31-Aug-2000
The Saga Continues!!!! Thanks for all the fan mail and postings for the first half of this. This will not make much sense unless you read Dangerous Liaisons first. Hope that this makes up for leaving you all on the edge about what happened to Duo. It's finally jelling into something more then a bunch of random scenes. C & C welcome.
Disclaimers : I'll get the legal stuff out of the way. Gundam Wing property of Bandai, Sunrise and a host of other people I probably don't know about. Used for entertainment purposes and because the voices in my head tell me to write this stuff. Scary thought, eh? Not for profit. Characters acting OCC, but in an Alternative Universe you should expect that.
Notes: #...# Thoughts/Thinking
%...% Arguments
Une set down her tea cup and stood up to look out the window. They had been talking for about an hour, answering all of Treize-sama's questions and dancing around the issue of Maria. Treize had been looking very thoughtful for the last half hour and she knew that she was going to have to tell him something! They were lucky that she hadn't come racing into the room to see him yet. Duo must be keeping her occupied until they were ready for him.
"Treize-sama... " Une started and blushed. God she hadn't done that in years! "There is something that we haven't told you."
Treize smiled. "I know... I got very good at figuring out what was being unsaid with Miri and Howard. I was wondering when you were going break down and tell me about it. What is the problem?"
Une laughed nervously. "I wouldn't call it a problem, exactly." She took a deep breath and just blurted out the information. Hemming and hawing wasn't going to make it easier. "You have a nine year old daughter. Her name is Maria."
Treize looked at her, stunned. "I have a what! Why didn't you tell me that I was married! That I have a wife."
"Because you weren't and don't." Relena said softly. "No one, and I do mean no one, not Une. Not Duo. Hopefully not my brother, knew that you had a daughter until last year. You did not even know, I think, because you would have told one of them."
"What do you mean that I didn't know?" Treize asked. "No one informed me that I had a daughter? What kind of people are her mother's family?"
"Evil, Treize-sama. Evil people." Une said seriously. "Maria's grandfather, Dekim Barton was one of the supporters of the Gundam pilot's rebellion against the Federation. It just didn't go the way they planned the first time around."
"Barton, isn't that Trowa's last name?" Treize asked.
"Yes and no." Relena said, "He took it... after... after his controller shot the original one in front of him. He decided that taking someone else's name was better then getting killed out of hand. He is very practical that way."
"Where is she now?" Treize asked softly, sitting down and trying to process what he had been told. He didn't even want to think about Trowa, even though his story was shocking. He was having a hard enough time trying to figure out who he was, not why that quiet man took another person's identity.
He had a daughter. She was here. He was twenty seven years old and he was a father. He had an under aged lover, who looked like he was fourteen instead of seventeen he was supposedly. In a few days he had learned more about himself then he ever wanted to remember or know and he couldn't go back to Miri because he wasn't going to allow himself to be that ignorant any more, to be used by him as he had been. Like Alice he had stepped through the looking glass and nothing was going to be the same any more. And he had no idea about what he was going to do with his life. He could understand why Duo didn't want to tell him anything, he had been a ruthless leader, only a couple of steps shy of being a dictator. Not someone that you wanted to claim as either a friend or a lover. But Duo loved him and was willing to protect him, even if he didn't remember him. Treize was awed and a little afraid about the depth of Duo's love for him. It was frightening being that responsible for that kind of emotion.
"No one knows what happened." Relena said. "We only discovered her existence last year. Her grandfather decided to rebel against the current World President. He threatened the Earth with the real Operation Meteor, which was dropping a colony on the Earth. They had captured me whole I was on a fact finding tour of their colony. I woke up after being drugged, to find Maria sitting with me. She told me that she was your daughter and that she was going to be the new leader of the Earth, because mankind was not meant for peace. She sent a tape to Preventer Headquarters outlining their demands and a time when the Earth would give into those demands. Thankfully, Une saw it early and showed Duo a copy. That Quatre and Heero were with him was another break. They were there to find out from Duo where his Gundam had been hidden. Quatre wanted to destroy them, he thought that their time was over, that they were not needed anymore. And I had sent them there to see if Duo was all right." Relena paused and smiled sadly. "At the news of your death, Duo disappeared. He didn't contact us for about a month after everything had ended. And then... he looked so bad. He'd lost so much weight and was pale."
