10 Jan 2001

The aftermath

DISCLAIMER: All Gundam Wing characters are property of Sunrise, Bandai Visuals, Sotsu Agency, and Asahi TV. This work is not written for profit, but for entertainment purposes only.

PAIRINGS: 6x5/5x6, 13x6/6x13, some very mild 4x9

WARNING: AU/modern day San Francisco; implied yaoi will turn to yaoi and eventual lemon in later chapters

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: To Alfred Hitchock who directed the incredible film, "Vertigo." 

The Royal Road by kumiko

Chapter 19

"Dreams are the Royal Road to the unconscious."

- Sigmund Freud

She was silent for a brief moment, just staring at the two of them, and then looked at Zechs. "Mr. Marquise, would you please wait outside while I have a word with Dr. Khushrenada? I'd like a chance to speak with you as well."

Zechs looked warily from Anne to Treize. "Sure," he said, and walked to the door, which Anne opened for him, taking care to shut it firmly closed once he was gone.

There was a long moment of silence and then she said softly, "What part of our conversation didn't you understand?"

Treize didn't answer right away. He crossed the room and sat down on the sofa, unable to meet her gaze. "I understood everything, Anne," he said at last. "I tried my damnedest, I really did. I'm sure it won't make any difference to you, but that kiss you walked in on was our first."

"You're right," she said, sitting down opposite him, "it doesn't really make any difference, although I suppose I should be happy that you haven't taken this any further with him. Dear God, Treize, I never expected this kind of thing from you."

"No, well - I really didn't expect to feel like this... not at all," he told her, still avoiding her eyes. "Did Andrew tell you that I gave him Zechs's case file last night?" he asked.

"Yes, he told me this morning," she said, "and also that you took it back from him when you left. So, at least I know that you tried to do the right thing. Well - *part* of the right thing, anyway."

He looked up at her. "So that's not enough for you?" he said quietly. "I *am* giving him up as a client, Anne. I recognize that he needs someone else for that."

"Yes," she said firmly, "he does. He needs someone who can be a *therapist* for him, and a therapist only, something you failed to do. But you know the other part of that passage in the Ethical Principles. A sexual relationship with a client within two years of when that client received therapy is strictly forbidden, and even after that time it's frowned on. The feelings you have, and your actions because of them could be very harmful to Mr. Marquise. The rules are very clear, Treize."

"The *rules* don't take into account that therapists sometimes have feelings that *aren't* harmful to their clients!" Treize said, the irritation evident in his voice. "What if I can help him heal by being something more to him? What if, by giving his case to another therapist and being his friend or his lover, or both, I can actually help him to adjust to the horrors he's just been through? What about that?"

He stared hard at her, almost daring her to come up with a reason that he and Zechs shouldn't be together.

"That's not the kind of dynamic that healthy relationships are built on," she said softly. "That's a dynamic that puts you one up - as the healthy one tending to the sick one, and him one down, depending on you for support. It's unequal, Treize, and always would be unequal. That's why the rules are there - to prevent relationships like that from forming."

/Damn you, Anne... you know you're right. Problem is, I know it to... But I want him... how can I wait two years before I can touch him again... two years that might change him completely. He's much more likely to change his feelings about me, whatever they are now, than I am to change my feelings for him. He might want a completely different kind of lover, once he's healthy.../

"Treize?" Anne said, stirring him out of his thoughts. "I need to know that you won't be in a relationship with him in order to let you continue working here, and if you can't promise me that, I would also have to notify the state licensing board that you're in violation of ethical standards of practice. You could lose your license to practice."

He looked up at her sharply. "Anne!"

"No, Treize. If Mr. Marquise were to bring a lawsuit against us he might very well have a chance at winning the case. That would ruin the clinic, just in the damage to our reputation alone."

"He wouldn't do that!" Treize protested, feeling a stab of anger go through him. "He's not that kind of person!"

