Respect between Enemies – The BetanWerecat

Gundam Seed: "Descending Sword" and after. OCs with appearances by canon characters. The actions of Kira, Athrun, and the others have far reaching effects. Ah, interpersonal relationships! What joys they are. Rated T for language and off screen activity. (Reviews are welcomed but not required. This is written only for my own enjoyment. Flaming me will get you ignored.)

This took longer than it should have. However, my Dungeon Master called last weekend – for the first time since October! – and wanted to play! Harlie was delighted to get a chance to bite someone again so I didn't get any writing done! (You try telling a dragon she can't bite someone and see how much writing YOU get done!)

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed.

The Eisenhower's shuttle bumped heavily in the upper atmosphere. Kayla Grayhawk automatically swayed with the movement, feet braced against the rests on the deck below the seat ahead of hers. They would be landing in under an hour now. She would be home. How odd that sounded, home. She hadn't been home, really home, since three months after she'd enlisted.

The rest of the people aboard the shuttle, a mix of exchanged POW's, the 'million dollar wounded' who would be getting automatic medical discharges, and the group rescued by the Clyne Faction, were generally in pretty high spirits. She however, was in a very ambivalent state of mind indeed.

It wasn't that she didn't want to go home. She hadn't seen her family in far too long. But she was getting further and further from Adrian by the second and she didn't want that at all. This getting pulled two incompatible ways was a pain.

It had started to get tough when she'd watched the Magellan's shuttle leave the Kusanagi. That was when she understood in her heart as well as her head that she'd let him leave. Suddenly, she was alone in a way she'd never been before in her whole life. Not even on the battlefield had she ever been this kind of isolated. But then, she'd never been half of a whole before either.

When the men of the Alliance Fleet that Cagalli had rescued with Athrun and Kira's help had come over from the Archangel, she'd been able to fall back on the reputation of the despised 'Tomahawk' name. They'd assumed she'd been a VIP prisoner and that was why she wasn't on any list Intelligence had, since ZAFT sometimes used their VIP pow's as surprise barter chips when they needed to. Their confidence in the strength of their fleet made it easy for them to believe in a story of a brief local command panic on a Plant that had given her an opportunity to escape as well. They had all been very proud of her.

The story held up surprisingly soundly when she repeated it to the debriefing officers on board the Eisenhower as well. Either they wanted to believe in it or it fit in with some pattern they had from other sources. Whichever it was, they gave her no impression at all that they had any serious doubts about it, and she was looking very carefully for just such doubts. Maybe it was being open about the Ito Project that had done it. They all seemed to know it existed.

When they sent her down to Medical for a check-up, she caught a bit of luck she could never have arranged for if she'd planned it months in advance. The Doctor she was sent to was an old family friend, Lucian Two Bird. He spotted her condition almost at once.

They talked for a long time. Lucian ran a whole batch of not-really-necessary tests, one after another, so they had a reason to just sit around and chat while the results came back. Anyone listening would have heard two old friends discussing the past and other old friends. What they really talked about was the babies and their father.

Two Bird didn't approve of her decision. But he allowed that it was hers to make. When she promised him she would go home and let her grandmothers help her with the whole mess, he agreed to help her get that far. His medical report was a very in-depth item with a single vital omission; he did not mention that she was over two months pregnant.

Moreover, he told her how to make sure she got to another sympathetic doctor on the base she was going to. Apparently she wasn't the first young woman to come home in this condition who wanted to keep the child. It seemed there was a very secret network within the military medical departments that was vehemently pro-life and dedicated to helping any girl who wanted to avoid being forced to abort, regulations or no regulations. It had deeply religious roots, which was no surprise, so he also advised her on a couple of simple behaviors to use to catch their eyes in case she was getting shunted in the wrong direction. And he gave her an equally simple necklace, a kind of red flag for any of the network that she'd been seen and approved by another in the network.

Kayla studied the necklace in her hand with grudging admiration. It really was a clever bit of work. If you didn't look very closely at it, it would appear to be a stock tourist 'Indian' mandela with metal feathers depending from it. If you took a second look however, you might notice the arms of the mandela actually formed a cross, with a subtly spaced top and bottom that left the four quarters unevenly divided. That same second look might also notice the tiny teardrops on the ends of each feather. It was the least obvious piece of Christian symbolism she'd ever seen.

