Hundreds and Counting
Author: Jusrecht

Characters/Pairing: Kira/Cagalli, Athrun/Lacus

Warning: Mature situations, and possibly some 'whut!?' moments

Disclaimer: Gundam SEED belongs to Sunrise. And there's also a line in this fic that I blatantly stole from one of The Weepies's songs.

Notes: This fic is basically a guess on what might happen if Kira and Athrun didn't meet in the first episode of SEED (because Athrun was assigned to take another Gundam, not Aegis). Please expect discrepancies and other elements that I just conjured out of thin air. Anyway, uh, enjoy.

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(By the time he is twenty-three, Kira has won hundreds of battles.)

One man standing to oppose two bitter, vengeful armies is just another portrayal of sanity brought to the extreme end. Kira was a sensible boy once, when seclusion still counted for security, and Heliopolis was still a child hiding his face in his mother's bosom, the proud, resounding neutrality of ORB. Now he wakes up every morning and looks into the mirror and doesn't recognise his own reflection.

He washes his face, changes into his uniform, and leaves his room precisely at six for breakfast, Torii quiet on his left shoulder. The mess is mostly deserted save for a handful of soldiers, spread thinly among long tables, picking at their food, nodding their head as a greeting, avoiding his eyes. A kitchen staff hands him his rationed meal in a plastic platter and a cup of lukewarm coffee. Conversations are subdued here, the morning shadow cold and crawling as war lazily takes its toll. They are stiff, quiet, waiting.

The alarm goes off when he has just taken a second bite into his roll. Kira abandons his food and runs toward the hangar, a different kind of purpose in his feet. It takes him less than a minute now to switch into his pilot suit, and then another to climb into Akatsuki and wait for the customary permission to launch.

"Kira." Cagalli's face appears on his screen, haggard, dark circles looming under her eyes. He has seen her in a worse state, but it makes his heart clench all the same.

"Don't worry," he smiles at her, easily, a habit rather than true assurance. "I'll be back soon."

Cagalli nods, a habit rather than true conviction. This is a dance, familiar steps and stumbles they have perfected through seven years of practice. She always tries to catch him before he launches, always tries to extract some sort of promise, and then always tries to pretend that it's enough.

"Just... don't overdo it out there, okay?"

Kira smiles again, Torii hopping to his shoulder to tilt its head at Cagalli. "Yes, ma'am," he promises, for what it's worth. He knows that he will never back down, and he knows that she will never let him even if he does. ORB, their ideals always come first.

The sky that unfolds before his eyes is a murky grey streaked by sickly white. His mobile suit is a speck of gold burning a trail they call hope. The people, soldiers and civilians alike, look at the sky and pray for his safety, the way they pray for an end to the war and a world where they can live without fear.

He was sixteen when he made the decision, three weeks after his parents' death. He told Captain Ramius who frowned in response, white uniform creased, her cap absent, less than perfect in every way as they struggled through their renegade period. But she listened to him, Flaga's arm a solid, comforting presence on the back of her chair, and then held out her hand for him to clasp – an adult to an adult because Kira wasn't a child anymore, no matter how much she still wanted to shelter him under her wings.

And then ORB burned and he saw Cagalli again, a girl on her father's empty throne, alone, Kisaka a shadow that rarely reached her mullioned window. She was now Representative Athha, a title that invited sneers and mockeries from the other five, far more senior than her seventeen years. She saw an opportunity in him and Archangel, just as he saw one in her and ORB.

An agreement was born.

Kira still remembers sitting across her aboard Archangel, noticing the frustration in her golden eyes, the itch to fight back and shape her country the way she wanted it. It was selfish, in a way, but they all were, just as he and Archangel came to interfere with so many battles across the map. He knew his eyes were as fierce as hers when they sealed the pact with a formal handshake.

And so he became her shield, in return of her providing him a shelter, a starting point. Both allies and foes laughed at them and their naiveté – children, playing with power greater than they could comprehend, on a board seven levels higher than their understanding could ever reach. Cagalli seized authority over ORB back into her hand and laughed at them in return, Strike, and then Akatsuki always a shadow on her heels. Kira played his role as the silent guardian to perfection and believed in her all the way, even when the name Athrun Zala rose in their list of possible obstacles – the young prodigy of ZAFT, the deliverer of their victories and the source of endless hate in the heart of Earth Alliance.

ORB has withstood many attacks ever since, once again a proud nation restored to its neutral state. Half of the Naturals hail him as a hero, cling to him not unlike a drowning man to a piece of floating wood as the rest despise and fear him for his choice. Coordinators call him a traitor and then mutter in the background, questioning his intentions as another country steps forward, sheds the Alliance off their skin and claims neutrality. And then another. And another.

