There are two epilogues for ANATEXIS, each of which explores a different ending.
Epilogue - Possibility B
In the Spring of AC 205, Zechs Merquise and Lucrezia Noin returned from their campaign of liberation, the very last military bases having been captured. Ten years before they had waged similar battles in the name of OZ, but this time there was an exhilarating feeling of release in the air. Perhaps peace had come to the universe after all.
"Have we created something worthwhile, this time?"
Zechs was solemn. "The rebirth of the world will be a difficult one, but it is rebirth nevertheless." Then his eyes softened with a gentleness that he had never shown before. "Where shall we go, Noin?"
"Anywhere, Zechs." She sighed. "But there was a trip I was hoping to make alone, first."
Zechs looked out to sea and smiled, as if savouring a private joke. "Relena sent word to me when we were still at Mirnyy. There is no longer a settlement on PK-23. I know that when the prisoners were freed last year many chose to stay on, but it has been decided that the colony should be destroyed."
An expression of dismay crossed Noin's face. "I... understand. It is a good thing. But how will I find my friends now?"
A cheerful shout startled her, and she swung round.
"Perhaps they will find you," said Zechs. He raised his hand in greeting to the bearlike Danish man and the wiry boy who were waving enthusiastically from the deck of a ship.
"Thank you, Zechs," Noin whispered to him, and then ran to meet Jorn and Kev at the berth, all three faces flushed with the joy of reunion.
"Why will no-one tell me what happened?"
Relena paused by the flowers she had been arranging, unsure of what to say. It was not the first time he had asked questions, but Relena had no answers for him. A year before, Altron's appearance in Beijing - bearing a blood-soaked body in its hand - had been well documented, but what became of Chang Wufei afterwards was a mystery. There were rumours that the Colonel was alive somewhere, but it was far more likely that he had been dead on arrival, his body swiftly disposed of by the Chinese doctors. Relena didn't want to tell Heero this.
"Will I ever be discharged?"
"Of course, Heero!" He seemed so young and fragile in his teenage body, and looking at him was like seeing a snapshot of the past. Of history. "In time..."
Heero was still too weak to be let out of hospital, that much was clear. Relena felt some small measure of guilt at indirectly refusing his requests to be discharged, but it was in his best interests. All the doctors agreed with her; he simply wasn't ready. Lately Duo Maxwell had pointed out - with rather strained politeness - that Heero was visibly wilting when he should be recovering. That thirteen months of confinement in even the most comfortable of wards was beginning to take its toll on his spirit.
Relena had tried reasoning with him. "If it were simply my opinion, Duo... but the doctors - "
"The doctors don't know sh- anything."
"Can we speak of this tomorrow, please, Duo? I have to go officially open a new building."
"What, a shopping mall?"
"An orphanage!"
Duo had relented then, showing some remorse for his sarcasm by tugging at his chestnut forelocks.
Recalling that scene, Relena shook her head and gave the flowers a final tweak. After all the trauma and his latent drinking habit, Duo belonged in a hospital almost as much as Heero did. Yet he had rebounded with all his old vivacity, eager to seek out his old friends and old haunts. It was amazing. Annoying. "I shall see you next week, Heero. Rest well."
Heero watched her leave, a slightly puzzled look on his face. It was difficult to reconcile this older Relena with the girl from his memories. She had grown into a woman physically older than himself, a woman who no longer needed his protection in this time of peace. Perhaps he missed that slightly, the duty of defending someone much weaker; but otherwise peace was a wonderful thing...
If only he weren't boxed within those disinfected walls twenty-four hours a day, guards patrolling the corridor purportedly for his protection.
Twenty minutes later the calm was shattered by an explosion. Heero jerked upright, analysing the situation by reflex. The boom had come from the north of the building, but it must have been relatively minor, or else the building would have collapsed within seconds of the blast. Relena should be out of danger, but -
All thoughts evaporated in a nonplussed moment when the door burst open and a somewhat dishevelled Duo Maxwell appeared, grinning insanely. Bits of plaster clung to his hair, and he tried to get them out, shaking his braid in his hand as if it were a clogged hose. At the sight of Heero's stunned expression, he shrugged. "It's just a little distraction in the laundry room. Come on, I wouldn't blow up anything else in a hospital."
The patient's shoulders spasmed once, but it was to accompany a dry laugh.
"Laugh later, I'm busting you out," said Duo, snatching away the bedclothes. "I'd take the window, but I sure as hell don't trust you with parachutes."
Heero snorted at this, but let Duo take his arm. There would be good days ahead.
They sat together, two invalids breathing in the warm sea air. The sunset was spectacular this evening, casting a warm orange glow on their faces. One of those faces carried the marks of war, but it also bore happiness.
"So many scars." Trowa studied the young man beside him, seeing each and every detail.
"Between the two of us, uncountable," said Quatre. The sea breeze gusted up, playfully spraying them with saltwater. Though his face was smooth, Trowa's battered body had healed incompletely. A year had passed since his emergence from the suspension tank, gashes still bleeding a clear tissue fluid. "But perhaps our hearts are whole."
