Relena had called Une over the phone and demanded to know where Zechs was, because he had not been answering his phone. When Une in-not-so-many-words asked her just why she wanted to talk to Zechs in the first place, Relena had firmly told her off and decided that if Zechs is not at home, he is at work, and thus, she must go to Preventer.
She demanded that Une grant her access. Une said it was late, and try tomorrow. Relena had told her to shove tomorrow up her crotch.
Une, bewildered at this very angry form of the girl she thought she knew, gave her what she wanted. So when Relena arrived at the gate a good hour or so later (which wasn't bad, considering Relena's place was almost well over an hour away, normally), the guards had very quietly let her pass. No one, Relena had realized, dared to question her. She wondered if it was her very obvious fury, or whatever it was that Une had said to them.
When she finally arrived at the track, she had moved from pissed to bloody furious. She walked right up to him and spoke in a low voice. It wasn't hateful or even vindictive, merely the truth.
"Une," she says, "And yes." She stood there like a rock, refusing to give him an inch of room as he stretched. "You're running in circles. You're running away again, and all you've managed to accomplish is one big fucking circle!" Her breaths heave as she slowly takes in his form. The tape, the shorts, dog tags.
The dog tags. For the briefest of a second, she catches a name that does not start with Z or M.
The first name starts with T, and the second starts with K.
She frowns, and some of her fury dampens to morbid curiosity... but she doesn't ask. Not now.
"Why," she asks, her voice slightly heart broken, "...do you always run away? You should have never left me with Darlian. You didn't even consider that maybe I wouldn't want the ivory tower. I'm sorry your life has been so terrible that it leaves your only family determined to hate you, but at least you killed the bastard that ruined us. At least you knew the truth... I didn't even get that much."
She snorts and wipes a stray tear that had somehow found her eye.
"Are you jealous? If I were you, I'd be jealous of me. I have everything a person could want."
She laughs bitterly and turns away from him. "Everything."
'Don't play that card with me, Relena. What the hell could I have offered you? I was six. I was in orphanages before the Khushrenadas caught up with me. I left you with Darlian, but you were the one who locked yourself in that tower. You didn't have to, you chose to.'
He heads for a nearby room, a bit irked that Relena follows him. The punching bag Zechs sets his eyes on doesn't know what it's in for.
'And I'm not running away. I've never run away, Relena. Maybe I had to hide, but I do not run.' He begins throwing light punches at the heavy bag, then follows it with a blinding and forceful kick.
'Maybe I am jealous of you. Jealous at the opportunities you were given. And disappointed that you made some of the choices that you did.'
Zechs narrows his eyes and throws several more punches and two kicks in swift succession. He's definitely Not Happy.
'I love how you pick up the Peacecraft mantle only when it suits you. We're only 'us' when you're trying to belittle me or make me feel guilty for what the past forced me into doing. It won't work, Relena. You're not a Peacecraft and you never have been. Maybe I'm not much of one, and maybe the blood will never come off of my hands, but at least I accepted my heritage.'
He snarls and spins, kicking the bag so hard that one of the seams begins to split.
'Living in that tower made you a coward. I protected you, but you were the one who blinded yourself to the world.'
"I chose nothing. I didn't even know the tower existed until exploded with my father still inside. Yes, Zechs, my father, not yours. I was two, or had you forgotten? My first memory might be the fire, but my first conscious thought is my father Darlian. I was raised by him whether you like it or not, and everything I know on this Earth is because of him. So no, I am not a Peacecraft..." This shakes her. "...but I am not a Darlian either. I'm some bastard combination of the two, stranded between a brother who hates me and a mother that couldn't possibly understand me." She watches him tear the punching bag with detachment.
He's still running away.
"I am not saying that as a six year old, you should have known to take me, but I am saying that as an adult, you could have come back--" She bites her lip, "No, I wish you did. I wish you would have come and told me the truth, before I had to find out through second hand knowledge by a woman I'm willing to bet hardly understands you at all."
She falls silent for a moment, fists white at her sides. "When I was eleven, a man used me a hostage in attempt to get away from some pilot that fell from the sky. Or it seemed that way, I can't entirely remember, but..." She laughs bitterly again. "Well, now I remember you. You called me Princess. I remember you said that you wouldn't kill in front of me. And I remember being thankful for that..."
Pause, she thinks again for a moment.
"But I wish you did. I wish you slaughtered him right in front of me, and let the blood spill all over my dress. Perhaps then I would have known the truth when you dared to call me such a thing."
Silence.
"Perhaps I am a coward. Perhaps, despite everything, Relena is still just a whiny, good-for-nothing, annoying little coward. Perhaps..." Her face is utterly expressionless. "But a coward knows a coward, brother. All cowards run in circles."
'Other people run in circles, too,' Zechs snarls. 'Like soldiers, who want to stay fit enough that when the overly peaceful government crafted by their naive little sister falls all to hell, they'll be able to be of some use. They run in circles because when the time comes for them to do the job that they were trained to do, but are now denied, they'll be prepared for it.'
He pauses in his exercises and looks at Relena.