It may be a fool's errand, but he holds Cagalli's hand, and keeps on believing.

-----

(By the time he is twenty-three, Athrun has killed hundreds of Naturals.)

His first mobile suit – his own, his to use and care for and claim as his – was a stolen artefact. Blitz was a shadow that lurked in the dark, bleeding in and out of vision solely at his will. He struck before his enemy knew what slinked behind their back, and caught them off guard. He killed hundreds with it, destroyed enough ships to crowd heaven and hell both.

Once, he was a young boy caught in a war, cold hatred frozen in his heart after the Bloody Valentine. He didn't know what to do with it, didn't know what he wanted except to make his father, the only family he still had, proud of him. Killing Naturals did not make him feel better, but his hands had stopped shaking after the first two experiences.

No one makes a habit out of war. It is the other way around, and Athrun is glad he has realised this before everything is too late.

And then there was Freedom, the proud blue-winged god that soared into the starlit heavens and carved a path to countless triumphs. Freedom was one reason he was the hero who thwarted Le Creuset's plan and protected PLANT from EAF's nuclear attack. Lacus and Siegel Clyne's rebellious faction were two other.

Patrick Zala did not forgive, but Athrun pleaded in her name, claiming Lacus ignorant of her father's scheme. He knew she wasn't and she knew that he knew she wasn't. Two nights later, a conversation in a closed room allowed him to understand her intentions, and her to learn about his.

An agreement was born.

Now she is untouchable and he has five ships under his command, closer than ever to his – their – ambition, one he has hidden under his sleeve, away from his father's eyes for so long. Seven years that should have been impossible. He is a young sapling, too green, much too inexperienced to challenge the cunning of his elders, much less that of his father.

But Patrick Zala hasn't noticed his son for so long, hasn't endeavoured to understand or recognise him beyond a mechanic's knowledge of his rudimentary tools. Athrun swallows this fact with equal part of relief and bitterness that turns his knuckles white. Seven long years.

He was sixteen when he came to this decision, in that closed room, with her hands slowly guiding and shaping his mind. Her eyes were hard, sadness crusting their edges after her father's death under his father's order, and her voice shook a little when she brushed the memory aside for the sake of the future. What do you want, Athrun, she asked, forced him to confront the question which had prowled the border of his consciousness for months.

They were sixteen.

"Athrun." Now her soft, melodious voice keeps his demons at bay. He tries to smile, because another battle has ended, because his room aboard his ship no longer feels quite like it is choking him, bleak in its starched whiteness, with the ghosts and the smell of blood on his hands.

"I'll be home soon," he says, his fingers curling around the phone tightly, and sees her smile in the back of his eyelids.

-----

(By the time she is twenty-three, Cagalli has lost hundreds of debates.)

There are worse days, she thinks. Some of the figureheads in EAF have expressed their concern over the Alliance's policy in a public interview and that is definitely good news. But her country, locked in the ruthless grip of war, still bleeds and cries her warriors every day, and Cagalli sits behind her desk, sifting through lists of casualties every morning, afternoon, evening until she discovers that frustration cannot bring tears to her eyes anymore.

Numbness is dangerous; the idea of getting used to battles and moving her soldiers like pawns haunts her like the cold of a knife pressed to her naked throat. Her fingers tremble slightly when she rummages the backmost corner of her closet, muscles all wound up tight. She goes down to Onogoro disguised as a new private no one knows or cares about, her face shadowed under the peak of her cap.

Kira is surprised when he answers to her quiet knock and finds her on his doorstep. It is a stupid thing to do and she can read his disapproval, buried six feet under the murky surface of his concern. But he pulls her inside, into his arms, and Cagalli wraps hers around his strong body, breathes in deeply.

"Did you see the interview?"

He pauses, arranges words, and then replies quietly, "I heard from Mwu-san. It's good news for us."

She nods and looks up, meeting his eyes. Kira has an owlish expression on his face that she likes to tease – you're too serious – and yet hates to see – too late, the world has shaped him into this. But her wit lies dying in her office, amidst names she does and doesn't recognise, and she only has dislike left in a heart that blackens much too quickly with each fire exchanged and life lost, so Cagalli tugs him down and kisses him fiercely, the only way she knows how.

His bed is small and her back registers discomfort after being pampered by a soft mattress for so long. He doesn't speak when he removes her clothes, or when she removes his and touches his face, tracing his cheeks, jaw, lips with the tip of her fingers. She often wonders, if her father were not killed in a bombardment seven years ago, if he could see her become the woman she is now, perhaps he would approve of Kira. Perhaps he would approve of the way his daughter is keeping ORB on its feet. Perhaps he would be proud of her.

