Facing The Past *= thinking The bored room at the Preventer HQ was filled with people. Lady Une had called an emergency meeting that afternoon because of a new rebel group that was forming called The Red Terror { I know there was such a thing but heack, I'm out of ideas!} and they were taking control fast. Zechs Marquise looked at the seat next to him it was still empty.* Your late Noin and I can't help you out of this one.* Meanwhile Noin was pulling on her shoes and running out of her apartment which was thankfully only a few blocks from HQ. Noin looked at her watch as she ran out the apartment building and onto the sidewalk. * Please let them not have started without me!* The day was overcast and suggested rain.* With my luck I'll get right to the door and then the clouds will burst and I'll get drenched. Zechs would never let me live that one down. He still bugs me about the time I sleepwalked and wound up in his room at the Academy!* Actually that was one of the greatest moments in her life. She smiled as she ran. She had knocked over one of his books and he woke up. Noin woke up when she heard the thunk and what she saw was gorgeous. Zechs was standing there in front of her shirtless. She had been so embaressed that she ran out of the room back to hers and cried the entire night. The next morning he told her it was okay and that he had his revenge by seeing her in pink pajamas and bunny slippers. After what seemed like an eternity Noin reached the HQ. She entered her code and walked in. *Maybe I was wrong about the weather. * Noin found her way to the bored room and snuck in, they hadn't started. She sat down beside Zechs who looked at her tiny panting self. " Woke up late did we?" Noin gave him one of her " I'm not going to say anything to you for a week for that one if you don't put a sock in it REAL soon" looks. " My alarm clock was plotting against me." Zechs looked at her face and realized that she wasn't getting much air because of her heavy breathing. He put an arm around her. " Take a couple of deep breaths through your nose." Noin took his advise and soon her breathing began to return to normal. " Thanks." Suddenly the lights dimmed and the meeting began. Lady Une began to speak. " As you know a rebel fraction called the Red Terror has been attacking certain areas that surround our bases. We have been able to learn that they fight mercilessly as the Alliance had. We have a tape of one of the massacres the Alliance was resposible for and one that the Red Terror has commited recently I must warn you that you may become very depressed after watching this tape." * Me depressed, the person who killed thousands of people, this thing must be real violent.* Zechs thought to himself. He looked at Noin, she looked like she might cry. Not many people knew it but Noin could be very sensitive to sad things such as death. Children were the ones she cried over the most. Zechs remembered the time they had been searching a battle feild. Noin was clearly on the breaking point. People lay dead all over the ground but she held herself together, until she saw the little four year old that was still clinging to life. Noin had ran to the child and held her. The little girl knew she was going to die soon and she acted very brave. The little girl told them about a song that her mother used to sing to her. Noin knew the song and sang it to the girl. A few moments after the song the little girl died her last words were " Your voice is pretty like mommy's." Noin had sobbed that entitre night over a wooden chest that she never alowed anyone to open, not even him. Her pity for others was perhaps one of the things that made her so precious to him. Zechs snapped out of it as the tape was turned on. It was a tape from a hidden camera that was clearly in the home of a wealthy family. It began rather pleasant there was a mother, father, four girls three of them looking as though their ages ranged from sixteen to twenty three the youngest looked about eight, and a grandmother. Zechs looked at the little one with a deep sense of pity. *Poor baby. Why do you look so familiar?* Zechs was so deep in thought that he didn't realize that Noin was about to be sick. The smallest one was holding a box and a porclain china doll that she was clearly proud of. The adults were discussing something and the teens were all doing make-overs. The tiny one tried to join in but was told to go play somewhere else the little girl took the book that had been laying next to the eldest girl. Everyone smiled as the child placed the book next to her heart under her gown. Then suddenly that happy seen came to and end a man entered the room read out a short statement and then he and a bunch of soldiars began to fire at the family. The little one never let go of her box or her doll Noin looked on trembling she began to feel the warm blood once again trickle down her little body, once again she heard the man who would take her family from her announce his intentions, once again she heard her beloved sistters' screams as they were gunned down, and once again the tears came, the tears that