[Author's Note: The style of this prologue was inspired by the ingenius manner in which Lyda Morehouse balanced the first person perspective in her "Archangel Protocol" series, with a clever switching among various characters to tell the story. Hopefully I've used it without being overly confusing. ^_^;; If not, then don't worry, the rest of the story is in regular third person. | To reiterate: This timeline is an AU to the regular GundamW Universe. Different events resulted in different results. If none of it makes sense, please go back and read Whisper a Dream, Stormfront, and Shades of the Self]

A.C. 217
My name is Lucrezia Noin. I was not made privy to the following events until after they had come to pass, but I am glad that I was trusted by those who were involved -- and although they number among my closest allies and friends, they are still entitled to their secrets. I understand why it was kept secret for so long.
It began with Quatre Winner, but because he is who he is, the issue spread to include the other gundam pilots; even the ones we weren't aware of. There were two others that disappeared from the battle front mere weeks after their arrival. One of them simply "retired" early and holed up in its territory, lost even through the following year's war. The other met Quatre Winner, and he befriended the young woman who piloted the Gundam LunaAria. Or rather, he wanted to befriend her, but he told me she was more concerned with her mission than with friendship.
Her name was Alexa Reaves, and she was dying.
She was another unfortunate puppet of a more sinister power, although unlike Duke Dermail of Romefellar or Dekim Barton, plotter of Operation Meteor, this master of deception would end up having very isolated, but calculated attacks -- and although the battle was brief, it had been building up in silence for fifty years.
His plan did seem to also, eventually, be conquest of Outer Space and the Earth. The gundam pilots and their allies were accustomed to that. But we weren't ready for his choice of weapons.
The girl, Alexa, was a decent pilot with a different exceptional skill; some would say extraordinary; some would scoff from lack of belief. To Quatre, it was a word worth confiding about. He admitted that he told me because he suspected my husband, Zechs Merquise, was akin, if on a different level, to this power -- an advanced intuition that bordered on being psychic. He compared it to the ZERO system, only it was a natural evolution of the human mind. The name given to these people who had begun adapting to the distances between the Earth and Outer Space is Newtype.
Quatre described his own experience with these abilities as a sort of empathy. Unfortunately, because this was a war, above all else he was feeling the pain of those around him -- physical wounds most of all, but at times he could also pick up on their thoughts...usually their final thoughts. He was there the day Alexa died. He told me that he could still feel whispers of that moment, when she chose to turn away from a quiet death in his sympathetic presence, and instead self-detonated her gundam in order to destroy an OZ base full of munition supplies.
I could see it in his eyes. There was no way to deny the truth of the abilities he spoke of. Her memory still lingered with him, whether because of how he cared for her as a friend and ally, or because she was also a Newtype, empathic and exhibiting a proven psychic talent.
It makes me uneasy to think that someone could predict the very date and time of their own death.
Yet, I have caught myself wondering if those abilities could have been used to end the war sooner and avoided the many tragedies that occurred. But this is the very thing Quatre feared, was why he tried to keep it a secret. He didn't want Alexa and other such Newtypes to be turned into weapons of war -- used for war. These people should be given their own choices...and that's exactly what Zechs and Quatre had done. For the others who existed at that time...well, it had been up to each of them.
In A.C. 195, revenge seemed to go hand-in-hand with the days of that era. Alexa had a younger brother, Dimitri, who decided to blame Quatre for his sister's death. He also had a gundam, Shockwave, but it never made it into combat against OZ. He used it solely to battle Quatre and Duo. This was after the foiled ploy to trap the five pilots; zero-two and zero-four simply teamed up and went into hiding until they could strike at OZ again. In that time, they instead had to deal with Dimitri's misguided anger.
Also in that time, Duo briefly went off to Africa on his own and met the seventh pilot, Imena Tribeshope. Shortly afterward, she sealed up her Gundam Ananse and pursued environmental protection activities.
The conflict between Quatre and Dimitri was not resolved by either of them, but by Dimitri's sponsor, a scientist known as Advisor V. He devastated the boys by admitting that there had never been a cure for Alexa's illness. His spiteful announcement came seconds after Dimitri had set his gundam on self-detonation. Quatre was able to get them to a safe distance, and he allowed Dimitri to leave unpursecuted.
No one saw Dimitri for the remainder of the year, although when Quatre met up with him at Preventers headquarters -- Reaves was one of our agents -- he admitted that he had previously been a member of White Fang.
I should correct myself now. Technically, there were four other gundams, but two were included together under the reference of zero-six, because they were sponsored by the same creator. The fourth never made it into official records until A.C. 196, even though it existed in A.C. 195. It was lost amidst the flurry surrounding the Gundam WingZero.
This was the most painful recounting from Quatre, but it is just as important. After his father's death, he hid inside the Winner compound to plan construction of another gundam. He was approached by a young woman who called herself Irina Viane, and she claimed to support any actions that would avenge the colony's betrayal. She lent him the engineers and extra supplies that would help in building WingZero. She was also using those same resources in supplementing her own gundam, Thunderforce. Once WingZero launched, she and her gundam disappeared.
By A.C. 196, her gundam was hidden away but she joined the Preventers, still using the name Irina...and I regret that neither Sally nor I had seen the threat she posed from within the ranks. I have apologized to Quatre and Trowa for not doing a more thorough background check, many times...but they are right when they say I couldn't have known. The history between Dimitri and Irina -- or rather, by her real name, Alexis -- alone was baffling. They both worked for Advisor V, but one did not know of the other.
That is, until Dimitri discovered the truth to Alexis' existance. She was a clone of his sister, sent to sabotage the gundams and, under the guise of a Preventer, frame Dimitri for the attacks. But she was revealed before he was prosecuted. She attempted to take Quatre hostage; Dimitri foiled that, as well, by shooting her gun hand. She fled, and he pursued her. Both of them disappeared from the Preventer's headquarters that day. Trowa placed the MIA report. It was noted, filed, and...was never solved.
Until January of After Colony 216.

