HER SMILE

iBroken

AN: I've decided to write this because Gundam SEED DESTINY leaves me, unfulfilled, in a way. I hated that Kira didn't get much of his thoughts out. And I disliked that they threw him in as a hero later on, but didn't show much for his motivations. He seemed to lack emotion, and part of this is because GSD didn't show it. So.. without further ado.

DEDICATED TO: omniprincess/Fllay Allster and omnihero/Kira Yamato. You two are just amaziiiing. x3 And I love you Fllay.

And I've lost, who I am.

And I can't understand.

Why my heart is so broken, rejecting your love.

Without love gone wrong, lifeless words carry on.

"Kira, what are you doing out there?"

He turned around just in time for his eyes to catch sight of the elusive pink haired songstress, staring at him with merry blue hues. She stood not far from him, dressed in a soft blue outfit, with her hands gripping ever so lightly onto a piece of paper. The paper held with it a ring. The ring was golden, and tiny, and it evidently didn't belong to Lacus. It had to be from his sister. But the contents of the letter were what really confounded him. Why was she writing a letter? That outdated form of communication was, not what most people used efficiently lately. It had to be serious.

Despite his muddled thoughts, he took notice of how Lacus smiled at him from a distant. She was ever so shy. Graceful and nimble, Lacus never approached him for the romantic attention desired in a partner. Instead, they both seemed to hold understanding. But the moment his eyes lost focus for a moment-when his thoughts drifted, he imagined instead being encased in gentle arms. Burying his face into the soft crook of porcelain skin. The remiscent smell of designer perfumes and red hairs that tickled his face. The natural beauty of a woman who wasn't the picture perfect princess needed in a world where there was already too much royalty.

It brought heavy weight to his heart, and when he looked away, the sinking feeling of disappointing her sunk into him even heavier. She was not her. But regardless, when he looked back, his eyes briefly saw the eyes of a dark gray staring back at him with equal amount of fire. With the will to support and stand by him. And although the image quickly faded into the sight of the pink haired woman he had come to grow close to, he immediately held onto the precious seconds he could see her. "Who is it from?" he asked, indicating to the letter.

Lacus's expression became a worried one, and that was never a good sign. "Miss Cagalli.. it, seems she is going to marry Representative Seiran's son."

Casting aside his thoughts, Kira immediately set to task, what was most important. What he knew he had to do. To save someone from making a mistake. Cagalli would not give up on her first love. She would have it. She wouldn't turn out like him.

I'm not letting her love turn out like ours...

When he whisked Cagalli away on the Freedom, the cheeriness he saw in each Orb military member's features, left him breathless. They were glad he had rescued their leader. But the most difficult part was evading those Murasame's while trying to keep up ruse that he was the bad guy. In actuality, this action was the only way they could save Orb. Opening the cockpit to pull his sister into the Freedom, he managed to hold onto her tightly. And his eyes flickered over her and her expression. Over the makeup, and the way her hair had been done. But moreso, at the dress. And it was an epiphanic realisation. One he hadn't made in some time, but it influenced him to say things, normally, that would earn him some sort of hit to the head.

I have a twin sister.

He had never truly thought about it in the heavy way he was at the moment. But Cagalli was his sister. She was someone he knew would need his help for the rest of her life. She was making mistakes. He had barely realised he was seeing her in this fashion until he remembered someone else. Another feisty girl, but not a sister. No, instead, he remembered the girl he held in his arms. The girl he had cried to when he felt useless. The girl who had given him support when absolutely no one could do the same. She had wanted a wedding dress like this, too. She described it in detail, and Kira had naively given in and said he would buy her one at some point. With purple designs, and the sweet aroma of flowers. She didn't like veils, but she said she wanted to wear one so he could lift the veil up. And kiss her very humbly. It was a dream wedding.