"I only saw Duo once between the time of the war ending and Barton's Rebellion, which thankfully is a small, secret note in history," Une explained. "We managed to keep it under wraps from the general population. Many of them know that something happened, but not what exactly. We... we were going to the lawyers, to see about things. Duo was in shock the entire time. He just sat there in the office with a blank look on his face. When we were alone, he tried to act 'normal' at least normal for Duo, but... he was so lost with your death, the months alone in space and the torture that he suffered with Mirialdo and White Fang. He said that the only reason that he was there was to pick up the letters that had been left at the lawyer's office for you. That was all that he wanted he wasn't interested in anything else. I just let him go, because as much as I wanted to drag him home with me and keep him safe, that wouldn't be a good thing for him." Une sighed. "I at least made him promise me that he would call once a month to tell me that he was fine."
"I visited Duo after that, during the summer. I was having some problems and I wanted Duo's advice. I also wanted to get the hell away from work for a while and that was the place to do it. It is in the middle of no where, I have no idea how you even found the place." Relena exclaimed.
"I found it?" Treize asked.
"You found it when you were out driving one day," Une said. "That's all you would tell me. But I think that Duo can tell you more about that place then I could, he was living there up until Maria's attempted rebellion. I'm surprised that he didn't take you there."
Relena smiled sadly. "And after what the two of you just went through, most likely Duo did not want to drag you out to another isolated area. It would be acting like my brother too much in his mind. Even though that place probably meant a lot to the two of you."
"And Duo is in no shape not to be any where without a doctor near him, for the next couple of days." Treize added sadly. "he bore the brunt of you're brother's anger."
Relena sighed. "What's he like now?"
Treize shrugged. "I am not the right person to ask. My opinions are a little faulty right now. But... he can be very charming when he wants to be. And when he isn't, a lot of people are afraid to get him angry with them. I don't know why, but I can guess. People often didn't fall quiet fast enough around me, when they were discussing him. After a while, I learned not to listen. It was easier for me. Oblivious was a very good attitude to cultivate." #I was weak and stupid, afraid to let go of Miri, because I didn't know any one else to hold on to. Even after Howard's offer, I never thought of him that way, because that would lead to other things that I shouldn't or didn't want to think about. And I wonder, If I asked him, would Howard have told me anything that I needed to know?#
"I hoped that he would have managed to get beyond whatever madness that Epyon and his guilt inflicted on him, but I guess not." Relena sighed.
Une kept silent, knowing that anything that she would say about Mirialdo or Zechs or whatever he wanted to be, would not be good. She hadn't exactly hated the man until after he had defected from Treize-sama's cause, for his own reasons. She had also had seen the bruises on both Treize and Noin, a man that took out his own frustrations on his lovers was not a man in her eyes. But... had she been jealous of the other two, Zechs and Noin for the admiration that Treize'd had for them, which colored her judgment about them? She thought that she had been, but she hadn't really understood about the love that two adults could have until she fell in love with Relena. And that showed her that there was something seriously wrong with Relena's brother, emotionally, because of his treatment of both of his lovers. Duo had been something very right for her General, she hoped that he could be that again. They had been so much in love, no matter how they denied it until it was too late.
"Never blame yourself for the way that you acted with my brother, Treize. " Relena continued quietly. "I acted the fool long enough for the Romafellers to tell you that acting a fool and pretending that the world is fine, does not make you a fool, no matter what the world would tell you. You do what you have to, to survive. If it includes not noticing a lot in your surroundings, you turn a blind eye to reality then, because you needed to do so to survive in the fantasy. You walked and took Duo with you, when you could have left on your own or left Duo in Howard's clutches. Don't hate yourself."
"Treize... " Une added. "Duo set things up for you. You will have enough money for now and later... well something can be worked out. The estate is yours, if you so choose, we can start the process of declaring you alive again. If not, funds can be diverted. They will cooperate with me about that. But we can take care of that all later, once you feel comfortable enough about making some decisions. Nothing has to be taken care of right now, you do have time."