A.C. 201
Stephen Triton Winner is a genetically engineered masterpiece.
Quatre was well aware of his family's medical history and the dangers involved in a natural birth: one life might be sacrificed so another could begin. He decided his heir would be test-tube born; and new advances in genetic technology allowed DNA tweaking so the child would have none of the illnesses afflicting its parents, physical and otherwise.
It only bothered Quatre slightly; after all, he had learned often enough that test-tube babies were people in their own right, despite the previous mindset of his youth. His son would be taught the belief in pride that the Maguanacs had shown him.

August 25th, A.C. 201
Wufei and Sally Chang would like to announce the birth of their son, Li, this twenty-third of August, After Colony Two-Zero-One, at nine minutes past five at night, weighing seven pounds, two ounces, with brown eyes and a full head of black hair...

December 27th, A.C. 207
Duo and Hilde Maxwell would like to announce the birth of their daughter, July Marie, this twenty-fifth of December, After Colony Two-Zero-Seven, at twelve-thirty in the morning, weighing five pounds, eight ounces, with blue eyes and no hair (Hilde hopes its indigo)...

A.C. 217
Settling down and starting a family was a natural recourse after the war. Zechs and I decided against it, because our work on the Mars Terraforming Project kept us very busy, and it literally wasn't the type of atmosphere to raise children in. But, we were happy to hear from Sally all the news of her marriage to Wufei, and Duo and Hilde were married as well, and then later she passed on the news that Quatre, although single, brought home a baby boy from the medical center he had funded himself so that parents living in Outer Space could have a safe alternative to natural birth. Stephen Winner's maternal donor asked to remain anonymous, which Quatre respected.
Chang Li was born later that same year, as well as a more distant friend we would all get to know later -- Kalilah Tribeshope, born to Imena and Dovev, on Earth. Six years later, July Maxwell joined the growing extended family of uncles and aunts; Trowa and Catherine Bloom kept in contact with Quatre, Duo, and Wufei, and although everyone's work kept them apart -- except the travelling circus performers, that is -- they remained friends as their children grew older. Li began training as a Preventer agent. Stephen had the option to join as well, but he had other interests in mind -- something he could apply his uncanny talent for mechanics and electronics to. Despite facing criticism against the matter of his birth, Quatre always supported his son's intelligence as perfectly normal for this day and age.
And as for July, well, Duo makes for a very paranoid father, just as Hilde had predicted, although his overt concern for her well-being seems to be nudging her toward a medical career, which suits Hilde just fine.

