Disclaimer: Gundam Seed/ Destiny and this story (by J.M.) don't belong to me. They all belonged to someone else. This is just an abridged story. The same disclaimer goes for the up-coming chapters until the story ends.

Summary: (for better overview of the story)

Yzak: He was a good Zaft Force Agent gone bad. That was the story he lives for 2 years now as an undercover to topple down a crime family. 2 years without contact with his love ones, his job as the personal bodyguard of the crime lord is rubbing on him. His line between good and evil is getting blurry. Can he find his way back to the little light he still has?

Shiho: She was a private detective hired to retrieve a national art from that same family. She took this job to free her mind from the pressures that her mother is giving her and her past relationship. Can she overcome this pressure?

Both undercover, will their secrets be revealed? Can they work together to get their specific jobs done? Will this path lead to love? AU YxS


Note: In this story, Ezalia Joule is a single mother. Her husband died long time ago together with the parents of Dearka, Cagalli, Kira and Lacus. She took care of the four, together with her only beloved son, Yzak. Her newly adopted son is Rusty Mckenzie. Ezalia didn't change any of their real names here.


Prologue: Warning


Amazing what kind of dull, dreary errands a sixteen-year old boy with a new license would run with his foster mother, so long as the opportunity to drive was involved.

Ezalia Joule grinned, taking good care to keep her amusement out of sight behind the muscular shoulders of her newly adopted son, Rusty Mckenzie. Already they'd been to the cleaner's, post office, and now the grocery store without a single complaint about boredom or getting up early on a summer vacation morning.

A young man's appetite didn't change, she noted, following Rusty as he pushed the shopping cart across the parking lot to her car. He'd already dug into the sacks and opened a box of cream-filled cupcakes. The first one had disappeared in two bites and now he was working on his second.

"Let's put the sacks in the back, Rusty." Ezalia opened her purse and fished out her key ring to unlock the doors for him. But he already had his shiny new keys – a spare set copied and given to him by his sister, Cagalli – in hand and had pushed the unlock button. She halted a step as he lifted the hatchback and started unloading the cart. He paused just long enough to pop the last of the cupcake into his mouth. Ezalia grinned. "I think we'd better go home and get some lunch before all these groceries disappear into that bottomless pit you call a stomach."

Rusty made a choking sound and spun around, apparently downing that last bite without chewing first. A stricken look dulled those soulful eyes that were going to make women weak in the knees as he matured. "Sorry Mom. I was hungry."

Mom. Was there any sweeter word coming from a boy like him? Glad he could trust. He'd already outlived his abusive birth father, and his birth mother had lost her battle with drugs, long before he'd joined a gang and eventually reformed himself. Ezalia's smile became forced as she watched him diligently unload the groceries and push the shopping cart toward the cart corral. He'd seen far too much of life for a boy his age.

A dark figure hurtled between two parked cars and slammed Ezalia into the side of the car. When she felt the tug at the end of her arm, she screamed.

"Shut up, lady!"

The assailant shoved her down to the pavement and snatched her purse from her pain-shocked grip. Then he was off, running into the glare of the midday sun, keeping her from making any sort of identification.

"Help! He's stealing my purse!" her children, Yzak, Dearka, Kira and Lacus, who were law enforcers had told her to make a lot of noise if she was ever attacked by an unarmed assailant – draw attention to the creep. Her knees and palms burned from where they'd scraped the pavement, and her fifty-year old joints throbbed from the jarring impact of steel and concrete. But her mouth and her brain and her temper worked just fine. "Stop that man! Help me! Somebody help!"

"Mom!"

Ezalia crawled to the edge of the parking stall and saw Rusty hurl his stocky, compact body against the taller, lankier attacker, who clutched her straw bag in his fist. The two hit the concrete with a frightening thud.

"Rusty!"

A kaleidoscope of images bombarded her senses. Black gloves. A stocking cap. The crack of a fist against a jaw, a spew of foul curses.