'Everyone has 20/20 hindsight, Relena. Now you wish that I'd told you who I was, that I'd come and taken you away from Darlian. Do you honestly believe for one second that you would have reacted so favourably had I actually done so? Would you have been happy to have a strange pilot whom you had never met tell you that he was, in fact, your long-lost elder brother and heir to the Peacecraft monarchy and that you were in reality a Princess of the same line?'
Another punch to the bag, and another seam gone. Zechs' expression is unsettlingly fierce.
'Darlian knew, Relena. Knew who you were. Why aren't you mad at him? Why do you place the blame for your lack of knowledge entirely upon my shoulders? I protected you by keeping my silence. What would the Alliance have done, had they discovered that the Peacecraft children, even one of them, still existed? The only ones who had any clue aside from me were Pargan, Darlian, Treize and his parents, and they only knew about me mind you, and Noin. They wouldn't have hesitated to hunt you down, if they'd been aware of who you really were. And that weakling Darlian would have been as powerless to protect you as you are to protect yourself. You just don't want to accept that, don't want to cast any shadow over your memories of him. So why not blame the brother you hate, instead?'
He gives a scream of frustration and launches himself into a jumping roundhouse kick. It not only completely ruptures the bag, it tears it out of its housing and sends the thing flying clear across the room. Then he turns and glares at Relena.
'You really have no idea,' Zechs hisses. His voice is cold, angry. 'Poor little rich girl Relena, growing up with everything at her fingertips and longing only to be normal. What do you know of hardship, Relena? You hated me because I was a soldier, a blood-stained disgrace to the family name you hate to acknowledge. How dare you think that you have the right to be upset with me! How dare you call me a coward! I fought to avenge our parents, fought to avenge what the Alliance did to us, our family, our kingdom. I fought because I hated the world that they had left you to face.'
He shakes his head as he looks at her, voice taking on a tone of almost mocking pity.
'Grow up, Relena. People like me, those people you consider to be disgraceful cowards, the ones who give everything they have toward protecting the people who don't even appreciate their efforts, will always have a place. You hate me, Relena, but you still need me, even if you refuse to admit it to yourself. You're strong, but I was forged in blood. I may be a bloodstained warrior, but at least I use my talents to obey my birthright. I craft peace, Relena, though whatever means are necessary. You and this mockery of a government invite rebellion. Peace can only exist through force, and can only be maintained by enforcement and the punishment of those who would disturb it. The very means to do this are being stripped away by your precious, peaceful government.'
Zechs takes a long, deep breath and methodically begins stripping the tape from his hands.
'Don't have the arrogance to assume that you're alone, in being neither of one family nor another. I'm of Peacecraft blood. I was raised a Khushrenada. How does that name suit your brother, Relena? Milliard Khushrenada. Hyphenate it, if you'd like, Peacecraft-Khushrenada would also be applicable. Would you prefer that? You hated Treize, his ideals, his methods. Would it make your hatred sweeter if your despicable brother bore that surname as well?' He laughs bitterly. 'Maybe I should have claimed the throne. Pacifism was ineffective. Perhaps I shouldn't have abdicated, should have brought the change of the times to my homeland.'
He wads up the tape and throws it spitefully at the wall.
'You were right, though. Noin never really understood.'
Her roar burns her own throat, and she trembles with rage. "I AM angry with him, goddamnit!!" She wipes her own eyes again, and acknowledges his words about Darlian, and the things he should have done differently. They kill a small piece inside of her, because it is not something she'd ever wanted to admit before. "Again, you assume that you know me so fucking well! Darlian lied to me for thirteen years... my entire fucking childhood! He waited to tell me when he was breathing his last breath, and then he left me just like he always fucking did, but this time, he was not going to come back." She isn't sure whether to break down and cry or just scream really loud to let everyone within a mile radius know that Relena Darlian-Peacecraft is frustrated beyond all hell.
"He'd waited until the bastards killed him, and then he just left me there..." Her gaze becomes distant, she shakes her head. "Fine, then, so let's place all the blame on a dead man, what the hell do I care? I care not about blame, and I don't blame you for what had happened. Blame, Zechs, accomplishes nothing. I only wish that someone told me so that I don't have to stand here and argue with you about a family I never even knew, much less, as you so put it, abandoned!"
She flinches when the bag breaks and flies across the room, but she's too angry to be intimidated.
She listens to his condescending speech about her "mockery of a government," but she does not answer. The truth is, she's disappointed as well, but it is not, as he says, her government. Powerful though she may be, Relena is seventeen and somewhat of a figurehead. She has her duties, but her age will not let people take her seriously, and the people will do as they please. She's grown since the ending of the war, and she knows that military force is needed to prevent against the another war--that is why Preventer was founded. But of course, the higher powers that be demand that guns equal war as per the old Sanq policy, and they strip Une of any weapons so deadly as a bowie knife. Guns, Relena thinks, are tools, and they are only deadly because human beings make it so. That's why the only way to have peace without enforcement is to change human nature, and that is one thing that will never change. But the world will not listen to her anymore. They've made up their minds.
As he mentions Peacecraft-Kushrenada she blows again.
"Again, you assume and claim so well to know me! I never said that I was alone in being the bastard child of two families, and now it's nice to know that my own brother can identify with the feeling. It's something that we have in common. Shall we hate that, too?"
