Stage I: Household
"Fleetingly, this body—if it's for happiness or if it's for sorrow;
It is something you just can't understand."
The blonde sighed tepidly as her glazed over eyes peered at the documents that were spread over her desk, a trail of paperwork that told stories of tax treaties, pending meetings with local delegations, a failing education system and failing infrastructure, and other mayhem that seemed to have accumulated under her fiancé's control and running of their country. She herself had been appointed Minister to the Ministry of the Interior but it seemed that she was tasked more and more with affairs that went beyond the borders and bled into the world around them. She was quite apt at her job, herself a prodigy daughter by their late leader, but she had been too young to assume charge of the country when her father had passed three years ago. Her now fiancé, the lavender haired Yuma Roma Seiran, had taken over, much to her annoyance that the National Congress had deemed her too young and inexperienced, and his rule had been inconsistent across the board.
Sitting back in her plush chair, Cagalli pushed her feet out from under her and crossed them, her fingers tracing over a lengthy document written by the Minister of Science, Development, and Technology. Reaching to flick on the decorative desk lap, she felt her eye tire at the sight of such dense text that dotted the page and seemed to continue on to infinite proportions. It was the newest and youngest of the Ministries, introduced by her father when she was merely four years old, but it was also the most problematic ones. Plagued with issues since day one, the Ministry of Science, Development, and Technology had been firebombed, graffitied, and egged countless times. Its workers, both scientists and government paper pushers, were under constant harassment and they often relied on the Ministry of the Interior's collaboration to install national police around the building to ensure that the workers were able to work in relative but uneasy peace.
"What is this nonsense?" She muttered to herself as she slumped in her chair and brought the paper closer to her eyes as she blinked owlishly, reading over the bulletin once again. Her amber eyes raked over the details as she ran them through the constant machine that was her brain as she digested the status update from the Ministry of Science and the request for more protection details to escort even more workers that had some minimal status. She knew that the latest technology that the Ministry had approved had been met with immense backlash by both left and right wing factions but she had not realized that it had left most of the Ministry's workers feeling on-edge and anxious. Cagalli knew that this was a problem that was due to boil over at some point and she clicked the mouse on her computer as she opened the spreadsheets that showed the allocation of the police force and what else she could potentially spare in a gesture of good will to her fellow Minister.
Her fingers typed in a few words as she looked at the numbers and she grunted when she realized that the numbers were not adding up correctly and she began to mutter curses under her throat towards her fiancé when she noticed it had been auto signed by him. Her fingers danced over the spattering of paperwork and reached for the phone as she dialled the number to an external line that fell outside the government's range. She drummed her fingertips on the desk impatiently as she hummed in her throat, her eyes roving over the spreadsheets as she tried to justify moving some national police from the embassy district to the central district where most ministry buildings were located. The city's distribution ensured that the residential area was kept residential, the foreign embassies were tucked away in a secure part of the city's hilly terrain, and the government and commercial areas were expansive but walkable. It had been a massive urbanization project that had been renowned in its era but was falling into a state of repair.
"Yes?" The familiar voice picked up and sounded jovial as ever. Cagalli smiled lightly at the sound of her twin brother's voice and she whispered a greeting into the phone, sighing at the momentarily relief of connecting with someone who never pressured her to make snap decisions.
"Kira, are you around the central district?" She queried as she jotted down on a scrap piece of paper to allocate fifty police officers from the smaller neutral embassy grouping and decided it would have to serve for the Ministry of Science, Development, and Technology's needs at the moment. The police force was shrinking due to financial constraints that their nation had never faced before and she knew that Yuna's hand in the government's running was responsible for the horrendous spending habits as well as a growing deficit.
