Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or anything else copyrighted that might come into play in this fanfiction.

Author's Note: Lady Une has long since given up wishing on stars, shooting or otherwise. So it never occurs to her that an unbidden dream of hers could ever be true - namely the survival of Treize Khushrenada. But with the political landscape fragile as ever and the world but incompletely understood, there is news of someone looking shockingly like Treize.

Roses Aren't Always Red

Prologue

The war broke so many things, she thought, leaning her forehead against the cool glass of the window. People, most of all, and she was broken just like so many others. Maybe more than some, probably less than others, but all of them so broken, aside from the lucky handful.

And it didn't change a damn thing, did it?

The route back from the colonies to the Earth was giving her far too much time to think, to dwell on the past; it isn't healthy but it's all she has at the moment, as the gentle snores from her companion drift to her ears.

She looks briefly at the boy with the brown hair – quiet and withdrawn. She can imagine all the women swooning over him and a fair few men too, no doubt, and it occurs to her that she doesn't actually know his sexual preference. Not that it matters too much, she thinks, because at the end of the day, people are attracted to people, not to sex or gender or whatever.

She'd always been attracted to Treize, not just any dark-haired, devilishly clever, torturously manipulative men out there. Treize had been so much more than a man to her. He'd been Treize, his name encompassing everything she had loved and desired and held dear. Sometimes she would intentionally hurt herself, wondering (hoping) that maybe she had been more than a colonel to him, more than just a woman. Other times, she thought that Mariemaia was a slap of reality in her face. There was someone else – another woman – who'd been more than just a woman for Treize, someone that was distinctly not her.

And after all that heart break, the deaths and the blood and the tears, the broken people (broken her), the world was still the same. She'd been quick to spot the smell of independence and power and call of war, radiating from one Ms Harding. She hadn't said a single word out of line with the keeping of the peace but it was the subtle non-verbal tells – an occasional raised eyebrow, some restrained smirks and a rolling of the eyes that one time. It could be that Ms Harding wasn't a particular fan of Relena but it could also be a lot more serious and she would have little qualms about placing one of her more trusted workers to keep an eye on Ms Harding (just a woman, another power hungry, war-mongering woman).

Because that was the reality of life, Une thought glumly. They battled for peace and finally achieved it, and they may have to keep on battling to keep that peace. Relena was too innocent, too naive, to understand the need for defences to maintain peace. She preached pacifism and disarmament but that would never stop anyone else from taking a weapon and starting war on her (for her?). And Une was ready to make the harsh decisions and play the devil if it meant that they could take down anything threatening the fragile peace. Relena couldn't (wouldn't?) and it fell to Une to do so, in silence and behind the curtains of course.

Such was her life of duplicity. And was it satisfying, knowing that she was keeping the peace? She honestly had no answer to that. She would do it till her dying breath, for Treize and herself and maybe even Mariemaia, but was it satisfying? Was she happy? She wasn't sure but she thought the answer might be no.

As much as her dedication remained, her passion was killed in the war, along with her hopes and wishes and the woman who had once stared at the sky and wished on the first star she could see that night could have been from a movie vaguely recalled. She stared at all the stars as she travelled back to Earth, back to warriors who could never not be warriors and defenders of the peace, all broken in different ways by the war, and she couldn't summon the strength to wish that she could make a wish. She stared and wallowed and despaired until her tiredness overtook her and she fell asleep, dreaming of a man who was more than just a man to her, with the whisper of tears in her eyes.

Une dreamt of Treize and some of the stars twinkled back at her, a whirlwind of magic and religion and science that was far beyond her comprehension, setting things in motion that she could never hope to understand.