"*I* can't take that chance, Treize!" Anne said firmly. "What you did was wrong, professionally and ethically. Having a relationship with him now would *also* be wrong, professionally and ethically." She was staring hard at him, and then the expression in her eyes seemed to soften into something akin to sadness. "You *know* that going into something like a romantic relationship with him right now has the chance of being very exploitative. You *know* that, Treize. Is that what you want for him?"

His anger crumbled into resignation and grief. "No," he said in a hoarse whisper, shaking his head and feeling the tears come. "No, I want only the best for him... God, Anne - what am I going to do?"

She came over and sat down beside him on the sofa, putting an arm around him and bring the box of tissues near. "You are going to wait, Treize. You are going to see how things stand at the end of two years. And you're going to keep on being an excellent therapist."

He began to cry in earnest.

After about twenty minutes, when he'd calmed down some, she left to talk to Zechs. Another 45 minutes went by as he lay on the sofa, wondering what to do.

/Maybe he'll wait for me... maybe two years won't change him all that much... and what are the odds of that, Treize? What are the odds of a man like that still being unattached after two years? I've just been his therapist. Some people go through therapists like tissues... He wouldn't think of me that way, would he?/

He brought his hands up to his eyes, determine to hold in the unshed tears that threatened. /Why couldn't I have met him someplace else? Why couldn't I have been the man downstairs who saw him in the laundry room and pestered him until he went out with me? Why couldn't it just have been normal - the two of us just strangers who met one day and became friends... And how the fuck am I going to get along without him for two years??/

There was a knock on the door, and it woke him from a light doze. He sat up on the sofa and called, "Come in."

The door opened and Zechs stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. "Can I... talk to you?" he said in a low voice.

"Of course," Treize said, gesturing him in. Zechs took the seat opposite him, where Anne had been and Treize's heart sank. "I take it you've talked with Anne," he said.

The blond man nodded and then looked up at him. "She says... she says you can't be my therapist any more," he said, in a trembling voice.

Treize smiled, though his eyes were beginning to fill again. "No, I can't. Did she explain why?"

"Yes... yes, she... she said it wasn't good for you to have the feelings for me that you do - that you couldn't be a good therapist and feel that way. She gave me the name of someone else, across town."

Looking over at the younger man, Treize felt a horrible wave of guilt. "Zechs, I'm so sorry," he whispered. "I didn't mean to do any of this. The feelings just happened and I wasn't strong enough to stop myself from acting on them. I swear I never meant you any harm!"

The next moment, Zechs was crossed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around Treize, who found himself crying again as he buried his head against the other man's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he kept repeating, holding onto Zechs as if his life depended on that contact.

"Don't be sorry, Treize. You didn't do anything to hurt me. You helped me, a lot. I don't know what would have happened to me if I hadn't met you. I probably wouldn't be alive right now."

"Don't say that," Treize said, pushing away and looking into Zechs's eyes. "You're very strong - a lot stronger than you think you are. I want you to remember that. Promise me?"

Zechs nodded, his expression one of deep sadness.

"What will you do now?" Treize asked him, not really wanting to hear the answer.

"I'm not sure," Zechs murmured, still holding Treize's hand. "Noin told me I should go away for awhile - not think about any of this. I'm thinking of taking her advice. It's always been a dream of mine to take a trip around the world..."

/No, Zechs! Not so far away, please? At least here, I'd know you were in the same city... I could check on you discretely... Damn. There I go again.../

"That sounds like it could be very good for you," Treize said, squeezing the hand that held his.

"She also said that we couldn't really talk to each other for two years," Zechs said, brushing his thumb over Treize's.

"Yes," Treize said, "those are the rules..."

Zechs looked away from him, out the window on the wall ahead of him, and brushed away a stray tear from long, golden lashes. "Would you... would you mind if I got in touch with you... after that time? If you're still here, that is?"

Treize pulled Zechs into a fierce hug. "I *will* be here, Zechs! I'm not going anywhere. You know exactly where to find me and I will be waiting. I swear I'll be waiting..."