"Erm, I'm a few neighbourhoods away on the Western side, but do you need something?" Kira replied with his own question and Cagalli could hear the concern picking up in his voice. She very rarely called him—he was often the one who called to ensure that his sister was not overworking herself to the bone—and he felt a lump of nervous tension slowly rise in his throat at the thought that something was bothering her on such a fundamental level for her to disturb him. Kira, although a diplomatic individual who had been able to graduate from the technical university and was offered time and time again to join the ranks of the Ministry of Defence, had opted to be a school teacher and was set in his ways of not helping Yuna's government amass even more of a military technology complex than it already had.
"I was just wondering if you had time for dinner later," She said in an even voice as she saved the spreadsheet and closed it before casting her golden stare down on the document once more, jotting a few more notes down to remind her to answer the Minister's request tomorrow. "We haven't seen each other in a while—I know you're busy at the school and with the tech project for the kids." She could nearly feel her brother's smile melt through the telephone at the mention of his project he was pioneering to involve kids in exploring programming robots and he let out a warm chuckle.
"Well, I suppose I could—Lacus is still visiting her family and won't be back until later this week," Kira relented. "I was honestly just going to eat the leftovers of last night's take-out anyway." Cagalli grimaced at her brother's confession to tending to eat poorly when he pink haired wife was visiting her family overseas. Lacus had immigrated to their country when she was fifteen to pursue a career in music but had decided to stay out of love for Cagalli's twin. While her musical stint had been short and fairly successfully, she, too, had pursued the path of education and worked in a school for children that were interested in chasing after music as opposed to the hard sciences. They had been married the year before and Cagalli truly felt a sense of gratitude towards the ex-songstress who had been able to ensure that Kira's bad habits did not get the best of him.
"I wouldn't tell Lacus you've been ordering food in," Cagalli warned dryly with a surly grin. "She wouldn't been impressed."
"You're telling me," Kira agreed with another chuckle. "I'll be out front in a few hours—oh, let's say six-fifteen? Does that work?"
"Perfectly, I'll see you then," Cagalli said into the telephone and let out a chuckle at the mention of not wanting to eat a spicy chilli kebab. She agreed as she hung up the phone, shaking her head at her brother's obvious dislike towards anything that held a bite of spice. They very rarely got to enjoy time together as siblings and as much as Cagalli adored Lacus and her wonderful way of making anyone feel welcomed and treated like royalty, she missed the one-on-one time that she used to have with her brunette twin. Her time now was split between her government duties and her unwillingness to bond with her fiancé that had taken residence in her family's comfortable yet modest house without her permission six months prior.
Her engagement to Yuna Roma Seiran had been unpleasant and unrequited as she had been called before the Congress one dreary and rainy morning. She had just arrived after been shuttled to the Ministry by one of the government cars and she was sopping wet as she stomped into the grand chamber. The Leader of the House had clucked his tongue in disapproval at her disheveled appearance but he silenced himself under her steady glower. Despite her father's legacy and her bloodlines, she was still seen as too green by many of her peers and had been often looked down upon by others who lacked an appreciation for her extensive skill and knowledge in all realms of the political world.
She could recall, always with a shiver down her spine, when her forced engagement had been announced to strengthen the political union between the two factions of the government that caused more problems and headaches given that the Seiran family was staunchly supported by the right and conservative citizen block and her father and herself were backed by the left. The Congress had approved Yuna's request of a political marriage for the sake of national unity and harmony, invoking an outdated law that had not been revoked as it had fallen into the ruins of the older regimes, and Cagalli remembered her refusal before the law was thrust her under nose. As she scanned the documents and found her spirits dropping further and further as she read it over and found little to no escape, she threatened to take the Congress to a judicial hearing but was silenced when one particularly crafty congressman mentioned that by refusing to marry Yuna, she would be further escalating the conflict between the two distinct factions that existed within the nation and her actions would have severe consequences.