Yes, Relena mentally screams, we should.
"Maybe you SHOULD have claimed the throne! You dare lay it on me, a pathetic girl raised by a pathetic man with no experience in the arts of politics and royalty what-so-ever! And then you get disappointed when I fuck up and become Romefeller's little bitch! Yes, maybe you SHOULD have claimed Sanq, as you were so carefully born to do. Maybe Treize would have found the idea useful in his fucking little plans, and maybe Sanq wouldn't have fallen for the second time in a row, for no other reason than because it's monarch is an inexperienced coward!!"
Ahh, Treize. Now there was something to scream about.
"The good Kushrenada gave you a home? Well now, brother, I'm happy that he was there for you." She was. "The way you speak, you were happier as a Kushrenada... it's a shame the man is dead. He would know how to cheer you up, then, wouldn't he?" It is not condescending, but thoughtful. "At least Treize seemed to know what he wanted." Which was far more than she could say for herself, who had been too young, too naive and too overwhelmed to know at all.
She catches another glimpse of his dog tags, and the names residing there. She points to them slightly, her anger gone and replaced with exhaustion.
'If you'd had a backbone, you wouldn't have given in! Of course I'm disappointed in you. You have the blood of kings in you, and yet you let them manipulate you to their hearts' content. Treize I can understand, because he could make stone weep if he wanted to. But the others... You should have been able to stand up to them, and you failed. The only reason I didn't claim the throne was because I did not want to dishonour father's memory with my bloodstained hands. But it was also a huge mistake to believe that a pampered, spoiled little princess could manage a country.'
The gesture toward the bits of metal hanging around his neck makes him unconsciously bring his hand up to fist about them, as if afraid that his sister might touch them or try to take them away. It's an action that speaks louder than any words could.
'We were friends, Relena, but you'd be too young to remember when he and his father visited.' Zechs takes a deep breath, feeling a similar exhaustion set in. 'I was never cut out to be a Sanqian monarch, as you rightly state that I was so carefully bred to become. I was too hot-blooded, and when... mother and father died, I was put into protective custody once I was found in the hopes that they'd find someone suitable to raise me. But seeing what I saw made me even more... disagreeable. I picked fights, and they couldn't keep me anywhere.'
He's been looking down at his fist while he talks, but now he looks up at his sister.
'As it turned out, Lord Khushrenada had been looking for me. Perhaps he felt some perverse amusement at the idea of a military family raising the child of a murdered pacifist ruler. I don't know. I only know that they were kind to me, that they showed me that my inclinations toward a war-like nature could be cultivated and put to good, constructive use. They showed me ideals I understood, and reaffirmed my first-hand knowledge that a pacifistic society is not only impractical, but dangerous.'
Zechs shivers and leans against the wall, sliding down to sit with his eyes closed. His braid has become unbound and is rapidly unraveling, but he doesn't notice.
'Whatever their reasons, Lord and Lady Khushrenada became like my parents. Not mother and father, certainly, but they made sure I was happy and well-provided for and well-educated. They told anyone who questioned that I was a relative staying with them while I studied. Their son was my best friend, and yes, Relena, he was my lover as well when I came of age. A phenomenal lover, might I add. He could probably list for you a good twenty ways to cheer me up, and at least fifteen of those wouldn't be polite to discuss among company.'
He opens one tired blue eye a bit and looks up at her.
'I loved him, and still love him, more than life itself,' he says quietly. He wishes he could tell her that the man is still alive, but he can't. That information is classified. 'Death isn't enough to make me stop caring for him.' Zechs laughs bitterly. 'I'm certain that news just makes your day. Finding out that your brother not only loved and bedded a man, but someone you hated and whose demise you no doubt celebrated.'
"...How could you say something like that?" Now she's heart broken. Calling her a coward and pointing out every little aspect where Relena had failed in her life was one thing, but to assume that she's glad for Treize's death...
She turns away from him, expression cut deep with a terrible hurt.
"Before I met him, I did hate him. He killed my father. I wanted him dead." And that was the truth of it. I didn't matter if Darlian had to die, it was the fact that Treize killed her father, and she wanted her revenge. She hopes, in a bizarre way, if perhaps Zechs can understand that. "But... but then I met him."
She needs to sit down. She finds a chair and slumps into it, feeling light-headed.
"He was a great man, brother. I had thought that his actions during the war made him terrible at first--my father, the doves, the munipulation of the colonies... but when he came and took the throne, I discovered that is not who he was at all. He knew what he wanted. He knew what he needed to do, and he was a far better person than I for having actually done it. He did me a favor, removing me from that place. I never forgot it." Her eyes are wet, but she refuses to shed a tear.
"I wish he hadn't died. I could have learned a lot from him." She finally looks at her brother in the eye, still hurt, but also slightly sympathetic. "And then you would be happy, now. You wouldn't be so disappointed in me, and you'd be happy."
She says the word on a choke, wondering if either of them were ever meant to be happy together.
