Gundam Wing is property of Sotsu Agency, Bandai
Studios, and TV Asahi. Sainan no Kekka and all
original characters and plot copyright 2000 by
Quicksilver and Gerald Tarrant. Please ask permission
before reposting. 
 
SHIN KIDOU SENKI GUNDAM WING 
SAINAN NO KEKKA
Navidad 
  
III. STILL STILL STILL 
[Weil's Kindlein schlafen will
Maria tut es niedersingen
Ihre ganze Lieb' darbringen] 
************ ************ ************ ************
************ ************ ************ 
Love imposes impossible tasks // Parsley, sage,
rosemary and thyme
Though not more than any heart asks // And I must know
she's a true love of mine 
************ ************ ************ ************
************ ************ ************ 

 
The night was cold and she had bundled an extra set of
wraps around her, prepared for the worst. It wouldn't
be the first time that it had started snowing in the
middle of the night, and who knew when she would get
home? 

A knock on the door and she paused, the hand holding
her powder brush poised on midmotion. "Come," she
called. 

She saw the butler's form in the mirror. "Excuse me,
Lady Emily, but you have a call." 

"From Le�n? Tell him just one second." 

"No, Madame�I do not know who it is from. But it is
marked as urgent." 

Emily Khushrenada Catalonia gave a delicate cough.
"Antoine, I don't care who it is from, tell them I am
busy and will be there in a minute." 

"Yes, my lady." The door closed, and she sat staring
at it in the mirror's reflection, wondering how people
could be so dense. Really! Interrupting a lady in the
middle of delicate work�anyone should know better than
that. 

Patting her ornate golden curls one more time and
tucking a stray strand of hair back into place, she
put down the powder brush, ran the lipstick over her
mouth, and checked her eye makeup in the mirror before
standing up and adjusting the fur stole on her
shoulders. The third party of the Christmas
season�only the third! Honestly, she'd expected to
have been invited to quite a few more, and she
supposed it was all because Le�n was gone for the
holidays that she hadn't been. It was bad form to
invite a woman to a party without her husband, but
Emily had been sure to make it quite clear to several
people that there would be dire consequences if she
was not invited to some of the gatherings of the
season. Tonight's party being one of them. 

Picking up her fur coat and outer wrap from where it
was draped over a velvet couch, she considered calling
the maid to have her dress, then decided against it,
throwing the garments around herself. The maids were
so slow these days. She had asked Le�n to look into
hiring some new ones, and he'd promised to look into
it as soon as possible, but he was always away. Busy
with some Federation business or other. 

She'd been lucky to land Le�n. Her first husband she'd
divorced two years before she had met the Comte
d'Alsace, and even the fact that she was marrying
twice was frowned upon by her family. Pick one and
stick to it, they said. Her sister Marie had been
especially righteous about that, going on about Le�n.
How he was the only one for her. 

The only one for her he had been, because barely six
months into their marriage, Marie was dead. She'd
always been a sickly child, and the family had known
it. They'd pushed up the wedding date to make sure
that she would at least be a married woman when she
died. Emily had seen Le�n at the funeral in the
appropriate role of grieving husband, but she didn't
know what there was to grieve about. He had hardly
known Marie, and it was a well known fact that he
hadn't married for love. 

Emily took the chance. 

It was a simple matter to divorce Jalbert, who didn't
put up much of a fight. They had never really gotten
along anyway. And Emily had used her charms on Le�n,
and they had worked. It might have just been his grief
over his sister Alicia, who had died less than half a
year after Marie, but Emily wasn't about to let that
slow her down. She hadn't really liked Alicia anyway. 

Le�n loved her, that she was certain. She was pretty
sure she loved him as well, though the definition of
love was a shady one at best, but there was no doubt
that he at least had fallen hard for her. He'd never
leave her, that was for sure. Not with his precious
daughter's happiness at stake. Dorothy took after her,
the fair complexion and the eyes, but she had her
father's Spanish features. Emily had been slightly
upset that it hadn't been a male when the doctor had
come for gender testing, but Le�n had told her a firm
no when she had asked to abort it and try again. 

It's a child, Emily. It's our child. We can always
have more children, but we're going to let all of them
live, no matter if they are male or female. 

There had been something shadowed and desperate behind
his eyes as he had said that, and she was quite
certain that she could see the ghost of his dead
sister there. He had never quite gotten over Alicia's
death. Emily knew that Le�n saw Alicia in his young
daughter, but she had never cared enough to bring it
up. It was a male thing, she supposed. 

"Lady Emily!" 

She swept down the grand staircase, making sure to
take her time. "I�m coming, Antoine." 

"In the comm room, Madame," he said, bowing as she
passed and entered the comm room through the glass
doors. She recognized the dark-skinned man on the
screen at once: Tamirat Kambon, the Federation's Head
Foreign Affairs Minister and the man who had been
Heero Yuy's right hand while he had been alive. 

"Monsieur Kambon," she said, nodding her head and
lapsing into the French accented English that made her
sound like a true noblewoman. "A pleasure." The clock
read five minutes to ten o' clock, and if she didn't
leave soon, she'd be late� 

"Madame Catalonia," he said, nodding back at her, his
deep voice grave, and suddenly she caught the scent of
something amiss. 

"What's going on?" she asked sharply, discarding the
accent. 

"Madame�I�" he appeared to choke, then blinked and
looked at her, continued. "Madame, your husband was
aboard one of the civilian shuttles from L3 to Earth
this afternoon. The shuttle exploded in midflight.
There�were no survivors." 

