GSD AU after episode 33. Shinn/Stellar, some Kira/Lacus, Athrun, Cagalli.
Around the Fairest Sun
Freedom returns to the Archangel before the Minerva makes it to Berlin, cradling Destroy's cockpit in its arms. This person is too dangerous to return to the battlefield, no matter what mobile suit they're given, but Kira refuses to kill.
"Bah," says Murdoch. "Too nice for your own good, kid. Should have cut it down and been done with it, after everything."
"She's just a girl," snaps Cagalli, coming to Kira's defense as the Archangel's medical squad hoists the unconscious girl onto a stretcher. She fiddles with the ring on her finger. "There's still time to help her."
"That was Stellar, boy!" shouts Roanoke over the universal broadcast channels, as Impulse circles the fallen Destroy unit.
Shinn's eyes go red and blank as he stares at the spot where the Freedom disappeared.
"She's not just wounded from the shrapnel, is she?" asks Kira, watching the girl toss and turn in the infirmary.
"According to this scan," said the doctor, wringing his hands nervously, "she has some chemicals in her body that seem to be… artificial. All I know about this sort of thing are the experiments the Seirans did on an all-Natural elite pilot corps—"
"They what—"
Kira catches Cagalli's flailing arm. "Tell us more, doctor."
The girl stirs. "Shinn…"
"Shinn…" She tosses and turns frantically in the infirmary. "Shinn… I'm scared…"
Athrun, waking up from his long, long sleep, turns and stares at the girl on the bed next to him.
She's been alive this whole time.
"Shinn… Shinn said he'd protect…" She coughs weakly, faintly.
Athrun tries to block it out. Shinn…
"Is that better?" asks Lacus warmly.
"Stellar is still scared," she says, slipping behind Kira to avoid the doctors attempting to monitor her progress.
"That's alright," says Lacus. "We can all be a little scared."
"If Shinn were here…"
"Hmm?"
"Then Stellar wouldn't be afraid."
"We'll find him again for you," says Kira, finally waving the doctors away. "That's a promise."
Cagalli attempts to lend Stellar her dresses, but the other girl is too busty.
Cagalli scowls, just a little bit.
They take her to watch the sea whenever the Archangel surfaces – Kira or Cagalli or Lacus or all three of them at once, sitting and talking with her or saying nothing at all. When the ship submerges again, they walk her through the ship's hallways, introducing her to this mechanic or this Murasame pilot.
Slowly, she stops becoming afraid of these people.
"Do you want to see him again?" asks Athrun.
"'Him'?" she echoes.
"Shinn."
"Of course Stellar wants to see Shinn!"
He reaches into the locker, tugs out Lacus's flightsuit. "Will you be afraid?" he asks, gesturing towards Justice.
"Never," she proclaims. "Not if Stellar is going to Shinn."
A small pink bundle drifts out of Justice's cockpit, arms outstretched, beaming visibly even through her helmet as she reaches out across a battle that has suddenly frozen for good. "Shinn!"
"Stellar has something to say," she informs him. "Stellar has wanted to say it for a long time but Stellar hasn't found Shinn…"
"What is it?" he asks, smiling.
"Stellar loves Shinn."
This, of all moments, is when Shinn begins to cry.
"—is Shinn sad? Stellar thought that—"
"I'm happy," he says, and holds her close forever. "With you... I'm happy."