Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed nor any of the characters associated with it. There may be a bit of OOCness, but not a lot so it shouldn't really affect anything.

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Chapter One: Losers Never Win

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There were no words to describe how claustrophobic Miriallia sometimes got in the Archangel. It wasn't that she really minded closed in spaces, it was just that after a while the walls really got to her. She turned over so that she was facing the opposite bunk bed. It was the one Fllay used to use. They shared the small room as the two youngest women on the ship. That is, before Fllay left the Archangel. Slowly, she got up, eyeing the plain gray walls reproachfully. Her uniform was strung on Fllay's old bed and she quickly put it on after the cold air met her skin in a subtle shock. "This is home now," she distantly reminded herself. It would be home until the end of the war, whenever that would be. A series of knocks sounded from her metal door, echoing off the metal walls. "One minute," she called, scurrying to the door and unlocking it as she buttoned up the top of her uniform.

There was no need for her to unlock the room because in mere seconds Dearka had opened it and boldly strolled into her room as if he owned the place, "Yeesh," he commented; "If I had to live in here I think that I would get pretty bored and lonely."

She snorted, "Good thing, then, that you don't live here."

He grinned and she glared, "Want to go see the new GUNDAMs", he asked, referring to the Justice and the Freedom. She nodded. The only time that she had actually saw them were in battle, and then barely. She always seemed too busy to go and see them herself. "Aren't they on the Eternal right now?" She questioned. That was their carrier, so she didn't get why they would be on the Archangel.

Shrugging, he turned around, "Yeah, but for now they're on the Archangel. Different stats and stuff is being transferred, so they're here."

"Oh," she followed him down the hall, "So Kira's here?"

Dearka glanced at the trailing girl over his shoulder, "Yeah, he's here. He's one of your friends, right?" He had been learning a lot about Miriallia lately. He knew her likes, her dislikes, her friends, what her family was like, and a bit about her old boyfriend (although that information had been collected from Sai Argyle. He wasn't brave enough to ask her about the guy himself). He figured that it would come in handy when the war was over. He kind of wanted to ask her out.

They entered the hanger and she gasped at the new GUNDAMs. They were huge and incredible looking. The updates that had been put on the old ones were amazing and seemed to be more prepared for battle. Normally she wasn't one for looking at the giant weapons, but these astounded her to no end. "Wow," she gasped again.

Dearka smirked, "Pretty nice, huh? I'm planning on getting one of these someday soon."

Miri turned and looked at him, "Why are you planning on going back to ZAFT? The Three Ship Alliance doesn't exactly have the kind of time, power, money, status, or equipment now to make one of the new Mobile Suits."

Dearka grinned a little sheepishly, "I don't mean it like that, Miri. I mean, these are weapons, right? After the war they will still be weapons. I can get one then. When the war is over."

Still, Miri stood looking at him with a semi-glare imprinted on her face, "Whatever you say."

"Hey, I'm telling the truth!"

She smiled and giggled slightly, "I know. I know."

She put a hand to one of the GUNDAMs. The Justice. It seemed to deserve its name with its air of authority. She almost giggled. It was kind of funny thinking of a machine as authorative. But it was, so she didn't question it. She smiled and turned to Dearka to say something. But, in seconds that something was lost and her mind went nearly completely blank. Kira was there. Her friend, Kira, whom she hadn't seen in months. Excitement coursed through her body and would have run to him if it weren't for the teen standing next to him. He seemed older than herself, even though it was obvious that they were the same age. His eyes were old… she thought for a couple of seconds. 'More mature,' she found the correct term, 'He seems more mature than us.' With another look at him the air around her seemed to tighten a strict grip on her. "Who's he," she asked Dearka, glancing rapidly at the Coordinator talking to Kira.

Dearka looked carefully towards where she had glanced, "Athrun Zala… he used to be captain of our squad," he looked back towards Miriallia, "Why?"

She shook her head lightly. She couldn't describe what had just happened in words. "Nothing. Just a feeling, I guess."

