Bittersweet Irony

Yzak/Fllay

Rating: M

Disclaimer I do not own Gundam SEED or anything related to it.

A/N This is something that I got an idea for during third block...eh...some time random. I was mainly writing it to get over something that I didn't like writing about (e.g. drugs, needles, death, etc.) but I think it turned out kinda sappy instead of tragic. And maybe a tad bit silly. Was it silly? I can't really tell if it's any good or not. What do you think? Reviewing would be nice... (Note: also rated for bad language)

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Coordinators are not immortal, as everyone seems to think. They actually do get sick and die, just like every other human. They just don't die as often.

So far, there had been one seriously deadly illness found in a select few of the earliest coordinators, but it was essentially wiped out among the newer ones. A few people, though, still had the disease coursing through their bodies, and would never know it until it was too late. Some already knew it. Ezaria Jule was one such person.

Yzak had only just made it to the underground hospital in time to see a very pained expression on his mother's face. Several doctors were crowded around her, but there was really nothing they could do. Ezaria instantly knew the moment she would die when she saw her son. She yelled hoarsly for the hospital personnel to leave, and the second they were out Yzak rushed to her side. He wasn't crying; Yzak did not do that sort of thing. But he wanted to.

The beeping of the life supporter was slowing. Ezaria was playing a game with death and time, and she was losing, because she barely had the breath to mumble "I love you" to Yzak. Yzak's eyes glistened and his face was as pale as his mother's as he glanced around at all of the the medical paraphernalia. "Mother," he said quietly (he'd never called her 'Mom.' Yzak was raised on being strong and strict, and those two things left little room for emotion). "I...You can't just...please?"

"My Yzak... We're going to win this war, aren't we?" She sounded a bit loony, a little distant.

"Yes, mother. I'll give my all to see that your vision of peace is put into action as soon as we swat away these naturals."

Ezaria frowned, but she nodded. Then she coughed. Her voice was raspier now while she was wheezing. "Yzak, I want you to be glad that you don't have some strange, microscopic illness. I want you to leave this place as soon as I am gone."

"But-"

"Sssh," It was wild how commanding her frail voice sounded. "I might as well accept that fact, son, and you might as well too. I will die, soon, and there's nothing else for me. You, on the other hand, will live on; I ask you, as my dying words: Please, please leave this place...?"

Yzak had to swallow up his tears. They were becoming a bit threatening. He nodded stiffly and hugged his mother. It was the first time in several years that Ezaria was the receiver. He felt her hand brush his hair, and then it fell, daintily to her side. She whispered in his ear, "You'll make a fine general, Yzak. I know you'll make me proud."

Then she was gone.

Yzak kissed her rapidly freezing hand and mumbled his goodbye. The tears did not come. He wouldn't allow that, but he was sure that if he let them out then he wouldn't feel nearly as bad. He held them back.

Walking down the ominous corridor, Yzak could see through the windows the faces of the dying, the sick, the horrified. He could almost feel the pain and hurt radiating from them. Most were shaking their heads, "Why? Why? Why? Why?" or just stunned into silence. Some were madly clawing at everything until a nurse came to calm him or her down, and a select few looked relatively calm, facing their death like a hero. The place was obviously very busy.

Through one of the previous doorways, a doctor exited, shaking his head. Behind him was a pretty girl with dark, flame red hair. She didn't look at all like the other young, ashen faced nurses that tended the sick; she was grinning on the border of insanity. The doctor walked away from Yzak, but the red-head swayed his way, sensuously, almost giggling.

Yzak ignored her. He wanted to sit down, because he suddenly felt tired. But there wasn't a bench in sight in the hall. His head ached and so did his spirit. He'd just lost his mother. She was asleep, and she would never again wake in this world. He'd thought she would live forever- or at least until he was old and had plenty of experience to take her death accordingly. He wasn't old, but the experience part was a given. Seventeen and already an elite soldier in ZAFT... Ezaria would never see the day that he was a commander. Yzak leaned back and sighed deeply.

He didn't see the pretty girl stop to stare at him, her red hair falling over her shoulders in fiery waves. She smiled- a real smile, this time- and made a small clicking noise to get his attention. But when Yzak looked up, she was walking into one of the rooms with the calm, ready coordinators, still overly swaying her hips. Yzak waited and counted the seconds that he was in this forsaken place. His mother's last words had been for him to leave. Immediately.

The next event happened as a shock. The room was suddenly filled with anguished cries for help, and a soothing, almost pleased, voice telling someone to calm down, that it would all be over soon. Their cries did not lessen until the moment of inevitable silence. The red haired girl was coming out of the room before the horde of doctors even got there, and she was smiling like a Cheshire cat. She blinked at him when she saw he was still standing there. "Hello, there," she said.

