I wrote this fic months and months ago while I was
still trying to finish Myrtles and Roses - which ought
to tell some of you how old this is. ^_^; Because I
was already involved with such a big project, I put
this one on the back burner because I was having a
problem meshing a bit of it with canon. And then I
promptly forgot all about it.

I lost a lot of data, including some unfinished fics,
in March or April, and had feared this one lost with
it. While I was sorting through my floppies looking
for something else, though, I found a copy complete
with Kasra's notes on the canon continuity, and
decided to finish it.

Huuuuge thanks go to Kasra for making this possible -
and for pointing out my glaringly obvious mistakes.
I'm holding this up as a weak and belated birthday
offering to her - and don't worry hon - the actual
present should be on the way. ^___^



Disclaimer of responsibility for the concept of this
fic is at the end. I SWEAR it's not my fault! Also,
this is a canon-y story and as such contains a whole
heck of a lot of spoilers. Young, arrogant Quatre
makes an appearance as well.


The Eva Braun Complex
By Jessie


Eva Braun was a woman - a foolish woman, some say -
made famous entirely by her association with a
particularly infamous man. She was not a bad person,
though she was perhaps a bit misguided in her
affections. By all accounts, she was a kind and loving
woman, selfless and loyal, willing to give all that
she had not in support of her lover's cause, but in
support of /him/ that she loved so dearly.

I cannot speak for Eva. I could not pretend to know
what could make a beautiful, young woman fall in love
with a man like Adolph Hitler. Though maybe, just
perhaps, I can understand the draw. Certainly he was
charming, able to convince people to follow him
blindly. It would have been no mean feat for him to
coax a young innocent into his bed. What intrigues me
now is why she stayed there - why, despite all the
evil of which that one man was capable, she lost her
heart to him so completely.

Perhaps if I could understand her motivations, I might
make some sense of the tangled mass of emotion that
fills my heart at the barest mention of his name.

/Treize Khushrenada/.




I think I was seven, when I met him. No...six, because
he was fifteen that year. The difference in our ages
seems so pronounced, looking back. In reality, the gap
between us was much more difficult to measure, even
then. I was such a precocious child...

But I digress.

His father was visiting mine, the first time that we
met. The last of the old nobility of Earth come to
call on the first true technocrats of the colonial
age. The Winner clan was the first, I knew even then,
to control so much of the trade in Space without any
ties to the old economic powers of Earth. We had
broken away, in the early days, and forged a brave new
world for ourselves.

Matthaias Khushrenada wanted us back.

And Treize came with him, for whatever reason. Perhaps
to learn the tricks of world trade from his father.
What the aging politician could not see was that even
at the age of fifteen, Treize had an interest in only
a few things - those which he deemed the most
beautiful and tragic: Opera, History, Milliardo
Peacecraft.

War.

His passion for soldiery, indeed, eclipsed all else by
far. He had joined the Alliance military earlier that
year.

We slipped away, then, he and I, to the gardens. No
doubt he felt he was doing both myself and my father a
great service, keeping me occupied while the adults
squabbled, out of harm's way. I knew it then, too, but
I did not mind overmuch. At last there was another boy
in the house!

We talked of riding for the longest time. Our colony
was blessed with a small paddock of grass - enough for
the few fine horses without which my father, Arab that
he was no matter how far removed from his homeland,
would have felt himself a pauper. I had been riding
since I was but a child, I had told him, and he had
laughed.

"You are still a child," He had said, his eyes
sparkling with mirth.

I still remember my hot retort, delivered in my
limited German of the time. "I may be six years old in
body, but my mind is only a year younger than you."

"That would make your Intelligence Quotient
two-hundred and thirty," he said, his eyes dancing. I
could tell that he did not believe me. I nodded,
though. That was correct. "Very well. But don't you
think the same rules apply to others? If you were to
go by /my/ IQ, you would still be much, much younger
than me."

And perhaps there lay the basis of our friendship.
Genius is lonely, to a child.

"You should be a soldier," He had said, shortly before
he was called to leave.

"My father says that war is the ultimate evil," I
replied.

