged. “You could,” he agreed.

There was a moment of silence, and then Treize sighed. “I carried out the odd reconnaissance mission,” he said, “but it was usually a component of a larger assignment. What little I had to do with electronics was usually on behalf of the Specials and almost exclusively to do with suit programming. Drink your coffee before it goes cold,” he added, not changing the tone of his voice.

The younger man blinked at the instruction but reached for his cup obediently, holding it in his hands as he studied his companion over the rim. “You can just tell me to shut up, you know,” he said gently. “If I’m bothering you with all this.”

“You’re not bothering me,” Treize replied immediately. “I’m just… Your mother and I filled very similar roles for Romefeller, Felix. Anything I tell you about myself equally applies to her and so I have to be careful. I was serious when I said I won’t disclose information she clearly doesn’t want you to have. I owe her better courtesy than that.”