Disclaimer: Gundam SEED belongs to Bandai, Sunrise, and whatever lucky bastard owns it. I am not gaining any profit whatsoever so don't sue the poor student who is about to become poorer when said student is about to go to college. Especially a private institution. Need to write a better disclaimer. Not that anybody reads this. Repeating the same damn thing over and over again. OO

Summary: 'Maybe it's not innocence that I need. Maybe all I want is that carefree selfless abandon that you keep showing me. Maybe everything I need is already here with me, right now.'

Pairings: Athrun/Kira

Warnings: This was just something I wrote while I was listening the rain one night. The pg rating is just because. There are no real spoilers as far as I can see, but then again I have a tendency to overlook things when I read over them. Just a little warning that there might be some spoilers although there might not be. That just sounds weird typing out.

A/N: This was just something I wrote while listening to the rain one night. I guess I just got melancholy while listening to the raindrops and this was the result of it. Also, this is sort of my take on the rain and its meaning to me. I guess you can call it an introspection as far as that is concerned. Enjoy the inspiration while it lasts is what I always say.

Also, for those of you waiting for the sequel to 'Once Upon a Sometime' and 'I Remember' for quite some time: I have no ideas on how to continue it!!! I tried working on it but nothing is coming to my mind. I'll try and devote sometime to it this week but I can't make any promises on it ever being done. It's like the inspiration for that series just left me. ::sighs and then suddenly glares at muses:: Anyways, enjoy the fic.

Memories lie just where you leave them,
they'll burn their cages till
your heaven meets my hell.
Your promises hold no living truths,
so that's all I'll know of you,
unless our eternity bends
and your past alters my future.

Listening to the Rain

I always love listening to the rain.

As a little kid, I would sit by the window as the rain poured down from the skies onto the ground. The sound of the droplets hitting a surface, whether it was the window I was looking through or the ground below making collection of puddles, was sweet music to my ears and one of the calming vices that I had in my young childhood.

That's why I love the rain.

There's something so pure and clean about rain. Every time it's like it's making everything fresh and new wherever it drops. And the atmosphere during a rainstorm . . . nothing feels as wonderful as the atmosphere during a rainstorm. You can just tell when a rainstorm is about to come. It's like the air feels, looks, smells, tastes different and my senses tingle every time it happens. It makes me feel . . . alive. I treasure the 'innocence' that a rainstorm brings every time.

But for others it's not so joyful.

For others, the raindrops can be interpreted as the various hardships in life. Little problems that start out as a small puddle in a light drizzle but as time goes along ever so slowly the rain gets heavier and heavier, making the drops come together as a fast rate, so fast that you can't hold it together and burst like an overfilled water balloon.

That's what happened to Kira.

After the war was over, Kira went into an emotionless state for a while. Me and others stayed with him, taking care of him, trying to help him get back to the young, innocent child he once was. And I think that's where my mistake came from. He could never be the innocent boy I grew up to care and, yes, love. The war he was forced in by everyone else made him grow up too fast, too soon, and in that war he lost a part of himself.

I hate war even though I fought in it, but I believe that sometimes, war is necessary . . . only then will people realize the true treasure of peace that everyone takes for granted.

And during the nights he couldn't sleep because of the nightmares of the people he killed always kept haunting him, torturing his already fragile mind. When he woke up from his endless hell, eyes wide and chest heaving from breathing heavily, he would stare at his hands and repeat the same phrase over and over again:

"Someone stop my hands from shaking."

That went on for a few months with me having to comfort him in the 'security' of his own bed, holding him, comforting with soothing words and warm hugs that warded off the chill that he always got. This went on practically forever until one night . . .

. . . the night I kissed him.

Looking back at that fateful night I know I surprised both myself and Kira with that kiss but at the time it seemed like the right place at the right time to do it, something that hasn't really happened a lot in my life. But, again, it felt is as if destiny said that we should meet and do this preordained event in our lives.

That kiss really was sacred and earth-shattering and amazing and everything they make it out to be in the movies. Okay, maybe not everything . . . but who defines a perfect kiss anyway? The newness and strangeness of it all was what made it worth it. I didn't know what would happen next. I never know what's going to happen next. I just waited, willing to take whatever it was.

. . . but then Kira opened his eyes.

Before that time his eyes were 'dead' to say the least. The innocence that once shined so brightly in those violet orbs were dead. The eyes I grew up to love were closed as if they were afraid of the light at the end of the tunnel, the hope that he would find everything okay even if everything wasn't. But after that kiss, when he blinked those amethyst orbs, it was like a door opened for him finally allowing the light that I hadn't seen in a long time.

Thunder rolls in the distance, forcing me away from my musings, and the dark form lying next to me stirs for a moment before settling back down. I watch the sheets rise and fall in time with his quiet breathing, my hearing barely picking up the near silent breathes. Lightning flashes close by, illuminating the entire room with brilliant white for a split second. Strange how a second can feel like an eternity. In that bittersweet moment, he's highlighted and seared into the back of my eyes.

Maybe it's not innocence that I need. Maybe all I want is that carefree selfless abandon that you keep showing me. Maybe everything I need is already here with me, right now.

Looking at his peaceful form I can't help but close my eyes and kiss those lips that begged to be touched with my own. Opening my eyes yet again I see that my kiss had awakened him. As I watched his face scrunch up for a second before blinking blearily to look up at me with that innocence and confusion that make up what I love about him make all the hardships we went through together worth it.

"Athrun?" he questions sleepily.

I smile and lean down to kiss my sunlight after the storm.

end