Relena smiled. "Une has charmed two of the senior partners. The only one that does not think that she is wonderful is the idiot that was hostile to her and Duo when they were settling things. But they don't let him out of the office much to talk to the clients. Especially Une or Duo. Not that Duo talks to them much, nothing beyond the two quick meetings he had with them about adopting Maria."
"Maria." Treize said quietly. "I should meet her. I wonder how she's feeling about this?"
"She was worried about Duo. That she would never see him again, because some thing in London scared him into running away and disappearing. She knew that it was a pattern with him, she just wondered what set him off. She thought that it might have been something that she did." Une said. #I think I know what it was. Heero and Wufei looked so guilty about something, so that it wasn't just seeing Zechs again and having a nightmare that sent him running out of that hotel room, it was something that they did. And, I can guess what. For two very smart people, they can be very stupid at times. Or like most men, they thought with something other then their brain.#
"Maria is someplace around here, I think that you will find her near the front sitting room. That's where Duo was and she made a beeline for him. So if you want to find her, she's somewhere around there. If not, someone can tell you." Relena said.
"Then ladies, I will take my leave and search for my daughter." Treize stopped and smiled wryly. "I can't believe I'm a father. And I missed all the fun parts, the cravings, the midnight feedings and other assorted child rearing treats." #Her first word, her first step. And any say about her life.#
Maria stood in the hallway, wondering which way she should go to avoid running into T-chan. Not that she didn't want to meet her father, it was just the butterflies in her stomach were jumping up, down and all about and she was about scream with nerves. Her eyes were bloodshot from crying, her hair was a mess and this was the absolute worst time that anyone could see her. So she knew that the person that was walking up behind her was her father and she had absolutely no place to hide. #Just once I want to meet a relative under happy circumstances!# she thought crossly as she turned to meet her father.
Treize had noticed Maria standing in the hallway, with her back towards him. It had to be his daughter, there wasn't any other children around. In fact, aside from a handful of Quatre's people and the Gundam pilots the house was deserted. And the place looked like it had been opened up hurriedly. Duo was serious about not wanting noncombatants being dragged into the fight if Miri showed up. So this not so small girl was his daughter. He was suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling of responsibility that he had for her. She was someone whose opinion would be important to him. A child that he had to protect, from the world... from Miri. If Miri ever found out that he had a daughter, that crazed lunatic would hurt her more then he hurt Duo and for the same reason, she was someone that was a rival for his attention. And now he had to find out what she was like and try to answer any questions that she had. He suddenly felt very under prepared for this.
He laughed to himself. Nothing could have prepared him for this, if someone before that odd dinner would have told him that he would have walked out on Miri, helping someone else escape also, to find out that his former enemies were kinder then his lover, he would have shook his head at what seemed to be a description of the entire plot of a cheap novel. But no one had asked him that and he hadn't realized how much of a trap that small, silent boy had been. And now, in another unexpected twist of fate, he had to get to know the daughter that no one knew about. He wondered what he had done in a past life to deserve all this? He was still pondering this question and other things, when Maria turned around and smiled at him.
He tentatively smiled back at Maria, as she stood in hallway looking uncertain as she stared back at him. He had no idea what to say and she looked the same way. He walked up to her and stood looking down at the girl that was his daughter. She stared back at him equally uncertain, then smiled softly. "Is this as awkward for you as it is for me?"
Treize laughed, more out of nervousness then anything else. "I think so."
"It's not that I don't want to meet you, its just... I wanted to look better. I've been crying and I still am a little freaked out about all this. But you are too."
"A little. These last few days... I have found out things... "
"... that aren't good." Maria finished for him. "Really weird in fact. Stuff you can't even imagine doing. But you did it, even if you don't remember it. I just wish I knew... ." Her voice trailed off and she scuffed her toe in the rug.
"You wish you knew what?"
"That you liked my mother at least. Or that you knew that I was born or a bunch of other things too, that you can't tell me now. That no one can because they're all dead."