He wished he could stop seeing her when he looked at his sister. But the curse was there, and he wished he could see her for real once. Just once. But his words were hollow. He instead took in his sister's annoyed glance, and gave her his most confounded smile. Inside, he was breaking from just remembering the things he had really wanted in life.

"Hey, that dress is pretty nice."

She was crying, hopelessly, and evading each little machine shot. Kira didn't even understand how she was doing it, but Cagalli was managing to fight back, while trying to hold back tears. His emotional sister was so much like him, in ways he wished he could mimic now. While he knew she was just doing this because she loved her people, he wanted to imagine she was crying because she had wanted to protect something, but she was pitted against something she loved, too. She was against her ideals, her beliefs—for a nation that had a different set of ideals and beliefs.

Kira managed to zip to her in time to stop an enemy attack, doing his best to make sure nothing touched the Strike Rouge. She was probably going to feel horrible afterwards, and probably want to turn around and listen to Athrun's words. But at the same time, Kira also knew what was right from his own experience. She had to do this because if she didn't stop each battle, they would escalate, and he would be more distant from her. She was protecting her people. She was protecting everything.

Like he was protecting the Archangel.

Maybe that was why they were siblings, in the end. Because they experienced similar things, and he finally understood why he had gone through so much hardship two years ago. Because he was meant to guide his little sister, so she could go through her hardships too. This was the most difficult part of her life, and now she had her own little world. A world that included him-that included Lacus. A world that included the deceased people he had come to miss more and more with each passing second.

He had shot down a Ginn when the Impulse tried to attack him, and out of fiery anger, he knew what he had to say. Cagalli was not a coward. She was the only one here who understood his pain. She was losing love. She was losing her people. And she was fighting to protect the only people she had left.

Kira was like that, too. Kira had lost everything. And he hated that Athrun didn't understood. This was the same situation he had hated when he was younger, and he refused to let it happen again. He was not letting Athrun kill more people. He wouldn't let someone else turn out like his love had.

"I know what we do may not be right, but...but Cagalli is crying!"

The Impulse was dangerously strong. He was hacking away at the Freedom, lost in rage. The way he behaved immediately gave lieu to some sort of loss. And his half-coherent shouts and screaming made some sense to Kira. Because the SOS-channel on the Freedom let him hear everything, and his horrified inner self could recognise the exact same hatred in himself, seething and threatening to show up.

He killed someone named Stella. But who was Stella? Where had Stella gone?

He had no memory of who was dead, of who was alive. Instead, he was beginning to grow weak from the throes of battle. The way the Impulse Pilot shouted showed his loss was crippling his sense of self, and his anger was taking on the same anger Kira had that day he and Athrun had fought. When his best friend had been killed mid-battle. Tolle who had been the most courageous person he knew, standing up for him when he shouldn't have, staying at his side under any situation, was dead, and cut in two, and Kira's anger made him want to kill Athrun for even doing that to someone who deserved so much better than to be deceased. The memories didn't fuel his anger now, because he had lost his anger a long time ago—but it made him weary.

The Impulse pilot was like him, too. Everyone was like him.

He was trying to move aside, to survive, to escape. But he was in a situation that meant he was doomed. Each swipe of the sword the Impulse had was closer and closer to himself, and he was entirely sure that even Lacus couldn't save him. The pink haired woman was in space, away from them, finding the Eternal. He gripping the controls tighter when the sight of the Impulse nearing him again finally caught his eyes, and the inevitable point where the beam saber was pointed at him finally came. He was doomed. He was going to die without protecting the Archangel. Their vessel needed repairs, and they had nowhere to go. Without him, they were useless, and they would perish without his protection.

I'll always protect you… My true feelings will protect you…

The sudden voice that enveloped his senses made him still, and he felt like time had stopped. In the heat of an impossible moment, he felt transluscent arms envelope him from behind. And he noticed the hand guiding his to the button meant to cease the n-jammer. He was unsure of what it meant, but hearing the voice. Her voice. It made him ludicrously capable of doing anything. She had been who he wanted to protect, and she wanted to protect him. Ignoring all sentiments of common sense, he pressed the button, and just as the beam saber struck inside the Freedom, forever killing the machine he had known he needed he, felt her hands cover his eyes, and he felt the familiar feeling of rejuvenation.

