category: Gundam SEED

disclaimer: I don't own it.

TEN.

They sat on a public bench in the middle of Parliament Avenue one summer day, eating ice cream quietly and watching a group of children play an absorbing game of hide-and-seek.

"Kira?" Cagalli unexpectedly broke the silence and Kira could tell by the crease in her brow that she had been meaning to speak up for a while. "What do you think our parents were like?" She licked a dripping trail of chocolate off the side of her cone and glanced at him eagerly.

He paused for a minute to search for words. He had no idea what to say about their biological parents. "They were scientists," he started finally. "And naturally our father must have been exceptionally intelligent, with all his accomplishments." His mouth twisted into a scowl at the word, but it cleared into a thoughtful furrow. "I think he was a very ambitious man who just got too caught up in the twistings of his own aspirations."

"Do you wonder, if they hadn't died in that fire, how different things would have been?" She started counting off on her sticky fingers. "I wouldn't be here, ruling Orb. We'd have grown up together."

"My genetic makeup would have been no secret. Our father would probably have enlisted me in ZAFT, not the Earth Forces. I wouldn't have been stationed on the Archangel."

Surprise ran across Cagalli's features. "You're right! Then you wouldn't have met any of the people we know today." She tapped the side of her chin contemplatively. "We might not have known Lacus."

"Athrun and I wouldn't have had to kill each other." Kira smiled wryly as he spooned up more of his sorbet. "There's a possibility we could have been on the same team."

Cagalli leaned in. "With you being a success, our father would probably have sold off his technology. There'd most likely be thousands of little ultimate coordinators running around by now!"

Kira laughed and pushed her back into her seat. "All right, enough speculation. It's safe to conclude that our lives would be entirely different today."

There was a deep sigh from Cagalli. "Do you think what he was researching was wrong? Although Orb is populated mostly by naturals, I just don't see how becoming stronger, smarter, more resilient, more capable as a species is a bad thing!"

Kira tapped a finger on his leg absentmindedly. "No, I think you're right. We've evolved for hundreds of millions of years through natural selection. What we're doing now is little more than honing in on and propagating those necessary traits ourselves using our intelligence and our projections. Coordinators may be mutants or monsters or whatever Blue Cosmos labels us as, but in the end, naturals are going to have to adapt as well if they want to keep up. To survive."

Cagalli was at a loss. "Then what's wrong with us, Kira? Why are we always fighting this same battle, over and over? I'm a natural, and I'm understand what you just said. You're a coordinator, and you understand it. Isn't there some way we can end this for good?"

Kira smiled warmly at her. "I don't know, Cagalli. I'm not a politician. But I think we all need to remind ourselves is that science without humanity is a blunder of the world. To prevent ourselves from reaching that point of violence repeatedly, we must accept our slot as humans among the massive cogs of nature, and only then move forward with our research and our advancements."

Happy with his response, Cagalli sat back. Her voice took on a calmer tone as she returned to their previous topic of discussion. "Just think, Kira. If that fire had never happened, I'd have had a mother."

With no answer to that, Kira looped his arm around his sister's shoulders and pulled her closer to him on the bench.

notes: Could anyone recognize the 'science without humanity' line? The seven blunders of the world is a great list; I recommend everyone to look it up and read it.

NEXT PHASE: After the second war, Athrun and Cagalli's relationship falls back together in pieces.