A/N: nightdreamerms, you're really a nice person. I'm not too bothered about it, but I just have this complex where I worry that when people aren't telling me when they're mad at me, you know? It's part of my social life too, and I guess in a way it does make interacting with me hard because I read too much into things, lol.

Disclaimer: Do not own Gundam Seed, don't even like it as much now…

Chapter 10 – Listening

She shouldn't have fallen asleep on the ride back, but she did. She should have stayed awake, if not to ensure that Kenji didn't fall asleep at the wheel, then at least to suffer along fairly with him. As it was, she didn't even wake up until the orphanage was in sight, when the sun was smiling down on the sea and when Kenji woke her up.

"Eh, wake up, princess, and be prepared to face the boss' wrath" were his exact words, and as Fllay rubbed sleep out of her eyes she wished Kenji would drive slower.

Not that she regretted sneaking out, because seeing Sakiya was worth it, but explaining it was going to be a heart-stopping experience, and not in a good way.

"Um, I'm sorry I fell asleep," she murmured. Her neck ached, and she wondered how she managed to sleep at all.

Kenji shrugged. "No biggie. You had a long day."

Then far too soon for her liking they were pulling into the driveway, and Fllay flinched on seeing the figure standing right smack in the middle of the path with his arms crossed. As Kenji pulled the car to a stop she caught side of his expression, and felt her mouth go dry.

She kept her eyes lowered as she got out of the car, taking extra care with the door to make sure it was properly shut, and basically buying time for herself to think. But she didn't have to bother, because before she could open her mouth Kira spoke first.

"Fllay, go to your room," he ordered, glaring past her at Kenji.

She obeyed meekly, starting up the path. She raised her head when she passed him. Was there anything she could say to get them out of trouble? No, not really, and as she thought that she lowered her head once more, sneaking a peek behind her as she opened the door. Kenji's face was equally set as he stood beside the car waiting for his orders, and Fllay wished him luck before she slipped through the door into the building.

Lacus was in the dining room, sitting with her hands clasped in front of her. When she heard Fllay pass, she immediately stood up and ran over. "Oh Miss Fllay, you're back! You had us all so worried!"

"I'm sorry," Fllay replied mechanically. Her thoughts were outside, and she couldn't help thinking that maybe she should have insisted on staying after all. It was as much her fault as his.

Lacus took Fllay's hands in hers. "Have you eaten?" When she received no reply, she smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry about Sergeant Mizuno, Kira isn't so much angry as worried, and you know how he gets."

"Oh." It was all she could say to that.

Lacus leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, "But personally, I think I would have gone too."

Fllay jerked in surprise and met the other girl's blue eyes. She could feel a smile tugging at the corner of her lips, even if it felt wry and humourless. The more she knew about the Coordinator girl, the more she felt as though she could grow to like her.

"So have you eaten?" Lacus repeated, and without waiting for an answer she ushers her into the dining room, pulling out a chair and asking her what she would like on her toast. Fllay lets herself be mothered, but her gaze wanders out to the beach, where two distinct figures made their way along the shoreline.

Kira marched across the sand silently, knowing that Kenji was following a few steps behind. Every now and then he could hear the swish that meant Kenji was kicking sand into the sea, and it made him irritable that he was still so carefree.

"So, what do you have to say for yourself?" he said at last.

He heard a scratching sound before Kenji's reply. "Uh, my sister wasn't as incapacitated as I thought?"

He snorted. "She threw something at you." It wasn't a question.

"Uh, yeah. Duh. Missed though."

He whirled around and fixed his stare on the boy now tossing pebbles into the air and catching them as they fell. "You do know that disobeying an order from a superior is insubordination and that you can be court-martialed for it."

"Yes, sir," Kenji replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I also know very well the 39 ways that I could be charged for it in court, and I know that my sister could do without a second trial to watch from her hospital bed. But I have no regrets. Do whatever you want."

Kira took a deep breath. "So you decided that seeing your sister once was worth more than a few years of freedom."

"Yeah."

"And taking your charge along was no trouble at all."

