A/N: First Gundam SEED fic! For Frog-kun, who wouldn't stop nagging me and made sure I got this done no matter what. :D Enjoy!
"It has been a while—hasn't it, Athrun?"
He raises his head to look at her—and all of a sudden they are thirteen again; silly, clumsy children who still carry their innocence, who still have the ability to look at a person and see the good in them. For a moment, Athrun breathes in, and he sees not the Lacus Clyne that stands before him but the Lacus Clyne from three years ago—small, delicate, radiating with a graceful, willed aura that had drawn him to her from the very moment their first meeting took place. He remembers her wide eyes, her polite smile, and it takes him a moment to realize that she never did change; only became stronger, more passionate. He can see it all in her eyes now—her authority, her quiet strength.
For a moment, he looks at her and remembers exactly why he'd fallen—quietly, subtly—in love with her.
"It has," he agrees quietly. She smiles; he realizes that it's not one of those polite smiles—rather, a more familiar smile, more profound, more meaningful—and something distinctively painful thumps in his chest and he's not sure if that's the lump from his throat travelled downwards—or his heart, trying to bring back lost emotions.
"How have you been doing?"
The atmosphere is tense and still, and Athrun knows that Lacus feels it too, and so he helps her pretend that everything is fine, that nothing has changed between them, that they are still who they were, three years ago—even if they aren't. "I'm doing well," he tells her; clears his throat. "What about you? How are you doing?"
Lacus' eyes twinkle. "I'm well." Pause. "I'm very I had that last talk with you, Athrun. Thank you—for allowing me to escape, despite the," she pauses again, looking for the right word, "situation," she finishes.
"You gave Kira the Freedom," he points out, eyes narrowing slightly.
"I did what I knew was right for Kira," she responds smoothly.
There is a strange silence then. It is the kind of silence that sends chills up Athrun's spine and laces his voice with unsure emotions and nervousness; the kind of silence that Lacus doesn't dare shatter. It is the kind of silence where it is considered the purest form of noise; serene, beautiful, but with the loudest amount of noise.
"Do you love him?"
The question is one that he doesn't realize he's said it until Lacus raises her head to look at him and stares at him with wide, unblinking eyes. Athrun realizes his mistake and waves his hands, stammering. "Oh, wait, no, uh—I didn't mean it that way. I mean, we're not engaged anymore and you can love whoever you want, Lacus—I uh..." His ears burn red with embarrassment and he bites his lip, looks down, folds his arms against his chest.
"Kira is a good person," Lacus says quietly.
Athrun lifts his head slowly.
"I suppose you know more about him than I do," she tells him. "He is a very nice person to talk to; a very nice person to be around."
Athrun smiles; nostalgia. "He is," he agrees. "He's always been a crybaby, always the weaker one—and look at him now."
Lacus smiles fondly.
It's not something he can be angry at Lacus for; loving Kira. He can never be angry at Lacus, and it's because, honestly, he's never made her any real promises about the future. Maybe, at one point, there was a time when he wanted something more, something more of them; wanted it like he'd never wanted anything else—and he'd never been brave enough to say it. He can hear it in her voice and the way she talks about him. There is a difference between the way she talks about him and the way she talks about Kira, and Athrun wonders what it would have been like if he hadn't been. If he hadn't been—would he have? He'd never been brave enough to say it before; it's exactly why he didn't have it now—just simply didn't have it, anymore.
"You love him," he tells her.
Lacus only smiles in response. (It would have broken Athrun's heart, three years ago. Today, it only almost breaks his heart. Almost, almost almost. Almost is progress.)
She reaches over to hold his hand in her own. "You've got Cagalli, now, too," she says to him, stroking his hand, her eyes closed. "She really likes you, you know. I can see it whenever she looks at you."
Athrun chuckles. "I think I might really like her, too," he admits. Lacus laughs. Suddenly the tension in the air is gone; the sound of her laughter ringing a clear bell in the hollow depths of his being. Somehow it feels like all the weight that had been hauled on him had been lifted off; it feels like he can breathe—and maybe it was so because he could.
The pink Haro bounces past, slurring a mixture of 'good mooorning!'s and 'let's play!'s in its robotic, monotonic speech, even though it is well past evening and the view outside is dark. Lacus picks it up gingerly. "Why hello there Mister Pink," she tells it; "I've been looking for you everywhere! Wherever did you go?"
"Faaaaar from home!"
"Indeed," Lacus giggles. She turns around to face Athrun once more. "It was very nice conversing with you this evening, Athrun," she says. "Let's be good friends to each other." She sticks her right hand out. Athrun stares at it.
"Where did you learn to do that?" he asks, amused.
Lacus blinks, confused. "Oh, am I doing it wrong?" she asks, and Athrun cannot help but laugh, and almost falls in love with her all over again.
This time, however, is different. This time they separate with 'good-bye's and lingering emotions—but it is a different kind of love that starts anew. Back then, during that moment of time when he'd really been in love with her, he would have expected the earth to shatter, his heart to break, life to stop—but it wasn't like that at all. It was nothing but an infinitesimal shift in a world bigger than either of them, and unless one looked closely, there was nothing that changed.
And then—Athrun would eventually remember that no one had done him any wrong in this entirety, and that maybe (just maybe), things turned out the way they were meant to.
(And maybe—just maybe, finally—he will let go.)
Owari
2011.06.19