title: None
pairing(s): Kira/Lacus
rating: teen
comments: A follow-up to the scene between Cagalli and Asuran. Again, attempting to get into the groove of my SEED fic. It may make no sense to you all, but it makes sense to me! Feels like I'm writing a diary, actually. Well, two of them. Enough rambling.

- - -

I smile and I laugh and I sing and I dance. I do my duty, I care for others.

They call me gentle, angelic, perfect, sweet, kind-hearted, wonderful. Their eyes are misty as they speak of loyalty and love and honor and intelligence.

They do not know anything about me.

I am afraid like others. I am weak. I cry.

Sometimes I want to scream, to throw a tantrum as easily as Cagalli does after Asuran leaves her. After he goes off to fight, to a war that is no less dangerous, no less horrible, than that which has ended.

But I do not, because that is not how we are. She comes, she cries, she screams, she rants, she vents – she falls to her knees and rests her head in my lap, shoulders shaking as she cries. And I murmur softly, I say the words by rote, I keep my voice calm and serene. She knows I hurt. Knows the pain twists my heart, my soul. But that is not how we are.

We need to hurt on schedule, abide by the script. If we do not, we are torn apart, fall apart. We cannot be the leaders. The ones who urge peace to once-warring nations.

So I simply sit here, listening to the radio, listening to the news – a faint, sardonic smile curving my lips even as tears fall down my face, hidden from all but myself and the robotic companions that know my every sorrow, every dream, every nightmare.

"Lacus Clyne sings a song of peace." I believed it once. I still believe it. I live it, I endorse it, I promote it.

He... He believes it as well. But he takes it to an extent farther than I do. Farther than I wish he would.

While Earth and PLANT are no longer fighting, no longer hovering with the threat of annihilation above their heads, there are others in space – preying upon this place, our newly created Heliopolis II. Raiders, bandits, they are all the same. This is how they make their life.

And he runs off, to fight them, to protect us. Always gone, always in danger, never realizing how much it kills me each time he leaves. How much it kills all of us.

Never realizing how much I need him, or knowing what he misses.

Five years of pain, of loneliness. How much longer can my smile and understanding withstand those earnest eyes and passionate words that spill forth in his most desperate moments? How much longer can I pretend not to notice that he, too, is killing himself – doing what he believes he must, what he hates?

I asked Cagalli, once. She had kept quiet for the longest time, an eternity that had given me the answer. Before she smiled, keeping her voice forcefully exuberant – "It will pass, and we will be happy again."
Happy again...

I miss the feeling. I miss his face, his laughter, his joy. I miss his strength of conviction mixed with his absolute desire to be with me always. I miss his love.

I miss knowing he is here for me, and only me, when he returns home.

But no longer. Not for years.

Hero of Orb, beloved by the nation. Protecting ships, protecting lives, protecting cargo, protecting the livelihood of Heliopolis II.

That is who I hold in my arms during the quiet moments of night.

Not Kira Yamato, the man.