"Actually," Kenji said with a faint touch of amusement, "she was hell going there and back. But since she threatened to sabotage my plans if I didn't take her along, I didn't have any other choice."

Kira blinked in surprise. "She threatened to sabotage your plans?"

His subordinate rolled his eyes. "Yes. Why, you thought I took her along because I liked her or something?"

He couldn't find a reply to that, just stuck his hands in his pockets and muttered something along the lines of "no".

But Kenji caught his sudden change in mood. "Oh, by Haumea, you really thought that, didn't you?" He mimed wiping sweat off his brow with his free hand. "Please. Get real. Lassie would kill me. Come to think of it, so would Sis, if she thought I was."

"Emily would kill you if she knew you were giving her dog nicknames anyway," Kira retorted, trying - and failing – not to show his relief too clearly. He was not relieved. No, he most certainly wasn't.

"Nah she wouldn't, it's a form of endearment. But don't tell her." He stopped, pulled back, and threw the pebbles as far as he could. They fell and sunk right into the sea, much to his disappointment. "Anyway, sir, that's not the point. The point is that between his sister and his girlfriend, most men do not have the capabilities to handle another woman." He snuck a playful glance at his boss. "Unlike someone here."

Kenji was forced to immediately dodge a punch. "Hey!"

Kira glared at him as he retracted his fist, though most of his anger had dissipated. The punch itself wasn't serious, it was pretty playful in nature. "That wasn't funny."

His would-be victim held up his hands in mock surrender. "Ok, it wasn't, it wasn't. I was just saying, you can keep your girls to yourself." He let his hands fall to his sides, and with a touch of seriousness he said, "Besides, even if Sis is okay with her, I'm not. I'm not so forgiving."

Kira shot him a glance. "That's not relevant to your mission. Keep your personal feelings out of this."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it." He sighed dramatically. "Anyway, man, if you had a sister like mine you'd have died long ago. Do you know what she did when I first started going out with Lassie? She drew up this long-ass list of rules for me to follow. And she called her during every date to make sure I was behaving. Called my date. Geez, talk about overbearing."

Kira couldn't help laughing at that image. Cagalli had been all screw your love life whenever Athrun asked him if he wanted to talk about it. It didn't upset him so much as grant him a reprieve. Thinking about it gave him enough of a physical reaction to call in sick, so it was no wonder that Cagalli slammed the topic shut whenever someone tried opening it. "Actually, I think you deserved it."

Kenji groaned. "Not you too. Does no one in this world have faith in me?"

"No, not really."

This time it was his turn to dodge as Kenji reached down and splashed seawater at him. He scurried backwards in time to avoid the brunt of it, but some still got on his shoes. The glare reappeared on his face.

"Sir, please stay still," Kenji called out, reaching down for more water.

"Like hell I will!"

A few days later, Fllay was working through the defence with Mr Brown and Lacus again when the phone rang. Lacus immediately excused herself to attend to it, while Fllay tried her best to answer the lawyer's questions politely and securely. Now that they pretty much had their stand, they worked on presentation. First impressions made more of an impact than most people assumed, and though Mr Brown didn't say anything about it, Fllay could tell that her case needed the help of that good first impression.

Kenji twirled a pen about single-handedly while staring out of the window with a bored look on his face. She saw him coming back with Kira the other day and she almost found it hard to believe that they had been glaring at each other when they went out, what with them heckling and laughing like they were good friends. She thought that she would be in for it, but then Kira received a call and had to leave.

Whatever it was, it sure wasn't a matter of life and death. Fllay had intended to catch up with him, apologise for making him worry at the very least and then see him off, but then she saw him standing with Lacus beside the car and her legs decided that she wasn't ready to know how far their relationship had progressed so they chose that moment to backtrack.

Kenji was almost irritating in the days that followed. Almost, because his subdued demeanor was a pleasant change from his whining. He had refused to tell her about what happened on the beach, only that they "got away with it" and that he would not be going anywhere with her in a hurry. Fllay refrained from pressing him for details because she did owe him a great deal, and because even though Sakiya was alive, she was still expected to be in the hospital for months.