When she recounted the events to Kira and Lacus a few days later, her amber eyes dull and uninspired as they stared into the rich blend of tea that Lacus had shoved into her hands, the two others had kept a collective silence as they were unsure as how to react or even console Cagalli. Her brother finally broke the silence as he rose from his chair and wrapped his sister into his arms as she broke down sobbing and shaking horribly, Lacus soon joining them as Cagalli's body wracked and choked against the emotions that she had allowed to dam up before they broke out. The couple had told her that they would try to support her as best as the could in the attempts to find some inkling of hope that would restore her freedom or at least destabilize Yuna's claim, but they had been unsuccessful. Lacus' connections were working extensively to investigate and Kira knew quite a few people that disapproved of the upsetting engagement that were combing through all the legislation from the last few hundred years to try and find some legal loophole.
Cagalli grunted as she moved the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Development's request aside and she reached for another document to parse while waiting for the clock to draw to a quarter past six. A burst of energy ran through her body as she found a renewed motive to finish her work efficiently with the mere thought of being able to see her brother and unwind from the last few weeks within his empathetic company.
"You're late," Cagalli pointed out as she opened the door to her brother's car and slipped inside the warm confines of the vehicle. Kira gave her a sheepish look as he waited for her to fasten her seatbelt over her body before pulling away from the front of the Ministry of the Interior. Guiding the sleek vehicle down a side road, he apologized as he tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, the radio a mere background presence that gave them additional company.
"We were running into some snags trying to make the program adhere to the new protocols released by the Ministry of Science," Kira offered by means of explanation. "We had to undo about four months of work for a competition that we have in three weeks. Three weeks! How's that for lousy timing?" Cagalli nodded stiffly as she rolled her shoulder and reached down to peel off the heels that Yuna had insisted she wear around the presence of government workers. She had protested but he had silenced her and reminded her that the image that they had to project needed to ensure that professionalism wept from their existence—even down to their shoes. Cagalli rebuked that she would not be of much use if her feet were destroyed but Yuna had shut down her protesting with a heavy threat that he would make sure that heels would be the least of her problems lest she wished to engage more with the Congress.
"How could they just rewrite that entire law in two weeks?" Kira asked as he glanced at the blonde who was slumped unhappily in the seat at the mention of the controversial law that had been ratified and updated by the pro-Seiran Congress. "That was something that was around since we were kids and it worked just fine. I know they're worried about the coexistence aspect but I think they're worrying about the wrong interpretation of it."
"I wasn't on that committee and I didn't have any staff on it either," Cagalli muttered as Kira hooked a sharp right and shifted the car into a lower gear as they crested onto a busy avenue. "All I know is that they're getting nervous with so many robots advancing beyond what we thought would be limits that we could control. There are rumbles from other countries that many robots are replacing top professionals in the medical field as well as in the military. I imagine that Yuna's cabinet is worried about them getting too much power here and putting his own little make-believe world in even more jeopardy. He wants to put a ban on them.
"On the other hand, yes, I know it's surprising that the Minister of the Interior was not invited considering it's a domestic issue, or has the potential to be one, anyway," She continued as she picked at a loose flap of skin around her thumb. "Yuna has made it very clear from day one that robots are not supposed to form an integral part of our country's demographics. There have been mass shut-downs of certain groups of robots that were working in things such as military surveillance because he's a paranoid twit who's incapable of looking beyond the tip of his nose. He trusts the old croons that gave him the power to do this as opposed to the experts who actually know what they're talking about."
"Fancy that," Kira remarked dryly at the mention of the lavender haired leader. "Please tell him he's making things more difficult for the rest of us who actually work in that field and try to keep the interest and ideas flowing. The kids have great ideas—really makes me wonder sometimes how we overlook these things as adults." Cagalli snorted once again as she ceased picking at her nails and stared down at her naked and bandaged feet that were covered in blisters and angry red welts from the heels. No matter what she did, she could not get them to heal properly and there was always significant superficial damage littered across her feet.
