WARNING. I ran a 13 mile marathon yesterday, and therefore my brain is not functioning at full capacity. I managed to get this chapter up in the 20 minutes of consciousness that I have between waking up, drinking water, and being so exhausted that I go back to sleep. 13 miles apparently puts quite a strain on the body. P

I also had technical difficulties... I type on my laptop, and normally I have internet access so I can upload it from my laptop to fanfic net. However, I'm up north applying for college, and so I had to use a flash drive to export the chapter to my mother's computer and upload it from there.

But her computer wouldnt read the word document as a file... So I ended up having to RETYPE this ENTIRE chapter, looking at the laptop screen and typing it onto this computer.

So, therefore, it is NOT edited. I am way too exhausted and dehydrated to even attempt editing it, although I might come back and try tomorrow.

So please excuse what I am sure will be a horrendous amount of typos and strange sentences. oO Thanks.

--

"Are you sure about this, Meyrin?" Athrun questioned worriedly, uncertainty tingeing his voice as he strapped the second gun holster onto his shoulder over the top of his green turtleneck.

"It… It's important to you, isn't it?" she replied in her mellow, amiable voice as she adjusted the band underneath her breasts, slipping the gun into the space between them. "I may not be as good of a shot as you… but I'm better than my sister."

Shrugging into his jacket and fastening the clasp, Athrun patted his chest to make sure the weapons were properly concealed before turning to face Kira.

The brown-haired Coordinator smiled gently, his large gray eyes warming his gaze. "She wouldn't allow anyone else to constantly be watching her back. If someone else were to do it, she would think we were babying her," Kira commented, a statement that everyone would easily agree to.

"Cagalli is stubborn like that," Athrun concurred, only realizing afterwards how easily he had spoken the words, as if he had never left the blond's side.

He looked up to find both Meyrin and Kira staring at him, one slightly bemused, the other appearing somewhat mystified.

--

Athrun held onto the doorway for a moment, taking a few seconds to examine Cagalli's figure as she stood against the window on the far side of the room past the dining table.

The morning sunlight illuminated the blonde's slender figure, which had been fitted with a snug floor-length dress. Its flowing skirt swept up in folds as she turned, and Athrun hurried to raise himself from his leaning position so it wouldn't appear as if he had been watching her.

Cagalli took a few steps forward before she caught sight of Athrun; when she did, she hesitated, expression slightly shocked as she regarded the young man standing before her. A familiar green turtleneck was partly cloaked by a black and white jacket that she had last seen when she had still worn his ring on her finger.

It was then that Athrun paid more heed to the dress she was wearing, and was brought to a stunning realization.

For the dress that tightly spun around Cagalli's figure was a clearly recognizable deep blue that brought a breathtaking attention to her shimmering dark brown eyes. The same one which a woman had held up a few days ago beside another gown and asked for Athrun's opinion.

"That dress…" he started, finding himself at a further loss for words as he noted the way that Cagalli's upswept hair left a few loose strands of delicate curls touching against her bare next. That, combined with the fact that she had chosen the outfit he had advised her to…

Curling both hands into her skirt, Cagalli glanced down, a blush lighting up her face as she realized the connection Athrun had made. "Ah," she stuttered, eyes wandering around the room nervously, "it's just… you said… so… I thought, since I'm not good at choosing dresses…"

Athrun couldn't help the smile that formed on his face, the grin that came from the inner mirth swelling up in him at the stuttering, blushing young woman before him.

And he figured, then, that it was the same mysterious force that drove the two of them together in the first place; that irrevocable attraction to each other's personalities and quirks, to the warmth that came from being close to witness each other's actions. For Athrun knew better than anyone Cagalli's tendencies and impulses – knew and tolerated, and had stood by her side under the alias of a bodyguard because of that knowledge and understanding.

Trying to remove the inevitable blush that he felt rising to his cheeks, Athrun moved forward so he was standing within a few feet of her. "It… it looks good. It suits you."

Cagalli's eyes widened slightly, her cheeks deepening to a reddish hue as she stammered out a failed response, hands still tugging at her skirt self-consciously. But after a moment, their blushes faded, and their eyes wandered to the floor in front of them.

"The way it came out, before… I didn't mean it that way," Athrun stated suddenly, and Cagalli tried to wrack her mind for what he could possibly be referring to.

When he chanced a look up, it was to see a puzzled expression and curiously narrowed brown eyes. Clearing his throat, he tried to find his voice beneath the growing lump in his throat.

"When I asked you why you put the ring back on," he clarified, and Cagalli's hands clenched into fists in the fabric of her skirt, leaving impressions on the fabric. "I didn't… I didn't mean that I didn't want you to put it back on. I didn't mean that I wanted you to take it off. That wasn't what I was asking."

