Une tells Mariemeia about Treize
"You can do it," said the physical therapist.
Mariemeia, with sweat on her temples, clung to the parallel bars and managed to make it all the way across before collapsing in the therapist's arms.
Une looked at that and thought, The therapist said that given a few more months, she might actually be able to walk about with nothing more than a cane. That shot damaged her spinal cord but that stem cell treatments have reattached most of the nerves. It was simply a matter of making sure they got stimulated. She's made such good progress in these past months. Then she smiled. But then she is a Khushrenada...
Une wheeled Mariemeia out to the van she was driving. After she seatbelted her in, she folded the wheelchair and put it in the back. They began the long drive home.
"Une?"
"Yes, Mariemeia."
"Why did you take me in?"
"Because you're Treize-sama's daughter and I wanted to," said Une.
"Even though I'm someone else's daughter as well."
Une paused. "Even so."
"My father... he didn't know about me, did he?"
"No, he was never told. I think your grandfather made sure about that. Treize-sama would have come for you. I'm sure of it."
"Maybe he'd be angry about what I'd done."
"No, he was a very understanding person."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Une... how did you know my father?"
"I was in love with him. Your father was like a comet that only comes once in a hundred years and shined its brightest only once out of a hundred appearances. That's how he was to me. When we get home, I will tell you more."
They sat together on the couch, the wheelchair next to it. "He said I was one of the few people who understood him. Sometimes, I wonder if I was the only one." After all, the other people who he thought understood him eventually turned against him, she thought ruefully.
"I met him when I was a child before I entered the Academy. My father had invited him for dinner. He was already a captain in charge of troops then. Unlike everyone else I knew, he was poised and sophisticated with an air of absolute confidence. When I told him that I was going to enter the Academy, he encouraged me by sending me letters and giving me tips on piloting and fencing. Frankly, I needed all the help I could get."
Mariemeia then said, "Do you have any pictures of him?"
Une could hear the hunger and longing in that voice. Poor girl, she thought, she will never get to see him in the flesh. At least I had that luxury. "Of course." She opened up a cabinet, then pulled out a few photo albums. She flipped to a picture of a Treize still in his teens standing next to her father. "That's what your father looked like when I first saw him." The Treize in that picture looked a little less polished and more like a regular teenager but still confident.
"Who's the girl with the braids?" said Mariemeia, pointing to a young girl barely in her teens with two long braids, trying to look away from the camera.
"That's me around that time," said Une. "A year later, I entered the Academy. I put up my hair so it wouldn't get in my way. I was so intent on doing well that I suppose... no, I was rather rude to people. I just didn't want anybody to get in my way. It was during that year that I heard that Treize had been injured by a missile from a rocket launcher. It was also the year you were born. I did some checking. Leia Barton was a nurse at the hospital your father was staying in when he was recuperating. In his letters to me, he didn't say a word about what was between them. I was still a child going to school. I think he didn't feel it was appropriate at the time to tell me. It was years still before I would graduate and become his assistant."
"So, you never met my mother... "
Une shook her head. "I'm sorry."
Mariemeia was quiet for a while.
Une flipped a few pages of the photo album. "This is what he looked like when he spoke to my graduating class." The Treize in that picture looked like the elegant spokesman and warrior that everyone knew. He seemed serene as he stood at the podium. A warm smile lit his face.
"Wow, he's handsome," remarked Mariemeia.
Une smiled. "I think so, too."
There were a few other pictures as well. Treize was lounging by the pool, only wearing some blue swim trunks. There was another where he was wearing yukata during a trip to Japan. There were several pictures of him in uniform, but most of them were of the casual moments. There was one where he showed up at a costume party as a pirate or throwing a snowball while wearing fur-lined gloves. A few of the pictures showed him laughing as he was trying to dodge a well-aimed snowball.
"He pegged me a few times," Une said. "But I managed to get him back."
"I always thought of him as always being serious."
"He was most of the time. He always asked about the people who died. He would look at their names. He memorized how many people died for a particular day. This was on top of having to lead. I'm glad he had some moments of leisure, he deserved them. I told him so many times not to put off taking a vacation... "
"He looks so young," she said.
"Well, he was only twenty-four when he... " Died, thought Une.
There was a pause.
"My grandfather didn't tell me much about my father, and what little he told me were lies," said Mariemeia. "I couldn't tell what was true and what was false. Even now people say all sorts of things and they all can't be true."
"I saw a proud man full of brilliance and talent. He wasn't perfect and many people won't forgive him because of that. What I saw was a man who tried to hold on to his personal ideals even when the world turned against him. He struggled, yes, he did. He fell into despair and thought that the he had no place in the world he was to create. He rose to the highest point that any man could aspire to, but fell the instant he attained it. He was only twenty-four." She blinked to keep from crying.
"I was there when your father died. I had thought he would win. He'd defeated everyone else. But it was not to be. He was elegant to the last. Before he died, he asked me for the number of dead who died fighting. He even remembered their names. Even as his suit was failing him and the systems were shorting out... he complimented his opponent on his sword work. That's the type of person he was." She closed her eyes from the memory, then opened them.
"Are you all right?"
"Yes, I'm fine. After he died, I had to figure out what my purpose in life was, who I should be. It was as if all the life force from my body was sucked out, leaving a shell. The only thing that kept me going in the beginning was that I couldn't face him if I were to simply give up and die. It would be ‘inelegant.' Later, I decided to create the Preventers. Being with people who felt as passionately as I did about protecting the peace, it helped me recover some of what I'd lost."
"Then I saw you on the screen and somehow I knew that you were telling the truth. No matter how unlikely and how strange it seemed, I knew. I also knew that Dekim Barton was using you, that he was using Treize-sama's memory to make you into something you weren't. That was unforgivable. I decided at all costs to come for you and raise you as I thought his Excellency would want you to be raised. As I couldn't save him, I wanted to at least help his daughter."
"Une."
"What?"
Mariemeia gave her a hug. "Thank you."
The End
(:./mk/recovery)