'He was something special,' Zechs agrees quietly. 'You have to understand, Relena, that every action he took was... necessary. Even though he regretted many of the orders he had to give, Treize gave them anyway. When he got into the war, he knew sacrifices would have to be made. But for all that he was believed to sit in the lap of luxury without a thought for his soldiers, he never ordered anyone to take a risk that he would not or had not taken himself. Nor did he forget a single one of those who fell in his name. I think that perhaps he knew from the beginning that he'd have to die to bring about the changes that he ultimately wanted. If that's the case, then I don't think the world's ever known a greater humanitarian.'
He draws his knees up to his chest and hugs them there. It's a surprisingly defensive posture. Even though he knows Treize isn't dead, the man also isn't here, where he should be, and Zechs doesn't know if anything will ever be the same between them again. It's a fact that hits home hard.
'I... I don't know if I'd be happy, Relena,' he begins, then pauses briefly. 'I'm afraid that I may have hurt him very deeply. He... Treize wanted me to fire the Libra's cannon on him. He told me that I made the right choice. I never got to tell him that it killed me to make it.' Zechs' voice is growing hoarser by the second, and he hates himself for that betrayal, that sign of his weakness. 'If he had survived... For all I know he wouldn't have forgiven me for what I'd done. I just... I want him back.'
I don't know if he'll forgive me for what I did...
At first he thinks the wetness on his cheeks is just sweat, but there's too much of it, and it's too warm. He looks very surprised when he realises that he's actually crying. Not sobbing, because Zechs doesn't really do that except once in a blue moon, but the tears are steady and relentless.
'Damn it, I'm such an idiot!'
He presses his forehead to his knees. He knows Relena's seen it, but for his own sake he's trying to pretend that none of this is happening.
She's nervous about touching him, but when she sees the tears and the posture, she moves without thinking. She thinks that it's a bit like when she'd caught Heero from falling in the Brussels fortress little over a year ago. She'd only realized later what that image of comfort between the two of them must have looked like, but it wasn't love. It was merely instinct. Relena had always known when someone needed to be catched and comforted.
So she catches her brother, and considers beliefly that it is perhaps about damned time.
Her hands rest on his shoulders as she kneels down by his side, her head tilted and hair spilling over, prying eyes trying to catch his face. "Hey," she whispers, "You are not an idiot." One hand sifts through the ever-long strands sheilding his eyes, and she brushes it back so that she can see him.
He really is beautiful, she thinks. But miserable too.
She leans in closer, then, and hugs him, that hand still in his hair. "You're a lot of things, Zechs, but you're not an idiot." His hair, soft as silk, but strong, and so very long... she scratches at his scalp, messaging, and embraces him. "It's alright to cry, you know." She can feel her eyes burning, but she still fights against them. She might have been speaking to herself.
"I didn't know Treize that well, but," she kisses the top of his head, and the dam of her emotions cracks, a tear falling. "...but I would have forgiven you, in his place."
He stiffens at first, more out of shock than anything else. They've just been fighting like cats and dogs, after all, and he can only remember having hugged her once since they were children.
But at the same time, it feels very right. For the first time he can remember in years, they're having a normal family moment. The hand in his hair is comforting, and once he gets used to the idea, so is her embrace. Zechs presses his face to her shoulder, the tears still coming but no longer with the same intensity as before.
'I am an idiot,' he whispers. 'I hurt Treize and I hurt you, the only two people I've ever really cared about. You're right, I should have at least made some sort of effort to let you know the truth... But you seemed happy, and I didn't want to put you in danger. I didn't want you to have to be associated with a brother who had so disgraced the family name.'
But to know that in Treize's place she would have forgiven him does mean a great deal indeed. Zechs swallows and sniffs softly, then finally returns Relena's embrace. He doesn't move his head from where it rests against her shoulder.
'And I will forgive my sister gladly, if she can forgive her rotten brother.'
"Stop calling yourself a disgrace, Zechs." Her voice is low and soothing, and the hand in his hair never ceases it's threading. "I'm your fucked up sister with a massive indentity crises on her hands, and she doesn't quite care how you compare to the vision our father might have set out for you." She actually smiles. "It only proves how great a man you really are that you took your own path. It does not make you a disgrace to have your own opinion." She falls silent for a moment, and contemplates what was said. In the end, despite how hurtful the words might have been, she was glad he was a man of his own.
"After all, if you didn't fight for what you believed," she whispers, "...you wouldn't be my brother. You would have died a very long time ago."
Silence.
"I'm glad you didn't die."
She sniffles, and now she finally feels something warm and wet falling down her cheeks. She doesn't brush them away, too content to sit where she was and be a sister for the brother she never really knew before.
She makes a sound that chokes between relief and sorrow, and she embraces him tighter. "Of course I forgive you, you idiot," she says affectionately. "...you're my big brother." Her voice cracks as she speaks it. So normally. "You're my... big brother," she repeats shakenly, but honest, and then she laughs, tears still in her eyes.
He rarely lets anyone touch his hair, but for Relena he decides that he'll make an exception. The touches are incredibly relaxing, really, and Zechs takes a deep breath, tenseness slowly easying away. The tears don't really stop, but at least he can smile through them now.
'Sorry for being the first-born. But does this mean that I now get to evaluate and/or intimidate anyone you consider dating?'
He can name at least twenty people who would probably drop dead of an apoplexy, to see the terror of the Earth cuddling with his little sister. He also doesn't care, because for the first time in... years, really, he feels genuinely comfortable.
