Title: Big Brother Complex

12/20/00

Author: Scheherazade

Category: Noin POV piece

Pairings: none

Warnings: none

Feedback: YES yes!!! Pleeeese

Notes: Well, this is the first of a (unrelated) sieries of POV pieces I’ve been working on. It’s to explain the relationship between Zechs and Noin, like why she acts the way she does in the series, and without pairing them off… does that make sense? I hope to get one for each of the women of GW, because they get so overlooked! Next up…Midii Une… as soon as I type it up… I so lazy… but if you give me feedback, it will speed up the process!

Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and its characters belongs to Bandai, Sunrise

and Sotsu Agency and are only being used for non profit entertainment

purposes.

I’ve never really told anyone before, but I had a brother once. He was older than me by, oh, about a year-and-a-half and he was about a foot taller than me. He had lighter hair than I do and it was always scraggly long because he never wanted to cut it. He’d let it grow until mom practically forced him into the barber chair. He was really smart; he was at the top of his class when he -…

He would always watch out for me. When some of the other kids were mean to me he’d comfort me and scare them away; he’d never fight unless absolutely necessary. But when it was necessary he could pound any playground bully into the ground faster than… I dunno, anything. When I was eight or so, he taught me how to fist fight. We lived in a rough neighborhood, so it was necessary for survival, I guess. I was rather smart in school, but never as good as him. I knew I could study forever, except I could never even come close to what he was. Did I mention he was also the captain of the football team when he was twelve?

After… he died, I did nothing but study. I aced all my courses in an effort to be like he was. I poured all my time and energy into being what he could have been when he grew up. He will never grow up now. I wouldn’t rest until I had better marks than everyone in my school, and then my district. I had to always be in first place.

Another thing about our neighborhood, it was dirt poor, and so were we. Unless I got a full scholarship for college, I couldn’t go. That’s why I joined the military. I would be educated at the college level in exchange for my military service. Plus, it was competitive enough for someone like me.

The first day of academy training; all the girls were sent over to one sergeant for a physical aptitude test while all of the boys were taken off with the other sergeant. I, of course, beat the other girls hands down in the 40 meter sprint, the endurance test, pull-ups, free weights, and sit-ups. In the pool I not only got my ten laps done before everyone else but they were perfect. Backstroke: knees unbent, legs straight, hands cupped, nose pointing right up at the ceiling. Breaststroke: legs moving at the same time as arms spreading the water ahead, face fully submerged while gliding. Sidestroke: top leg kicks out, bottom leg kicks back, arms reaching together to touch during the kick and moving apart to glide. I can do it on my left or right side equally well. Front crawl: my best stroke, legs straight, kicking evenly, hands cupped, watching one arm; bring your head up for breath on every other stroke.

After the pool, we were taken to a big gym by the sergeant. The male cadets were there also. They split us into male/female pairs alphabetically. The sergeants told us that it was a school custom to let the cadets compete to see who would be in charge of what campus chores. Basically we were to do push-ups until we collapsed; whoever hung on the longest would get the least chores and the first one to drop out would have to clean latrines or something equally nasty. That got my adrenaline pumping- direct competition was always my best suit.

When the names were called my name ended up opposite the name "Merquise." Merquise turned out to be a blonde kid with a silver mask covering most of his head and face. His hair was long, as if it had gone uncut for a while- like my brother’s used to… We were put in pairs to make sure we didn’t cheat, not that I’d need to.

I started off slow, to pace myself. Merquise did the same. I knew I could go for longer than any of the girls, which would be no problem. I was not, however, counting on Merquise being my competition. But, when I got to about 150, I found that he and I were the only two cadets left going.

At around 230, I chanced to look up at him. He was positioned directly across from me and I noticed that he was keeping the same pace as me. This infuriated me and I became determined to beat him. At 273 exactly I was rather frustrated that Merquise could not concede defeat. I whipped my head up in mid push-up, just as he tilted his head to look up at me. The light, or lack thereof, on his mask let me see through the glass that covered his eyes. They were sky blue. So were my brother’s.

I just stopped doing the push-ups. He stopped after one more. 273 to 274, I’ve always been good about remembering numbers, and Merquise has always teased me about it, it’s like an inside joke that I count everything… from pieces of food to days of the calendar. Afterwards, I asked him what his first name was, he said it was Zechs. I nearly fainted. You see, my brother’s name was Zach, it was so close, and the same eyes and the uncut hair. Zechs and I were close throughout the academy. I never could bring myself to beat him, although I honestly don’t know if I truly could sometimes. On tests, I would sometimes make one small mistake, so I wouldn’t ace it or anything. I developed a system so my overall average would be just shy of perfect, sometimes I had to make adjustments if Zechs actually made a mistake.

When we entered into the military, we were both promoted rapidly because of our scores. the closeness of death frightened me. Not for my sake, but for Zechs. I couldn’t bear to lose my big brother again. That’s why I jumped at the chance to become an instructor. I know it was weak of me, maybe I am weak.

Later, when he was on leave, Zechs visited me at the Lake Victoria base. I’d spent the previous few years going on and on about my family, but he never said anything about his. He told me then about his kingdom and that his true name was Milliard Peacecraft. Lastly, he told me about his young sister. He said that he needed to protect her. He could sound a heck of a lot like my brother sometimes, ‘cause my brother always wanted to protect me. So I decided to protect Relena for Zechs. I guess it was me protecting myself, in a way.

Humm… very interesting, right? Yeah, I guess I’m just a real headcase with a big brother complex. But, hey, it worked for me. Do you know what? I’m glad that Une forced us Preventers to have regular counseling sessions. It really makes my feel better, and at least I’m not the one shelling out 85 credits an hour for it.