A/N: Hello! So thank you for opening this story and I hope, by the end, you'd give me a review. Shoutout to those who followed 'Iron Heart' and 'Wounded'—my past username was 'Queen of Orb'— this is my sorry for you guys. I deleted both Gundam fanfics because of its very novice-ish writing. I hope this is just decent enough. I am aware of the countless fragments, I am not sorry. To the typos though, I am sorry (I've no beta).
Summary: "I love you. I'll come back to you."
Disclaimer: I don't own, except the plot.
TO US WHO LIVE ON
By: WeSailShips
He catches her staring at him.
The guilt is damning.
The new friends—the ones he acquired from the second war—teases them both. The placating smile he gives them only flusters her more. Flailing arms meant to threaten their teases away doesn't do so much as make their laughter more deafening. With flushed face—mortified maybe, horrified definitely—she pleads to Please, please stop. It's not like that. You guys, I really need to knock some sense into you!
They laugh. They continue.
They don't see the way his eyes wander off somewhere. Somewhere far away, somewhere long ago that the memory is already blurring at the edges.
They don't hear him sigh that one resigned breath only a handful of people had ever notice.
They don't know why his small smile holds so much in it. Maybe because he'd lost his mother? His father? Yet again, he'd fought his best friend? Lost Lacus Clyne to said friend? Said friend also killed Nicol, the sweet boy with talented fingers and kind smile and brave and strong and who's only ever wanted to protect his home? The red on his hands? His arms, his legs, his whole body thoroughly drenched in so much blood? The faceless men, women and God, children in his dreams—begging for mercy, calling for help, asking where is mommy and daddy and my teddy?
What of the woman he'd sworn he'd go back to? What of her whose will and power far surpasses his own? What of her who beneath the mask of candor and the banner of authority is just another teenager aged beyond her years because of fighting wars that ought to not be hers? Of her who's left to clean the devastating aftermath? Of her who took the responsibility to shoulder the world, the people and their loss and hatred and accusations and maledictions?
Egotistical bastards started the war. Because they are old, and supposedly wise, and well, whose pockets ran as deep as their jealousy and hatred, they decided to play with the devil.
When all is stripped bare, when one looks at the complex tapestry that is their world, really looks at it, they'd see the glaring evidence that started it all.
Curiosity.
Man is naturally curious. Curiosity will lead to questions, questions that eventually lead to answers, answers that are ultimately either right or wrong.
Creating Coordinators was man's answer to one such curiosity. People are divided in deciding if this creation is right or wrong.
Case in point, man's curiosity lead them to the proverbial dividing line in which Naturals reside on one side and Coordinators on the other.
Coordinators are an abomination, the Naturals said in angry bold paint on their boards. God did not create them, kill them! Eradicate them all!
Kill the Naturals! Coordinators respond in screams of terror and hate from space. Kill them before they kill more of us!
Damn it. Goddamn it.
And so he watches these kids, wasted and cursing like sailors, and laughing, and he smiles a tad bit brighter and blinks away the wet in his eyes because though under the influence of alcohol, they are laughing still. Not as joyful as it should be, but laughing nonetheless. God knows they need it. Because they are like him, because they each have their own stories and nightmares and losses, because they're almost as blood-soaked as he is, because the madness of men had robbed them their youth and a lot more precious, they deserve to smile sometimes. The world owes them that. The world owes them so much more.
He thanks the girl in pigtails, for her loyalty and affection—which he'd only known recently—in equal measure. But she stops him, knows what he's about to say after the gratitude and says so. "I understand Athrun," she says with tears in her eyes, smile plastered bashfully in the curve of her lips. "I envy both you and Lady Athha. You're both lucky to have found each other."
He damns himself for her tears, knowing it speaks of her damaged young heart. Because he was taught by his mother about respecting women, because he doesn't like seeing women—or in this case, a girl—cry, and most importantly having been the one to cause them, it adds one more tick line to the thousand other reasons why he doesn't deserve to breathe.
When the girl—Meyrin—closes her heart to the possibility of Athrun ever giving her back just a tiny fraction of affection, her smiles becomes a little less forced, her eyes a little bit older, and everyone pretends that they don't see the resigned way she slightly slumps her shoulders when Lunamaria insisted she keep her hair off pigtails. She's no longer a child, they realize. Someday, one day, a man from somewhere will love her the way she deserves to be loved. She waits. Someday.
