Wow, is this a dream? Is this true? Am I really posting a new chapter? Yes! Sorry for the delay, I just had a total lack of inspiration when it came to writing down my ideas (though I had, and still have, TONS of ideas) so, here you go, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Seed, or Gundam Seed Destiny, which has started to air on YTV with bad dubbing.


"OH!"

"AH!"

"Sorry!"

"Excuse-me!"

It took a moment for the two people who had bumped into each other to realize who exactly the person who had made them fall onto the tiled cafe floor was. Miriallia woke up to the fact first.

"Aren't you supposed to be in class?" she asked with a wry smile.

Lionel stuttered. "Uh…well…no?"

The older woman laughed.

"You don't have to lie, I won't tell," she told him, "school can get pretty boring at times."

The blond boy let a small chuckle and blushed. After lunch he had decided to skip class. He probably wouldn't have done such a thing if he wasn't on the run from his mother and her husband. Cagalli had been ready to kill him that one time he didn't go to school when he was 14. But today, he figured that he was in enough trouble as it was and that missing a course or two wouldn't change that much.

"So, what are you doing here?" asked Miriallia, "you are supposed to be in class, aren't you?" The teenager was quiet, making the older woman sigh. "Am I that uncool?" she questioned to no one in particular. Lionel felt guilty.

"It's not that," he said quietly, "it's…it's just hard to explain."

It was sometime around then that the two of them realized that they were both sitting rather stupidly on a café floor and earning more than a few strange looks.

"How about we get a table?" Miriallia laughed.

"Sounds like a smart idea," mumbled the teen, shrugging.

They choose one of the more discreet tables to sit at, and because of their choice, had to wait a good ten minutes before being served. But Miriallia and Lionel, especially Lionel, hardly noticed. They both had more important things to worry about.

"So…so you know about him, don't you?" asked the blond boy quietly, a bit embarrassed. He had only remembered his classroom discovery.

The older woman's mood darkened considerably as she tried to avoid the subject.

"Oh, I know lots of hims," she began with a plastered smile.

"I mean my father," interrupted the teenager impatiently. Damn, Miriallia cursed inwardly, despite his mild-mannered personality, when push came to shove Lionel could be as forceful as his mother. "You know about Athrun Zala, right?"

Again, the adult tried to avoid the subject, "of course I do, everyone knows about Athrun Zala. He's a war hero, piloted an array of mobile suits, son of Patrick Zala…"

"And my father."

This time, the older woman was forced to give.

"And your father," she repeated in defeat. "Fine, you win. I know about him."


Mayu was perplexed, very perplexed. Perplexed in way that irritated her to the point of no return. She had to find out more about this Athrun Zala guy.

Lionel had disappeared after lunch without giving her or anyone else the slightest clue as to why. Shortly after they had started their research on the blond boy's biological father, the bell had rung, indicating the end of their lunch period. Mayu would have liked to print what they had found on Athrun Zala and study them instead of her assigned work with Lionel for the rest of the days, but the computer room monitor threw them out before she had the chance. Afterwards, she and Attha had split because he claimed he needed to relieve himself. The young girl had gone straight to class and waited. And waited. And waited. Her new friend had never shown up.

Glancing outside, Mayu sighed. What an interesting day this was turning out to be. Suddenly, she noticed something that perked her interest; a limo pulled up just in front of the school, a royal Orb limo. Any good Orb citizen knew that only a select few ever rode in one of those: the so-called royal family. Fascinated, she watched as a young man who was either a butler or a chauffeur scrambled to open the door and help out Cagalli Yula Attha. Mayu gasped a little. What was she doing here? Then it struck her: Lionel.

Shit, she thought, what's she going to do when she finds out Attha's not here? Taking a quick peek at her watch, she saw that it was 3:30p.m. She still had another half-hour of school left. Growling, she looked up at her teacher, what class am I in anyways? she asked herself, Mayu had never been good at paying attention. She looked back outside; Cagalli had just started to make her way towards the school. Thinking fast, she raised her hand, and without even waiting to be noticed, asked: "Can I go to the bathroom?"