For a moment, Zechs held onto him tightly, then he got up suddenly and walked to the door. His hand was on the knob when Treize heard him whisper, "I'll find you." Then the door opened and he was gone.

One month after he'd seen Zechs that last time, Treize called Black Oaks Glen, the private facility that Relena was now in. She had, indeed, been judged as unfit to stand trial and had been committed to the hospital, where she was undergoing treatment. For some reason he didn't really understand, Treize wanted to talk to her.

Two days later, he had driven across the Golden Gate Bridge to the hospital, located in the pretty, and expensive, little town of Mill Valley. The hospital itself was located at the foot of Mount Tamalpais, tucked away amid clusters of the graceful oak trees that gave the facility it's name. After checking with the nursing staff, he was taken to the psychiatrist in charge of Relena's case.

"Hello, Dr. Khushrenada," she said, standing and shaking his hand before motioning him to take a seat in her office. "I'm Iriana Berber. I understand you wish to speak with Relena Marquise?"

"Yes," he said, trying to look safe and earnest. "I think you know my involvement with the case. I know it may not be possible - I don't know how Relena will react to me - but... there are a couple of things I wanted to ask her, and if she'd see me I'd be very grateful."

"I told her yesterday that you wanted to talk to her. She became very agitated and for awhile I was thinking of calling you and canceling this meeting, but after awhile she calmed down and said she *did* want to talk to you. I can't guarantee that she'll feel the same way today."

"I understand that," Treize nodded. "Can she... can she tell me anything about what happened to her brother's friend, Wufei Chang?"

"I can give you the details on that, if you like," Dr. Berber said, pulling a thick file folder towards her. "What did you want to know?"

"I just... I wanted to know how she did it."

The psychiatrist looked at him in surprise. "That's very direct of you," she said. "Don't pull any punches, do you?"

"No, I guess I don't," Treize said, with a self-effacing smile. "It's just that I treated her brother and went over that day many times with him and it's puzzled me, I suppose."

"Well," Dr. Berber said, looking down at the open file, "apparently she knew her brother was going down to the mission. They had talked about it, and she was meeting with Mr. Chang weekly at that time, so she knew he would be accompanying her brother. At the meeting they had before the trip she and Mr. Chang had argued quite violently about Relena's feelings for her brother and apparently it was following that when she became determined that he was a threat to Mr. Marquise."

"So she planned a way to get rid of the threat," Treize said softly, thinking back to the photo album in Zechs's apartment, and the dark eyed young man in Zechs's arms.

"Yes," Dr. Berber nodded. "She had her aunt under her control almost completely. I believe the woman was a bit unstable when she came to live with her brother's family and became worse as the years went by.

"Relena was a very intelligent girl who had almost nothing to do all day but wait for her brother to come home from school. I really think in the beginning getting Cathrine to do what she wanted was a game to Relena. It didn't take much manipulation for her aunt to become a very willing servant, and Relena knew her well enough to be able to push the right buttons. It was really only after her parents began their sessions with her brother than she saw Cathrine as a way to break out of what was, to her, an intolerable situation.

After that, everything she did was, in her mind, anyway, to protect her brother. He really was the focus of her life and when their parents punished him, she seemed to suffer right along with him."

"It's strange," Treize murmured, "but Zechs believes she was normal up to a point, and the illness only took over later. Do you think that was the case?"

Dr. Berber looked grim. "My specialty is trauma, Dr. Khushrenada, and while there probably is a certain genetic factor in this family, I think I know what may have caused Relena to go over the edge." She sat back in her chair and regarded him for a moment. "Think of how it would feel if you were an invalid and the brightest thing in your life was your brother. He's warm and kind and he makes you laugh. He's also a beautiful boy that you begin to have a crush on.