The dunes of the beach recalled the desert, and Quatre found himself thinking of the day he had rescued Dorothy Wescott - no, Dorothy Catalonia - from the burning sun. There had been contempt and bitterness then. Not so when she had helped pluck him from the straps of Wing Zero, then embraced him with incredible tenderness.
Tenderness. And... with something more? The words had been unspoken, but Quatre understood the language of silence.
Later that year Relena had nominated Dorothy for a place on the temporary Governing Council, and Dorothy had accepted, perhaps more to her own surprise than anyone else's. Quatre encountered her at one conference, in mid-debate with another council member, her black mourning suit starkly contrasting with the bright colours worn by the assembled dignitaries.
"My condolences," Quatre said gravely. Leroy Wescott had died in prison while awaiting trial for the attempted murder of his wife, brutalised by another inmate. The whole affair had been completely unexpected and very ugly.
Dorothy acknowledged this with a nod, the cameras flashing in the background. To the press, this was a meeting between two important figures in the War of Liberation, between the Head of Saltern-Barchan Medical Technologies and a member of the Governing Council. But the cameras did not record the wistfulness in Dorothy's eyes.
When the reporters had milled away to capture other pictures, Dorothy made to speak, and Quatre was afraid that she would say things she would regret later. Instead, her words were surprising. "Thank Trowa Barton for me, Mr Winner."
Quatre's clear blue eyes widened with inquiry.
Dorothy now smiled, a genuine smile that was free of self-pity. "Thank him for saving the Gentle Quatre of old. The Leader of the Desert Corps earned my respect, but it is Gentle Quatre who deserves love." She stepped in, kissing his cheek with sisterly affection. "Be happy, Quatre." And she turned and walked away.
In the present, Quatre touched his cheek, a salute to her. She deserved happiness too, and with her strength of hope, she would surely find it in this new age.
"Cathrine will chase us inside soon," said Trowa, as the breeze turned cooler. Then he laughed suddenly. "And for the time being I can't outrun her."
Even saying these ordinary words, the quiet voice was beautiful. And the beach was brilliantly beautiful, as was the entire world. Everything... Quatre took it all in, gazing with renewed wonder at all around him.
A long moment passed, and the golden sky melted into dark violet. "Are you committing me to memory, Quatre?"
"No. I already know you by heart."
It was always cold. To the rhythm of an artificial heart, he moved in and out of consciousness, now and then feeling the presence of others in the room with him. At times the presences he felt were very strong, and even with his eyes closed, he could tell them apart. Sally appeared most often - she would put her hand to the glass and he would feel a fraction of her warmth conduct through the numbing gel. On the last occasion he had half-opened his eyes, longing to see the sun glint on her golden hair. Instead there was only monochrome, currents in the blue fluid distorting Sally's figure.
Mariemaia had visited but once. But she had spoken to him, her voice strangely resonant. "I'm sorry - " she said, before retreating from the suspension tank. As she stepped back she looked to another person in the room for approval. A woman with long dark hair loose about her shoulders.
Sorry -
He had been prepared to die as the embodiment of Evil. He had been prepared for Duo to kill him and thus rid the world of a menace. But then Nataku had descended from the heavens. Nataku had forgiven him, and judged him fit to survive. Chang Wufei had been spared yet again.
Something moved at the periphery of his vision, a tall, all-too-familiar figure.
"Are you ready?" asked the newcomer.
They were in a sunlit clearing surrounded by pines. Dark green, rich black-brown. The colours were startlingly vivid. Wufei half-smiled, unconcerned how the OZ commander had invaded his consciousness. It did not matter.
"I no longer have a reason to fight you, Treize Khushrenada."
"A reason?" The steel of the rapier's blade glimmered. Or was it the glimmer off the crest of a Gundam? "Perhaps... to conclude what we left unfinished. To determine where victory and defeat lie, without anything to hold us back."
Ah, sweet symmetry. Wufei's curved sabre was embedded in the moist earth, hilt towards him. Would it end as it began? He wanted to end it here. He pulled the sword out, hefting its reassuring weight. Yet as the light hit the metal he was aware that he wanted other things now, things that lay beyond this fantasy kingdom of Treize's.
"I want to leave my glass prison and see what they have built from the ruins of the regime. I want to see what their peace is; I want to walk amongst the people of the world, not herd them. I want to return to the land of my ancestors and seek out my future..." An enormous weight was lifting from his shoulders, releasing the burden of the self-questioning and the even heavier burden of the answers. The freedom to have wants was new and sweet.
I want to ask Heero and Trowa and Quatre and Duo to remember me for what I was before; maybe for what I will become.
I want to ask Sally to wait for me.
And I want to face Mariemaia and tell her that I, too, am sorry -
With every word Treize receded into the distance, or was he drawing closer? The blue of his uniform expanded, filling Wufei's universe. Filling the narrow cylinder that was the suspension tank.
"Thank you, Treize, for offering me the honour. For the temptation of fighting for the sake of the fight alone. But my answer - my refusal - must disappoint you."
A pause, then Treize's quiet laughter travelled to him from a distance. "No - it was magnificent, Wufei."
Thus was the ending. And Chang Wufei slept, waiting for the beginning.