Fllay took a moment to sip some water from the glass sitting on the table next to her notes. It was a warm day, as usual, and annoyingly there was enough of a breeze to cover every surface in a light coat of sand, but not nearly enough to counter the heat.

"Miss Fllay, the phone call is for you," Lacus called out.

Curious, Fllay pushed her chair back and reached for the cordless phone. "Hello?"

"Hello, miss. How are you today?"

"Nelia!" Fllay couldn't stifle the genuine smile that spread across her face. This was the first time she heard from her caretaker since she had left her house, and it hit her that she really missed her. "I'm alright, the people here are nice to me and it's fine. What about you?"

She heard Nelia chuckle on the other end of the line. "Same as usual, miss. How I'm doing isn't important, it's how you're doing that everyone cares about. How are you feeling?"

Distinctly Fllay recalled that Nelia – no, Dr Marie – was a psychologist, and there was probably a reason for her to call. "Well, I'm alright, really. You don't have to check up on me."

"Humour a bored woman, won't you, miss?" Dr Marie sighed. "This won't go into any report, I promise."

She hesitates for a moment, biting her lip and glancing around at the other occupants of the room. Mr Brown was deep in conversation with Lacus, and from the looks of it the girl was focused on what she was being told. Kenji had gotten bored of the pen and was currently yelling out of the window, probably at kids. She had a relatively high degree of privacy, all things considered, if she wanted to talk.

"I feel… a little guilty, I guess. Yesterday night I dreamed about that explosion again. And in my dream, I didn't know whether Saki– Lieutenant Mizuno I mean, I didn't know whether she was alive or dead and it was a little scary." Fllay kept her voice lowered, but near the end it began to tremble, and she felt the edge of hysteria draw closer as she recalled the images from her dream.

"Ah," Nelia – Fllay decided that she couldn't think of her as anyone else – sighed again. "I was worried about this. It's hardly your fault, and I'm not just saying it to make you feel better. It's not your fault, even though you may find it hard to believe otherwise."

She couldn't trust her voice to speak, so she nods, even though Nelia couldn't see it. "I know," she said after a pause, and she was pleasantly surprised to find that her voice was stronger than she thought. "I'll be alright." It was about time that she started depending on herself anyway.

"That's good to hear. Now hand the phone to Kenji, will you? That's a dear."

Fllay was surprised, but she got up and walked over to the window, where Kenji had stuck his head out to shout at the kids. She jabbed his side with the phone, and he turned to her with a look that spelled resentment at having his shouting match interrupted. Then he caught side of the phone, and took it without a word.

"Yeah, what?" he said loudly into the phone, causing Lacus to look past Mr Brown at them. Fllay shrugged with a small smile on her face, and returned to her seat, picking up her notes once more. Not that she could concentrate. She didn't want to eavesdrop on Kenji's conversation, but she couldn't help overhearing his half of it.

"Yeah, yeah, you old bat. I get it already. Now go tend to your laundry or it'll be sad." He finally hung up, and noticing Fllay staring at him, he asked "What?"

Fllay looked back down at her notes. "Nothing," she said quietly.

He snorted and tossed the phone onto the table. "Sure, sure."

She still couldn't concentrate, but it was for a different reason now. She found herself envying Kenji for being so capable of talking to Nelia so carelessly, so freely. And not just her either. He talked to Kira so freely, joked around with him as though they were friends before they became superior and subordinate… She wished she could form relationships that easily.

And more than that, she wished that she were a person who others could like.

A/N: I'm kind of losing steam with this again… Totally not looking forward to writing the actual trial scene, so this may be put on another hiatus. I'm just not confident enough of writing anything that eloquent now. In fact I'm not too pleased with this chapter, but I find Kira exceedingly hard to write and it feels like everything from the dialogue to the implicit meanings are spiralling out of my control…

I'll just stop ranting now. Somehow I can't get back into the flow of the story that I had before my exams and that's that. Thanks to everyone who actually put time into reading this.