He nodded offhandedly, but in reality he was worried. What if she thought it was one of those Love-At-First-Sight things? "Athrun is nothing to get excited about, if that's what you're thinking," Miriallia blushed and shook her head. That hadn't been what she was thinking at all. Dearka didn't notice the shake of her head and went on, "He's just your average Save-The-World I-Love-Naturals punk."

"What's wrong with Naturals?" She asked quietly, her voice quivering slightly from anger, and staring at him out of the corner of her eye.

Realizing what he had said, Dearka smiled unsteadily, "Nothing. It was- I mean- just out of-"

"Spite?" She supplied with furious force, "Anger, racism, habit?"

"Habit," he nodded, grateful for the correct word to describe what he had said, "Definitely habit."

Miriallia nodded in return, but glanced again at the new Coordinator. 'He…he seems…' she shook her head again. 'It's not familiarity that I feel…it's something else.' The two boys were serious, and, judging by their faces, more than likely talking about the war. Nobody ever talked about anything besides the war these days. Again she shook her head. Nothing seemed right anymore. Not since Tolle had died. A jolt swept through her body. Tolle… was dead. Sometimes she forgot. And it hurt to forget because somehow she always remembered. She could not forget her first love…it just wasn't completely possible. He was still there, grinning, in the back of her mind. He stood there with the belief that he was coming back. "I," she looked at Dearka, whom, she discovered, was looking down at her curiously, "I think I feel sick."

"Oh," there was some sort of disappointment in his voice, "Yeah." He regained his usual haughty tone and gave her a stern look, "You should get some rest. You Naturals can't take as much stress as we can." He laughed at her glare, "Okay, so some Naturals can, but not all of them." Her glare increased and he gulped, "Naturals are every bit as good at controlling their stress as Coordinators?" It came out as a question.

She bobbed her head up and down, "Good enough. I'll see you later. I think that I am going to go take a nap." The pain didn't lessen as she walked away. 'Tolle,' she thought desperately, 'Why did you have to die?'

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There were only a few times when Dearka was genuinely surprised. This was one of them. Miri seemed to be getting better, in his opinion. She talked less about Tolle, he thought that she thought less about him, and it all seemed to be going well. Until times like this. Randomly she seemed to lose her cheer and good mood. He didn't know why and he decided he wouldn't question her as to why. Something just seemed to make her good mood die away and the depressing mood that she had been in when he met her returned.

For nearly ten minutes he stood looking at Athrun, wondering what about him had brought back that depressing mood. There was nothing particularly wrong with Athrun, besides the fact, of course, that he was a little bit of a goody-goody do-the-right-thing kind of guy. So what had made her freak out like that? She hadn't even talked to the guy as far as he knew and she said that she had a feeling when she looked at Athrun.

Suddenly, a chill ran through his body. She didn't like him, did she? She hadn't exactly denied it when he had asked her about it. "Dearka," Athrun called, waving him over, "Haven't seen you in a while."

Anger coursed through his veins. How did this guy get so easily onto the Archangel side? It had taken him weeks just to earn a bit of their trust and he did it in less than a week. "Yeah," he replied, walking coolly up to the duo. "I've been kind of busy."

"And you got captured," Kira reminded him, then, noticing the dark look that the teen gave him, held up his hands defensively and said somewhat apologetically, "Not that that's such a bad thing. You are on our side now, right?" He paused and looked towards where Miriallia had disappeared, "You know Miri?"

Both Dearka's and Athrun's heads whipped towards where Miri had disappeared in return. Dearka grinned somewhat cockily, "Yeah, you could say that. She's pretty cool."

Kira nodded, "Yeah, I know. We've been friends for a while… I haven't talked to her since…" The silence that ensued was uncomfortable and unwelcome.

"Yeah," Dearka shook his head apathetically, he knew the story, "It's been hard on her, but she's doing better."

Athrun looked curiously between them, "What happened?" His genuine interest somewhat shocked Dearka. Normally he would have just shrugged it off as something that he wasn't a part.