"I did not ask you what your father thinks of war," He
said, not unkindly. "What do /you/ think of the idea?"

"I think," I had told him, without pause, "That war is
the ultimate evil."

Treize had tossed back his head and laughed at that.
"Do you always agree with everything your father
says?"

I had looked around the garden then. Even at my tender
age I knew well that the very walls had ears - Ears
connected to my father.

"No," I had finally said with a sheepish grin.

"Let me make a wager with you," He had ventured. "I
hold that, by the time you are my age, you will have
felt the call of the battlefield, as I have, and
joined the ranks."

I laughed, brightly. "Whatever would we bet? Surely
my wants and needs will change in that time. If we do
not simply forget-"

"You won't forget," Treize said, with a small smile,
"And neither will I. But as for the prize...let it be
determined on the finish of the bet."

We shook hands, then, and went our separate ways.

I did not forget.

And neither did he.



I did not see Treize very much in the intervening
years. Our paths crossed from time to time at parties,
political functions, and the like. Treize flourished
in that time. His meteoric rise through the ranks of
the Alliance military was almost without precedent.

And I?

It was seven long years from our first meeting before
I finally stopped agreeing with everything my father
said. But that matters only in the periphery. The real
story, the meat of the tale, resumed nine years almost
to the day from my first encounter with Treize.

It was my sister Anna's wedding. The reception,
actually. The party had started early that evening,
and it was then perhaps ten o'clock at night. I'm sure
that Anna and her new husband would have been glad to
flee and start their honeymoon, but they were forced
by protocol to wait until everyone had been given a
chance to greet them and wish them well. It was a very
large gathering, full of particularly pompous and
long-winded individuals. I had escaped the throng that
filled the house and barricaded myself onto the
balcony with a glass of punch and a little paper plate
of hor d'oeuvres.

The night was beautiful, I remember, warm and just a
little damp - not enough to be uncomfortable, but my
tuxedo shirt was beginning to stick to my skin in
places. I had abandoned the jacket long before, and it
lay beside me, hung over the stone rail. I could hear
the faint sounds of chatter and idle conversation,
glass clinking, the occasional, tinny outbursts of
false laughter.

The door clicked shut behind me, and I turned to see
Treize Khushrenada approaching the rail. He looked up
at the fake colonial sky for a long while, just
standing beside me in silence. I went back to my punch
and my plate and watched him discretely, observing the
way he turned his glass of wine between his hands a
few times before resting it on the rail. I'm sure now
that he was watching me, too. That was always how he
had always been...patently observant and subtle,
always aware of what was going on around him.

"You're fifteen," he said, once some time had passed.
I had nodded, knowing well his meaning. The time of
reckoning. I smiled. "I am. Just these past few
months."

"It seems I have lost the bet, then," He said,
ruefully. "I should have known you would run away,
instead. You're too passionate about your peace." He
smiled at me kindly and bowed his head. "So what is
your prize?"

It was tempting, of course, to say nothing of the
truth. I could have chosen a simple reward and have
been done with it. But Treize was a friend, of sorts.
Certainly he was more earnest in his manner than the
fools hob-nobbing inside, and perhaps I felt I owed
him for that. He was high ranking in the Alliance, but
I did not doubt that he would keep my secret. He had a
sense of honor.

"No," I corrected. "You've won."

"But I've been watching the rosters...Unless you've
enrolled under a false name, or-" He broke off at
looked at me closely, examining my features. "You've
joined that silly rebellion," He murmured. It was not
a question any longer.

"Careful," I chided. "I might take offense."

"Quatre..." He started. I could tell he was going to
protest, to try and talk me to his cause, and so I
created the perfect diversion.

"You've won," I repeated, "What is your prize?"

He smiled. "Let me think about it, for a moment. I'd
something in mind, but seeing you now..." He trailed
off and looked up at the sky again, squinting into the
false starlight. After a moment he turned back to me
with that wonderfully seductive smile and took my
glass from my hands, sitting it on the railing beside
his own. "I think," He murmured, placing his
fingertips on the line of my jaw and leaning close,
"That a kiss shall suffice."

