A/N: Something that I promised a long time ago but never got to finish. It was supposed to be a oneshot. It's finally done but I decided to cut it into several pieces just for the hell of it.

I like ShinnCaga, just not in the shippy, romantic way that I do with Asucaga.

I will post a chapter at least once every week.


Peace Talks


~oo~

~o~

It wasn't that he was surprised.

He just didn't expect to find her there.

It was nearing the anniversary of the end of the second war and he, along with Lunamaria and Meyrin, decided to pay their respects to the fallen by visiting the many memorials erected in their memory. The first on their list just happened to be stationed on the island of Onogoro in ORB and, honestly, Shinn thought that he'd chosen the worst time possible for an impromptu sightseeing.

He'd left on an earlier time than he should have. He left while Lunamaria and Meyrin were asleep, left the hotel without so much as a note or a text so as to avoid any possible witnesses to his cold lonesome, so that they wouldn't badger and inanely prod at him with questions regarding the happy child that he once resembled. Simply put, he just wanted to be alone and have some time to reminisce. To remember his family, his sister and what had happened to them right there, in ORB. To remember the war that took them away from him and the political hands that he once blamed and the machines that he once rued to no end. He just wanted to make peace with it all, possibly come to the conclusion that he was also at fault, that none of the things he'd said to her could be justified by the years of hate and anger that he's accumulated because of that incident. He wanted to find this place, remember when the innocent child inside him had died, remember his reasons, remember why he'd said what he'd said and did what he's done, what he's seen and what he's heard. But most of all…

He wanted to remember peace on his own.

And Shinn felt that right here was a good place to start and that now was the time to do it.

But he could not do so, not now.

Not when she was here, in front of that small cenotaph precariously perched on slowly crumbling soil atop the crashing waves.

"What are you doing here, Athha?"

~oo~

~o~


Written-Sin: By the way. Each chapter is not shorter than 400 words and won't be longer than 800...