They stared at each other for another couple of minutes, questions passing through their heads. Observations and thoughts. The tension grew until it just cried out to be broken by something, some sort of comment or questions had to be voiced, it only to break the silence that seemed to settle on the whole house.
"I am just was thinking about how much this is starting to resemble a bad novel." Treize said quietly.
Maria giggled. "I was thinking that I would just like to meet someone, when it isn't under a crisis situation."
"Really?" Treize asked. "Then could you tell me how you met all of these people? How they all know each other? I think that they are keeping things from me, not deliberately, but because it is information that they all know so they think that everyone knows it."
"Then lets get someplace comfortable and out of the way." Maria said. "Duo's sleeping in the front room and I don't know really where anyone else is."
"It's empty now." Treize informed her. "He and Trowa went to start dinner. Or help with dinner. But they are in the kitchen. Lady Une and Relena I left in the Library. I don't know where Quatre or Heero or Wufei are. And I could never keep track of all the others."
"Heero and Wufei are hiding in their room from Une and Relena, who are probably playing rock-scissor-paper to see who yells at them for loosing Duo."
"Ah." Treize commented.
"You know about that?" Maris asked as she made her way to the front room.
"I overheard a conversation between Heero, Wufei and Duo. They were trying to apologize to Duo about something, and he didn't accept it with very good grace." Treize explained following her downstairs. "It must have been about that, but Duo felt it was more his fault then anything, I think. Duo was a little drugged at the time."
Maria nodded. "He probably felt like crap and wasn't too forgiving of either himself or them. They might make up, he was really excited to see London with them. And Duo doesn't deal with medicine or drugs very well. He hates taking them. I don't blame him, some of the stuff Mina the nut had him on... but that is something that is more Duo's problem then anything. But if he got you back, he would say that it was worth it to him"
"It could be... though I doubt that Duo really wants to go anyplace but home right now. he still doesn't feel very good" #Beaten, raped, kidnapped and what Howard had done to him, I think that Duo just wants to bed alone and try to deal with those things before he worries about Miri and Howard chasing after us. Or what to do about me.#
Maria shook her head. "He's going to try and get the two of you misplaced in the colonies. He hopes that those two other icky people are going to give up and leave you along if they can't find you right away." She stopped, blushing. "I hope that he sort of discussed it with you and I didn't let the cat out of the bag. He was trying to explain to me why he wasn't coming home yet. I was all over him, asking when he was coming back home. He was so sad that he couldn't yet. He felt that he was breaking a promise to me, that he'd always be there for me."
"I doubt that they will give up," Treize said involuntarily. Miri hadn't spent that much time working him over, molding him into what he wanted to let him go now. And Howard had bothered to do all those things to Duo. He wasn't going to just disappear either.
Maria smiled back at him, "Duo doesn't think so also, but he's a hopeful sort of guy. I think that's why he crashed so hard at the end of it all. Hope was all he had left and it wasn't enough anymore. But... I think that someone will try and rescue the two of you from being on the run forever."
"I'll worry about those two later," Treize said firmly as they arrived at the front room, "I just want to get to know you now."
"mmm" Maria stalled, then smiled winningly. "I'm nine years old and the only reason that I know any of these people is because I tried to take over the world and crash a colony onto the Earth."
"How did you and Duo... "Treize started and then made a little gesture. Maria's bluntness she must have gotten from Duo. Une and Relena were both diplomats to the tips of their fingers. Or maybe Maria was relaxed enough to treat him like a friend. He didn't think that he was up to being her father yet.
"Actually I met Wufei before I met anyone else." Maria said. "He had been recruited by some one for Dekim's mad plan."
With a small shock Treize realized that she was talking about Dekim Barton, her grandfather. He guessed the mad plan was their attempt to take of the Earth Government. He wondered what Barton thought, if he could have a military takeover actually work with only a small child, as your figure head leader. Well history was full of such strange plans, plans that actually worked, so it wasn't that much of a long shot. He had the charisma, he could see that Maria did also. So it might have worked. He wondered what kind a government it would have been like.