While Earth recovers, people grow quiet in contemplation, in hesitation and wariness perhaps of the imminent Peace Treaty. Wondering how long it'll last. Wondering if it's worth their hope. Beginnings had always been promising after all.
They hope anyway. These are lost people, desperate for guidance and order in the absence of a stable government. They hope; it's their nature, it's their flaw.
And just like the chief commander of both the OMNI and ZAFT, they look to the young and expect great things. And really, should Cagalli Yula Athha and Lacus CLyne be surprised? They had it coming.
Only a number of friends see them personally, and even that are few and far in between. Most of the time, they're too busy with all the papers to sign and all the meeting to attend. Sometimes, when Athrun allows himself a tiny bit of selfishness, he wishes the girl with gold eyes hadn't been Orb's darling princess. Likewise, the world couldn't have taken her away.
But no, I can't think like that, shouldn't think like that, that infuriating righteousness in him whispers. He heeds it.
Both Naturals and Coordinators slowly, tentatively open their minds to their respective mistakes.
That yes, Naturals were the ones who made genetically enhanced humans who came to be known as Coordinators in the first place. Yes, jealousy clouded their judgment, hatred made them cruel, and their bitterness was what shoved them and Coordinators apart. And no, it was not right.
That yes, Coordinators with all their intellect and superior logic should've known better and not taunt their counterpart, should've not played with the flame that which sparked the Natural's fire of hatred. And yes, shouldn't have built PLANTS that eerily finalized and practically declared the disunity between both groups. And no, it was not right.
And no, it shouldn't have ended with war. Looking at all the reality laid out in both space and land, ultimately they are all humans. Not some uneducated barbarians. Not some animals. War is ugly—is blood and revenge and chains that will forever bind us to our sins. We don't need war. We shouldn't have to retort to something that deviates to the very meaning of being human—inhumane.
In the end, it all boils down to how priceless freedom really is. It cost them their husbands, their wives, their sons and daughters, their brother, sister, mother or father, or both, their neighbors, their leaders, their beloveds, their babies. It cost them millions of lives. War cost them an insurmountable amount of every currencies, but it cost them goddamn lives.
Every time Athrun gets a glimpse of Cagalli, she always has bags under her eyes. She's beautiful even when she looks about ready to collapse. The burden in his heart lightens to something that is bearable when he sees her, a reminder that she has his beating heart in her hands. That she is the reason why he can carry all his sins in the scars on his body, and live, because it is through living that he can have penance.
On the rare occasions that she catches his glimpse, she smiles—small and sad and lonely, but resilient and real. He finds himself mirroring the same.
Love's not supposed to hurt so very badly.
The world starts to recover. People move on, because what else can they do? They all hope and pray, asking whoever's listening above for 'no more' and 'never again'.
The population grows, the evidence so little but not failing to be noticed.
The new beginning, the recovery, the road to peace is a perilous route, a long winding path with no end in sight. But they persevere, their hope and faith a necessary arsenal. They fall sometimes, but they stand again and dust away the dirt on their already weathered clothes. It can't have been easy, but they learn to smile on the way and open not their hearts yet maybe, but their minds to acceptance and change and unity.
So to them who'd fought for freedom, to them who'd stopped yet again another lone man from destroying billions of lives, to them who'd willingly dipped themselves in the river of blood, the sigh of relief is as deep as could be. They did something right enough if the citizens of the world's recovery and growing unification is any indication. It makes the gravity of their sins a little bit more bearable.
"Hey." Long fingers touch Athrun's shoulder, calloused and familiar and long missed by his skin. Silence is only disturbed by his soft gasp of surprise. Is he embracing her too tight? Is it okay? Is no one watching? It's after midnight, so they should be alright right? Come to think of it, she's holding him just as tight.