"Like he'll even listen to me," She murmured in a low voice as they pulled up to a traffic light. Kira shifted the car into neutral as he turned in his seat to gaze at his sister with a baffled look. She was, in her younger days, often compared to a lioness for her bright mane of golden hair as well as her fiery personality that seemed to fill an entire room despite her mere stature. Her confidence since being engaged to the Seiran heir, had diminished to devastating levels and that lioness had lost her mighty roar as it seemed she was only able to mewl from time to time but was seemingly afraid. Kira had never dared to question the relationship that she maintained with the lavender haired leader but he had always guarded a sneaking suspicion that there were terrible things happening behind closed doors that Cagalli refused to speak about. Kira chalked it up to her either being threatened to keep silent or that she had taken an oath of silence to protect him and Lacus from the Seiran's wrath.
"Cagalli, you didn't ask me out to dinner merely to catch up… did you?" She glanced at him with a heated look to her amber eyes that seemed to have lost their vibrant hue and Kira felt his heart beat against his chest at the realization that Cagalli had seen right through his attempt pry information from her.
"Don't be silly Kira," She snapped as she lowered her gaze away from him and looked back down at her swollen feet. "We haven't seen each other in a long time—we're both busy, you know? Why wouldn't I want to see you?" Her lips were drawn into a tense line on her face and he could see that his sister was trying to regulate her emotions as he studied her with a critical eye. Her blazer and blouse covered her upper body and arms significantly and he could not see anything that would hint of any bruising or marring of her alabaster skin. Her legs were encased in smart fitting pants and she was not donning any make-up—as was her style—so Kira's assessment was rendered useless.
"You know you can come stay with Lacus and me if you ever want to get away from the house for a few days," He said cautiously but Cagalli did not even react to his words as she steeled her expression and smiled pleasantly at him with a deft nod of her head. "Even you need to rest, you know."
"Yes, yes, I know," She said with a wave of her hand. "I just don't want to bother you two—plus, it's hard to get the Ministry from your house. The commute is already miserable enough, you know!" She laughed nervously and Kira gave her a tentative smile that did not touch his eyes. He knew that his sister was acting on a defence mechanism—refusing help with what seemed to be a plausible excuse—and that flamed the suspicions that he had been nurturing within his mind with regards to the Seiran and his conduct with his sister. Kira shifted the car back into gear as the light changed and they cruised along until they reached a restaurant that they had been going to for years prior to losing their family. As Cagalli reached for the heels, Kira stopped her as he reached into the backseat of the car and fished out a pair of comfortable flats that Lacus left there and had never bothered to remove. Cagalli flashed him a thankful look as she slipped her feet into the comfortable flats and exited the car.
Kira had dropped her off at their old family home, one that he had abandoned to pursue a life outside the political arena, and he waved her goodbye and forced her to promise to come see them within the following weeks. Cagalli laughed and nodded, thanking her brother for the dinner date as she tossed Lacus' shoes back into the car and closed the door and slung the heels over her shoulder as she buzzed herself through the first gate before slowly plodding across the tastefully manicured garden and lawn that her father had planted lovingly for their mother. Her bare feet relished the cool comfort of the grass between her toes as she ghosted over the garden towards the front door.
As she approached the quaint wrap around veranda, the front door of the house opened quietly as she drew within the last remaining meters. Her expression softened as she saw the familiar face framed with hair of a lovely navy blue colour peer out into the night. The door opened a bit more at the recognition of the resident of the house he was tasked with managing and his full height occupied the doorway as he patiently waited for Cagalli to close the distance. He was dressed in a simple white button up shirt and khaki slacks—a symbol of second class citizens Yuna had imposed upon him—yet his unaging face and bright green eyes watched her with an impartial calmness that seemed unique only to him.
"Hello, Athrun," Cagalli greeted in a whisper to avoid attracting Yuna's attention. "Have you been waiting for me to come back?" Athrun did not answer her as he stepped to the side to allow Cagalli to pass through the doorway to their home. The house was dark except for a night light that was left in the main hall and she assumed that Yuna was either already asleep or had not returned from wherever he may have been. It was not atypical of him to arrive at all hours of the night, many times reeking of booze or cigar smoke, and those were the nights that Cagalli locked her door and slipped her handgun under her pillow. She would never intentionally want to shoot the Seiran heir but she always had zero confidence with him in such an intoxicated state that made her already frazzled nerves go haywire.