"Hi," Yzak replied. When she didn't walk away, he mumbled, "Should I be somewhere else?"

She suddenly smiled in that strange way of hers. It would've been unnerving to someone unlike Yzak. "Oh, no- I was just noticing how depressed you look. Is something wrong?"

"No."

"You're downhearted. I can see sadness, believe me."

"What's your point?" He was wasting time. He was disobeying the last thing his mother would ever tell him to do. Why did he still want to stay? He did lament his mother's death very much. He felt so darkened, so...empty. He'd seen people die before, but never like that, and not anyone he was blood related to. It hurt.

"I could help you with that."

Yzak pondered her suggestion. Help him? How? With what? His curiosity peaked and alarm bells starting going off in his head. Leave, a small voice whispered. Get away while you still can. She's dangerous. He ignored it. His heart was in a state of hysteria.

"Whatever you've got, if it'll help, then I'll take it."

The red-haired girl smiled sweetly, and when Yzak took a place walking behind her, it darkened into something a bit more malicious. "Right this way, please."

When the two were out of earshot, several of the doctors exited the room, talking in quiet hushed voices.

"This has happened for over a week now. The coordinators will be stabilizing—even recovering!—and suddenly their monitor will go berserk. By the time anyone can get there, they're dead! It's like murder!"

"Have you searched for a bug in the computer systems?"

"There is no bug."

"How about the personnel?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary." He paused, and then continued in an even quieter voice, "I just can't fathom what could be wrong with them. One minute they're fine and the next..."

"Well, whatever it is, I'm sure glad only coordinators can get it. Hey, is that why our employees are all naturals?"

"You didn't know that?"

"No... I guess I never really thought about it, but it's a good idea."

Such a false belief.

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"So, what happened to cause you to look so sad?"

"How about telling me your name first, lady. Then we can get personal."

"Ooh, what a temper...We'll need this, too, then..."

Yzak watched the girl move back and forth in front of a medical cabinet. Her hips were perfectly round, and her voice was like a slow moving honey. From the glance Yzak got of her before they entered this room, he concluded that this girl must be a coordinator. She was simply too beautiful. Even her eye color- which was a pale shade of gray- was stunning.

She'd already hooked up several tubes to his arms. It hadn't hurt that bad; a little blood and some patching later, and he was suddenly staring at a pale green liquid flowing into his arm. The room itself seemed...missing something. It was more like a deathbed than a hospital bed. The digital clock on the wall was broken- it read 3:26 a.m. and was ticking the minutes away backwards.

The nurse had laid down several bottles of pills at his side. They looked like ordinary aspirins and pain killers- things he'd never had to use before. He was still reluctant to take them.

"My name is Fllay," she said, wriggling her ass a bit more. Yzak couldn't help but stare at a pretty, round tush like hers, barely concealed beneath the short, white uniform skirt. He was starting to feel light headed and, strangely enough, horny.

"Hey- do you think I've got enough of this shit in me? My name's Yzak, by the way."

Fllay turned around and gave him a full frontal view of three inches of delicious cleavage. She was giving him a quizzical look and unbuttoning her shirt further still. "Nope. I thought I told you to take those..." She noticed his scandalous look and laughed. "Oh, I'm sorry. It's terribly hot in here, don't you agree?"

"Yeah..." Yzak laughed bitterly and stared at the drugs like they were poisonous beetles instead of pills. "What are these?"

Fllay sighed, agitatedly. "They're pills, silly. You know, capsules? Drugs?"

Yzak frowned at her. "Hold the sarcasm, would ya bitch? I'm not in the mood. I don't have to take these if I don't want to."

"I thought you wanted my help..." Fllay slid her leg over Yzak, leaning down and caressing his arms as she smiled playfully at his serious expression. "C'mon; you can't tell me you don't like this."

Yzak was shocked to find she was right. He couldn't, because he did like it. Her skin held a vanilla aroma that tickled his nostrils when he inhaled. Her hair smelled like raspberries. She squeezed him with her thighs and kissed his jaw line softly. Yzak gulped and quickly went through a mental exercise to get rid of the hard on pushing against his jeans. "Get off of me."

Fllay laughed and flipped her hair. She complied, though, and slid over to the medical table again, smirking.

Yzak glared at the pills for another moment. They were sickening. But he downed them in one gulp anyway. He almost felt dizzy the moment they touched his tongue. He wanted the hysteria in his heart to give way to something, even if it was drugs.

