And Scars Fade
The world moves faster than I knew
Not fast enough to not creep up on you
And the space we put between
So pull me under your weather patterns
Your cold fronts and the rain don't matter
Because a sunburn's what I needed...
(Something Corporate)
three:
Dearka had thought he knew what to expect that day, but it turned out to be totally different from the rest. Not that this disappointed him at all, because now he knew why a life sentence was viewed by some people as worse than death. Death didn't take you to the same places through the same paths over and over again, regular and dull. At least he hoped it didn't, because if it did, then he was all for reincarnation.
Three days of being poked and prodded around, and he was tired of the whole business a hundred times over. Really, if Athrun hadn't paid him that visit (how long was it ago now? Ten days, two weeks, three years?) he would probably have done something drastic by now. Like knocking out everyone in the building as soon as he got the chance, or maybe telling the Catwoman that Orb had been infested with rabid hamsters – or Haros – and that he'd ducked back into Archangel because he forgot his collection of Blo-Up dolls. The hermaphrodite ones.
In fact, he noted, slumped down in the uncomfortable metal chair as far as his bound arms would comfortably allow him, maybe he should. Except that her voice and the topic, one they'd already picked over so many times it was amazing that she could find yet more to squeeze out of it today, caused his mind to wander into a pleasant stupor that he was hard-pressed to rouse from. Since his tormentor was busy reading over details, he'd just wait until she asked him another question first...
Someone rapped on the door three times, hard and businesslike, startling him back into proper awareness. Hatchett glanced up from her papers and stood, brushing crumbs off her lap. "Yes? Come in..."
The familiar hiss, and a red-haired man clad in green ZAFT uniform stepped into the room. There was something no-nonsense about his posture and expression that made Dearka want to snap to attention and salute. "Ma'am," he said without offering a greeting, "I'm here as an escort for Dearka Elsman..." He stopped at the sight of the blonde in the chair, obviously consternated. "The order should have been given for his release by now."
Hope jumped to life in Dearka's chest, coupled with a slight foreboding.
"I have received nothing of the sort," Hatchett told him with a small, false smile of curiosity. The lines at the corner of the man's mouth tightened.
"I left it here earlier, as well as a note. Would you be so kind as to check?" Without waiting for her to do so, he moved over to the desk and picked up one of the papers that lay facedown. "Nevermind – here it is." And he handed it to her with an expectant look.
Dearka watched the exchange dumbly, unsure of exactly what was supposed to happen. 'Order of release' was a nice thing to hear, though. Very nice indeed.
The Catwoman seemed flustered, composure lost in the face of surprise. "Well, ah, this is...I swear I wasn't informed this morning, but you know how it is..."
She fell silent, and Dearka fidgeted as she stared at the note in her hands for a long moment, and began to shuffle papers furiously, dropping the rest as one came to the forefront.
He'd never forget that paper. It was marbled gray in a fancy pattern rather than the usual pristine whiteness of official documents, and he was sure he saw the flash of a gilded letterhead in the moment it caught the light. He knew what it was, and seeing it here nearly made him frown, though he took care to keep his face carefully neutral. What had his friends done?
No one said anything for a long few seconds, and then the soldier cleared his throat, prompting the Catwoman to hand Dearka the marbled paper with a disbelieving expression. He skimmed it, eyes going huge with shock as the information registered.
By order of PLANT's Highest Council, former General-Unilateral-Neurolink-Dispersive-Autonomic-Maneuver Weapon pilot Dearka Elsman is hereby summoned, along with others of ZAFT's top forces, to report to his superiors for renewal of orders.
The entirety of the Council is aware of Dearka Elsman's supposed war crimes, but as no irrefutable evidence has been gathered and soldiers of his caliber are sorely needed in the frontlines, he is hereby granted an official pardon and absolved of these accusations.
Underneath the neat type were a handful of signatures and a scrawled address in not-unfamiliar handwriting. He had to raise an eyebrow when he saw Yzak's signature among the others instead of Ezaria's, puzzle pieces beginning to click into place in his mind.
"Well, if you're done, we'll be going now." A powerful hand gripped his shoulder and steered him to the door, the soldier chuckling coolly at Dearka's slightly stunned face. "Let's get you out of these handcuffs..."
Just like that, Dearka found himself stumbling out of the office in a daze. Free.
The soldier drove him to the address Yzak had written at the bottom of the paper, which he clutched like a lifeline the whole way, thoroughly ruining the lifesaving letterhead. If the other man noted the stiff set of his features or his uncharacteristic silence, he chose not to comment and focused on the street instead.
It didn't take them long to arrive, the black government-issue vehicle pulling up after a scant fifteen minutes in front of a sprawling block of apartments, nothing really different from where Dearka himself had grown up. He eyed the structure with more nervousness than he should have been feeling, wondering exactly what awaited him in one of those squat stacked rooms.
No one questioned him when he wandered around the (tastelessly furnished) narrow hallways, randomly glancing up at numbers as he passed. 316B, it had said, and when he got there he found it to be a perfectly harmless-looking, ordinary door.
He decided to stand in front of it and stare. It didn't do anything, and at last he sighed and pressed the buzzer set beside the keycard slot.
The door opened before him almost immediately, and when he realized who was there in the doorway, barely six inches away from him, he didn't know what to say – stupid, when he'd spent so much thinking time on it in prison. Yzak just looked at him at though he was expecting something, and they stood like that, quiet for awhile.
At long last, Dearka grinned sheepishly, about to offer a comment on how Yzak looked in a Council uniform, but before he could get the words out, the world seemed to shift; suddenly his back was against the opposite wall, and there were strong hands gripping his arms and lips warm on his. Shocking. Exhilarating. Worth everything in the world.
The silver-haired teen pulled away abruptly, and seemed to become the person Dearka knew. "Well?" he snapped. "Are you going to come in or what?"
Dearka wasn't sure what he said in reply, focused on the tingle of warmth on his mouth, the only evidence of what had happened besides the look in Yzak's blue eyes.
I missed you, they said, and welcome home.
-end-
Authoress-ramble: And they lived happily ever after, in a future full of lemons...bahahah. I can't believe it's over so soon; I'm not used to writing short fics – or even finishing them! XD This whole thing was really, really fun to write, even at those times I kept going 'waah' and wanting to skip ahead and just write out that last scene...in fact, I got rather distracted and typed up about 3 ½ other stories too, which is why this took longer to arrive. Hope you guys liked it!
...and if anyone guesses who that soldier was, you get a cookie. XD I think you can trace the events of this fic to the OVA well enough. C&C, minna-san?