In the dark, they hold each other on the couch, trading stories in a soft conversation. Yesterday, Mediator Clyne got pissed at one Coordinator Councilor and it was hilarious how sweet she was scolding the old goat. Kisaka's somewhere in the Middle East, visiting a friend or something. She wants ice cream, sinfully chocolate. He fixed Tori two weeks ago. She can't find her favorite Glock. He hid it. She pouts, frowns, smiles, glowers, laughs, scowls, scowls some more, curses old geezers and their misplaced faith in their money. It's enlivening. She's worth his heartache—every bit of it and more. He's sure she feels the same way with him.
When Cagalli takes off her necklace and gives him the pendant, the pain that's bound to occur is only tethered by the way her eyes angrily glisten. "My country needs me Athrun." The whole world does too, oh how it ever. "Keep it." She closes his hand with that of hers, the ruby ring enclosed under their entwined fingers. She blink, jaw locking as she fight off the tears yet to shed. "A…ask me again. Someday. Okay Athrun?" The tears escape anyway and she clutches a hand around her other arm, so weak in the face of two broken hearts. Athrun is unaware of his own tears, dropping in the stunned lines of his cheeks, down his slack jaw and into the floor. How tragic can their love be? "Ask me…ask me and I will say yes."
The pain is damn near blinding. Theirs is a love too bittersweet to be truly anything but sad.
"I'll keep it." Athrun nods, hands coming up to caress Cagalli's face. She kisses his palm, reaching up to place her hands in the back of his neck. Athrun leans down, sealing the vow with a kiss, all languid passion and fire that coaxes heat, burning them in its wake. "I'll keep it. I love you." They devour each other as though the other's lips are theirs to own, to familiarize like no other else has the right to. "Remember that."
Cagalli trembles in his loose arms, her tears freely flooding now. "God, Athrun. What have I ever done to deserve you?"
He smiles despite his tears. "I could say the same thing about you. I'll wait for you okay?"
"Yeah, 'kay." She stares at him, through him and beyond him, and smiles. "I love you. I'll come back to you."
She leaves. She doesn't look back. She doesn't have to.
Athrun hears of Shinn Asuka from Kira. He's prouder than he'd like to admit. The kid seems to have matured. "Shinn and Lunamaria Hawke are still both in the military," Kira says, "but most of Minerva's crew has resigned. So had your friend Meyrin Hawke, it appears." There's no suspicion in Kira's tone; he knows above all just how deep his twin has carved her name across Athrun's heart. Kira doesn't know the details, but rumor has it that the younger Hawke is down on Earth, studying in some university in Europe. Lunamaria is very proud. She boasts all the time.
Likewise, Athrun talks about their friends on Earth. Mu, Murrue, where they currently are, how they're fairing. Engr. Simmons and Col. Kisaka. His job as Admiral (the title takes quite a while to get used to). Talks about the fish the Desert Tiger caught for Cagalli, finally asks if it's weird that Andrew Waltfeld has this sort of soft spot for Cagalli. "No," Kira denies with this soft nostalgic chuckle. Kira talks about the first war, in the desert, meeting guerilla fighters and the girl they call as 'Goddess of Victory', recognizes her as the blonde he'd saved in Heliopolis, meeting Aisha—Andy's very gorgeous wife, and finally, a girly, all made up Cagalli. And yes, hmm, come to think about it, he kind of remembers Cagalli talking about that—albeit more aggressively. Of course. It was funny.
And sad, when she talked of an extremely beautiful, extremely irritating woman, and an extremely merciless fate.
Kira's voice hitches. His guilt is a bottomless pit in a downward spiral straight towards hell. Athrun makes him stop.
Athrun forgets sometimes, that as unpracticed as Cagalli is nowadays with the gun, she is much more deadly than everyone gives her credit for. It gives him a pause when charging to her rescue inside a conference room somewhere in Ukraine. Engulfed beyond the tepid wash of Cagalli Yula Athha's cool composure lies a fire, incredibly strong and destructive. Cagalli stands tall and bloody, glaring and angry, having saved her own and several others from a radical group many had thought died along with the second war.
Many had attempted killing the more famous war heroes—a small rebellion of sorts. Athrun himself had had a fair share of threats and shots his way. But none have been done in as public as Cagalli's; the conference had been a gathering of leaders, therefore, it was on live international television. It's the first time Blue Cosmos broke its silence.
Cagalli's eyes dull for all to see.