"Cagalli?" Kira touches her hand, nervous, uncertain, questions and doubts two big armies swarming the field behind his eyes. She claims his lips to chase the look away, making noises of encouragement that may as well mean anything. When they make love, he gives her his everything, lays his soul in the open, all the good, the bad, and the ugly of it. And she learns to do the same, the way she has learnt to lose ten debates in order to win one that truly matters, the way she has learnt to accept her share of dirty work in a world that spins madly on – with a hint of acceptance to the inevitable.

"Kira," she moans, and his eyes are dark as he thrusts into her faster, harder, and finally comes inside her, face buried in the crook of her neck, her legs wrapped tight around his hips. Cagalli sighs, blinks back her tears, and finds that her fingers no longer shake when she tangles them in his hair, pulling him down for a kiss.

"I will protect you," he whispers, his breath stirring golden locks that frame the shell of her left ear. She smiles at him, sharp, bright, part sarcastic and part hopeful, because she still remembers a boy she met long time ago, in a deserted island, remembers his name, remember Kira's expression when she told him about the chance meeting. They will live through this, she'll make sure of it, and that look will forever disappear from Kira's face.

"That is our deal," she replies, her voice firm. His responding chuckle is dry, but when they drift off to sleep, he keeps an arm around her, perhaps an answer to her promise.

-----

(By the time she is twenty-three, Lacus has sung hundreds of songs.)

Home, for her, was once a picturesque mansion built on the lap of luxury, white pillars and rich carpets and rows and columns of roses that sat listening to her timid singing. The Clyne estate stood overlooking a lake that mirrored the blue of the sky and glinted off the gold of sunlight, and she grew up in the midst of its beauty and opulence, under the sun of her father's smiles. There were even a few blissful years, she remembers, when she believed that her happiness was shared by everyone.

Lacus lost the rose-coloured glass the moment she understood what she was seeing in evening news, noticed the hatred filtering through the newscaster's clipped voice. She sat with a fairytale book spread open on her lap, her governess nowhere to be found, and felt a little grateful thinking that Prince Philip and Princess Aurora didn't have that difference between them. They were both Coordinators, or maybe they were both Naturals – and they lived happily ever after.

Now, her house is a flat that sleeps thirty floors above the ground. Every night, she comes home to silence and shadows painted on the walls, her husband's presence always required at the front line, and there are days that feel emptier than others. But she breathes in deeply, shrugging her council robe off, and braves the loneliness as a part of life she has chosen.

After her father's death, her happiness is always either cold or subdued, but Lacus feels her heart leap when the front door opens and Athrun walks in, still dressed in his full ZAFT regalia. His green eyes light up at the sight of her, and she hides the rush of excitement that courses in her veins as she kisses him welcome, a warm brush to his cheek.

"How was the flight?"

"Fine." He smiles, his fingers gently squeezing her hand – and she remembers the day he proposed to her, how he smoothly led her in a courtly pavane. "How was your campaign?"

"It could be better," she answers honestly, but steers away from the subject with a smile. They are not going to talk about work tonight. "Have you had dinner yet?"

He nods, and then slips into the shower to peel off the stench of war from his skin. Lacus says nothing and busies herself behind the pantry, fiddling with cups and tea leaves. A charade, she sometimes thinks, but she knows that they both need it, at least to retain a semblance of normalcy in a world that threatens to swallow them whole. There is something vaguely comforting, even pleasant, in the rhythm of a domestic life. She enjoys playing the role of a good wife, likes it when her husband sits on the soft carpet, back against the sofa, between her legs as she dries his hair with a small towel and they trade comments on the movie playing in the television.

During moments like these, she can close her eyes and pretend. Life is beautiful, perfect, like the split of a second captured in a picture that buries itself between the last few pages of Athrun's diary.

But war worms its way into their life far too easily. Their marriage is a convenience, a tool for a higher purpose, no matter how much she wants to believe otherwise. She spends most days being accused as a girl who knows nothing about politics, only a pretty idol riding on the popularity and sympathy garnered from her fans. But she dons her robe and walks the council halls with her face held up high because she doesn't get the worse end of the deal. Athrun wrestles wars, deaths, a heart hardened to take sacrifice out of lives, and then headline news of his wife challenging his father, and he takes them all in one stride, with a smile that says everything and nothing at once.

Her ghosts are not fewer, but some of his are more real. A parent is a parent and Patrick Zala had once been a father first and foremost, before Junius 7 and chairmanship drove wisdom out of his judgment. And so she combs his hair silently, gently, until he rests his head on her knee and looks up, droplets of water on his eyelashes.

"I love you," he says, and Lacus smiles because she believes him. It is also love, that blooms like flowers in spring along with the flow of time, a slow current that neither chokes nor overwhelms.

"And I love you," she answers.

End

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Notes: Yes, for me, these two pairings make more sense than their canon counterparts 0_0