Nobody was really surprised at Asuka-Hawke's outburst, save for the teacher, the brunette had never cared for discretion. Her teacher, a pathetic substitute, let her leave without the slightest fight.

"Cagalli-sama!" She cried out, adding the second bit grudgingly. "Cagalli-sama, I need to talk to you!" Even though she was no more than five meters away from her country's leader, the Head representative of Orb seemed oblivious to Mayu's calling (and her efforts to be respectful). "Don't ignore me, goddamnit!" she cursed. This time, she caught the blond woman's attention, for better or for worse.

"Fine, I'm not ignoring you. What is it you want?" snapped Cagalli, turning to face the teenager, an aura of frustration and power enveloping her. All of a sudden, Mayu, who was normally brimming with confidence, was at a total loss of words and courage.

"Well…umm…you se-"

"Look, if it's not important, I have to met up with my son," Cagalli said coldly, "have a nice day."

Mayu decided that Athrun Zala had to be one of the nicest guys in the history of nice guys for Lionel to be such a sweetie when his mom was such a bitch. In all honesty, she was a bit taken aback by Cagalli's quick and unforgiving mouth; the woman had come off as a lot…weaker in her father's stories. He exaggerated too much, decided the brunette, way too much. Then, she noticed the blond woman walking off into the distance.

"WAIT!" she cried, "this is about him! Your son!" The older one turned to face her in bewilderment. Mayu continued to speak, "he's not here, he left!"

Cagalli took in this information with a certain amount of shock. Lionel, skipping school? What had that imbecile Desert Tiger told him?

"Just who are you?" she finally asked the teen who had approached her. The girl stared away uncertainly, but spoke nonetheless.

"Mayu As-"

"Asuka-Hawke," Cagalli finished for her, laughing a bit. A radiant smile made it's way onto her face, "let's talk," she said, leading Mayu to her limo. "This is the only place we'll get to talk without being disturbed," she explained as she opened the car door, "so no, I'm not kidnapping you," she added.

After they were both in, Cagalli ordered her driver to take them for a ride, without much indication about where they were going. Then, she turned to the young girl.

"Sorry about earlier," she said, "I guess I'm just a little stressed out." And then a smirk creeped onto her face, "you know, I've never had the chance to meet one of Lionel's girlfriend's before," she said mischievously.

"I'm not his girlfriend!" exclaimed Mayu instantly. Cagalli laughed, making her blush.

"No, but he likes you," she said, "or at least that's what he told me the last time I spoke to him…" The blond woman, who had been smiling for a while now continued to do so, but became a lot more mellow. "I haven't talked to him for over a week now."

The younger girl felt sympathetic towards her, "oh yeah, you guys had some sort of fight, right?" She tactfully let out the part where Lionel told her about his real father.

The Orb leader raised an eyebrow, "is that what he told you?" she asked, sounding somewhat pleased for a reason that Mayu failed to grasp. "That little bugger, I've been letting him spend to much time at the office, he's learning to tell convincing lies."

Though she was curious to know what Attha was lying about, the brunette was more intrigued by Cagalli at the moment. The way she talked about her son, the way she was always smiling when she did so, the way her eyes shone when someone mentioned her name…it made Shinn's daughter wonder about being a mother. Mayu had always wanted to be one, ever since she was little and playing with baby dolls, but she had never really thought about the work or commitment or sacrifice that it meant. Luna, he mother had always made it look so easy. Cagalli did too, in a way, when she was in front of the camera's she had to, but there was something in the way she held herself that personified a loving struggle. She wasn't a cutout mom, but she was a good one nonetheless, almost as good as Mayu's.

"I don't if I should be telling you this," began Cagalli, breaking her chain of thought, "but Lionel's run away from home," she suddenly became quiet, while the violet-eyed girl's orb's shot wide open in shock. "I told him something I shouldn't have and…"

"You told him about his real father, didn't you?" interrupted, breaking the vow she had made herself to not bring up Athrun Zala.