She had the window seat at the very back of the shuttle, letting her watch the planet grow ever closer. All around her, people were beginning to celebrate their return to Earth. Lucian Two Bird had advised her there would be someone from the network on this shuttle. It was time for her to make herself a bit more obvious to them.

So while others took their happiness in cheerful noise, Kayla sat back in the seat and pretended to pray, the necklace in her hands. No one disturbed her. Apparently this was considered a very appropriate thing to do if you didn't want to be standing in the aisle cheering. She kept it up right until they were all advised to prepare for final approach and landing.

Arrival at the terminal was just like every other such arrival she'd ever been part of when there were wounded aboard. Medical swarmed the ship as soon as the doors cracked open to remove those who were either serious cases or who couldn't walk on their own. Everyone else either took themselves off if uninjured or was assigned a medic if they were. With her arm still in a sling and her ribs still taped, Kayla knew there would be someone told off to help her.

"Lieutenant Grayhawk?"

She looked over to find a pleasant faced, middle aged woman with a nurse's pins and friendly brown eyes smiling at her. Yes, here was her escort. One glance at her right hand and she smiled herself. The nurse was wearing a small ring, a teardrop with a cross in it, that was the visual sign she'd been told to look for on landing. She dropped her necklace over her head, let it rest on her jacket just long enough for the woman to see, then tucked it away.

"Yes, I'm Lieutenant Grayhawk."

"Referred by Dr. Lucian Two Bird, I see." She was looking at the file in her hand with a small frown.

"Correct."

"That's a bit unusual."

Two Bird had warned her about that too. He didn't really approve of the lengths the network went to in it's – in his opinion – blind determination to save all babies regardless of the health of either the fetus or the mother. Anyone coming in with a voucher from him would need a secondary reason for his having given the help.

"Dr. Two Bird is an old friend of my family's. The Grayhawk and Two Bird grazing leases have run side by side on the public grasslands for the last three generations." Kayla said calmly.

The nurse was clearly a bit confused. "Grazing leases?"

She grinned. "We both raise sheep. Been trading fine merino genetics back and forth for fifty years now. Dr. Two Bird understands the value of good stock and prime lambs."

Understanding dawned. "I see. I always knew there was more to him than an expertise with blast burns."

"Oh yeah." Kayla agreed feelingly. "He was the only doctor who could reach the ranch when my youngest sister was born. Mom had serious problems with Alys's birth. Both my grandmothers were out of state at an inter-tribal conference so Mom had no one at home who could help when Alys decided to come early. I damn near killed two horses riding through that storm to reach the Two Bird place 'cause nothing with wheels was going to be using our roads! He rode back on the most attitudinal but surefooted mule I've ever known. Wretched thing got him there in time, Dr. Lucian saved them both."

"Your family values children I take it?"

Right, now she had to sell herself to these people as someone worthy of their help too. They were taking real risks here, the service wasn't kind to people who outright disobeyed standing orders like these folks did. Dr. Lucian had warned her she was going to need to convince them she was properly child-oriented. She wondered how one did that in one fast conversation and hoped she'd come up with a good answer.

"I have, well had before the war started, nine brothers and four sisters. Yeah, we're big on kids. Dad comes from a family of nine, Mom from a family of eleven. Last I heard, every married aunt and uncle had at least five apiece and they were still counting. My Aunt Sue holds the current record. She and Uncle Miles have saddled me with seventeen cousins; including two sets of identical twins and one set of triplets."

"Oh my! That's quite a family!" The nurse was leading her up the ramp and into the shuttleport proper now. "Do you ever plan to have a large family yourself?"

"Adrian, my fiancée, and I are hoping for a large family, yes. He lost most of his to this war. He's the only surviving son. We'd like to make the family name a bit more secure." Well, that part was true, and probably the last full truth she'd be able to tell here.

She noted the woman's covert glance at her engagement ring, which she'd very, very carefully dirtied some to cut the brilliance of the stones to something that didn't grab quite so much attention. "How lovely and thoughtful! Are you planning a Christmas wedding?"