His lips were soft and cool when they touched mine,
and slightly damp from the wine he had drunk. I'd been
kissed before- fleeting touches from both boys and
girls my own age - adolescent fumblings - but nothing
like this. The sensations were still new and electric
to me. His mouth was faintly sweet, tasting of wine
and candied angelica, remnants of the forgotten party
on the other side of that thin glass door.

When he pulled back, we both were breathing a bit
harder, and my eyes were half-closed. I'd enjoyed that
to no end. Somehow, just being with Treize made me
feel marvelously bold and wicked. He was, in one
beautiful, debonair package, everything that my father
hated. He was warlike and rakish, not to mention a
man. The perfect rebellion- dangerous and wonderfully
sensual. And I wanted him. That realization was a
little startling, but I had learned by then that it
was best to listen to my heart in matters like these.

"A kiss seems an awfully small prize for a bet that's
lasted nine years," I murmured, looking up at him with
my lashes still lowered. "I really insist that you ask
for something more..."

His eyes had flashed with amusement as he leaned
closer, trapping me against the railing. "What would
you suggest?"

"It's really all a matter of what you want," I had
said, breathily. "Anything in my power."

"Anything?" he'd asked, pressing his lips to mine,
again.

"Anything..." I'd whispered back.

I still remember the way his body shook as he chuckled
softly against my lips. "I certainly wasn't thinking
of this when I proposed the bet."

"I should hope not," I said with mock reproach. He
threw back his head and laughed, then, his eyes
sparkling in the artificial moonlight. His lips
descended on mine again, swiftly, and his hands crept
up the backs of my thighs. I returned the kiss with
all the fervor of adolescence, clutching at the lapels
of his jacket to pull him closer. His thigh had just
crept between mine when we heard a sound from behind
us. Treize stepped back and picked up his glass again
before handing me my punch. I looked up at the door.
One of the fat madams from the party was standing in
the doorway, her head turned to catch some comment
from inside. It did not seem that she had seen us. For
that I was /quite/ relieved. My father was there.

"Quatre!" She called exuberantly, when she finally
caught sight of me. "Oh, hurry up, dear, everyone's
been looking for you! Anna's about to leave!" Her gaze
swept behind me to where I knew Treize still stood in
imposed nonchalance, leaning against the rail. "You,
too, Colonel. Everyone's been missing you!"

She darted forward and patted my head before trying to
catch my arm. I managed to evade her without seeming
to intend it - A feat I had perfected during other
such gatherings - and smiled kindly back at her. "Just
let me get rid of my plate, madam, and I'll be with
you in a moment," I said.

She nodded, then, and went back inside. I turned to
Treize. "Do you have any idea who that was?" I asked,
bewildered.

He had chuckled. "Not the slightest clue." He tossed
back the last of his wine and picked up my jacket,
handing it to me and as he started for the door.

"Where do you think you're going?" I'd asked.

He turned and blinked at me before smiling just a
little. "I had meant to bid your sister farewell."

"She'll have more than enough 'farewells' to serve
her, I think," I said as I climbed over the railing.
The balcony was only about ten feet from the
ground...not a bad drop at all. "Well? Aren't you
coming?"

We made love in the garden that night under the cold
light of the artificial stars.

It was not long after that I was finally sent to the
Earth. I had made up my mind as a boy of thirteen to
touch real, living soil, one day. To me, it seemed the
purest, most wonderful thing in existence.

We - mankind, I mean - struggled for so very long just
to sustain ourselves in the cold reaches of space.
Just us. One species. After that, we were able to
bring a few more with us, like my father's horses and
the songbirds that filled the dawns of my childhood
with their beautiful music. Some tagged along - rats
and vermin, plagues and diseases - the creatures that
have been the bane of mankind since its inception.

Yet, for all our toiling, all our scientific glory, we
have been entirely unable to produce something as
perfect as soil. There are a thousand tiny miracles in
every handful. The whole massive planet teems with
them.