"How do you know about that?" demanded the older woman, much like her son had done in their physics class that mourning. Mayu giggled at this.

"At-Lionel told me about it," she confessed after a minute, "actually, we kinda figured out who he is…" she trailed off embarrassed.

"And who is he?" snapped the Head Representative, sounding as cold as she had earlier. She obviously didn't like other people meddling with her affairs.

"Athrun Zala," mumbled the brunette in a small voice, glancing up at her county's leader she decided not to linger on the subject and continued to talk, "we did a bit of research on him at lunch. You know, I heard his name a bunch of times but I never realized he was the Athrun Zala."

"Yeah, because there are a ton of other Athrun Zalas out there," commented Cagalli sarcastically.

"I know!" Mayu snapped back enthusiastically, "but I just…didn't think about that. Lionel didn't either, I think it was more of a shock to him than it was to me, because he was really freaked out after he read that his dad is the Athrun Zala. I guess I'd be pretty shocked too if I was in that position…" the brunette stopped her babbling once she realized that the blonde woman was starting to relax again.

"Did he read anything about Patrick Zala?" she asked Mayu, who shrugged.

"I'm not sure, probably, they mentioned that on the web page…"

"I doubt he missed it," Cagalli muttered bitterly. "I guess that's why he ran off, that kid's sure good at running away…"


Flashback

Kiwidepia was the source when it came to finding information. Known as the Internet encyclopedia, it had articles on every subject known to man and on every person who was even remotely famous. It's total accuracy only added to its good reputation.

Lionel hadn't realized that he'd pressed on Kiwidepia's link when he choose the page about his father and hadn't really minded when he found out that was the one he choose.

Hoping he wouldn't find anything to atrocious, he began to read.

"Athrun Zala, born October 29th, CE 55 to Patrick and Lenore Zala, he was sent to Cornipercus Lunar Academy at the age of…"

Lionel had stopped reading there, and then, in hopeful denial, read the first bit over again. But that didn't help, the words didn't miraculously change the way he would have liked them to. And then his common sense kicked in; he should have known when Mayu first told him the name! Athrun Zala. How many other Athrun Zalas were there?

Lionel cursed, partly because he couldn't believe how stupid he had been and partly because he had just realized he was a genocidal maniac's grandson (history didn't remember Patrick Zala very well).

The bell rang.

"Ok, you miscreants, get out of here!" cried the computer room supervisor.

The blond boy accepted the invitation with open arms.

End of Flashback


Lionel didn't really understand why Miriallia had been so hesitant about talking about his father. She didn't seem like the bitter ex-girlfriend type, nor the sworn enemy sort. In fact, once she had started talking about him she had come off as liking and admiring the guy. She told Lionel all sorts of things about Athrun, some of which he knew of, some of which he didn't; how he was the idiot creator of the Haro (now a highly marketed toy). How he had piloted a number of top-notch machines, like The Justice, for example. How his sense of Justice was very strong and how he had acted as his mother's bodyguard when she was first in power.

In reply to this, the blond boy told his mother's old friend a bit about what was going on in his life, briefly passing over everything, from Cagalli spilling her secret to why he was skipping school that day. Once he had done so, Miriallia had offered for him to stay her and her husband's place for the night, or as long as he liked. The only catch was he had to call his mother.

"Aww, come on! Do I have to?" Lionel pleaded, "you guys are friends, can't you call her for me?" Suddenly, Miriallia's mood darkened.

"Lionel," she said, "this is the part about your father that I didn't want to have to tell you about." The blond boy looked up at her in scared curiosity, his amber eyes reflecting what seemed like his every thought. "Athrun was a soldier, he did as he was told and followed orders, he showed no mercy for those on the opposing side, so it's only normal that this sort of thing happened, but…to get to the point, he killed my boyfriend."