"Why don't you lie down..." Fllay had a shot in her hand now, its needle large, long, and quite visible, even from six feet across the room. She was coming toward him like a cat- no, a lioness, ready pounce on him again.

In another slow, sexual movement, she swung her legs over Yzak, straddling him to the bed once more. Yzak stared at her with a blank expression this time. The numb feeling from the drugs was outweighing the lust. It was better than the grief that had plagued him before.

"I told you I could make you feel better..." she whispered huskily. Her fingers twitched on the shot, and Yzak noticed it coming down into his side.

He started to say "wait," but Fllay was already gouging the needle deep into his skin. Yzak sighed deeply as several new feelings washed over him. Now he felt high, like he'd smoked way too much pot and could barely remember to breathe. It was nice, albeit a little scary.

"You are a coordinator, right?" He heard Fllay ask. He nodded without a care in the world. "Just making sure."

It was then that Yzak started to realize the situation he was in. A combination of several things had impaired his judgment of this place, and caused him to give in to this girl's mischievous ways. But it was just a few drugs, right? No harm there... right? He was indeed a coordinator, and normal pain killers can't hurt him. And she was just a young, stupid nurse. He was a young stupid teenager like her. Again, nothing wrong. Just a couple of adolescents having fun.

Fllay was running her tongue down Yzak's jaw line again, but he hardly noticed her. "Are you a coordinator?" he asked quietly.

"No," she said. "All of the employees at this hospital are naturals."

"Oh," He had seriously thought she was a coordinator too. So she was born with that beautiful red hair and those piercing gray eyes... Yzak felt blind and deaf and dumb, like a child waiting on his mother to come and help him get to sleep.

His mother... Oh, God, what had he gotten himself into?

Yzak tried to sit up, and found that his muscles didn't want to cooperate. They actually ached when he attempted to push Fllay off of him. She laughed in that giggly, schoolgirlish way. He'd done no more harm than a playful shove. "What did you do to me?" He demanded in the firmest voice he could manage in his condition.

"I'm helping you. Just inhale the carnal pleasures I'm giving you and end your life peacefully, knowing that your last moments were...most enjoyable." She grinned thoughtfully again.

Yzak glanced around the room, and remembered that the green shit was still flowing through him. Immediately, he jerked whatever she was pumping into him right off of his arm, toppling the butterfly IV altogether. The strange liquid oozed disgustedly onto the white tiled floor. He heard Fllay mumble "Now that wasn't very nice..."

Yzak could've cared less about her stupid nurse charade. Either the temperature in the room was rising, or it was just him. He didn't think the air in the room was any different than when he first came in there. His temperature was rising, and it was getting awfully hard to breathe. "Hey, psycho natural- I'm going to ask you again one more time, and you're going to tell me the correct answer: What the hell did you do to me?"

"Hmm," she murmured, "I don't see the harm in telling you. You're going to die anyway. I just gave you too many chemicals for your system to handle at once, thus affectively giving you a slow, painless death."

Even if his body was slowly shutting down, Yzak's mind was racing with ideas to get himself out of this mess. First thing: stabilize. He had to get this crazy chick to get enough of the "chemicals" out of his bloodstream so he could survive at least long enough to figure out how he could further help himself. "Fllay, why are you doing this?" Now that wasn't what he'd been going to say...

"Because you're a coordinator." The logical tone in her voice was nauseating. "You all think you're so high and mighty and can't get diseases like the naturals; well, why the fuck do you think this hospital has an all natural staff? So we won't spread the diseases that you brought into this world. The coordinators here should be disposed of before they cause some animal species to become extinct because of their sickness."

Yzak openly gaped. "This hospital's only here for the older coordinators, you stupid bitch! I'm the second generation! I'm only gonna die because you forced me into an overdose! And animals carry diseases, not catch them! Now, hurry up and help me lose some of this blood." He couldn't believe it. He was going to die in a fucked up hospital because of a fucked up natural who thought she was doing the animal kingdom a fucking favor. His panic could only be described as full-throttle.

"I'm afraid I can't do that."

"And why the hell not?" He tried to keep his voice from sounding raspy, but it was an effort.

"Because I'm killing you for another reason. Despite what most naturals think, I don't believe you are going against God's will. I believe that human kind is evolving, and fixing our flaws doesn't change who we are. Hell, I'm not even a coordinator. But, on the other hand, I do think that your advantages cause you all to look down on those of us who were already here. You wouldn't believe how many people have turned up their noses at me because they've thought I was a 'stupid natural bitch'." She'd barely paused to take a breath in that long speech. Yzak had started to say he'd said no such thing, but the vicious blur that shook his thoughts topsy-turvy made the intention vanish. He had more important matters to deal with.