"Has Yuna come back?" She whispered erratically as she waited for Athrun to shut the front door. The quiet male shook his head as he slowly closed the front door and locked it. He then rested his hand on the security panel next to the door and activated the alarms and defence system that ran the perimeter of her home. Cagalli watched him silently as Athrun's much taller frame inspected the panel carefully before drawing away from it and moving towards Cagalli. Satisfied that the house was properly secured, he was now able to focus his attention on the house's resident with the golden hair.
"Why did you put the alarm if Yuna isn't back yet?" Cagalli inquired as Athrun drew up next to her protectively and hovered comfortably next to the blonde as though awaiting further instructions. He trained his emerald gaze on her as he considered her question and how to best address it without overstepping his boundaries. With a shrug, he opted to not vocalize his motives as he gently took the blonde by the shoulder and guided her steadily towards the living room where a cup of warm tea was waiting for her. Mindful that her feet were sore and raw, he herded her with the delicacy of a fragile glass doll and she allowed the tall robot to task himself with making sure that she did not damage her feet even more. Cagalli sat down on the sofa quietly as she winced at a nasty blister catching on the carpet, and she hissed through her teeth as the friction of the carpet irritated the inflamed skin.
"Stupid heels," She grumbled as Athrun looked at her indifferently before reaching out and prying the heels from her grasp and vanishing across the hall to deposit them in a closet. It was not the first time he had witnessed Cagalli stalking up to the house in her bare feet—an odd behaviour in general—but he understood when he saw how raw her feet had been left by the shoes. He had programmed into his memory the first day that Cagalli had worn heels and had tottered around awkwardly as she tried to gain her balance in the absurd shoes. Athrun had been standing at the top of staircase waiting for her to go downstairs and he had rushed to catch her when she had snagged her foot on one of the ornate carpets her father had received as a gift. Catching her in his arms and steadying her, Athrun had silently helped her down the stairs as he kept a sharp eye out for his ward.
"I had dinner with Kira," Cagalli said to Athrun absently as he returned to stand behind her passively, his arms folded behind his back as he stood guard over the woman. "He asked about you, you know? He hasn't seen you for a few months. Kira wants to know if you need some sort of tune-up but I told him that he wasn't allowed to program you all willy-nilly." Athrun raised an eyebrow but still refused to say anything as he watched as Cagalli wrapped her hands around the cup of tea and took a thoughtful sip of the brew that he had prepared.
"It's nice not having Yuna breathing down my neck for once, too—he hates when I see Kira," Cagalli mused aloud as she set the tea cup down and propped her sore feet up on the ottoman that was placed in front of the sofa. She sunk into the cushions and tilted her head up so that she was staring into the neutral emerald gaze that was looking down on her with a mechanical gentleness that she had never seen in any other robot she'd had contact with. The robot's face had never aged in the nearly decade and a half that he had formed a part of the household and yet she always felt giddy upon seeing him when she returned home from school, university, or now the Ministry. He would patiently await her return and ensure that his charge was well looked after on the last wishes of the late leader before his passing.
Athrun had been a constant in her life since she could remember given that he was one of the first robots allowed in the country under her father's new policies. He was brought on to ensure that the household was running smoothly as well as served as a defence mechanism to protect the family from any attempts on their lives. Despite her father having a high approval rating, there was always a dark threat lingering in the darkness and he wanted to ensure that the children and his wife were safe when he was unable to be present. Athrun had proved to be a reliable robot who tolerated his young children and his hen-like wife who had roped the robot into helping her with the most absurd of tasks. Athrun had never once expressed any displeasure towards his work and seemed to quite attached to the children as he would swing or playfight with Cagalli or allow Kira to practice programming bizarre software on his mainframe.