"So far we're not that far outside of normal. But then, one day, you find out that your parents are doing something horrific to him. Worse still, you now hear it, everyday, as they drag him down to the basement, as he screams to be let go, as they slap him and tell him to be quiet... Every day of your life for seven years. Your feelings for him are growing stronger, you sense of outrage is deepening, and adolescence is leaving it's marks on you, changing the dynamic between you and your brother, who used to be the best friend you had in the world, and now looks like the only boy you'll ever want.

"I think that's enough to have made Relena lose touch with what was real and fantasy, as well as what was right and wrong. She really did believe she was protecting him when she ordered her aunt to tamper with the parent's car."

"And with Wufei?" Treize said, feeling numb from the psychiatrist's words.

"She had no doubt succumbed to full-blown psychosis when her brother met him," the woman continued. "In her mind, she and Zechs were engaged to be married, and she expected the world to reflect that fact. When he brought Wufei to meet her, or when he talked about him as a lover, she felt betrayed. But is she going to act on those feelings? Is she going to jeopardize her relationship with her brother, who is everything to her? No, she's going to eliminate the problem that caused the betrayal. So, she does a common thing that even mentally healthy people have been known to do - she puts all the blame for the betrayal on the stranger, on the man who was 'stealing' her brother from her. That way she can do something about it, but she doesn't have to risk being angry with Zechs, and possibly losing him."

"So things had reached a critical point when Relena and Wufei argued, and she saw the mission as a place to carry things out..." Treize murmured, half to himself.

"If you want my honest opinion," Dr. Berber said, "I think Relena wanted Zechs to believe that Mr. Chang really *had* killed himself. Somewhere inside she was still capable of understanding how much he meant to her brother, and she didn't want Zechs to think she had taken the young man away from him. Better to let him think that Mr. Chang was unhappy and that he had decided to kill himself. The mission trip offered a way to do that."

"Cathrine was with her, wasn't she?"

"Yes. She needed Cathrine for the more physically demanding aspects, like getting up the stairs of the tower and setting the bait, as it were, for Mr. Chang." Dr. Berber frowned sadly. "That poor young man... I think he knew he was walking into danger, but he went anyway..."

She looked up at him. "I suppose you can get the rest from her. She doesn't seem reticent to talk about any of it. In her mind she was perfectly justified, because she was protecting her brother."

Treize fought down a wave of sadness and nodded his head. They walked along the main ward of the facility until they came to a small activity room that was vacant except for a small figure by the window. Relena was sitting at a table, drawing with pastels, and the sun was pouring over her, making her golden brown hair look more blond than it really was. It made her look a bit like Zechs and Treize felt a small shiver go through him.

"Relena?" Dr. Berber called to her patient. "So you remember you were going to have a visitor today?"

Relena looked up from her drawing and smiled at the psychiatrist then turned her gaze to Treize. Her face froze and she began to stand, slowly, lifting her hand and pointing at him.

"He was trying to hurt my brother!" she said in a shaky voice. "He was trying to take Zechs away from me! YOU CAN'T HAVE HIM!!" Without any warning she launched herself at Treize, who backed up quickly as Dr. Berber stepped in between them.

"I'm not sure this is going to work out," the woman said, struggling to keep Relena from getting to Treize. The younger woman was hurling a stream of invectives at him and trying to get around the psychiatrist to where he stood.

"May I try something, Doctor?" Treize said in a loud voice so that the older woman could hear him over Relena's shouting.

"Make it quick," she answered, showing an amazing amount of physical strength for a woman who stood nor taller than 5'5" tall.

"Relena," Treize said, looking the angry young woman straight in the eye. "Relena, I'm not seeing Zechs. I'm not allowed to be with him. We haven't seen each other in a month and I have no plans for seeing him any time soon."

As if they had been tranquilizers, Treize's words had an immediate pacifying effect on Relena. She stopped shouting and clawing at him, allowing Dr. Berber to guide her back to the table, where they spoke in low voices that Treize couldn't make out. In a few moments, the physician turned towards him.

