Fandom: Gundam Seed
Title: It's Me and You
Theme: #10 All for us
Pairing/Characters: Miriallia Haww/ Yzak Juole
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer/claimer: I do not own Gundam Seed or any related characters. This is somewhat AU, but not completely. Watch out for the out of character Miriallia. Kind of scary. Enjoy!

Raising her eyes to the heavens, Miriallia wondered what her father was thinking. Her mother had just died! They should be in a period of mourning! And the war just ended on top of that! How could he marry the Coordinator woman? She scratched at her dress. It wasn't itchy, but she had nothing better to do than scratch at it. Glaring at the dressmaker, she shifted on her feet.

'At least the dress isn't completely ugly.' If there was one thing that she would admit to, it would be that Ezalia Juole had a sense of fashion. The dress was knee-length, black, with a square neckline and thin straps. Her shoes were in an ancient Greek style, cutting and twirling up her legs. "Listen," it was Ezalia, "I know that you don't want your father to marry the big bad lady who was on the opposite side in the war, but some things cannot be helped. This is just as much for love as it is for politics."

Miriallia understood that. In order for the PLANT and for the Earth Alliance to truly be united, there had to be some marrying between them. Ezalia was an important political leader, even now, and was to set an example for the people. "I understand."

She felt Ezalia's eyes on her and looked into those of her future stepmother's, "You just lost your mother, and I know this must be hard for you, but this is for the good of the world." She looked Miriallia over, "You're pretty. The dress suits you." She turned back to look at herself in the mirror, a vision in white, "You are going to the wedding with Dearka Elsman I hear. That is a good match. Perhaps you will be doing the same as I and your father one day."

"I would never marry for anything but love."

Again Ezalia extracted her eyes from the mirror, "Speaking of love, I want to give you a warning. My son is off limits. This is strange enough, but I can't have you or him messing this up for us."

"I would never fall in love with Yzak." Anyone who put the two of them in the same room would be able to see that. Although he was Dearka's best friend, she couldn't stand him. When they started living in the same house, she didn't know how she would survive. There would probably be a lot of blood shed.

"You might be surprised."

-----

"Mom wants me to ask you if I could have this dance." Yzak had appeared before her when she was going to get a drink, whining as though he were a baby instead of an almost fully-grown young man.

"Well, when you put it like that, I'd be delighted," she sarcastically told him.

"Hey, I don't want to dance with you, either, but it's what's expected of us." Even though he was a jerk when it came to things like war or sharing the remote, he knew something of politics and etiquette. And as much as she hated to admit it, he was right. So, she held her hand out to the older boy and allowed him to lead her to the dance floor.

They danced in silence. It was strangely stiff, unnaturally so, and almost like they were both back in junior high, dancing a foot apart. "This is so stupid." Miriallia commented.

"What is?"

"We're dancing like we're in junior high for heaven's sake!"

"What do you mean?" It occurred to Miri that Yzak hadn't gone to a junior high. He went to the PLANT Academy all of his life, and he had only gone to school until he was fourteen or fifteen. She was still going to school.

"We're two feet apart!"

Yzak smirked, "Does that mean you want to be closer." It occurred to both of them that as they talked they were both beginning to loosen up and drift closer to one another.

"No- I mean, this whole thing is stupid. Why do we have to dance with each other? We're practically related!"

"But we're not," Yzak told her, rolling his eyes at her. He seemed to have to stress the point.

"We might as well be!"

"But we're not."

"Whatever." They resumed dancing in silence and returned to looking stiff and unnatural. For those few seconds they had looked like they belonged there, belonged together, but that was gone. Dearka watched with curiosity, jealousy, and humor from the side of the dance floor.

------

"Hand me that box," Yzak yelled to Miri.

She tried, she really did, but it was too heavy, "It's too heavy, I can't lift it!"

Yzak rolled his eyes, then stepped down to where she was. There was so little room in the closet leading to the attic that they were pressed chest to chest. For some reason, Miri didn't feel at all flustered as she would have if she were in the same situation with someone else, but it seemed so natural. Yzak, she noticed, was bright red. But, it could have been the way that the dim light was playing off of his features. He bent down and easily lifted the box. And although she didn't like him at all and she thought that he was a jerk face, she couldn't help but admire the muscles in his back as they strained to pick up the box.

"Is that all," she asked him.

"Yeah," he called down, and climbed down the ladder again to put it back up. And, again, they were caught chest to chest. And, again, Yzak seemed to be tinged pink, "Can you move," his voice was strangely husky and gruff. If she liked him, she would say that it was sexy. But she most definitely didn't like him. He was a jerk.

"Why?" He gave her a pointed look. "Oh! Yeah, sorry!" She moved towards the door and out into the hallway. "Are you sure that's all?"

"What's the rush?"

He was inspecting her face closely. It seemed to be happening a lot lately. They had been living together for nearly a month and weren't all the way settled in (it would have something to do with neither of their parents ever being home) and had repeatedly been getting into embarrassing situations. "I have a date tonight."

He seemed kind of shock. Miriallia guessed that he hadn't thought that his stepsister actually went out on dates, "Dearka?" He questioned. He seemed pretty angry about it, too, like if it were Dearka, he'd rip his head off or something equally scary.

"No," she replied hastily. Dearka was one of her friends and she wouldn't want him hurt by the psychopath known as Yzak. Although since they had been friends for such a long time, he could probably deal with it. "You wouldn't know him. His name's Tolle."