A Natural. The SEED.
Questions scatter like wildfire, scorching the ground with which people had anchored themselves in. The product of the incident causes international turmoil, steadily escalating that even Lacus Clyne's voice of reason does not reach their confusion.
Cagalli Yula Athha's chin rests higher than usual when she tells the world the truth.
Of Ulen Hibiki and his twisted dream. Of a mother's love and sacrifice in Via Hibiki. Of an unbeknownst twin brother in Kira Yamato. Of the goodness and protectiveness of the man she knew as her father growing up. The rest is history.
Kira Yamato is the one most affected by the revelation, even as he had beforehand given his consent to Cagalli baring the secrets about the Hibikis. Knowledge about the Ultimate Coordinator had been undisclosed information. Few knew of the project, even fewer knew that it succeeded. Fewer still knows of what Kira Yamato truly is. Kira Yamato's being the pilot of Freedom has been confidential knowledge inside ZAFT.
People shout at streets about the injustice of it all, the injustice that someone like him exists. Yet again, issues about the last two wars come up. OMNI's first Strike pilot, the Three Ship Alliance's Freedom, and finally, Strike Freedom—all of Kira Yamato's gundams. The mystery of the young nameless Coordinator who stood up against ZAFT's finest Reds in the first war, even taking on Commander Le Creuset himself, comes up. Kira's life becomes the public's topic of choice. They demand to question him, put him in Court and jail him for good. Seemingly for the first time, Lacus Clyne expresses her anger bluntly, protecting her man, her husband the way she knows how—empathy. War heroes try to defend the most heroic of them all, but there's only so much they can do. In the end, it's Cagalli Yula Athha that becomes an impenetrable wall around her brother, a shield so strong, so impossibly thick that no one can touch him.
It infuriates the world.
"How can you be so hard Cagalli?" Athrun asks in the middle of this international debacle, his tone betraying the accusation he's trying so hard to quell. Because she's become so unreachable, so unfeeling to the world she loves, it scared him.
Cagalli looks at him with ire, "Is that what you think?! Well maybe because being hard is the only choice I have. Maybe…" she wavers, tears brimming her eyes as she jab a finger against her chest, "maybe because being this heartless bitch is the only way I can protect my brother! Maybe because I feel so alone in this-in this shithole! And you-" she thrusts the same finger in his chest, "don't you dare preach to me what I should or shouldn't do, because goddamn it Athrun, I am so tired! Nobody fucking cares about how I feel being hated! Not even you."
She walks toward the door, fingers wiping at her wet face, stops just shy of the hallway beyond. "You used to know me better."
Inside the study still, Athrun has his head in both hands, guilty and angry with himself.
Cagalli is called a fraud and many an unpleasant names. Had she been several years younger, she'd have shied away from their uncalled for judgment, but a girl she no longer is. She faces them with all her charisma, the air around her bleeding off authority and power not a single soul dares disrespect. She's all of twenty-five, and the world cowers under her throne.
Trepidation grips Athrun like a vise.
For all of Cagalli's brazenness, there have been a few times when she hid herself behind a cold wall of ice. It implies weakness, her inability to be herself without shedding a tear facing the world. Kira tries to talk her out of it. So does Lacus. Kisaka and Mana. Athrun doesn't. It's her defense mechanism, her go-to place when she needs a shield to protect her battered heart. She won't let these people's words wound her again.
In the confines of her room, in the dark, she nurses a bottle of vodka and if there are wet streaks in her cheeks, she'd blame it on the alcohol. Alone and with no one watching, she silently prays for 'no more' and 'never again'.
Exactly two months after the commotion died down, Cagalli Yula Athha disappears for a full thirty-one hours. Search parties are sent out, the situation kept hush to the public lest it may spur more unwanted panic than it already had. Athrun receives a report from Col. Kisaka of who found her, it stuns him into speechlessness. Later that day, when information of the Chief Representative's arrival in the Athha Manor reach his ears, he all but run out of his office.
Riding behind Shinn Asuka in his bike, Cagalli takes all present aback. Not so much as because the two of them are not in good terms up until then (no one knows of Shinn's abhorrence towards Cagalli except a few friends), but because she's wearing a dress—a simple sundress, but a dress nonetheless. She nods to the young man with blood-red eyes and holds out a hand, "Thank you, Asuka."