"She's agreed to talk to you. You can sit at the other end of the table. One of our ward security workers will be watching." She nodded in the direction of a large mirrored panel in the wall, which Treize recognized as an observation window.

"Thanks," he said, as she left the room. Then he sat and looked at Relena, who was smiling at him. "How are you today, Relena?" he said softly.

"I'm fine," she said, "I'm glad you came to visit me, and that you've realized that Zechs is mine."

"I'm glad I could come," he said, avoiding completely the issue of who had ownership of the blond man.

"I see you like to draw," Treize said, looking down at the picture and realizing only then that she'd draw a portrait of Zechs.

"It's easy to draw him," she said in a pleasant, conversational tone. "I watched him so much that he's completely fixed in my memory." She held the picture up to the light, streaming in the window, and looked at it thoughtfully. "You were such an easy man to fool," she said sweetly.

Treize felt another shiver. "What do you mean by that, Relena?

"You actually believed all those things I told you," she said and giggled. "About Noin's labor pains, and Zechs's legal paperwork... You even believed me that Zechs was with me that last night... Silly man." Putting the paper back down on the table, she picked up the white pastel and proceeded to give Zechs's long hair some silvery highlights.

"So he was never there the night you had dinner together?" he asked her slowly.

"Nope," she said, smiling at the portrait.

"And he was never in the bathroom when we went down to the basement?"

"Wasn't even in the house - in fact, I had no idea where he was then. But I knew you would come if I told you her was there." She looked up and gave him a look as if he were a slightly dull child and she a teacher trying to explain subtraction to him. "You've really been very gullible, you know. But I needed you to be."

"You did?" he asked. "Why is that?" /Yes, tell me Relena... why was it necessary to lie to me, to get me over to the house, to make me believe your stories about what was happening? Why was that, Relena...?/

"Well first I had to assess you, you know - see how you felt about Zechs. I was hoping you didn't really like him all that much, because I liked you. You were fun to be around - much more fun that than Wufei. All he did was tell me I was sick." A hurt look crossed her features briefly, and for a moment, Treize saw the woman he'd thought she was.

"How did he find out about you and Zechs?" Treize asked, choosing his words carefully.

She sniffed and propped her chin on her fist. "He found my strobe light, the little sneak. It wouldn't have mattered - no one knew about the light except for Aunt Cathrine and I - except for the fact that *he* wheedled it out of my brother somehow." Her expression was one of anger now as she thought back on Wufei's 'crimes.' "Zechs had never said anything about his conditioning to *anyone*, not even his close friends. And then that little brat comes along and he tells him everything... It's not fair, you know."

"Hmm," Treize nodded, "so when he found the strobe, he knew what it was for and wanted to know why you were still using it on Zechs."

At his words, Relena seemed to grow agitated, pushing the drawing away and crossing her arms suddenly. "He didn't understand," she said firmly.

"But why were you, Relena? You hated the strobe and what it did to Zechs. Why did you begin using it on him as well?"

"I needed certain things from him," she said evasively. "I knew it would be easier if he weren't fully awake and... worried about things.

Treize wasn't sure he wanted to ask the next question, but knew he had to. "And what would you do when he was in the seizures, Relena?"

She studied her nails intently and then smiled in a sweet and coy way. "Only things any girl wants to do with her fiancé," she said. "We were engaged, after all. We had every right to..."

Treize put a hand to his forehead and wondered if Zechs would ever find out what she'd really done. He hoped to God that he wouldn't.

He could see she was tiring and moved to wrap things up.

"Tell me one more thing, Relena," he murmured, "what did you and Wufei talk about in the bell tower?"

She looked surprised at the question, but didn't object to answering it. "I told him that he wasn't welcome in our lives, that Zechs and I were going to be married and that we wouldn't ever have to leave our lovely house again. That we could be there forever - and never, ever leave... But he kept telling me he would take Zechs away, just like he always did. I knew my plan was the right one. I wouldn't let mother and father hurt Zechs, why should I allow a perfect stranger to do it?"