"Whatever your belief, we're not all like that! I'm an arrogant son of a bitch- and that bitch just died, by the way; maybe even by your hand- and I'm not afraid to admit that, but I don't hate naturals because I think you're inferior. I hate them because of selfish notions like yours! Look at what you've done for a second," Yzak had to pause for a loud cough that resulted in red blood stains on his light, worn-out jeans, "You... You're a murderer."

For a moment, Fllay looked confused. She stared at nothing, at something, as if defying everything he said, telling it that she was right, and it was wrong. Then she sped across the room so fast that Yzak leaned back and groaned at the sudden movement. She appeared at his side with a long, sharp knife in her hands and tears on her pretty, high cheeks. "W-what do I do?" she asked carefully. Not scared; worried and cautious. He could just as easily snatch the knife away from her and kill her along with him. Well, he could've if he weren't drugged beyond the human consumption limit.

Yzak spoke calmly. He didn't feel calm. "My side. Make as large a gash as you can without killing me. Surely you're not just a high school girl dressed up as a nurse..." Fllay bit her bottom lip. That tiny gesture told him that he'd hit home with his accusation. He wanted to groan again. "Fine, just- uh... Call for the other doctors."

"No! They'll... I'll go to prison, or worse..."

"No you won't," Yzak said, nearly losing his calm that was currently essential to his life, "You won't. I work with ZAFT." She gave him a wide-eyed look that made him regret saying that, but he plowed ahead regardless. "I can get you out of this mess, but not if you don't help me now. You don't want to kill me, Fllay." He said that last a bit more angrily than he wanted.

Fllay shook her head. "I'm sorry. I won't call them. Tell me what I can do by myself. I got you into this, and I'll get you out."

Yzak wanted to shake her. "Please, woman! Call the people in this fucking hospital that know what they're doing, otherwise I'm gonna-" She'd stabbed him so hard with the knife that his words died on the syllable. Pain waves shot up to his brain, causing his vision to momentarily go back and forth from reality, to never ending black. He coughed and again, felt the metallic tinge of blood on his tongue. Fllay put a hand to her lips and stepped back, mortified. "...fucking...stupid..." Ha! His last words were 'fucking stupid'. He mumbled aloud about forgiving a pun not actually said. He watched Fllay fall to her knees, mouthing wordlessly about him forgiving her.

"I'm sorry... I'm sorry! I'm SO SORRY! Sorry Sorry Sorry..." She repeated the word over and over, louder and louder. Yzak laughed bitterly. He didn't want to die, but life was a funny thing that worked itself out whether you liked it or not. He didn't like it, but then again, he didn't have to.

"Fllay," he rasped, "C'mhere, girl. Sit with me."

Fllay didn't move. She stared at him as if he'd lost his sanity right after she affectively gouged him. "Please, don't speak... I-I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."

"Get... your fucking ass... over here...now." God, his side hurt. It hurt badly.

Fllay complied without a word or look of defiance. She sat down on the bed beside his bloody, haggard body, crying silently. He lifted a hand and stroked it through her crimson red hair. Beautiful hair; for a natural it was down-right anomalistic, but gorgeous nonetheless. "Hey... Don't be...all bummed out... I can tell... you're not... a bad person, Fllay. Promise me..." He felt hypocritical not fulfilling his mother's dying wish, and here he was asking someone else to do the same. It was so ironic he wanted to laugh. He did laugh. "Promise me you'll stop this. Go off to...a country side somewhere... Find a husband... have a few kids... don't throw your life...away to a...cause like this. You... you understand... what... you did... wrong..." His vision blured again, and suddenly he felt Fllay's frail arms clinging to him. It hurt, but that didn't matter. His pain wouldn't matter soon.

"I'm sorry," she wept.

"Don't be," he replied.

"I deserve death, not you."

"No one really deserves death."

"But-"

"Just...stop all this madness with me, okay? Look at this...like a lesson learned." He could feel his breath leaving him, failing him, but a smile was on his face. He faintly could see a smile on Fllay's too as she nodded shakily, and dashed out of the room, hopefully for the last time. He couldn't take in another one. There wasn't an ounce of energy left to power his lungs. Yzak looked up to the ceiling. It was spinning.

Hello, mother. I didn't expect to see you so soon, but a cute red-head kinda sped up my life by about eighty years. I learned more than my fair share of wisdom in a short amount of time. She really was pretty. Despite how strange and misguided she was, I think I kinda liked her, love her even. I helped her change her ways, and I died for it. I hope you're not mad at me.

He could almost hear his mother's voice as he closed his eyes. Why would I be mad? You did fine, my son. You did fine.

Fin