Sullenly Kira looked away, not quite able to meet either boy's eyes. He knew something that neither of them knew, "Her boyfriend was killed."

"In the war?"

"No," Dearka replied sarcastically, "He decided to make a bomb at home and blew himself up. Of course he died in the war!"

"Oh," Athrun looked away. He knew what it was like to lose someone special in his life. One of his best friends, Nicol Amalfi, had been killed, too. And by his other best friend, Kira, no less…

Kira looked at Athrun. "He was the guy in the Skygrasper that you destroyed." '…when I killed your friend.' The last part was left unsaid.

Athrun's eyes widened and his tone of voice had a surprised ring to it. "Oh."

"Yeah." The silence that ensued was to be expected. Dearka's eyes now widened in surprise. He did know that Miri's boyfriend had been killed; he just hadn't known that it had been Athrun doing the killing.

None of the boys seemed to want to continue the conversation and changed it as abruptly as possible. None of them were ready to face up to all of the woes of war. Dearka looked at Athrun somewhat expectantly. He was a goody-goody so he was more than likely planning on apologizing or something.

Miri stood above him, knife out and ready to kill him. There was a crazed look on her face and fear swept through his body. 'God,' he thought, 'Please, don't let this be the end.' He had thought that she would actually be one of those nice little innocent Natural girls that his friends always bragged about being able to get into bed easily. They had actually met some girls, he supposed, on vacations with their rich families. He now knew that she wasn't one of those nice little innocent Natural girls. She was a demon in a pretty disguise. She didn't seem to care that he was just another human guy stuck in a war. It was almost like she could feel his hatred and gratefully returned it. She brought the knife out and slashed at his head, but only cut his skin lightly. Trying hard to avoid her next swings he backed up to the wall, narrowly avoiding the knife again and wishing that his hands and feet weren't bound. "Die," was the only thing coming from her mouth.

She swung down again, a clear shot to his heart and he didn't have time to move. Luckily, someone's hands quickly had grabbed the knife and held her back…

"I," everyone turned to look at Dearka and he tried to bite down the memory, but it wouldn't fade. He had been so afraid of Miri at that time, "don't think that it would be the best idea if we said anything to Miri about the fact that Athrun had killed her boyfriend."

"Why?" Kira asked, sensing the fact that there was a story behind this strange request. "And I thought that she already knew that he had."

Dearka shook his head. There was no need to tell them anything that they didn't need to know, "No. She knew that the pilot of the Aegis killed her boyfriend, but she didn't know that it was Athrun, per se. Just trust me. Don't tell her. Miri isn't…she isn't as…Just don't tell her."

Athrun's eyes narrowed, but he didn't push for answers. He had the feeling that this was one of those times he should trust Dearka's judgment. "Alright, I won't."

"I won't either," Kira agreed, but both knew that something must be extremely wrong for such a request. "But I'm going to want to know the story behind why someday."

Smirking, Dearka replied, "Someday I might tell you. But that day is not this day, so today, you're just going to have to wait." He looked at Athrun, then at Kira, "Now only one of the original five isn't here."

"What?"

"Yzak. He would make us a team of the original GUNDAM pilots." Dearka paused, "He's becoming stronger. I don't know how we'll fare with him against us, too."

"We'll just have to wait," Athrun told him commandingly. He always was the commanding sort despite his quietness, "He may come around."

"Yeah, right," was the snorted reply, "I somehow doubt that."

Kira grinned, "We'll just have to convince him to come over to our side."

"With what?"

Now Athrun grinned, remembering the old saying, "Milk and cookies." It had been a long time since he had joked around.

Dearka nodded, "With milk and cookies."

A/N: I'm going to try to write drama into this. I don't know how my drama will turn out. I've never actually sunk my teeth into a drama that I want out of this before. It's probably going to end up like one of those blatant failed-at-drama fics that I end up reading a lot now a days. This is actually going to be a lot less of a romance than I had expected it to be. I don't know, it's just turning out more angst-y than romance-y. Oh well, thank you for reading Chapter 1, and please review! Constructive criticism is appreciated.