Our War
by Starrify
It is exactly a decade after the end of the Second Bloody Valentine War.
You are twenty-seven years, nine months, and two weeks old. You have spent the past thirteen years as the Queen and Head Representative of your nation. You have given away your youth; you have given everything to the country you inherited from your father.
And somehow everything is not truly all-encompassing until your life is part of it.
It is exactly a decade after the end of the Second Bloody Valentine War. The peace treaties should still be intact, but rogue factions have begun to appear in different regions of Earth Alliance territories and the violence can no longer be ignored. The news of blood spilling on lands which haven't completely recovered from the previous wars reach the screens in your country and you try to remain calm as the rest of the parliament panics.
You don't know how to answer the question they are all thinking: what would happen if Orb is targeted next?
It will not be targeted next, you reply smoothly during one of the cabinet meetings. You keep your composed façade, but in reality you are just as scared as them—if not, then you are more terrified than them because you've seen with your own eyes how truly gruesome war is. You've had your fair share of deaths by your hand. You know how the nightmares don't stop and there is nothing to do about them but try to move on. Orb will not be targeted as long as we maintain our neutral position.
Except, Orb is now becoming a battlefield once more and your heart is panicking and you say a prayer on your lips, mouthing sorrysorrysorry in front of the picture of your father. You had promised on his empty grave that you would never let Orb burn once more—but now it is you who leads it to devastation.
It took six years to restore the mass driver of Kaguya and another three years to rebuild Heliopolis. And now you have made the decision to stop the enemy from reaching space and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. It is your responsibility, after all, to protect those people—that is what you swore when you first stepped into power.
We have our responsibilities and you have yours!
The evacuations should be complete by now. The civilians are on ships headed to the Oceania Union and the soldiers are fighting to make sure the Orb citizens reach safety. And you are here, ten years after the end of the Second Bloody Valentine War, regretting the one decision you made that will now cost you your life.
Let an empty island burn or thousands of civilians die?
You look at the timer at the side of the screen. It reads T minus six minutes. You have six minutes left and know better than to waste it dawdling around. And so, you open up a communication line and at the other end is the only person you can face without feeling guilty.
"Athrun."
"Hold on," he replies and spends twenty long and excruciating seconds tinkering with his keyboard, most probably, and then he's finally able to see your face on the small screen in his cockpit. "Cagalli, this is terrible. I never thought I'd have to fight like this again—in Kaguya again, of all places."
You decide not to talk about the tragedy of your father's death and instead focus your attention on him. He has removed his helmet and you can see that being blessed with genes, he has aged well. There are no thin lines on his face, unlike your own. Around his jaw are faint marks of stubble, which you know are there because he didn't have the time to shave these past few days. His eyes are still as bright as the stars who acted as witnesses to your promise to one another all those years ago. You can literally spend the rest of your life thinking about how he is beautiful, but you will not do that.
"You haven't exited your mobile suit."
"Yeah, it's rough out there and Miriallia's on the CIC, she told me to stay put in here until we're in space."
"I see."
You find it in yourself to smile and he returns the gesture from more than a thousand miles away. It is funny, you decide, how he is talking to you as if there hasn't been a gap between you for years.
"You're on Murakumo, aren't you? Well, you should be as it was the first to depart from Orb. I'm not sure how the Kusanagi II is holding up right now, but my suit is shaking from the outside." He keeps talking and every word he says breaks your heart. "Is that the bridge of Murakumo? Wait…"
Finally, your tears begin to spill.
"I'm in Orb."
"Cagalli!"
"I promised to my father that I would not let this country burn again," you tell him while you try not to tremble, to remain resolute. "The only thing that could trigger the self-destruct of the mass driver is my genetic code. There's only one other person in the universe with almost the same genes as me and you need him to end the war."
"Kira," he states. Why isn't he crying? Your heart wonders this, why is he not as hurt as you? He shakes his head, obviously in denial. "How—how can you think that you're not important? Why are you doing this?"
"I have my responsibilities."
And you have yours.
"Didn't we agree that we wouldn't let each other bear the burden of the world?"
His rage is no longer contained.
"This isn't the burden of the world, Athrun."
It is my own.
You bite on your lower lip. He would not understand—or would he? Being estranged from him for the past few years is not helping you right now. Do you know him? Does he know you?
T minus two minutes.
"Please don't do this." With his jaw locked, his back straight, his fists clenched, his eyes gleaming with anger, one would be scared of the coordinator who fought in the two previous wars—but not you. This is the man you loved—you love, and it is not him you fear but the thought of your feelings for him changing your mind which frightens you. "Please, Cagalli; don't be a hypocrite. To live is to fight, isn't it? The hardest battle is to keep on living!"
"That's my line," you say nonchalantly. Not so deep inside, your heart is still breaking. "You and Kira have survived much more dangerous scenarios. Why shouldn't I have part of your fun?"
"Now's not the time to be joking!"
"Isn't it, now?"
T minus one minute.
"Tell me you love me."
"Cagalli..."
"Now's not the time to be joking, isn't it?"
His tears begin to fall and the gravity in his suit makes them gather into bigger globules and float slowly. It reminds you of your own tears from the end of the First Bloody Valentine War, after you cried as you convinced him to not give up his own life.
Oh. You realize as he is correct. I am a hypocrite.
T minus thirty seconds.
"I'm not sorry I chose Orb over you," you tell him honestly. "Because my choice let you have a good life, didn't it? I never could have married you, given you a family—"
"Stop that. It doesn't matter anymore."
"Of course not." You laugh bitterly—you have kept this all, your true feelings for him, to yourself for years. It is your last chance to let them out, to open Pandora's box and leave him in ruins as he left you. "After all, I'm going to die in a few seconds."
"Damn it, Cagalli—"
"Remember this, Athrun: even in the end, I chose Orb over you."
You close your eyes, waiting for the fire that will consume you as it consumed your father years ago. Your hand reaches out in front of you and you cut off the communication line. Surely he is now in space, desperately typing into his keyboard to reconnect with you—but in which sense? It doesn't matter now. The power surges and the lights flicker off; all the energy is now focused on the self-destruction of the mass driver.
And you don't know why you said the things you did. With those last words, you want him to hate you and love you; you want him to know how you felt in the past ten years—how you feel right now just before your world ends.
Your tears are not because of your impending, inevitable doom.
Instead you are crying because it is exactly a decade after the end of the Second Bloody Valentine War, and even in the end, he could not tell you that he loves you.
T minus zero seconds.
Notes: Okay, well. I should be updating Heavy Lies The Crown and Flowers For A Ghost but I was in the mood for some angst. I'm aware that there are other ways to get DNA, but let's just say that it really has to be Cagalli as a physical key. Also technological improvements in that decade leading to whatever whatever. I don't need to explain myself, do I? Because I don't know how to explain anything in this fic and the point is I need something angst-y, damn it! I wrote this in half an hour so it's not the most quality work, but angstangstangst!
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam SEED and its characters. The title is taken from Neon Trees' song which served as the looping track as I wrote this.