'Feels good,' he mumbles, then sighs quietly. 'Relena, I'm sorry. I... shouldn't have said what I did. I spoke in anger and without thinking.'
She laughs again, and wipes her eyes, her cheeks bright red in the emotion of the moment.
"Assuming that I ever court someone..." She blushes harder, and laughs nervously. "But since it's been said that you've fallen for another man, would it hurt to say that I have found other women very attractive?" She lets one hand fall to her knee, and kneads the fabric, fidgeting. "And men. As you saw in the bar..." Yeah.
A good half of the world would die if they discovered Relena cuddling with her brother in the training room of Preventer, stroking his hair and being a sister and doing normal family things that she had actually never done before in her entire life... The image would be worsened, perhaps, because of their reputable history of hating each other. But then, what the hell did the world know? The world believed a lot of things, and they were wrong 9/10's of the time.
She sobered again and removed her hand from his hair to look at him. "You're right, you were a real bastard. But so was I..." She bites her lip, but looks him in the eye. "And I'm sorry too... you're not a coward and running in circles doesn't make you one. Sometimes, I guess it really does just gives you good exercise."
Zechs shakes his head. 'I can think of worse things for you to find attractive. Goats, for instance. And don't worry, you'll find someone to court. Provided they can withstand even ten minutes alone in a room with me.' He blinks at the light as she pulls away, then winces.
'We both did things that we regret. I guess we should try to move past those and do whatever it is that a brother and sister who never really got to be siblings do.' Like start rebuilding, or rather, building a relationship in the first place. Whatever the case, it's an indirectly voiced acceptance of her apology.
Crying has given him a splitting headache, and he cracks an eye open.
'I'll make you a deal. Drive me home so I don't have to look at the light for a few minutes, and I'll bake you cookies.'
She demanded that Une grant her access. Une said it was late, and try tomorrow. Relena had told her to shove tomorrow up her crotch.
Une, bewildered at this very angry form of the girl she thought she knew, gave her what she wanted. So when Relena arrived at the gate a good hour or so later (which wasn't bad, considering Relena's place was almost well over an hour away, normally), the guards had very quietly let her pass. No one, Relena had realized, dared to question her. She wondered if it was her very obvious fury, or whatever it was that Une had said to them.
When she finally arrived at the track, she had moved from pissed to bloody furious. She walked right up to him and spoke in a low voice. It wasn't hateful or even vindictive, merely the truth.
"You're running away."
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'No, I'm running in circles. It's call exercising. Try it sometime.'
He puts the towel down and begins to go through a series of stretches that were probably designed for contortionists.
'What the hell are you doing here? You don't have clearance.'
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The dog tags. For the briefest of a second, she catches a name that does not start with Z or M.
The first name starts with T, and the second starts with K.
She frowns, and some of her fury dampens to morbid curiosity... but she doesn't ask. Not now.
"Why," she asks, her voice slightly heart broken, "...do you always run away? You should have never left me with Darlian. You didn't even consider that maybe I wouldn't want the ivory tower. I'm sorry your life has been so terrible that it leaves your only family determined to hate you, but at least you killed the bastard that ruined us. At least you knew the truth... I didn't even get that much."
She snorts and wipes a stray tear that had somehow found her eye.
"Are you jealous? If I were you, I'd be jealous of me. I have everything a person could want."
She laughs bitterly and turns away from him. "Everything."
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'Don't play that card with me, Relena. What the hell could I have offered you? I was six. I was in orphanages before the Khushrenadas caught up with me. I left you with Darlian, but you were the one who locked yourself in that tower. You didn't have to, you chose to.'
He heads for a nearby room, a bit irked that Relena follows him. The punching bag Zechs sets his eyes on doesn't know what it's in for.
'And I'm not running away. I've never run away, Relena. Maybe I had to hide, but I do not run.' He begins throwing light punches at the heavy bag, then follows it with a blinding and forceful kick.
'Maybe I am jealous of you. Jealous at the opportunities you were given. And disappointed that you made some of the choices that you did.'
Zechs narrows his eyes and throws several more punches and two kicks in swift succession. He's definitely Not Happy.
'I love how you pick up the Peacecraft mantle only when it suits you. We're only 'us' when you're trying to belittle me or make me feel guilty for what the past forced me into doing. It won't work, Relena. You're not a Peacecraft and you never have been. Maybe I'm not much of one, and maybe the blood will never come off of my hands, but at least I accepted my heritage.'
He snarls and spins, kicking the bag so hard that one of the seams begins to split.
'Living in that tower made you a coward. I protected you, but you were the one who blinded yourself to the world.'
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"I chose nothing. I didn't even know the tower existed until exploded with my father still inside. Yes, Zechs, my father, not yours. I was two, or had you forgotten? My first memory might be the fire, but my first conscious thought is my father Darlian. I was raised by him whether you like it or not, and everything I know on this Earth is because of him. So no, I am not a Peacecraft..." This shakes her. "...but I am not a Darlian either. I'm some bastard combination of the two, stranded between a brother who hates me and a mother that couldn't possibly understand me." She watches him tear the punching bag with detachment.
He's still running away.