There had been moments when Cagalli had sought comfort from the stoic robot and he had obliged, allowing her to curl up with him or he would simply hold her and allow her to discharge her emotions onto him as he tried to best understand how to remedy the situation. He himself was not necessarily programmed how to alleviate the pain that his young charge was feeling but he had observed in passing how their mother would cradle her children and allow them to cry. He would tangle his fingers in her golden locks and stroke her head carefully, the seemingly human interaction an almost taboo for a robot of his calibre. He was simply charged with watching over the household and ensuring their safety: yet Athrun had come to analyze that not all threats were visible and that emotional threats were just, if not, as dangerous as tangible ones.
Athrun's nearly silent presence was of great comfort to Cagalli because over the years that formed a significantly dark period of her life after losing her father, her unwillingness to marry the lavender haired idiot who occupied a space in a household where he was not welcomed, and her position in a government that was not one that represented her family's legacy—with so many changes in a relatively short period of time, she had often locked herself away from the public's eye, and even her brother, and had taken to expressing her disgust with herself and how her life was spiralling out of control without a way of hitting the brakes to step back and look at this objectively. The blue haired robot had been present in each pivotal change and had refused to budge from her side—many times stationing himself outside her bedroom door to ensure that she was not acting irrationally. He had held her many times, the one-child a now fully grown woman, and he had seen the many dimensions of her personality as he distantly watched her develop into the very person that she did not wish to be.
"It's so different now," Cagalli murmured as she took another sip of tea. "I think if Father were still alive, Yuna would have never been able to get away with half the things he has done." She gave a dark chuckle as her dull amber eyes closed in the silence of the living room. Athrun was still unmoving but he was listening to her attentively as he clung to her words and found himself in agreement with such a simple statement that ventured beyond the more obvious nuances of life. He had watched the golden haired girl turned into the golden haired woman and had watched how her passionate spirit had simmered to something that was horribly repressed and locked away: it was not the spirited woman that he had calculated lovingly that she would turn into but rather a shell of what he had predicted she would have become. The robot found himself at odds with such intimate thoughts but he had pushed them to the back of his memory as they were highly inappropriate considering that the co-habitation between humans and robots was skating on thin ice under the rule of the very lavender man that slept down the hall from Cagalli.
"Athrun?" He looked down at her again and found her looking at him with half lidded eyes that were exhausted but still had a flicker of affection for the sturdy robot that had stood by her side for so many years. Cagalli had been tempted to ask if Athrun remained by her side out of a sense of duty and obligation or if it had been of his own free will but she decided that she was quite content with living in ignorance with regards to the answer. Everything that had been taken from her—her father, her mother, her brother's moving away from the family home, Yuna's intrusion, her freedom—of everything that had been taken from her, she feared that the comforting presence of Athrun would also disappear and she knew that she would break under losing such an integral figure in her life: regardless of him not being a breathing human, she had never seen him as anything less but rather a wonderfully complex, thoughtful, and perplexing existence that always seemed to know best when it came to her.
" You're awfully quiet tonight," Cagalli said with another chuckle that was much lighter as a gentle smile touched her face and reached her eyes. "I mean, you're quiet in general, but you're rather quiet tonight." He let his lips flicker into a half smile at her attempt of humour before he shook his head and drew away from her, vanishing down the hall momentarily into the kitchen. Cagalli listened carefully to his movements as he bustled around the kitchen before he returned back to the living room with a plate of her favourite biscuits carefully arranged in a methodical stack on the plate. Cagalli gave him a puzzled look that melted away into another smile that she reserved for him as she patted the sofa and invited him to sit down next to her. Athrun had been scolded by Yuna various times for being physically close to the blonde but Cagalli had rebuked and told him leave Athrun alone given that he was not under Yuna's control and was under zero obligation to listen to him.