Oh, and now she was going to have to lie like a rug! "That's going to depend on the peace negotiations and when he can muster out. The service still discourages women officers from marrying enlisted personnel you know."

The nurse, she still didn't know the woman's name, interesting that she'd somehow misplaced her nametag today, just nodded sagely. "Yes, they never seem to raise half the fuss if the officer is male now do they?"

"Nope."

They shared a look that did not say good things about the men at the top of the military. Then they were in the main disembarkation area and the usual process of returning to the planet began. The nurse stayed with her for the entire dull deal until she reached the base hospital.

Because she was coming home as an escaped prisoner of war and not as a regular soldier on rotation, there were extra steps in the process. They took finger and retinal prints to verify her identity. There was also an hour of debriefing on her initial capture; she told no more lies than she absolutely had to there but at no point did she mention the Archangel, the Freedom, or Adrian's name. The first was 'that Eighth Fleet ship', the second was 'a strange new mobile suit' and the last was 'the GINN's pilot'. She got no feeling that anyone listening, and there were three across the table and at least five more behind the curtain that she could hear moving about, was suspicious or that they thought she should know any more than she told them.

But when she mentioned the Cyclops, she knew she had made them very unhappy. Ok, well, given the propaganda footage she'd seen while up in the Plants, there officially hadn't been any Cyclops now had there? Fortunately, what she'd said could be restated a few minutes later as something that looked like a Cyclops. That wasn't a whole lot better but it did give the senior Captain a chance to point out that there was no such bomb at the JOSH-A site.

Right, no Cyclops at JOSH-A. And she'd never been to the Plants either then. But Kayla managed not to be quite stupid enough to say that out loud.

She took her cue from that sledgehammer of a hint and omitted any more references to the Cyclops from her report. In fact, she omitted any and all commentary that could be construed as even slightly critical of the senior site command of JOSH-A from the rest of the report. The story, as she told it, became the heroic defense overwhelmed by superior numbers that the propagandists wanted. The only thing she wouldn't give them was a cowardly Archangel turning tail. Instead, she gave them a story of a desperate last stand and a last second warning of impending doom from the new mobile suit that had sent everybody running, ZAFT and Alliance alike. It wasn't real popular but it was better received than the word 'Cyclops' had been. The whole thing left a very bitter taste in her mouth. The only thing missing was someone giving the Blue Cosmos tagline about the 'blue and pure world'.

She was sent straight on the hospital after that. The nurse, who never did give her any name at all, took her in and saw to it she was signed in to see a Dr. Summers. The woman stuck around until the doctor's own nurse came to collect her. Kayla noted this girl too wore one of the cross-in-a-teardrop rings. So, she was accepted and being passed on inside the pro-life group.

It didn't take her long to decide she really, really didn't like Dr. Summers. The man had the cold eyes of a fanatic. Worse, he made it pretty plain he saw her as no more than a delivery system for the children she carried. He didn't even ask if she wanted to know the child's gender or how many there were. He was not pleased that there was no husband to discuss the kid's future with and he refused to do so with her. He spoke of 'the baby' in the singular and always as 'he'. Kayla was absolutely positive that if she hadn't had an engagement ring, he would have refused to help her.

It went against everything in her nature, but he was the only secure doctor she knew of. So she swallowed her pride and her temper to behave like a little mouse, doing exactly what he told her to and asking no extra questions after the first few were coldly rebuffed. She needed this son of a bitch and he knew it. Fortunately, he was a moralizer, not a letch. She had to put up with his sermons but that was as far as it went.

At least he was professionally competent. His assessment of her ribs and arm matched Dr. Two Bird's. She was going to be stuck with the ribs bound for a few more days but the splint-cast was going to be there for another two and a half weeks. He also gave her a brief list of foods to avoid at this stage in the pregnancy, told her to memorize it and destroy it. She obeyed, reciting it back to him several different times over the course of the examination before he was satisfied she really could remember it. The list of things she should add to her diet was much longer and safe to keep on hand.