She gripped the table until her fingers hurt. "What?" 

"I�m sorry, I-" 

"You liar," she hissed. "I don't know what kind of
sick joke you're trying to play, but this is
unacceptable!" 

"It's not a joke, Madame. I wish it was." 

"Liar!" she screamed at the screen, hand grasping for
something, anything to throw at it. Her fingers grazed
an ivory statue of an elephant that Le�n had brought
back from his travels to Africa and she raised it,
hurled it at the vidscreen just as Kambon put his
hands up, shouting "Wait-!" 

The screen shattered. 

Emily found herself shaking, and Antoine was rushing
through the door with two other servants in tow
shouting something that she couldn't make out. It was
a horrible joke�Le�n wasn't dead. He couldn't be dead.


"I'll see those bastards brought to justice," she
grated. "I'll-" 

"Lady Emily, please!" Antoine's hands on her arms
brought her back to the room, and she pushed him away.


"How dare you touch me!" she cried. "I am a lady!" 

Antoine backed away rapidly. "Madame�sorry,
Madame�only trying to help�" The two other servants
were gingerly sweeping up the remnants of the screen.
The elephant, she noted distractedly, was ironically
still intact except for a piece of its trunk, which
had fallen off and skittered to rest near the bookcase
by the wall. 

She swept out of the room, ignoring him and his offers
of assistance, went back up the stairs in a daze.
Le�n�dead? Surely, he couldn't be. Not her Le�n, the
proud, strong, noble man she had seen off to the
spaceport only a week before, who had kissed her and
promised to be home in time for Christmas. 

He would have been home tonight. 

Surely there was a note�something�she dashed back to
the bedroom, threw open the door and threw aside the
bedspread, began dumping out the drawers, searching
for something, anything, a sign that he was still
alive. Jewelry jingled as she threw the box against
the wall, sending pearls and silver flying, and she
didn't even realize when she settled slowly back on
her heels and just felt the tears slide down her
cheek. 

"Madame?" 

"Leave me alone," she choked. 

"Madame�you will not be going to the ball, then?" 

Where had he gotten that notion? "Of course I will! In
five minutes." 

"Very well," Antoine said softly, and she heard the
door close. Gazing at the shambles of the room around
her, it slowly dawned on her that he wouldn't be
coming back. 

"You bastard," she whispered fiercely. "You fucking
bastard!" Stumbling into the bathroom to her vanity
mirror, picking up a bottle of perfume. "YOU!" the
perfume smashed against the wall and she grabbed a jar
of cream- "FUCKING!" - the jar shattered on the
counter and the pink cream began to drip slowly down
the front, and she found another bottle of perfume -
"BASTARD!" The perfume bottle exploded against the
mirror, which cracked, and she whimpered, crumpling to
her knees again and wrapping her arms around herself. 

After what seemed like an eternity, her heart slowed
and she pushed herself to her feet, not letting
herself look at the wreckage of the bathroom and she
made her way slowly back into the bedroom, attempting
to pick up some of the clothes. The maids would clean
it�but this was embarrassing. It would be all over the
gossip columns by tomorrow, she just knew it. 

Her fingers brushed something silken through the pile
of Le�n's discarded underwear and she paused, then
picked it up. It was a silken scarf decorated with
whirling, colorfully blinding patterns that were at
once elegant and gaudy at the same time.
Interesting�Le�n had never showed this to her before.
Had he gotten it from a woman? 

That was nonsense. Le�n loved her and only her. He'd
never even have eyes for another woman. She had been
his whole universe. 

At least she could console herself with that. 

She went back into the bathroom, brushing aside the
broken glass and touching up her makeup before once
again going back into the main room. The scarf caught
her eye again and on a whim she picked it up as she
closed the doors behind her, heading down the hallway
to the nursery. 

The night nurse looked up, surprised, as she came into
the room. "Madame! The baby is asleep�would you like
to see her?" 

Emily nodded. "Yes, just for a few minutes." 

The nurse looked even more surprised, probably due to
the fact that Emily's visits to the nursery were rare,
and her asking to see her daughter was even rarer. She
gestured to Emily to be very quiet, then opened the
door and allowed them both to enter. 

Dorothy was asleep, one thumb in her mouth. The nurse
made a noise of disapproval and made to remove the
offending digit, but Emily stopped her with a motion
of her hand. Slowly she crossed to the crib's side,
noting how the dim light gleamed on her daughter's
short, wispy, almost white hair. 

"Hello, angel," she said softly, resting one hand on
the little girl's head. Dorothy did not stir. Emily
suddenly felt foolish, a mother who had no words to
say to a daughter, but the nurse had gone back into
the other room and they were alone. 

"Your father's gone," she said quietly to the sleeping
child. "I�I guess that it's the two of us now. I can't
keep you here, you know�I�m sorry, but it's better for
us both." Remembering the scarf she held in her hand,
she shook it out gently, draped it over her daughter's
chubby form. "This was your father's�I don't know what
will happen from now on, but�" she trailed off, again
at a loss for words. 

"Good night," she finally said, and left the room.
Antoine was waiting outside. 

"Madame�your car is here�?" 

She smiled at him, enjoying how the range of emotions
from confused to surprised to resignation crossed over
his face, and then nodded at him. 

"I'm ready now, Antoine. We may go."

END III






=====
"No matter what the bible says, the battle always goes to
the strong. And I am strong. I don't need to prove that to
anyone anymore."
-Excerpt from Sainan no Kekka- Act Seven, Scene VII

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Quicksilver/
http://www.midnightrevolution.org/gundam

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