"And he's safe?"

She became confused, "What do you mean by safe? He doesn't have STDs or HIV or anything like that, if that's what you're saying…"

"No!" His face had gone surprisingly red. Miriallia never would have thought that Yzak was the type who would get embarrassed by things like sexually transmitted diseases. He didn't seem like the type to get embarrassed by anything sexual at all. In fact, if he had gone to her high school, she would say that he was good looking and mysterious enough to be having sex every night. "How many times have you gone out with this guy?"

Miri rolled her eyes, "We dated for my freshman year in high school, a little bit of my sophomore year, and now we're going out again for my junior year. We've been on dates more times than I can count."

"And you checked to make sure he doesn't have any-any… diseases?"

"Well, wouldn't you want to know if you're about to have sex with the guy?" She flushed at how slutty that had sounded and Yzak turned equally red.

"That's too much information."

"I know. Sorry."

------

Not surprising, a few months later she had broken up with Tolle again. Yzak seemed strangely happy with the fact. While she wallowed in depression, he seemed to be dancing with joy. "I hate you." She told him one day. That seemed to bring him strait out of his revere.

------

"Where are you going?" She asked him one night. He looked nice. In fact, he was looking extremely good.

"I've got a date."

That was enough to make her spit her drink all the way to the other side of the room. "Who would be stupid enough to date you?"

"Shiho."

"You can't date a coworker," she told him angrily. It was just one of those unwritten rules that were never broken. And he had just broken them!

"She works on a different ship, so technically we're not coworkers. We're just both a part of ZAFT."

"Same difference."

"It's completely different," he told her while slipping on his coat, then smirked, "Why? Are you jealous?"

Miri turned red. "Why would I be jealous?" Sure, her stepbrother was hot, smart, and could be a little bit charming at times, but that did not make her jealous.

His face fell, "No reason."

"Have fun on your date," she called out to him as he exited the house.

----

"What are you doing?" Mirialla screeched from inside her bathroom, which was not-so-conveniently connected to Yzak's. It involved a lot of fighting over bathroom time.

They were both frozen in shock. Miriallia, butt naked and Yzak starting to undress. And they both stared at each other in shock. "Get out!" She screeched again, breaking out of her horrified trance and diving for a towel.

He did as he was told. "I'm sorry," he called when he was out the door.

"Of course he walked in right as I was getting out of the shower," Miriallia mumbled to herself as she got dried off and dressed, "Perfect timing, dumb ass."

She was embarrassed, she could admit to that. The only guy who'd ever seen her naked before was Tolle and even that wasn't in the light. She flushed again, remembering how Yzak had been shirtless and had his pants partway off. "Never mention this to anybody," she screamed at him.

"Why would I want to?" He yelled right back.

-------

Things were getting more and more awkward fro them as time went on. Their hands would brush over grabbing a plate or cup or the TV remote and one or the other or both would end up blushing. They'd get caught alone and not know what to say, and would stutter when they tried to talk to each other. Miriallia didn't understand why things were like this. It wasn't like she liked Yzak or anything. But, then, sometimes she did think about how cute he looked when he was embarrassed, how sexy he looked in a tux, how he always took authority, and, despite his hatred of Naturals and claims to hate her, always took her feelings into account.

He was cute, smart, and interesting to talk to. She couldn't understand why she wouldn't like him. And, coming to that conclusion, it eventually occurred to her that she did like him. That just made things even more uncomfortable between them. "Watch it." He growled in the hallway as they passed.

"Jerk." She growled right back. No, knowing that she liked Yzak didn't make her shyer than normal or anything like that. If anything it made her angry. How could she like her stupid stepbrother who wasn't even worth her time? It made no sense. But then, life and love never made sense.

Yzak stopped and looked at her. She flushed with anger as she felt him studying her face curiously. She hated that he could make her feel like this. "Natural."

"Ooohhh," she taunted him, "low blow. Way to make me want to cry." She rolled her eyes. All he had really been calling her lately was Natural. It was rather boring considering he used to call such fun names as 'brat', 'baby', 'jerkwad', and, of course, 'butt face.' He had such colorful language.

"Seriously?" He actually seemed kind of worried that she would go and cry. It was kind of cute.

"No," she scoffed and tried to walk away, but he blocked her exit with ease. Stupid Coordinator.

Again he was looking down at her with those beautiful blue eyes. He was smirking slightly and a light flush was stained over his face, "Where are you going?"

"Away from you." She tried to shove him out of her way, but it didn't work. "What do you want?"

They both stood waiting and looking at each other with amusement, hatred, and admiration.

"You."

In seconds her mouth was captured in his in a sweet kiss. "That wasn't very nice," she whispered against his lips, but she knew that he could feel her grin.

"I'm not a very nice guy."

If it had been anybody else, she would have considered this senseless flirting and would have a little bit of fun with it while getting slightly embarrassed at his attention. But, this was Yzak, her stepbrother, and she knew that nothing could ever be between him. But, at the moment she didn't really care.

Smiling, she asked him, "What are we going to tell mom and dad?"

"The war screwed us up. It screwed everybody up. They'll just have to deal with it."

"Your mom told me not to fall in love with you."

Yzak rolled his eyes, "She probably said that so that you would show interest in me. Interest in what you can't have, you know? It looks like it worked."

Miriallia rolled her eyes, but smiled, "We're screwed up, you know that."

He smirked right back before swooping in for another kiss, "I blame you."