"I am not saying that as a six year old, you should have known to take me, but I am saying that as an adult, you could have come back--" She bites her lip, "No, I wish you did. I wish you would have come and told me the truth, before I had to find out through second hand knowledge by a woman I'm willing to bet hardly understands you at all."
She falls silent for a moment, fists white at her sides. "When I was eleven, a man used me a hostage in attempt to get away from some pilot that fell from the sky. Or it seemed that way, I can't entirely remember, but..." She laughs bitterly again. "Well, now I remember you. You called me Princess. I remember you said that you wouldn't kill in front of me. And I remember being thankful for that..."
Pause, she thinks again for a moment.
"But I wish you did. I wish you slaughtered him right in front of me, and let the blood spill all over my dress. Perhaps then I would have known the truth when you dared to call me such a thing."
Silence.
"Perhaps I am a coward. Perhaps, despite everything, Relena is still just a whiny, good-for-nothing, annoying little coward. Perhaps..." Her face is utterly expressionless. "But a coward knows a coward, brother. All cowards run in circles."
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He pauses in his exercises and looks at Relena.
'Everyone has 20/20 hindsight, Relena. Now you wish that I'd told you who I was, that I'd come and taken you away from Darlian. Do you honestly believe for one second that you would have reacted so favourably had I actually done so? Would you have been happy to have a strange pilot whom you had never met tell you that he was, in fact, your long-lost elder brother and heir to the Peacecraft monarchy and that you were in reality a Princess of the same line?'
Another punch to the bag, and another seam gone. Zechs' expression is unsettlingly fierce.
'Darlian knew, Relena. Knew who you were. Why aren't you mad at him? Why do you place the blame for your lack of knowledge entirely upon my shoulders? I protected you by keeping my silence. What would the Alliance have done, had they discovered that the Peacecraft children, even one of them, still existed? The only ones who had any clue aside from me were Pargan, Darlian, Treize and his parents, and they only knew about me mind you, and Noin. They wouldn't have hesitated to hunt you down, if they'd been aware of who you really were. And that weakling Darlian would have been as powerless to protect you as you are to protect yourself. You just don't want to accept that, don't want to cast any shadow over your memories of him. So why not blame the brother you hate, instead?'
He gives a scream of frustration and launches himself into a jumping roundhouse kick. It not only completely ruptures the bag, it tears it out of its housing and sends the thing flying clear across the room. Then he turns and glares at Relena.
'You really have no idea,' Zechs hisses. His voice is cold, angry. 'Poor little rich girl Relena, growing up with everything at her fingertips and longing only to be normal. What do you know of hardship, Relena? You hated me because I was a soldier, a blood-stained disgrace to the family name you hate to acknowledge. How dare you think that you have the right to be upset with me! How dare you call me a coward! I fought to avenge our parents, fought to avenge what the Alliance did to us, our family, our kingdom. I fought because I hated the world that they had left you to face.'
He shakes his head as he looks at her, voice taking on a tone of almost mocking pity.
'Grow up, Relena. People like me, those people you consider to be disgraceful cowards, the ones who give everything they have toward protecting the people who don't even appreciate their efforts, will always have a place. You hate me, Relena, but you still need me, even if you refuse to admit it to yourself. You're strong, but I was forged in blood. I may be a bloodstained warrior, but at least I use my talents to obey my birthright. I craft peace, Relena, though whatever means are necessary. You and this mockery of a government invite rebellion. Peace can only exist through force, and can only be maintained by enforcement and the punishment of those who would disturb it. The very means to do this are being stripped away by your precious, peaceful government.'
Zechs takes a long, deep breath and methodically begins stripping the tape from his hands.
'Don't have the arrogance to assume that you're alone, in being neither of one family nor another. I'm of Peacecraft blood. I was raised a Khushrenada. How does that name suit your brother, Relena? Milliard Khushrenada. Hyphenate it, if you'd like, Peacecraft-Khushrenada would also be applicable. Would you prefer that? You hated Treize, his ideals, his methods. Would it make your hatred sweeter if your despicable brother bore that surname as well?' He laughs bitterly. 'Maybe I should have claimed the throne. Pacifism was ineffective. Perhaps I shouldn't have abdicated, should have brought the change of the times to my homeland.'
He wads up the tape and throws it spitefully at the wall.
'You were right, though. Noin never really understood.'
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"He'd waited until the bastards killed him, and then he just left me there..." Her gaze becomes distant, she shakes her head. "Fine, then, so let's place all the blame on a dead man, what the hell do I care? I care not about blame, and I don't blame you for what had happened. Blame, Zechs, accomplishes nothing. I only wish that someone told me so that I don't have to stand here and argue with you about a family I never even knew, much less, as you so put it, abandoned!"
She flinches when the bag breaks and flies across the room, but she's too angry to be intimidated.
She listens to his condescending speech about her "mockery of a government," but she does not answer. The truth is, she's disappointed as well, but it is not, as he says, her government. Powerful though she may be, Relena is seventeen and somewhat of a figurehead. She has her duties, but her age will not let people take her seriously, and the people will do as they please. She's grown since the ending of the war, and she knows that military force is needed to prevent against the another war--that is why Preventer was founded. But of course, the higher powers that be demand that guns equal war as per the old Sanq policy, and they strip Une of any weapons so deadly as a bowie knife. Guns, Relena thinks, are tools, and they are only deadly because human beings make it so. That's why the only way to have peace without enforcement is to change human nature, and that is one thing that will never change. But the world will not listen to her anymore. They've made up their minds.