had mixed with the pool of blood that belonged to every person she had ever held dear in that room. Suddenly the men noticed that the youngest was still moveing the shot at her but the bullets only grazed the skin. Then the tape went blank. Every person in the room had a heavy heart. Noin stood there for a moment, suddenly she was eight again and she was being shot at. The pain was so real that she screamed and the everything went black. Everyone turned to the scream. Noin was lying on the floor in a faint. Zechs bolted from his chair and picked her up. Sally and Une rushed over as well.All three of the agreed that she should be taken home and put to bed immediatly. And that's just what they did. " What happend?" Zechs asked Sally as they took Noin to her apartment. "I really don't know other than she fainted. Zechs did Noin ever tell you anything about her past?" Zechs thought for a moment. " Only that she was orphaned in the war. She really does love children though she'll make an excellent mother, maybe she couldn't stand to watch that poor baby die." He fell silent. *If only she could be mother to MY children. Noin I love you so much it kills me to see you this helpless.* They reached the apartment and Zechs held Noin while Sally opend the door. The girl was pretty heavy when her weight wasn't balanced so they had taken turns carrying her. Quietly they took her to her room and laid her down. " Hey Sal, why don't you go home I'll take care of Sleeping Beuty here." Sally smiled. " I'll stay, why don't you go make some coffee and I'll take care of this one." Zechs nodded but the minute he left the room Noin suddenly began to whimper. Sally ran a hand over Noin forehead in an effort to placate her. " Shhhhhhh." As she ran her hand Sally became alarmed. Noin was burning with a fever! Sally rushed out of the room to the bathroom to get the thermometer. She was in such a hurry that she ran into Zechs nearly causing him to burn himself with the coffee. " What's wrong with her?" He asked quickly. Sally came out with a bowl filled with watter and washcloths. " She has a fever." As they neared the room Noin's whipering grew stronger more pathetic Zechs sat the coffee on a little table that was in the hall and then ran to the room. Sally watched how he hurried to her and smiled. Zechs ran over to Noin and felt her forehead. " Poor thing." He whispered as he took one of the washcloths that he had grabed out of the bowl Sally had been carrying. He began to bathe her face. Sally was about a few feet from the door when the whimpering seased. "Did she die?" She asked as she entered the room. "No she was just upset about being alone I guess." Sally sat on the bedside opposite of Zechs'. She looked on as the famous Lightinig Count took care of a woman that clearly meant more to him than he admitted." I think I might have to go to the store to get some cough medicine. Dodo bird here doesn't have any." Zechs offered to go but Sally refused saying that Noin wouldn't stop crying until he came back. "If you don't beleive me leave the room go to the living room and stay there you'll see." Zechs did exactly that and after three minutes the whimpering began. Zechs ran back into the room and began to run his hand through Noin's hair. " I beleive you now." Sally stood up and smiled. "I should be back in ten." Sally said as she left the room. "You certainly like to be the center of attention my dear." Zechs smiled as he held Noin's hand. And then a little voice murmered. " Like you don't." Zechs looked at Noin who was behening to wake. "Noin!" Noin suddenly felt a rush of warmth when he said her name in such a releived way. Noin looked into his eyes and thought* Did he really worry that much?* " Noin why did you faint like that? It wasn't like you." Noin sighed it was time he learend. "Zechs, you know that chest I have? Look in my closet and get it out." Zechs stood up and walked over to the closet. After rummaging for a few moments he found it and brought it over to the bed. Noin took it and opend the lid. What she pulled out made him regret so many things he had said to her. First came a beutiful porcalain doll, next a book with a bullet embeded in it along with a little jewelry box and a tattered blood stained nightgown. Zechs looked at Noin and he suddenly knew why that little girl looked so familiar. " I was that little girl Zechs." Zechs began to regret things he had said to her but perhaps the one he regreted most was saying that she didn't know what it was like to watch your family die. Zechs looked at Noin and pulled her into a strong embrace. "I'm so sorry I said those things to you. Please forgive me. I love you so much." He whispered as he petted her head.Noin began to cry. "I love you to." They stayed like that untill they fell asleep in eachothers arms. A few minutes after they crashed Sally walked in and saw them. The things on the bed explained everything but that mattered little to her. What matterd the most was that the two people on that bed were finnaly addmitting there feelings. The End |
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