"I know, you always have.."

Kira wanted to make a difference. Mwu's words always reminded him of why he had first took up piloting a machine in the first place. Because he wanted to protect something, and to protect, meant actually achieving a state of conclusion. Kira desired protecting the Archangel, so he had worn his piloting suit and configured the Strike Rouge. From outside, a mirror, he could see the Strike's red and blue slowly forming, managing to override the red of the Strike Rouge. With each component fitting together well, the memories of his first time in the machine cascaded back to him. The way he had began piloting to protect the Archangel. The terror of the Vesalius. The way he had seen his friends running, and his need to keep them safe. Some of those friends were safe now. Others were still here, fighting for the sake of Orb. Kira, however, Kira was doing this on an entirely different whim.

He felt the adrenaline. Somehow, he felt like he was lively. In this machine, that resembled the one he had been in when he protected her.

Somehow, he could feel a connection to her. He was going to get the new machine, but moreso than that, he was not going to let anyone die anymore. No more suffering. The war was going to stop. With or without the consent of the people he was around.

"Kira Yamato, Strike, launching!"

The moment he saw Lacus again, he felt the emptiness return. She looked beautiful, clad in the black outfit she'd somehow managed to acquire. With her long hair tied up, and her eyes confidently placed on him, Kira also knew something had changed in her. This war had transformed both of them, in ways he couldn't describe. It had given him a chance to remember, to accept, to redeem. He hoped he was forgiven, and he hoped he could see past himself.

"Kira," Lacus began, and he knew she wanted him to give her attention in a way. A way that he could hope he would.

But the moment he locked his eyes on her, he saw her move closer, in one fluid movement, approaching him in the form of an embrace. An action the graceful Lacus Clyne, would never do. So when he managed to, hesitantly, hug back, he didn't see Lacus for a moment. He saw gray eyes staring back at him. With fiery passion. With the strength to make him stand on his feet, so he could be the person he wanted to be most. So he could just be Kira Yamato again. Not the Freedom Pilot. And while Lacus held onto him tightly, probably wanting to feel Kira-to be with him, he could only see someone else. The person he had last been so attached to. The girl who would have happily gone in the Strike alone if it meant protecting people who needed her. She was the person everyone looked up to, and loathed. The girl who had lost her father, and had somehow managed to grow lonely. Who understood his loneliness.

He had hugged back, but he felt terrible for not hugging Lacus back.

He had hugged someone else back.

And he felt like crying, but Lacus wouldn't know how to handle his tears. He knew she might just get uncomfortable, and Kira would have preferred to keep tears away. He instead, separated from her, looking down into those crystallic blue eyes. She was human. For the first time since he had been with Lacus, he saw Lacus. A young girl, thrust into the war, trying to hold on and show the world she was more than the person she was thought to be. She was intent on protecting everyone. She just wanted to feel like she belonged, too. So Kira knew, she wasn't her. She couldn't be. But he knew he could see bits of her in Lacus. Because they were both ordinary girls, and both of them wanted to protect. They both loved life equally.

"The new Gundam, Lacus. I need to go."

"But, Kira—"

"We'll see each other again soon. But they need me."

The war came to a close, when Messiah exploded. The bits and remains of Requiem were floating around in space, and several ZAFT and Orb teams were disassembling them. Kira hadn't stayed behind because he had heard Lacus say they wanted her in the PLANTs, as their leader. Kira had known right away that she needed him by her side, because she was only so strong without the right support. Lacus was only human, and he understood that now. He would follow her, and he'd protect her, because of how much he knew she would protect him. They were needed in a place where they wouldn't interrupt the blooming relationship between Athrun and Cagalli. Where they could help a nation recovering from its downfalls, too.