Urgent hands reaching down to help Ezalia stand. A kind voice, "Ma'am? Are you all right?"

The space-age tones of a cell phone being dialed. "I'll call for help."

Squealing tires and the stinging odor of burned rubber as a dingy white pickup truck skidded around the corner and screeched to a halt beside the two men rolling on the ground. Rusty had the purse-snatcher in one of those neck-holds he'd learned on the wrestling team. He pulled him to his feet. He had the upper hand. He was reaching for her purse.

"No!" Fear churned in Ezalia's stomach. Her bravado evaporated in an instant as the driver of the pickup threw open his door and ran around the hood of the truck. He, too, wore gloves and a stocking mask. "Rusty!"

But her warning came too late. The second man punches Rusty in the kidney. Ezalia flinched at the vicious power of the blow that arched Rusty's back and freed his hold. The man with the purse spun around and slammed his fist into Rusty's mouth.

"Stop them!" Ezalia clenched her fingers convulsively around the forearm of the good Samaritan who stopped to help her. "Take the damn purse! Don't hurt him!"

Rusty sank to his knees. The man who'd taken her bag raised his hand to strike again, but the driver of the truck snatched him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him to the truck. He shoved him inside, scrambled behind the wheel and took off at interstate speed across the parking lot.

"Looky here, Mom!" the man with her purse stuck his head out the window, shouting a vile taunt through his mask. He ripped open her wallet, sending a handful of bills fluttering to the pavement. He waved the plastic sheath that held her precious family photographs, tore one of them in two, crumpled it in his fist and tossed the memories beneath the wheels of the speeding truck. As they careened around the corner onto the street, he pointed a finger at Ezalia and Rusty – her brave, young adopted son had climbed into his feet. "Watch your back next time Joule!"

The driver gunned the engine and quickly lost the truck in traffic. One kind citizen tried to gather the shredded pictures and money before the wind carried them off, while the man with the cell phone hurried to Rusty's side.

Rusty nodded at something he said, then brushed off the man's hand and jogged back to the car. "Mom?"

"Oh, Rusty." She didn't care if they had an audience. She didn't care how cool a teenager needed to be. Ezalia hugged the boy, hugged him tight. "Are you hurt?"

His arms squeezed briefly around her shoulders before he pulled away. "I didn't get your purse back."

A frown marred his handsome face. Blood ran from his split bottom lip. He inhaled short, hissing breaths as if the action pained him. Ezalia pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and pressed it against his wound. He flinched at the pain, but she ordered him to hold still as she tended him.

"You did an incredibly brave thing. Your brothers and sisters will be so proud of you. I'm proud of you." She reached into the back of the car and dug out a bag of frozen peas to hold against his lip.

He grinned but it disappeared beneath a serious frown. "Something isn't right about what just happened."

"You mean stealing a woman's purse in the middle of the day in a busy parking lot?" She'd never believed that petty criminals were terribly bright.

The sound of sirens in the distance alerted her to approaching help. The man with the phone had rejoined them. "I got the license number of the truck and reported it to the dispatcher. I'll tell these officers, too, when they get here." he said.

"Thank you." Martius City was a growing metropolis, but it still maintained that small-town neighborhood feeling it had enjoyed. She turned to the young mother who had stopped to help as well. "Thank you all."

"Mom." Rusty said the word and demanded she listen. "I know what it is. Those guys called us. Joule."

"I heard Joule, too. And why would he throw away money but keep pictures?" Now she was thinking what he was thinking.

This was something a little more complicated and a lot more personal than a routine purse snatching. It seems more personal. And her instinct hates it, full of worry. Yzak.

She turned to the man with the phone. "May I?"

He handed her the phone and she punched in a number she knew by heart – that of the office of the police captain of the Fourth Precinct of Martius City Police Department. She kept her gaze riveted on the wise eyes of her foster son. "I'm calling your uncle, Andrew Waltfeld, and reporting this." She brushed a lock of his hair away from the corner of his bruised mouth. "And then we're going to the hospital."