"He became, what you might call a bodyguard for me and Dekim. Dekim asked him all about the other Gundam pilots. Wufei told us a great deal about Duo, most of it inaccurate. But it was what he thought Duo was like. And he wasn't sure at the time, whether Duo was alive or dead when he was giving us this information, so it didn't matter to him. A little about Trowa and Heero, nothing that couldn't have been gotten out of public records, the same with any information that he gave us about the Gundams or Quatre. But he still was useful, and Dekim liked keeping him around me, so we got to know each other a little, he told me a lot of useful things. Some stories. He was about the first person in my life that was nice to me because of who I was, not who I was related to. He had been blunt when he was recruited. He was doing this because he felt guilty about killing you, not for any other reason."
"Oh." Treize said softly.
Maria shook her head. "Don't feel odd. He likes you, you have the same values. The same world view practically. Honor. Pride. Fair play. Wufei and you argued about it after you dueled, he told me. Granted he usually lost, but it wasn't by much. Sometimes, before he was involved with Heero, he showed up just to be able to talk to someone. And you both had violated those values because of who you were and what you had to do in the war. You when you staged the revolution with the Specials. Wufei, when for his first act of terrorism on Earth, he blew up a barracks full of sleeping cadets, because it would cripple OZ's war effort. The suits were easy to replace, training people to fill them was the hard part."
"Trowa I met next. He tried to kill Dekim before he started his little revolt. Unfortunately, he was caught by Wufei. I was there for the interrogation, it was interesting. So much that wasn't being said by both of them. I always wondered how oblivious Dekim was to the under currents, but then he really didn't acknowledge anything that didn't fit his vision of how things were supposed to be. Then Trowa was shoved in the brig, but he did manage to escape during the confusion of the battle a couple of days later, when we were attacked by the Gundams. Trowa snuck aboard the shuttle that Dekim took, when he went to take control of Preventers Headquarters." Maria paused for a second. "Leaving me and Relena on the colony, after he set the controls to crash."
"He abandoned you?"
Maria smiled sadly. "He was through with me. I had done what I was supposed to do. I gave the message that was needed, so he discarded me. I really wasn't surprised that he did it, you shouldn't be either. All I heard that from him all my life was that wasn't good enough. That I didn't look enough like you or act grown up enough."
"What would have happened if he succeeded?" Treize asked shocked.
Maria smiled. "I would have died. Along with about three quarters of the world's population, due to the damage that would have been done to the biosphere. It was a scenario that had been thought of, when Mirialdo Peacecraft decided to crash the Libra, his warship into the Earth."
"Miri tried to destroy the Earth?" Treize asked numbly. He knew that his lover was a controlling bastard, but that was ridiculous. Because he didn't want to lose, he shoudn't make sure that no one won.
"The Libra would have destroyed the ecosystem of the planet. Then we would have been too busy trying to survive to wage any type of war. It wasn't a bad plan on his part, just very hateful and destructive. By this time, you were supposedly dead, killed by Wufei. I wonder how Mirialdo found you?" Maria asked curiously. "You weren't even near his last known position from what I can reconstruct of the battle. It would be something to figure out, eventually. How you survived."
Treize frowned and shook his head. "You are not getting to within a hundred miles of that man if I can help it." he said coldly.
Maria laughed and shook her head. "The bastard that hurt Duo? Only if I can put a bullet in his brain, so that Duo would sleep at night." Maria bit her lip, "I'm sorry. I know that he saved your life, but he keeps hurting Duo. And probably you."
"And so that he won't hurt you, stay away from him." Treize said, trying not to react to her statement. She was very perceptive for a child, to have guessed that. But he was willing to wager that she had had her share of abusive bastards in her life to make that guess.
"I kidnapped Relena and was holding her hostage, when Duo came to rescue her. I was so stunned that the stories I had heard about him didn't match what I saw. Wufei described him as a clown, a joker. But not that he was dumb, just a really happy person. Smart, able to think on his feet. He talked a lot about Duo and I never figured out why. I was under the impression that you and Une were having an affair. Not that anyone ever explained anything like that to me. Relena told me that you had fallen in love towards the end and just was willing to give it all up no matter who won or lost. I didn't believe her." Maria laughed. "I had this picture of you in my mind, a warrior. Noble. Honorable. A figment that was created by a lonely child, that had no basis in reality."
