fairydust and snowdrops
II: different ties
Usually, Setsuna doesn't think of his next-door neighbour. And he certainly doesn't think of the company he keeps.
He doesn't realise there are thin threads of wool knitting all of them together until two years later, when his then-neighbour is sitting in the cockpit of the 00-Raiser with him – and sort of not with him as well.
At that point, Setsuna knows that Saji is fighting his own battle and traversing the battlefield for his own battle too. Just like all of them: all of Celestial Being…and not just Celestial Being but others, everyone who's some way or another been affected by war. Louise Halevy too, so easy and so hard to reconcile with that flimsy, frail girl he'd seen in his neighbour's apartment once so long ago…
He sees the threads of wood that tie them, slowly. It's Saji's fault, really. Saji who stumbles into their path as they save him, leave him behind, snatch him away again because Saji still acts like a child and not a child-soldier like him… But he learns. In the midst of war, one can't do anything but learn and he knows it. He's learnt this way too and more cruelly.
Saji, at least, doesn't hold the trigger that took his family away.
But he's heading there. Says he won't fight Louise but they're at war and will she listen? Across the enemy fire, on the battlefield – will she pause and stopping might mean her own life and the absolution she seeks? Maybe, maybe their live is that strong but the loss of her parents is still a new, raw, wound and it mightn't matter even there…
Lockon manages not to pull the trigger but Lockon's hurt is many years old and dulled with their friendship. It's the other way for Louise and Saji. Together once, now opposing. Betrayal.
All these different ways love shatters…