"And when Zechs followed you two up there?" Treize asked.

"I used the strobe - the same way Cathrine did when he saw her in the cemetery. It was easy to make him forget. I didn't want him to be sad."

The irony of it was almost too much for him to bear - that she wanted Zechs to be happy, and yet killed the person who had brought him the most happiness he'd ever known; that she hated her parents so much for what they were doing to Zechs that she had them killed, yet was willing to do the same thing to him to achieve her own ends. He leaned over the table, nearly sick with grief for all of them: Zechs, Relena, and mostly for Wufei.

There was a knock on the door and Dr. Berber peeked in. "It looks like both of you are ready to call it a day," she said kindly.

Treize looked up at her and nodded sadly, unable to shake the feeling of being in mourning. Relena was looking out the window at a large oak tree just outside, humming softly to herself and smiling. Her hands held the picture of Zechs close to her chest in a slight hug.

"Goodbye, Relena," Treize said quietly. "Thank you for seeing me."

She let her gaze wander over to him and smiled brilliantly. "You'll come to the wedding, won't you?" she said. Treize nodded and tried to smile, but it died before it reached his eyes.

On the drive home, it seemed as though the strange puzzle that had been Zechs's dream was finally all in one piece, as if he could see it there, before his eyes. The trip with Wufei, who became less and less Wufei-like as the dream progressed; the church where Zechs had a seizure and Wufei splashed himself with holy water - Treize was sure that had represented both Relena and her outward appearance of purity, and also a sign that Zechs knew Wufei was going to die in the dream, a strange form of last rites, perhaps. The bad thing that lurked was Relena's obsession with him, always linked, in a way, to those strobing lights.

The climb up to the top of the bell tower, where Wufei said he wanted to stay there - to never leave - was, Treize thought now, a disguise for Relena and her feelings of never wanting her relationship with Zechs to change. It hadn't been Wufei luring him up that tower at all, but his sister, in the guise of his lover.

And finally, that push - that fateful push, out of the window of the tower to the ground fifty feet below. It wasn't Wufei that Zechs was pushing. It wasn't his lover that Zechs was imagining he killed, over and over, in those dreams. It was his sister; because Treize was convinced that even though he was under the influence of the strobe, and the powerful conditioning it represented, Zechs was beginning to realize what his sister was doing to him.

It probably wasn't even a conscious understanding, but it was there, lurking just below the surface. Treize was willing to bet that, in time, even if Wufei had not told him, Zechs would have known, and the part of him where that understanding lay hidden, his unconscious mind, had devised a punishment that it replayed again and again. The problem had come when his conscious mind, feeling devastating grief over Wufei's death, had imposed his lover's face on the punishment he'd designed for his sister. It had proved a nearly fatal combination.

As he drove back over the Golden Gate Bridge, into the city that Zechs had once said he would never leave, he went over the blond man's letter to him that had come the day before.

'Dear Treize -

Farewell for now, Zechs'

He had read it over and over, memorizing the words so he didn't need the letter itself anymore. It made him feel warm and sad, and it made him feel, too, like he'd been part of something rather monumental. It would help him hold on. It would have to.

When he got home to his apartment, he poured himself a stiff glass of vodka and put an old 45 rpm record on his ancient turntable. It had been a favorite of his as a child and it held special meaning for him now, as he sipped his liquor and stared out his window at the city below.

//See the pyramids along the Nile
Watch the sunset from a tropic isle
Just remember darling, all the while
You belong to me

See the marketplace in old Algiers
Send me photographs and souvenirs
Just remember when a dream appears
You belong to me

I'll be so lonesome without you
Maybe you'll be lonesome too
And blue...

Fly the ocean in a silver plane
See the jungle when it's wet with rain
Just remember 'til you're home again
You belong to me//

End of Chapter 19

(:./kumiko/rr19)