Treize took this for granted, I think. Growing up on
the Earth, he did not spend years of his life
breathing stale, lifeless air and staring at
projections of the sun and stars. Our artificial
gravity, born of centrifugal force, required that each
torus colony spin so fast that, if we had been looking
the reality outside our windows, we would have seen
nothing but trails of light, alternated with bursts so
bright we would have been blinded. With no sky for a
shield, the sun could very well have killed us all.

Our very lives hang from a thread, even now. The older
colonies in L1 and L5 are notorious for their
instability. Heero has told me of days so hot that
human skin was scalded by the air. Of nights so cold
that the snow felt warm. Duo's home was deficient in
water. Wufei's was literally falling apart. Treize
grew up in the most perfect of worlds. What I would
have given, as a child, to have been born in his
stead? I wanted so badly to visit the Earth.

When my wish was finally granted, I was sent hurtling
toward that bright blue ball like a meteor - a
shooting star.



I would have never thought Treize capable of what he
did to us all at New Edwards - What he did to the
world. I understand now what he believed he was
accomplishing, but at the time - at the time I felt so
betrayed. Everything that I had believed about him
seemed to be a lie. Where had his sense of honor gone?
His honesty?

And it hurt. God, it hurt! All those people screaming
in my head -

He apologized to me, when I confronted him with it. I
really don't know, even now, how much he knew of the
Heart of the Universe. He knew that I was hurting,
though. And with Duo asleep on the couch in the next
room, his face on the vid-screen told me that he was
sorry. Not for his actions, but that they had needed
to be done. He said that he was sorry he had hurt me.

I wonder if he knew then that he was going to die,
and how it would rip my soul apart.

I talked to him occasionally through scrambled
connections, encoded and protected against the prying
eyes of both his comrades and mine. I didn't see him
again, face to face, until after -

After Zero. But I'm not here to talk about that.

Heero and I were captured by former members of OZ when
we returned to Earth. I didn't know yet of the mess
Treize had gotten himself into- vilified by the
public, revered by his men... The Treize Faction, they
had called themselves. Until he explained the
situation to me, I couldn't understand why they needed
to put his name in their title- I had thought it
understood that OZ /was/ a "Treize Faction." They
would have done anything for him. He was their god.

He never gave me any details - I learned those during
my stay in the Sanq kingdom. He joked about public
relations and such, teased that we were both captives.
I still don't know how he got away from his estate for
that brief visit. He was only gone for a day, but he
was certainly missed. It was never mentioned in the
news. Miss Relena never even knew that he had gone.
Neither did Miss Noin, which surprised me more.

One would have thought that Zechs might have told her.

"Zero Four, I presume?" His voice was cool and
amusedly detached when he greeted me, as if we had
never met before, let alone shared a night of passion.


I did not answer.

"And pilot Zero One. Heero Yuy," he said, turning to
my companion. I remembered feeling a flash of
irrational jealousy as his eyes lit up. I knew that
look. Treize was intrigued.

And he was ignoring /me./

Heero's eyes narrowed. I could almost read his mind.
How did this man - I don't believe he realized it was
the infamous Treize Khushrenada that he was faced with
at the time - know his name?

Zechs had told him, of course. Zechs always told him
everything - Even though they were something like
enemies by that time.

I felt foolish pride at that. I suppose I still do.

I never told him anything.

Treize had pulled me into his craft, then, under the
guise of interrogation. The walls of it muffled sound
so much better than the thin canvas tent would have,
and it was easier to guard.

I don't think that Heero ever knew. Surely he would
have said something if he had overheard or smelled it
on us after. Then again, perhaps he simply chose not
to comment. I think I like that option better,
actually - it offers the possibility that he really
did trust me then - even though I felt I couldn't
trust myself.

Heero asked me after if I had told him anything. I
don't know what I would have told him - there was
never a time when we were more scattered and lost than
at that moment. But, no, I assured him. I had told him
nothing.

Even under the delicious torture of his lips and
tongue, I had told him nothing. Except - except that
he was wrong...That things didn't have to be the way
he was so obviously planning...That I was sorry...That
I loved him.