As he mentions Peacecraft-Kushrenada she blows again.
"Again, you assume and claim so well to know me! I never said that I was alone in being the bastard child of two families, and now it's nice to know that my own brother can identify with the feeling. It's something that we have in common. Shall we hate that, too?"
Yes, Relena mentally screams, we should.
"Maybe you SHOULD have claimed the throne! You dare lay it on me, a pathetic girl raised by a pathetic man with no experience in the arts of politics and royalty what-so-ever! And then you get disappointed when I fuck up and become Romefeller's little bitch! Yes, maybe you SHOULD have claimed Sanq, as you were so carefully born to do. Maybe Treize would have found the idea useful in his fucking little plans, and maybe Sanq wouldn't have fallen for the second time in a row, for no other reason than because it's monarch is an inexperienced coward!!"
Ahh, Treize. Now there was something to scream about.
"The good Kushrenada gave you a home? Well now, brother, I'm happy that he was there for you." She was. "The way you speak, you were happier as a Kushrenada... it's a shame the man is dead. He would know how to cheer you up, then, wouldn't he?" It is not condescending, but thoughtful. "At least Treize seemed to know what he wanted." Which was far more than she could say for herself, who had been too young, too naive and too overwhelmed to know at all.
She catches another glimpse of his dog tags, and the names residing there. She points to them slightly, her anger gone and replaced with exhaustion.
"You loved him didn't you?"
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The gesture toward the bits of metal hanging around his neck makes him unconsciously bring his hand up to fist about them, as if afraid that his sister might touch them or try to take them away. It's an action that speaks louder than any words could.
'We were friends, Relena, but you'd be too young to remember when he and his father visited.' Zechs takes a deep breath, feeling a similar exhaustion set in. 'I was never cut out to be a Sanqian monarch, as you rightly state that I was so carefully bred to become. I was too hot-blooded, and when... mother and father died, I was put into protective custody once I was found in the hopes that they'd find someone suitable to raise me. But seeing what I saw made me even more... disagreeable. I picked fights, and they couldn't keep me anywhere.'
He's been looking down at his fist while he talks, but now he looks up at his sister.
'As it turned out, Lord Khushrenada had been looking for me. Perhaps he felt some perverse amusement at the idea of a military family raising the child of a murdered pacifist ruler. I don't know. I only know that they were kind to me, that they showed me that my inclinations toward a war-like nature could be cultivated and put to good, constructive use. They showed me ideals I understood, and reaffirmed my first-hand knowledge that a pacifistic society is not only impractical, but dangerous.'
Zechs shivers and leans against the wall, sliding down to sit with his eyes closed. His braid has become unbound and is rapidly unraveling, but he doesn't notice.
'Whatever their reasons, Lord and Lady Khushrenada became like my parents. Not mother and father, certainly, but they made sure I was happy and well-provided for and well-educated. They told anyone who questioned that I was a relative staying with them while I studied. Their son was my best friend, and yes, Relena, he was my lover as well when I came of age. A phenomenal lover, might I add. He could probably list for you a good twenty ways to cheer me up, and at least fifteen of those wouldn't be polite to discuss among company.'
He opens one tired blue eye a bit and looks up at her.
'I loved him, and still love him, more than life itself,' he says quietly. He wishes he could tell her that the man is still alive, but he can't. That information is classified. 'Death isn't enough to make me stop caring for him.' Zechs laughs bitterly. 'I'm certain that news just makes your day. Finding out that your brother not only loved and bedded a man, but someone you hated and whose demise you no doubt celebrated.'
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"...How could you say something like that?" Now she's heart broken. Calling her a coward and pointing out every little aspect where Relena had failed in her life was one thing, but to assume that she's glad for Treize's death...
She turns away from him, expression cut deep with a terrible hurt.
"Before I met him, I did hate him. He killed my father. I wanted him dead." And that was the truth of it. I didn't matter if Darlian had to die, it was the fact that Treize killed her father, and she wanted her revenge. She hopes, in a bizarre way, if perhaps Zechs can understand that. "But... but then I met him."
She needs to sit down. She finds a chair and slumps into it, feeling light-headed.
"He was a great man, brother. I had thought that his actions during the war made him terrible at first--my father, the doves, the munipulation of the colonies... but when he came and took the throne, I discovered that is not who he was at all. He knew what he wanted. He knew what he needed to do, and he was a far better person than I for having actually done it. He did me a favor, removing me from that place. I never forgot it." Her eyes are wet, but she refuses to shed a tear.
"I wish he hadn't died. I could have learned a lot from him." She finally looks at her brother in the eye, still hurt, but also slightly sympathetic. "And then you would be happy, now. You wouldn't be so disappointed in me, and you'd be happy."
She says the word on a choke, wondering if either of them were ever meant to be happy together.