Dr. Summers turned her loose eventually. By this time the folder she'd started to build at the shuttleport was gaining weight. She didn't even need to check her list to know what was next. She needed new uniforms and other clothing, personal care items and several other small things regulations called for. All of this could be obtained eventually, but only by going through Personnel to reestablish herself as an active duty member of the military. Besides, she was going to need to buy some things and all her back pay was tied up there.

Personnel was sheer boredom. Well, that and nearly mindless repetition of filling out what honestly felt like dozens of copies of the same form. It took her nearly three hours to get it all done. Truth be told, she was amazed she'd gotten through so quickly.

Still, by the time she was ready to leave she was back on the active duty roster, had a billet assigned, a mess assigned, a week's worth of debriefings on her time up in the Plants scheduled, and the majority of her uniform and other needs ordered for delivery to her new billet. If you knew the system, and she did, you could actually use it to accomplish something. Kayla stopped by her new mess for a late lunch before going over to her new quarters.

Air Wing chow hadn't noticeably improved while she'd been gone. It was eatable and that was about it. After the meals at the Ito Project, an Alliance mess hall was a real dump. The Archangel had a military cook and they'd done decent food too. What was it about mess halls that seemed to bring all meals down to a universally dismal level?

Her new quarters were in the women's BOQ adjacent to the hospital. From what the duty officer said, Kayla gathered they had been expecting more wounded survivors from Second Jachin Due than they'd seen. Well, Genesis had changed a lot of expectations there. The room assigned to her was a double on the first floor. She had no roommate, few in the massive and largely empty building did.

The supplies and new uniforms had arrived before she did. Although she wasn't supposed to, she took her arm out of its sling to use both hands as she carefully stowed things away. She just shook her head as she realized they'd sent over not only three daily wear uniforms but a dress uniform as well. So someone had something planned did they? She could only wonder what it was.

The full dress uniform was identical in cut and styling to a regular uniform. The colors however were all much more intense. The gray was a deep pearl and the white portions shone as though super-bleached. The collar colors and shoulder bands were just as intensified. Someone had noted her personal preference and had sent the version with trousers instead of the stupid skirt. They had even included that idiotic dirk that was part of Wing Command's idea of how to get dressed up. Just because the Marines still had their dress swords, why did some fool think pilots needed fancy long knives?

But it was the three lines of ribbons on the left breast of the dress jacket that brought her to a stop. She slowly sank into the chair by the window, holding the jacket as she studied those ribbons. They forced her to confront what she was intending to do as nothing else had, or could. She ran a hesitant finger over them.

The oldest was the campaign ribbon from the Garibaldi Front. She barely deserved that one. Third Moebius had been sent up as replacements for some outfit that campaign had chewed up and spit out. She'd been a green ensign then, greener than spring grass. And Mu La Flaga hadn't yet earned the nickname 'Hawk of Endymion'. That wasn't going to happen for a couple more weeks.

He'd come over to their mess and tried to teach them how to survive. Not many of them had had the brains to listen to him. Captain Gerber sure didn't. She wasn't sure why she had. Maybe because what he was saying made too much sense to ignore. He taught her the tricks of survival up there in those two brief weeks between arrival and the detonation of the other Cyclops below Endymion crater.

Come to think of it, that had been something of a betrayal by their own people too. Damned Cyclops! Damned bastards who used them!

Each ribbon commemorated battles fought and friends lost. Each one also represented enemies killed. All of those fights were to protect her people, her world. She'd done so with honor! She had! No matter what her leaders had or had not done, she had fought with honor. Her service, her skills, they were given to defend and protect her family and her home!

She reached the newest of the ribbons. This one she didn't recognize. But the note with the uniform had explained it. This was issued exclusively to the survivors of JOSH-A.

Her mouth twisted bitterly. What was her honor worth? What had she been serving really? She knew with all her heart what she thought she'd served. She knew to the bottom of her soul what she wanted to believe she'd served.

But she knew what really happened at JOSH-A as well.

To marry the man of her heart was to turn her back on everything in her past. Her home, her family, her world. It would invalidate the service she'd given to them. This had looked so simple up on the Archangel with Adrian beside her! She stared at the uniform jacket in her hands and acknowledged how far from simple it really was.