Treize told me then of his new suit, built from the
blueprints of mine. And he- he offered it to me.
Offered it as if it were a gift to be welcomed and not
the demon that it was - that I assured him it was.

Funny, though - I didn't recognize the Epyon at first
when I was finally faced with it later in the war. The
plans he had shown me looked far more like the
Tallgeese or Wing.

I have to wonder if he demonized it for me.




Treize wanted very much for his death to /mean/
something, even at fifteen. He told me then that he
wanted to be a martyr, or even a villain, as long as
his was a death that would really /matter/ to the
world.

I suppose he got his wish.

I have prayed for little in my life. I went through
the motions as a child whenever I was directed, and I
learned to appear sincere. My father was a very
religious man. Perhaps that is why I am not.

I will admit, though, that I prayed for him. I lifted
up my voice to the God of my Father in supplication,
begging that the war would end too soon - that his
plan would fail - that his sacrifice would prove
unnecessary.

He would have done it for Wufei, I realize now. We
never spoke of him, but Wufei told me later that they
had fought...That Treize had killed his wife...That he
had sworn that he would have vengeance or he would
have death. If his life could have meant nothing else,
Treize would have died then to give him peace.

I cried when the fighting broke out again. It was a
blight on Treize's memory that he peace his life had
paid for was not everlasting. I cried even harder when
I realized that Wufei had not found his peace with
Treize's death. I prayed then that we would end the
fighting for good, and that Wufei's heart would heal -
That Treize's sacrifice had meant something.

It's what he would have wanted. And an eternity of
peace is certainly more reasonable a desire than what
I really wanted just then.

No amount of prayer would ever bring him back.

I was a fool to have trusted him to stay alive for my
sake. He has so many grander plans. Eva was a fool as
well. Maybe that, ultimately, is what we have in
common. During those final days, we both knew what was
coming. We knew them well enough to predict their
final actions.

There's so much we had in common, Eva and I, but in
some very sad ways our lives were very different. She
was one of many lovers... though she was always
Adolph's favorite. I know all too well that Treize had
other lovers... I was not the first and I was not the
last. I was not his favorite, and I was not the most
important to his plan. Not really, anyway.

She was so much younger than him... All of them were
so much younger than him. /We/ were all so much
younger than /Treize/... Nine years is such a long
time, when you think about it. By the time Duo was
nine years old, he had lost two families.

I suppose that Zechs and Une weren't really that much
younger than him. Only a few short years. But me...

He asked me once if I thought he was a pedophile. I
asked if he thought I was a child. We laughed until we
cried.

Did you know that every lover Adolph Hitler ever took
went mad or killed herself? One shot herself with his
pistol when he locked her in their quarters. One leapt
from a window. Eva herself took cyanide. I look at the
fractured Milliardo Peacecraft and poor, confused Lady
Une, and I think ... those aren't very good odds, are
they?

And as they slowly recover from his influence...where
does that leave me?

Eva died with her lover. I wonder, sometimes, which of
us was the greater fool.

END.




Caer doesn't like 13x4. Caer doesn't like 13x4 because
she doesn't particularly like Treize. She doesn't like
Treize, she told me, because he's "a charming version
of Hitler, with funny eyebrows." Therefore, I blame
this entire thing on her, because when she said that
(ages ago, really) all I could think was-

Eva was blond, wasn't she? *grins evily*

Alright, history lesson for those of you who don't
know... Eva Braun was Adolph Hitler's right hand lady.
She was one of quite a few younger women with whom he
had relationships - one of them was his own niece.
*shudders* That's just wrong. Ick. As if he wasn't
icky enough to begin with.

Eva died with Hitler in the last days of the war. They
took cyanide together, and he shot himself as well. He
wanted to be good and dead, just in case the Allies or
the people of Germany got a hold of his body. He saw
what happened to Mussolini. ^_^; Apparently, he wasn't
all that worried about what might happen to Eva's
body...

I stole the title, because it was so damned perfect.
It comes from a Titans comic of all things... Roy
Harper's ex is a supervillainess, and he compares
himself (fleetingly) to Eva Braun.