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He draws his knees up to his chest and hugs them there. It's a surprisingly defensive posture. Even though he knows Treize isn't dead, the man also isn't here, where he should be, and Zechs doesn't know if anything will ever be the same between them again. It's a fact that hits home hard.
'I... I don't know if I'd be happy, Relena,' he begins, then pauses briefly. 'I'm afraid that I may have hurt him very deeply. He... Treize wanted me to fire the Libra's cannon on him. He told me that I made the right choice. I never got to tell him that it killed me to make it.' Zechs' voice is growing hoarser by the second, and he hates himself for that betrayal, that sign of his weakness. 'If he had survived... For all I know he wouldn't have forgiven me for what I'd done. I just... I want him back.'
I don't know if he'll forgive me for what I did...
At first he thinks the wetness on his cheeks is just sweat, but there's too much of it, and it's too warm. He looks very surprised when he realises that he's actually crying. Not sobbing, because Zechs doesn't really do that except once in a blue moon, but the tears are steady and relentless.
'Damn it, I'm such an idiot!'
He presses his forehead to his knees. He knows Relena's seen it, but for his own sake he's trying to pretend that none of this is happening.
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So she catches her brother, and considers beliefly that it is perhaps about damned time.
Her hands rest on his shoulders as she kneels down by his side, her head tilted and hair spilling over, prying eyes trying to catch his face. "Hey," she whispers, "You are not an idiot." One hand sifts through the ever-long strands sheilding his eyes, and she brushes it back so that she can see him.
He really is beautiful, she thinks. But miserable too.
She leans in closer, then, and hugs him, that hand still in his hair. "You're a lot of things, Zechs, but you're not an idiot." His hair, soft as silk, but strong, and so very long... she scratches at his scalp, messaging, and embraces him. "It's alright to cry, you know." She can feel her eyes burning, but she still fights against them. She might have been speaking to herself.
"I didn't know Treize that well, but," she kisses the top of his head, and the dam of her emotions cracks, a tear falling. "...but I would have forgiven you, in his place."
In a heartbeat.
"...Do you forgive your rotten sister?"
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But at the same time, it feels very right. For the first time he can remember in years, they're having a normal family moment. The hand in his hair is comforting, and once he gets used to the idea, so is her embrace. Zechs presses his face to her shoulder, the tears still coming but no longer with the same intensity as before.
'I am an idiot,' he whispers. 'I hurt Treize and I hurt you, the only two people I've ever really cared about. You're right, I should have at least made some sort of effort to let you know the truth... But you seemed happy, and I didn't want to put you in danger. I didn't want you to have to be associated with a brother who had so disgraced the family name.'
But to know that in Treize's place she would have forgiven him does mean a great deal indeed. Zechs swallows and sniffs softly, then finally returns Relena's embrace. He doesn't move his head from where it rests against her shoulder.
'And I will forgive my sister gladly, if she can forgive her rotten brother.'
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"After all, if you didn't fight for what you believed," she whispers, "...you wouldn't be my brother. You would have died a very long time ago."
Silence.
"I'm glad you didn't die."
She sniffles, and now she finally feels something warm and wet falling down her cheeks. She doesn't brush them away, too content to sit where she was and be a sister for the brother she never really knew before.
She makes a sound that chokes between relief and sorrow, and she embraces him tighter. "Of course I forgive you, you idiot," she says affectionately. "...you're my big brother." Her voice cracks as she speaks it. So normally. "You're my... big brother," she repeats shakenly, but honest, and then she laughs, tears still in her eyes.
"Damned if the only one I have, though."
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'Sorry for being the first-born. But does this mean that I now get to evaluate and/or intimidate anyone you consider dating?'
He can name at least twenty people who would probably drop dead of an apoplexy, to see the terror of the Earth cuddling with his little sister. He also doesn't care, because for the first time in... years, really, he feels genuinely comfortable.
'Feels good,' he mumbles, then sighs quietly. 'Relena, I'm sorry. I... shouldn't have said what I did. I spoke in anger and without thinking.'
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"Assuming that I ever court someone..." She blushes harder, and laughs nervously. "But since it's been said that you've fallen for another man, would it hurt to say that I have found other women very attractive?" She lets one hand fall to her knee, and kneads the fabric, fidgeting. "And men. As you saw in the bar..." Yeah.
A good half of the world would die if they discovered Relena cuddling with her brother in the training room of Preventer, stroking his hair and being a sister and doing normal family things that she had actually never done before in her entire life... The image would be worsened, perhaps, because of their reputable history of hating each other. But then, what the hell did the world know? The world believed a lot of things, and they were wrong 9/10's of the time.
She sobered again and removed her hand from his hair to look at him. "You're right, you were a real bastard. But so was I..." She bites her lip, but looks him in the eye. "And I'm sorry too... you're not a coward and running in circles doesn't make you one. Sometimes, I guess it really does just gives you good exercise."
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'We both did things that we regret. I guess we should try to move past those and do whatever it is that a brother and sister who never really got to be siblings do.' Like start rebuilding, or rather, building a relationship in the first place. Whatever the case, it's an indirectly voiced acceptance of her apology.
Crying has given him a splitting headache, and he cracks an eye open.
'I'll make you a deal. Drive me home so I don't have to look at the light for a few minutes, and I'll bake you cookies.'
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