This is, of course, an Athrun X Cagalli fiction. I absolutely LOVE that couple.

It was very sad how their conflicting ideas during the war tore their relationship apart, and thusly it made it very hard for me to try to figure out the process of getting them back together. I hear some people think he ended up with Meyrin... but I never saw him giving her an engagement ring or smooching her left and right. I do think Meyrin has feelings for him, and I think it's his inability to use his brain that gets him into messes, because he is far too nice to the girls who try to get with him. (meer, for example...)

Anyways. Forgive me for typos, spelling mistakes, etc... I am usually up fairly late when I get the chance to type, and I don't have a Beta... And it's hard for me to find my own errors. D Hope you enjoy

Read and review. :)

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Distant rumbles of voices reached past the young man's ears as he stood leaning slightly on his left leg, posture fairly patient as he waited for his companion to emerge from the changing room she had disappeared into with armfuls of clothes.

Athrun Zala adjusted the thick sunglasses on his face awkwardly, the only motion he had made to give away the fact that no matter how many times he was dragged into a girls' clothing department, he would always feel out of place.

Two voices slowly grew in volume as their inevitable approach ensued. Athrun could detect that both were female – one younger, shrill with frustration, the other significantly older and chiding.

"-as well pick out ones you prefer! You are going to have to wear them despite your preference for unflattering and bland clothes!"

The younger feminine voice gave out a disgruntled, high-pitched moan. "I still don't see why it's necessary for me to be dolled up like some… some… some pansy milksop woman trying to impress a bunch of moronic men!"

A slightly plump woman Athrun supposed was in her late forties rounded the corner at that moment, holding two floor-length dresses in her hands by their hangers. Her eyes brightened as she spotted the young dark haired man before her, the sharp retort on her lips dying.

"Now here is a sweet young man! Tell me, from a boy's opinion – which do you think would look better on a beautiful girl?" the woman questioned innocently enough as she jabbed the two dresses in his direction.

At that moment, a petite blond figure rounded the corner that had previously separated her from sight, her face contorted into a cringe as she moaned out, "Oh, don't tell me you're torturing some guy who's probably already stuck in here with a-"

The words died in the nineteen-year-old girl's mouth as her widened brown eyes examined the blue-haired young man before her, whose posture was now rigid as a stone, expression hidden behind all too familiar sunglasses.

Athrun found himself face-to-face with Cagalli Yula Athha.

For once, Cagalli found herself speechless as she stared at the man who had dropped out of her life upon the end of the war as if on a hidden cue. A wrenching, tightening feeling in her chest made it suddenly entirely to hard to breathe.

The woman holding the dresses seemed oblivious to the tense interaction, her gaze still swinging between the two dresses in her hands, indecisiveness sprawling across her frown.

"Athrun…."

Though barely whispered, the name reached his ears from Cagalli's slightly parted lips, and one of his hands tightened into a fist as he turned his eyes away from the wavering brown ones peering with shock into his own. How many months had it been since he had last heard that voice call his name?

It seemed almost as if he had forgotten what it sounded like when Cagalli spoke his name with that tremble to it, that wavering of her voice that he knew belonged only to the emotional, vulnerable girl he had once guarded with his own life.

"Athrun!" Cagalli seemed to shake slightly out of her reverie at the beautiful and hauntingly familiar voice that called out just before a slender frame with two pink pigtails appeared a matter of feet behind the man whose name she had called. Meyrin first saw the older woman holding the dresses and smiled politely, until her gaze found the frozen figure in the background.

The two young women stared at each other, blond against red, brown against gray, both with widened eyes that were absent of any sort of loathing or ill intent. Instead, they both seemed to be instantly filled with an eerie sense of heartbreak that left them in a confused pit of broken emotion.

"The blue one. It brings out her eyes."

Cagalli's head snapped back to Athrun as the even, truthful comment left his mouth. She watched as he turned around and strode away, only pausing to nod at Meyrin and giving her a mere moment to catch up with him.

The red-haired girl gave a courteous nod to Cagalli before following after Athrun, reaching out to touch his elbow with one hand before they disappeared together around a corner.

As the woman holding the dresses turned around to hold up the garmet Athrun had wisely chosen, she witnessed a sight that left her stunned, as it was something she had never before beheld.

Cagalli Yula Athha dropped to her knees, gripping the ring finger of her left hand, and began to sob without restraint, tears flowing down pinkened cheeks and falling to the carpet.