"No problem, Athha." Shinn smirks shaking it, throws Athrun a reluctant nod, and is out of the property with a thin line of smoke in his wake.
Much later, she says, smiling a tad bit wistfully, "It always made him smile whenever he sees me wearing something remotely feminine, my father." Security found out that their mistress had just wanted to have a little fun on her own. And incidentally, Commander Asuka had been in the late Lord Uzumi's grave when she got there. "Sorry for worrying you. I just needed to see the world for a minute. To remind myself, y'know?" He does. He regrets not having been with her.
Soon after, she admits that Shinn and she had made peace in her father's grave. Her smile is breathtaking.
The world does love her again, believes in her again. In the safety of his consciousness, Athrun scoffs and thinks of how undeserving they all are of someone like Cagalli Yula Athha. How ungrateful this world truly is to one of the key persons to have freed it of not one, but two wars, how oblivious the world is to the work of them who'd sacrificed a lot, not just Cagalli but a lot more. How easy they judge their liberators. How low.
But then images stir in his mind, a kaleidoscope of pictures and memories. Of a photograph of climbing vines and blooming flowers in an abandoned MS Miriallia shot in Calcutta. Of Reverend Malchio and the laughing children by the shore. Of a grinning Dearka and a glowering Yzak whose unconsciously too close to a ZAFT Red who's face is as pretty as the 'Housenka' she's vastly known as. Of Lacus' voice. Of Kira and Tori and a childhood long gone. Of his mother's soothing smile. Of his father's back. Of friends old and new, dead and alive. Of space and Earth and PLANTS. Of the new world he helped shape. Of new beginnings and hopefully, happy endings, different from that of Lacus' Meer who'd only ever wanted to be known.
Of the woman he loves and how much, how much he wants to create a life, a forever, with her and the family they will someday make.
And because he finally can, finally see and realize that he owes it to them who'd lost their lives for them who live on, he does just that—live on, move on. A voice echoes in his mind, feminine and strong, emotional but commanding, To live is a greater fight!
Athrun does give back the ring eventually. Cagalli says yes after loudly and tearily scolding him for not kneeling. Right. He forgot about that part. He'd been too busy stuttering. He'd never been more nervous all his life. Hopefully, there are no cameras in the mansion's kitchen.
And damn is there no word that can describe this warmth in his chest when Cagalli vigorously nods and simultaneously slap his cheek for making her cry. "Idiot," she adds for good measure.
(Later, Lacus and the world's entire female population will curse him and his lack of finesse, but that he'll worry when his mind's not completely full of Cagalli.)
Not everyone welcomes their engagement—primarily because his name apparently still haunts seldom, not necessarily his per se, but his father's. Athrun works hard to earn Orb's citizens' approval though, because their opinion of him matter, because Cagalli loves them, and they love their princess just as much. The rest of the world, he doesn't give a damn. Talks against not essentially their engagement, but the union of Naturals and Coordinators in general become widespread in both Earth and PLANTS' media. Theirs hadn't been the first marriage between Naturals and Coordinators mind you, but they both own names far too known to escape critic. Inevitably, Athrun and Cagalli mostly are these talks' main focus.
They get married anyway.
In the eve of their wedding, Cagalli whispers of her luck in his shoulder with her lashes fluttering against his skin. "I'm so fortunate, y'know? You're gonna be my husband." She sniffs, adds, "I'm gonna have gorgeous babies." His laugh had never been so rambunctiously loud.
The wedding is small, private, in a quaint church near the sea. Only their friends are invited, the men and women who really know the Athrun and Cagalli beneath the countless medals, the soldier, the leader, underneath the folds that make them both heroes—the man and woman as they are.
Many shed tears, the Groom and Bride more so than everyone else. Vows are exchanged, simple, but deep and heavy. It's amazing how finally, finally, after waiting for so many years, at long last, they belong completely to each other. Their 'someday' has finally come.
It's a year later and he's all of twenty-nine, and he's going to be a father.
Life is wonderful.
Life is beautiful.
the end
A/N: Feedback is beautiful too! :D