Kira had began walking with Lacus, who immediately brought up that she needed to tell Athrun a few things about Cagalli. Specifically, the knowledge that she kept the ring he gave her on a necklace. Things Kira assumed would patch up their relationship. Part of Kira wanted to object, saying Athrun was fine, but the other half knew this was Lacus's way of making sure Athrun was going to be happy. Kira, too, wanted to know his sister and his friend would be happy. So he didn't object when they walked in the direction he had seen Athrun leading off to.

When he was close to them, he took notice of a young girl near Athrun. With red hair, in pigtails.

But when he looked at him, he saw something else. He saw someone who had no one. He saw gray eyes. And slightly more red hair. He swallowed nervously, because he didn't want to make a mistake. This girl liked Athrun. Not that she would admit it, it seemed, but she reminded him of Fllay. A little. "Athrun, would you mind joining me for a moment?" Lacus called out, and Athrun complied with a smile. Kira caught faint sound of Athrun saying something about how much he missed her. It was nice to hear them getting along. It was nice to know his sister's struggles were coming to an end.

Looking awkwardly at the red haired girl, he finally decided to talk. To say something.

"I'm sorry, about everything," he answered. And she complied with a smile of her own. She understood. There was so much tragedy in the war, and Kira wished he could have stopped some of it. But he understood now. He knew what he had to do to recover, and he would do it overtime. With Lacus. "It's okay. I know he'll be happy with her. And I know what you did was for the better, too, Mister Yamato."

She was such a mature girl. Kira regretted that she had been hurt like this. He wished she could see what he saw. That love came more than once, for some people. It would for Kira, in the future.

The sudden sound of grass crunching made him shift his gaze away, and he was thinking he'd see Athrun or Lacus returning. Maybe even Shinn Asuka. But instead, he met the gaze of blue eyes and strange specs. Orangeish specs, tinted for sunlight. He was astonished at the tall, lanky man approaching him from a distance, and from the way he saw Lacus and Athrun grinning at distance, he knew they did this on purpose. The short man with the black hair beside the tall man was familiar too, and it made him happy, to see people he found familiar. To see the very people he strove to protect when he was younger. Lifting his hand, he waved to them, and a smile managed to come over his features.

"Sai! Kuzzey!"

His two friends waved back, and without further ado, he managed to walk closer, never noticing that the red haired girl followed him, nervously. "You.. you guys are, here?" he asked. And they both nodded. "We were told you'd be here," Sai commented. "I thought it might be nice to see an old friend after so long. A lot happened. Morgenroete's been so busy. I wish I could have been there with you guys during everything." Kuzzey too spoke about how he'd found a girlfriend. How he had been making vehicles with Honda since he'd come here. He was happy that he could hear his friends voices. They brought him a little closer to her.

Sai had been with her, too. And Kira could see how Sai seemed happy that it was over. They were at peace, finally. On the same level. The same place.

"Who's—" Sai's attention abruptly turned to the red haired girl beside Kira, and his eyes widened. Kira, too, looked over at Meyrin, and finally saw something. The connection between both of them, was evident. Some sort of spark, and he saw Meyrin's cheeks light up a bright red. He could almost hear the urging voice in his head, to lead them to some sort of happiness. Two people left behind by wars. Kira knew what to do.

"Sai, this is Meyrin. She's a CIC operator in ZAFT. Meyrin, this is Sai Argyle, an old war buddy of mine." Meyrin looked pleased at the sound of war buddy, and Sai was astonished at the CIC operator mention. When Kira and Kuzzey stepped away to begin walking back to Athrun and Lacus, leaving Sai to discover a new closeness to Meyrin, Kira failed to notice, from a distance, the transluscent form of the girl he most loved smiling at him.

When he managed to walk with Lacus, towards the vehicle Athrun had brought, he lowered his head and smiled to himself.

"Fllay.. thank you."