Cagalli shifted on the sofa as she moved her legs out of the way to make space for the towering form of Athrun and she nodded as he settled in next to her as they had done millions of times before. He gently set the plate of biscuits onto the table and leaned back into the sofa with Cagalli, imitating her posture as he found a comfortable position. They were content in their comfortable silence, Athrun's green eyes alert in the darkness as his lovely human charge slowly dozed off next to him, her head listing from side to side occasionally as she tried to fight off the gentle tendrils of sleep that crept into her darkening vision.
"Sleep: it's late and you must rise early tomorrow," Athrun finally vocalized, his voice soft and gentle as Cagalli knew it to be since her childhood. Athrun opted to remain silent and give off the air of being unable to communicate with humans but Cagalli knew that he was perfectly enabled to do so and she could recall fondly the first time he had ever spoken to her with words as opposed to his actions. It was mere days after her mother's funeral and she had been locked up in her room and refused to attend to even Kira's pleas of her to eat and to come outside of her room to have some fresh air. Cagalli had ignored him and had bundled herself into the blankets that she had ripped from her mother's bed, wrapping herself up within their comforting embrace as she swaddled herself into them and refused to budge from her bed.
Athrun had managed to sneak into her room with his inhuman grace, unbeknown to Kira who had temporarily surrendered to his sister's stubborn streak and had relegated himself to the kitchen, and he remained at the doorway as he gazed down on the figure that was curled into a tight ball that seemed to repel the outside world from reaching whatever internal storm she was battling. He silently moved across the room and sank onto the edge of the bed, his gentle hand resting on her back as he tried to comprehend what would be the most logical way to address the child's apparent cloudy haze fuelled by grief. His green eyes were soft but firm as he began to unwrap the blankets from her form and he finally encountered the treasure that was buried within them.
Her eyes were muddled and her face was a splotchy red colour that he had never seen her sport before in their time together. Her body was trembling from the harsh gasps of air that she was drawing into her delicate lungs and her hands were furling and unfurling uncontrollably. Her hair was mussed and knotted and her nightgown was the same one she had been wearing for more than three days. Athrun found himself horrified by her appearance but he looked down her figure and tried to comprehend how to best help the tiny human that loved to play with him and spend as many waking hours as she could within his shadow. At first he had been mildly annoyed by her constant badgering but it was only when she began to show him a simple childlike compassion and innocent empathy that he realized that the tiny Cagalli did not see him as a robot but rather as an extension of her family.
Upon seeing such a happy and bubbly character reduced to such a disarming state of shock and grief, Athrun felt something within his cold mechanical body come to life at the realization that it was his moment to demonstrate that same indifference to their fundamental differences: he did not see her as a human, but rather as an addition to his artificial life that brought him a sense of serenity as they bumbled around the family garden or as he sat with her and listened to her try to read him a story about princesses and dragons, her mispronouncing of word oddly endearing to the stoic robot. It was only in that moment when he saw that the fragility of a human with dynamic emotions and the tendency to not be able to gauge their emotional output that he was able to understand that Cagalli's existence was precious to him and he did not wish to see her fall to such extremes once again. The configuration of his base program kicked to life as he himself began to re-write the programs and archive them in a folder that was emblazoned with her name.
"It will be alright," He had said in a voice that he was shocked to hear for the first time as well. Cagalli froze at the sound of what she had assumed to be someone incapable of speaking and her eyes had widened at the realization that it was Athrun that spoke to her in such a soothing and gentle tone that carried no malice. "Rest. I will stay with you for as long as you need me, but, please—rest." She had resisted at first as she tried to burrow herself back within the blankets but he had refused to allow her to close herself away from him and he had taken to cradling her tiny body between strong protective arms and lulling her to sleep. She had relented and allowed him to tuck her into her bed properly, her eyes red-rimmed but her breathing regular as he sat at the foot of her bed protectively, watching over her with a careful eye that seemed to have lost a sliver of distance that day.