One look with honest green eyes into Cagalli's own brown orbs, and Athrun slid onto his face the sunglasses he had been holding in his hand. Cagalli noted the action, and wondered if Athrun could have possibly taken his shades off in the first place to merely speak to her with his face clearly bared.

"Before… when you apologized for not telling me… I really did forgive you. It's just…"

The words he left out were unspoken, but somehow heard all the same.

Although there had been an apology before, and an acceptance, there was still so much that had been left unsaid burning through both of their minds, words they had wanted so badly to speak but were never able to find the time or the place to do so.

Somehow, Cagalli felt a small smile growing on her lips, and as Athrun regarded her from the corner of his eyes, he found that Cagalli's eyes were a bit more watery than usual.

Shaking his head and still doing the best to expel his blush, Athrun put one hand against the small of Cagalli's back and nudged her slightly with it. "Let's go; we'll be late. You have a guest to meet for breakfast, right?"

As they walked, Athrun was careful to keep his hand away from the side of her waist that had been wounded, finding that the memory of the injury brought up disturbing thoughts of the fact that someone was out there trying to seriously injure or kill Cagalli.

"Does it hurt?" he questioned quietly, waiting for the petite blond to figure out what he was referring to.

A very familiar stubborn, defiant look grew on her face, then. "Of course not. It's just a little scratch." Resisting another smile, Athrun nodded in response, but suddenly his features drew down as another thought came to him.

"But it wasn't meant to be just a scratch, was it?" he asked rhetorically, watching Cagalli's face grow solemn.

When he wasn't given a response, Athrun observed Cagalli's sullen face and tried to concentrate on where they were going through the hallways. "Meyrin came as well. She's here posing as one of your close friends visiting." He lowered his voice, then, to further assure nobody else would hear. "We're both armed."

Despite the guiding hand that had remained on her back, Cagalli's feet stopped, then, causing Athrun to halt beside her. "What is it?"

Another slight pout formed on her face, then, a thoughtful one, of befuddled curiosity, and Cagalli began to fidget with her skirt once again. "It's just… I was wondering," she began, shifting her gaze between his eyes and the floor. "Why are you here?"

The hand he had been using to keep contact with Cagalli went slack, and after a moment, returned to his side. Athrun stared intently at her for a moment, his eyes only slightly visible behind his shades, and then he took a few steps forward, putting some distance between them.

As Cagalli frowned at his back, he turned his head slightly so she could view the profile of his face.

"Because whether you still believe it or not," he stated clearly, face still visible only from the side, "I care. About you."

--

Athrun wasn't sure what he had expected when Kira had informed him that the first thing Cagalli was attending to that morning would be a formal breakfast. But one thing Athrun was certain of was that the last thing he had thought to see when they walked in that door was a young man seated at a table next to Meyrin, the two engaged in polite conversation.

Athrun realized in that moment the reason that the man must be there; one of the "politically advantegous" candidates that Cagalli was supposed to be considering for marriage.

Meyrin was doing a remarkable job of displaying her modestly cut yet strapless light blue dress, and despite the awkward yet faint blush on her face, seemed to be quite comfortable even in the presence of someone she didn't know.

Cagalli slipped into her representative attitude then, politely going to Meyrin's side and introducing her as an old friend. Meanwhile, Athrun took a minute to observe the subtle ways the blond had matured since he had last seen her. The simple things, such as the commanding tone in her voice, the practiced gestures.

But then he took notice of something entirely different. The young man had the audacity to not so subtly stare at Meyrin when Cagalli had her head turned, and Athrun felt a grimace growing on his face; if the man was Cagalli's potential suitor, how could he have the gall to be eyeing one of her 'close' friends?

Athrun took his place at the table beside Cagalli, ignoring the pointed glance that came his way by a man dressed far fancier than he was.

He could read the questions and objections clearly in the other man's eyes, as if they had been spoken out loud. That was one of the advantages of wearing sunglasses over his face; it allowed him to observe other people without them knowing exactly what the object of his scrutiny was.

What is a person like that doing here?

Why is he with Cagalli? Dressed like that?

It took only a moment for Cagalli to catch on to the fact that there were stray eyes fixated on Athrun; with a stammered apology, she gestured to him, smiling.

"This is another friend of mine; At…" She trailed off for a moment as she wondered in a panicked sense whether Athrun would want to resume his old alias of "Alex", or if he preferred to now use his own name.

But he spared her further confusion by cutting in right as she trailed off, leaving the sentence completed without pause. "Athrun Zala."

That day ingrained the knowledge in Athrun's mind that the only reason Cagalli was wearing a dress was due to the fact that she was meeting with dates. Although he had seen her swathed in gowns a few seldom times before, this somehow seemed to irk him in a way he couldn't quite comprehend.

