14 Dec 2000
A very brief but important chapter.
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: 6X9 AND 13X6
WARNING: sap, sap, and more sap; Ukrainian words<
Sally had come up to her room to get a sweater and was just leaving again when she saw Noin come down the hall, wrapped only in a towel and glowing softly pink all over. "Interesting time for a bath," she said amiably, obviously curious about her friend's choice of after dinner activity.
Noin kept walking toward her room, but smiled at her nonetheless and said, "Actually Sally, I believe my timing was perfect." She walked several more doors down the hall and then disappeared into her suite.
Sally stared at the closed door for a moment and then muttered, "Right," and walked downstairs again.
Zechs was still in the bathtub, head back against the tile, staring up at the ceiling with a somewhat lost expression on his face. "I do wish the two of them would stop doing this," he whispered.
The fog had completely enshrouded the palace now, and it wasn't possible to see past one's hand. Treize knew this because he was outside, near the rose garden, and had held his hand up just to see if it was true. It was.
There were glistening drops of moisture on his hair and clothing and he couldn't actually *see* any rose bushes, but he could smell their presence nearby and the rich scent made him feel calmer, somehow. Now if he could only get Relena's words out of his head. / '... would breaking his promise to Noin and going away with you truly be an 'honorable thing'?/
/Surely *that* won't be a factor. It's completely obvious that Miriald loves me, and that we are meant, as we have always been meant, to be together. I claimed the right to his heart when we were both children and what's between us has only ever grown stronger.../
He frowned then, thinking about what must have happened after his supposed death had been announced and Zechs had believed himself to be truly alone. "Did you mourn me, Miri?" he murmured into the mist. "Did you feel lost, the way I felt when I regained consciousness and didn't know where you were, or even if you had survived? We were planning on dying together, weren't we love? Hoping to save one world and to be reunited in the next. But is it possible for those who were willing to die together to also *live* together if fate hands them another chance?"
His voice seemed to be swallowed up - absorbed into the fog and held there, clinging. A crowd of words out there, now, hovering about him and waiting to be heard but, sadly, not heard. He wasn't sure why, but his mood and the strange, melancholic weather reminded him of an equally melancholic but lovely song, brought forward from somewhere in his far distant past.
"Tam v haiu, pry Dunaiu, solovi shchebeche
Vin svoiu ptashynochku do hnizdechka klyche.Tam v haiu, pry Dunaiu, tam muzyka hraie
Bas hude, skrypka plache, molodets' huliaie.Tam v haiu, pry Dunaiu, khodzhu samotoiu
I plachu, i rydaiu myla/mylyi za toboiu."
It was only when he stopped and was staring up at the moon that he realized he had sung the entire thing out loud. /Thank gods for the fog.../
"Treize...?"
/Or perhaps not./
He turned to see Zechs, dressed in slim white jeans and a deep blue shirt, standing not three feet away from him in the fog. "What do the words mean, Treize?" he asked softly.
"It's a love song, one I remember from my childhood," Treize answered.
"What do they mean?" Zechs said again.
The older man hesitated and then translated:
"In the forest near the Danube river,
there is a nightingale singing,
he sings to gather everyone from his familyIn the forest near the Danube river,
there is a bass vibrating and a fiddle crying,
I think of a place where my lovely one is strolling nowIn the forest near the Danube river,
I am sick with my loneliness,
crying, I want to fly like a bird,
to where my lovely one is now..."
The two men stood motionless, seeing each other only because the fog had forced them close. Treize put a hand up to Zechs's cheek. "No matter what you decide to do, Miriald, you will always be the one I think of that way... You will be the one I long for, the one I think of, and wish were beside me."
He brushed several long, golden strands away from Zechs's face and stroked his fingers through them, glowing nearly silver in the eerie light from the fog. "I am sick with loneliness, and there is only one person who can take it away, who could ever take it away. I've loved you since you were six years old, Miri. And hard as it is to believe, I have never wavered in that love. I wanted to die with you, and now I want to live with you for the rest of time I'm granted here."
Turning his eyes from Zechs briefly, he lifted his head and sniffed the air. "White," he murmured, "no fragrance." He walked a little further away and sniffed again. "Lovely - a delicate pink I should say, but not quite appropriate... and here we have... salmon, turning to red... so close..." He was about six feet away from Zechs, merely a voice in the heavy fog when a small, "Aha," escaped him.
He sniffed. "Deep..." Another sniff. "Velvety..." One final time. "And red, glowing red, that always looked so stunning on you, Miri..." Reaching out with one hand, Treize's fingers landed unerringly on the stem of a rose bush, feeling for the thorns and avoiding them. With one strong snap, he plucked the flower from the bush and walked back, slowly, to where his dearest friend stood. Then he knelt.
"Miriald, my oldest and dearest friend," he said softly, holding up the rose to Zechs, "From the moment I met you, you claimed my soul completely. I had no defense against your radiance, your passion, and I have lived my entire life in thrall to you and wanting every minute of it..." With his other hand he took hold of Zechs's. "I love you more than I could ever say in words, but if you will allow me the chance I will spend a lifetime trying."
Zechs was trembling, but somehow, what they were doing seemed the only possible thing to do. It had a resonance about it that nothing in his life had ever had - not killing O'Neagull, not putting down Mariemeia's army, not bringing life to a long-dead planet. This was what he was meant to do. "Treize -" he began, but the man cut him off.
"Miri. On my knees and begging, will you marry me?"
"Yes" he said, taking the deep red rose from Treize's fingers. It was simplicity itself, really. No time needed, no more doubts. "Yes."
In a warmly lit upstairs room, Noin sat staring into her mirror, a look of complete joy on her face. In her hands was a strip of paper. She had spent a good fifteen minutes comparing it to the color swatch on the box. There was no mistake. She propped her elbows on the dressing table and rested her chin on her fists, smiling at her reflection. "No doubt about it," she said softly, "no doubt at all..."
End of Part 16
(:./kumiko/rosen16)