"Just a bit longer, please," Cagalli seemed to beg him as she leaned into the sturdy form of the robot that was designed to imitate human flesh but still held a coldness that served as a constant reminder that he was anything but a human being. "I like it when things are quiet—it gives me time to think." Her head tucked neatly against his shoulder and she curled her legs onto the sofa as she folded her hands on her lap, abandoning the lovely tea sweets that he had thoughtfully fetched her. Athrun was still and unmoving as he knew that if the fool called Yuna saw them in such a compromising position, there would be another argument and he did not wish to subject Cagalli to another confrontation with the controlling lavender-haired male that had intruded on the sanctuary that he worked hard to maintain for the blonde.
"Don't worry about Yuna, Athrun," She said lightly around a hearty yawn as she snuggled closer to the robot who permitted himself to raise an arm and drape it over her shoulders protectively as they had done in a lovely companion-like innocent hundreds of times before. "He's a moron who lives off prejudices and ignorance." She gave him a weak and tepid smile that made the green eyed robot freeze momentarily as he saw another flame of something rise up in her golden orbs before it was extinguished quickly. He hated the woman that she had turned into and he had hoped that Cagalli's willpower would have been enough to fend off the angry politician's attacks but it had left her meek and in needing of protection more now than before when she was a clumsy child.
Cagalli slumped against him further and Athrun blinked momentarily as he realized that she had drifted off to sleep and did not seem likely to stir. He looked down at her slumbering form, her arms sprawled out haphazardly as a light snore spilled from her lips. He was painfully aware of the vulnerability of such a delicate human that he had taken under his charge and it was something that had softened what was supposed to be an external armour of indifference and impartialness. Robots were prohibited from having emotional connections with their human counterparts and there were severe consequences that would be paid by both parties if discovered and this alone prompted Athrun to try and mask his underlying affections for the human that was currently snoozing against him. He knew that his emotions and sentimental understandings and wanting to understand more were taboo yet he, too, found himself pushing those various boundaries if it gave him the chance to be in her presence and watch over her like the faithful guardian that he had been programmed to be. He knew that these sensations already superseded his duties and were a foreign concept to most of his kind as he wished to cocoon her in another safe haven where no one would be able to reach them and take her away from him or make her suffer anymore than she already had.
Athrun sighed slightly as he gently untangled Cagalli from his body as he spread her out on the sofa gently to not wake her and reached for the blanket that was folded neatly behind them. He draped it over her form and tucked her in carefully, he himself not daring to touch her more than necessary in the attempts to fight back the urge to flee the world and take her with him. He had watched he grow for over fourteen years and he was enamoured with his human charge and swore to always wait for her by the door for her to return to their private sanctuary that was threatening to crumble now that the Seiran had taken residency there.
He withdrew from the living room, casting her another glance before he returned to his own private room and latched the charging cable to his intake slot on his inner wrist, the surge of electricity feeding his body precious virtual nutrition as he felt his eyes close and his world darken, Cagalli's breathing down the hall accompanying him as he fell into digital slumber.
(A/N): This is a story that I have been mulling over for a while. Music is often a great muse to get a story started but one that can also provide continunity, too. This entire story should not be longer than six or eight chapters (depending on how it's paced), but it is inspired by a micro-album created by Argentinean singer Leandro Lacerna called '2036'. The premise of the ten minute album is the following: a robot programmed for household chores has been discovered to have broken the protocol surrounding the co-habitation of humans and robots, the cause originating in an OS error. It creates a very strong narrative and Lacerna's music is fascinating. I will be working on a translation of the album and will link it in my bio. For now, I recommend listening to the microalbum available on Youtube. :D
In part, this story is also inspired by Donna Haraway's 'A Cyborg Manifesto', which is rooted in posthumanist feminism. However, the idea is mostly taken from the introduction that Haraway leaves as a framework based on the idea that 20th Century machines blur the lines between natural and artificial. They are not humans, they are not animals, and they are not machines. They are a mixture of the three and they are the type of entity that cannot recognize the Garden of Eden.
As usual, I do not own the characters or the sources of inspiration. Don't forget to read and review! :)