As they met with one after another pompous young men whom Cagalli seemed to already be somewhat acquainted with, Athrun stole occasional glances at the thin silver chain dangling past Cagalli's collarbones. It was precisely the perfect length for the chain to disappear into the top of her dress, masking from view the ring on the end of it.

He wondered what could posses her to continue wearing it even when marriage was being thrown into her field of limited options. Whether she would discard it soon. Whether she might continue to wear it for some reason he might never be privy to.

Cagalli, meanwhile, gave her best attempt to concentrate on the man she was chatting with over the table. But despite her best efforts, she couldn't stop her wayward brown eyes from shifting to the profile of Athrun's face, even finding herself missing pieces of the conversation when her gaze lingered too long.

--

An exhausting seven hours later, Meyrin retired to take off the uncomfortable dress she had been wearing all day, leaving Athrun to follow Cagalli as she made her way back to her room.

Athrun stopped at the door when Cagalli poked her way into her room, head turning as she called out, "Mana?"

When no response came, Cagalli's figure disappeared into the room to search out the older woman. Athrun waited patiently by the door, just about to lean against the wall when a hand snaked through the doorway and yanked him into the room, closing the door behind him.

The blue-haired man blinked down at a disgruntled and somewhat abashed Cagalli, who was gazing up at him through her thick eyelashes, a slight frown on her face.

Turning her back to him, the blond gestured to the line of zippers and hooks that fastened the back of her dress. "Can you help me out of this torturous device?" she grumbled, grimacing over her shoulder. "It's really damn uncomfortable! I'm not about to wait for Mana!"

Athrun's eyes widened slightly at the request, and Cagalli scrunched her nose, her face growing sullen. "I have another little dress thing underneath it anyway! Come on, just undo it before I rip it off and ruin it. Please?"

Though he hesitated a moment, Athrun reluctantly complied. Unused to the fastenings of a woman's dress, his fingers fumbled over the hooks before he figured out how to undo the miniscule clamps.

He paused awkwardly before pulling down the zipper, relieved to find Cagalli's word was true by the time he had to unfasten the second clasp; she was wearing a white shift underneath.

Once the dress was unzipped all the way, Cagalli quickly wriggled out of it, making Athrun's face light up with a tinge of a blush as he politely averted his head to give her privacy.

But something in the way Cagalli's hand moved instantly to her side made Athrun turn his head back around to see her clasping fingers against her shift, where blood stained the white fabric of it.

Athrun started forward, removing her hand and examining it with a displeased expression.

"Is that why you were 'uncomfortable'?" he repeated, quoting her deceivingly vague choice of words in a low, displeased tone.

Cagalli made a strange face at him, hmphing and putting her opposite hand on her hip in a gesture of protest.

A strangled yelp left her mouth when Athrun grasped the bottom of her shift's skirt in one hand and began to lift it up; modestly, she threw both of her hands on it, pushing it back down.

"What are you doing, idiot??" she questioned in an embarrassed voice tinged with frustration.

"If it's bleeding that much, the bandage obviously needs to be changed," Athrun replied in an even voice, as if it were perfectly normal. "You've bandaged my waist before; it won't kill you to let me do the same. Like you said earlier, it's not worth waiting for Mana."

"But…well… it's…" Stuttering, Cagalli continued to grip the bottom of the skirt, biting one lip awkwardly.

"It's not like we haven't been in such a situation before," Athrun commented, the blush reigniting his face and instantly Cagalli's too as she realized his reference to the time they were stranded together on the island, their clothes hanging to dry and leaving her in a state of fair undress. Not to mention how he had burst in on her the other day…

They finally came to an agreement that while Athrun left to the ajoining bathroom to retrieve the medical supplies and bandages, Cagalli would have her privacy to remove the shift.

Athrun figured that perhaps as a man, he didn't understand how it made a difference whether or not he was there when the process of her actually removing the clothing occurred, but if it made Cagalli feel better, he would comply.

But when he returned to the room with supplies in hand, glimpsing Cagalli in her underwear for the second time that week, Athrun was forced to acknowledge what he had managed to ignore upon last seeing her unclothed.

Years had passed since they had sat undressed in a cave together while their clothes hung to dry. And during those years, both of them had developed and matured, and although Athrun had blushed at seeing her in such a way before, his reaction nearly three years later wasn't turning out to be so mild.

Swallowing past the rapid pulse in his throat, Athrun tried to even the expression on his face as he strode up to Cagalli, who was giving him the most curious look from her deep brown eyes that made it even harder to ignore the impulses he was already battling.

--

I think I've been reading too many romance novels.. P

Review, please.