"No wonder I didn't mind letting Miri... " Treize mused aloud, then blushed. He hoped that Maria didn't figure out what he was saying.
"Then Duo shows up, to rescue the princess again. And he wasn't the clown. He was someone that was scary. His eyes... they were so, dead. I didn't figure out until later why that was and I still don't understand. He hadn't been in Shinigami, his Gundam since the Eve War. And then he crawled in there, to go do the same thing that got him hurt before. He wasn't feeling too good then, that's when the flashbacks started for him. I don't know what he was seeing or hearing, but to try to stop it, he just locked it all away. His eyes... "
"... were like stones, pretty and lifeless." Treize finished her sentence. "I thought that too when I saw him."
They smiled at each other. "I'd like to see his eyes laugh." They almost said it in unison. Treize smiled and shook his head. "I'm not saying anything else about Duo and I meeting because it something that you're not going to understand until you are older."
"The hormone thing?" Maria asked. "I sort of understand it now. Why Duo likes boys a certain way and Relena likes girls the same way and I think that Une likes them both, that way. I can't put it any better than that. It's kinda odd at school because most of my classmates have like two parents and a host of brothers and sisters. I have Duo, Relena and Une. Most of them recognize Une and Relena and they think that Duo's my brother, a bodyguard/housekeeper or he's sleepin' with either Une or Relena."
"They think that Duo's your housekeeper?"
Maria shrugged. "They can't believe that he has joint custody with Une. But he's the one that picks me up from school sometimes, makes cookies and tries to do the mother thing for me. He barely made it through Parent-Teacher Night, but that is another story. But no one even suspects that he's a Gundam pilot. He's too fragile looking now."
Treize shook his head, trying to picture Duo making cookies, acting motherly. It wasn't working because all he could think of was Duo screaming at Miri to keep his attention on him and pleading with him not to hurt him. "I can believe that Duo was a pilot, because he's mentally and physically tough." was all that he said aloud. He was not going to explain to his daughter that the two of them had been tortured.
"Duo was so determined to keep the peace that he was ready to kill me to do so." Maria said solemnly, continuing her story. "I don't think that you can believe it, but he would have done it. I knew that. And I decided that I didn't want to die for Dekim and whatever plot he had. It had failed with the first time that they attempted Operation Meteor and I thought that it would fail again. And I was sick of being used. So I surrendered to Relena. Duo was happy. He told me that he wanted me to keep the innocence in my eyes. He didn't want to see them, get empty like his was. We went back to Earth in a Preventer shuttle with Duo riding shot gun. He then got me out of the crowd that was forming, because Dekim's little coup had failed, Trowa shot him point blank. While the authorities were cleaning up and getting statements, we just slipped away. It was easy, because we looked like two little kids, he started to tell me about you, that night in the hotel room that he had rented. After a few small problems, mostly with Duo and his sanity, we moved in together, the four of us." Maria finished, looking up at Treize. "I know that it is a lot more to it than that, but he should tell you it."
Treize shook his head. "I can't understand him. He... we things happened, I can't tell you about them... "
"Because it's an adult thing, like the necklace and the earrings. But take care of my Duo," Maria asked, "he needs it. He's always been there for me, hurt or not. If he wasn't, he'd be back in the woods and you would still be where ever."
"Northern England." Treize replied absently. "That cabin's important to him, I hope that I eventually see it."
"I haven't, but we were planning on going out there sometime. We just had to get the time to do so. But I think that it was because of a lot of things that he kept putting it off." She filed away the information about Northern England. It was a start to finding out where her father had been held for the last few years.
They both looked up when they heard a knock on the door, Quatre was standing there and smiling at them. "I never informed either Duo or Trowa that there wasn't going to be a formal dinner tonight. They cooked a big meal for all of us and it's ready now, would you like to join us? I'm glad that the two of you have started to make friends with each other."
To Be Continued .....
Christine
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