December, A.C. 215.
It's another quiet Christmas Eve again. Father and I are relaxing in the den. We opened the gifts from the Maxwells after dinner. The thought is always nice even though we don't actually celebrate the holiday. We sent "Season's Greetings" cards to everyone, though. Haven't heard from Uncle Heero yet. It's kind of weird, because he's always prompt. We're hoping he was finally distracted by a nice lady so he wouldn't spend Christmas alone again. Of course...we won't know until he sends a card!
I'm letting my mind wander. I should be more concerned with the file displayed on my laptop computer. I find myself chewing one earpiece of my reading glasses. I don't always need the glasses, but I should stop the nervous habit anyway. Well, I'm not really nervous, per se, but I'm obviously thinking too much here.
The file waits expectantly. {Project Ascend to be completed in two weeks.} I can't help smiling as I set down my glasses. Then I look across the room to the armchair in front of the fireplace. Father has dozed off there, his favorite patchwork blanket over him and our gray tabby cat, Tiger, curled up on his lap. She can't ever resist a warm spot by the fire, and she's been spending a lot of time sleeping on or near Father whenever he's resting.
I glance back at the computer screen, wondering when would be the right time to tell him about my little project; now, or when it's completed. I've been hiding it for over three years and he has never suspected a thing.
Now I find myself staring into the corner of the room -- I feel guilty sometimes of keeping such secrets. But I just...well...all right, I admit it gives me a thrill to be able to work indendently, without having my father or twenty-odd Maguanacs looking over my shoulder every ten minutes to check how I'm doing. I appreciate their help, but for once I liked having a project that was done all on my own. And somehow...I have a distinct feeling Father wouldn't have approved...
But I'd had a stronger feeling that I should build the mobile suit.
It still might not have much use. I made it just because I could. That's how I can explain it to Father...Maybe then it won't upset him. I frown, sad. That's part of why I've continued to hold the secret even with the finish date so close.
Father has had a string of odd health problems over the last three months, nothing the doctors can pinpoint exactly, and he's often weak and tired. A few of my aunts have come in to help manage the business. However, he has seemed a lot better these past two weeks; maybe it's the contagious good will of the season, or maybe he needed a part-time vacation. At least two of my aunts are staying to continue overseeing their particular subdivisions. I hope his recovery lasts, but my looming project causes a dilemma.
I hear the blanket shift and I look up. Father is awake now -- and I abandon my laptop when I hear him whimper. "Father-?" I reach for his shoulders as he begins to slump forward, one hand rising to his chest. "Father!"
"I -- I'm all right. J-Just startled by a dream..." He eases back against the chair, letting his hand slip away. "I'm fine now, really. It...wasn't like the last time." His smile is meant to be reassuring, but his eyes are so weary.
Inside, I'm wracked by concern and fear. Of course things had been too quiet. But why tonight of all nights for trouble to strike again? It's supposed to be a time of peace and goodwill throughout the universe. I frown again. Not that such applies to physical ailments. I leave him for a moment to shut down my computer, folding it and putting it on the coffee table, then I sit down beside his chair, crossing my legs and leaning against the chair. Tiger stretches up into view over the arm. She "prrrts" at me, then jumps down onto my lap. I absently stroke her soft fur as I again wonder about my 'Ascent'.
It wasn't too late to leave it hiding in mothballs for all eternity. I did have the system programmed so only those with the password could activate it, and while my engineers had the current one, I could change it to something no one could begin to guess. I didn't really like the idea of scrapping it altogether -- and I do mean scrapping it, as in breaking it up into several hundred useless pieces.
I still had time to decide.