Both she and the blond boy sat in silence for what seemed like forever. Lionel felt sick to his stomach; somehow, knowing that his father had killed someone, someone with a name, a face and a lover was far more disgusting than being Patrick Zala's grandson. Athrun Zala was a complex character, with every new piece of information he learnt about him, Lionel was thrown into a new world of chaotic emotions.

"Yeah, but you're married now, right?" he squeaked, "so it's ok, right?" Miriallia ruffled the kid's Kira-styled head of hair.

"It's more complicated than that. Yeah, I moved on and got married, but Tolle was, I hate to sound cheesy, but he was my first love, and there's a small part of me that will never forgive your father for killing him." She paused and then let out a wry smile, "you'll understand when that Asuka girl dumps you," she said, making Lionel blush.

"How does this tie in with me having to call my mom?" he asked once he finally gathered the courage to do so.

"Your father was badly injured in that battle where he killed Tolle," Miriallia explained in a very neutral tone, "and two of the pilots serving on our ship, Tolle and Kira, you uncle, went MIA. I explained this when I was presenting to your class. So our Captain, Murrue, sent an SOS to Orb, asking them to search the area for survivors. About a dozen Orb soldiers were sent out, but instead of finding either Kira or Tolle, they only found a ZAFT soldier, your father."

Lionel nodded and the older woman continued to tell her story, "or, that's what I was always told. But one day, when you were little and I was babysitting you, I stumbled on some old documents which said that when they searched the area, The Orb forces had also found Tolle's body, a bloody mangled mess according to the reports. Cagalli had been there with them when they found it. When I read this, I was so angry that she had never told me. I confronted her about it, and we had a huge fight. I haven't talked to her since." Miriallia closed her eyes for a second, "I suppose we would have made up eventually, but then I was transferred to the PLANTs (where I met my husband) and we lost touch. And I'm still not sure if I'm quite over it yet. Besides, someone has got to tell her you're safe, unless you want her to go crazy that it."

"So, you won't talk to her because of some fight you had a bunch of years ago?" questioned Lionel skeptically. Miriallia nodded.

"That's stupid."

"I know."


Cagalli ended up driving Mayu home. She figured it was the least she could do. Even though she never mentioned it, she was extremely grateful to the young girl for telling her about Lionel. So grateful in fact, that she had wasted precious working time driving to and back from the quaint little shack Shinn had decided to live in. Lunamaria had been the one to answer the door, but the blond woman had noticed the magenta haired lady's husband glaring at her through the window. Rolling her eyes, Cagalli waved at him only to receive a nasty growl back.

She had left the place with a smile on her face, but now, as she lay awake in bed, her lips were frozen in a frown. Lionel had left her a message at work; he was staying at Milly's place much to her surprise, and not at the Desert Tiger's. Stupid kid, you weren't supposed to call your parents when you ran away from home. Turning onto her side, she faced Yuuna. He had insisted that they share a bed, claiming that that was what normal married couples did. Cagalli couldn't count the number of times she had had to remind him that they weren't normal. When Lionel was young, she used to stay awake until her oaf of a husband was fast asleep and then go sleep with her boy (not a la Michael Jackson though) just as an excuse to get away from sleeping in the same bed as him. But tonight, or at least, at that particular moment, she was happy to have Yuuna there. Heck, she would've been happy to have anyone there next to her, just as long as there was someone to talk to.

"Yuuna," she said, waking him gently, "I miss Lionel…"

Yuuna grunted. "Go to sleep, Cagalli honey," he mumbled before dozing back off into sleep. Cagalli stared at his almost lifeless body for a second, and then turned away before beginning to cry.

She couldn't take it anymore. She wanted her son back; she couldn't stand not having him around any longer, she couldn't stand being in the dark about weather he still loved her. But she was powerless to do anything about it. Cagalli was the one who had insisted on letting him roam free and experience his adventure; she was the one who had fought to let him do this, so she couldn't take it back now. But she missed him, and so she cried for what seemed like hours. She cried for Lionel and, she wasn't sure when it started, but eventually she found herself crying for Athrun too.


Hehe! Writing the bit with Mayu and Cagalli was fun. Anyways, please review!