A/N: Okay, all I'm going to say here is to please remember that I'm writing this fanfic on a fit of insanity. Actually, fits of insanity are pretty much the norm for me. I guess I have fits of sanity occasionally, but nonetheless, this story is being (written or wrote. I know it's one of those two. I think... It's late dammit! So what if I can't think of the correct wordy thing! Just read the story!) on a wave of my insanity. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. Oh yeah, I love the reviews!

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam SEED.

Chapter 2: The Nature of Their Friendships are Exquisite

To say that Miriallia Haww was excited would be a vast understatement. She was so giddy, in fact, that Cagalli hadn't trusted her to drive to pick up Dearka at the neighborhood spaceport. She always got this way when he came to visit her. The months that they spent apart made the short visits infinitely more enjoyable. Phone calls and pictures could never replace actually having Dearka right there. They could never replace the wonderful sensation of having him hold her in his arms. The anticipation of their first embrace after lengthy periods of separation got to be too much for Miriallia and her friends worried she couldn't drive the distance without getting into an accident.

This time it was Cagalli who had chosen to drive the excited girl to meet her love. It wasn't the first time the lively blonde had taken on the task. She said previously that she enjoyed the break from her life and liked the chance to just drive and talk with a friend, and Miriallia had no reason to doubt her words. Between managing the affairs of a nation and managing her own marriage, Cagalli could get plenty exhausted. Sometime Miriallia didn't know what made the girl more tired; Orb or Athrun.

Miriallia smiled as she looked at the other woman. She was wearing a loose violet blouse and jeans. Her shoulder length blonde hair framed her pretty face. Miriallia almost thought that Athrun was one lucky guy — he had such a beautiful wife — but she knew Cagalli was a firecracker. Athrun both loved and feared the innocent looking girl. But Cagalli's explosive temper had no way interfered with their marriage. Athrun seemed used to it and would always just smiled whenever she went off on him. Through two years of marriage the duo had managed to stay as loving as always.

Cagalli noticed she was being watched and sent a quick glance towards Miriallia. She smiled and looked back at the road and said, "Something on your mind?"

Miriallia sighed and looked at the roof of the car. "Dearka," came her wistful reply. "Please tell me we're almost to the spaceport. I can't stand this."

"Just a couple more minutes and you'll be reunited with your prince."

Miriallia groaned. "That's a couple minutes too long."

Miriallia half wanted Dearka to move to Earth permanently and half wanted him to stay on PLANT. She didn't like the huge gap between them that was space, but if he was always here things could get boring. Their meetings would become less meaningful and they might not cherish every moment as they do now. But knowing she wouldn't see him for weeks, or even months was aggravating. But he had a career and it was his decision to make. There was a lot for him at PLANT: his parents, his friends, his job, Yzak. She wouldn't dare take all that away from him to satisfy her.

Miriallia sighed and passed the rest of the short trip watching trees fly by the window.

When the car finally came to a stop in front of the spaceport Miriallia instantly found Dearka sitting on a bench outside wearing a green polo shirt over khakis. He was laughing softly as Miriallia raced out of the car and over to greet him. He saw her and smiled from ear to ear and stood up to wrap her in a loving embrace. They held each other for a moment and then she pulled away to look him in the eyes and say "Hi". He chuckled and returned the greeting. Miriallia's eyes drifted to the side of the bench he had sat on. "Wow. You sure brought a lot of stuff," she said as she looked at the pile of duffel bags and suitcases.

"Huh?" he said as he looked at the luggage himself. "I brought the same amount as I usually do."

Miriallia raised an eyebrow and gave him a skeptical look. That wasn't the usual amount, that was almost twice what he usually brings. It was only then that she noticed the light-haired man still sitting on the bench watching them.

"Yzak?" she asked uncertainly. It wasn't his presence that was startling, it was his appearance. Yzak had made trips to Earth prior to this and she had seen him several times. His increased hight was no surprise to her — he was just an inch shy of Dearka's hight now. The scar that had once been so pronounced and apparent and was now a faded line that was just barely noticeable didn't take her back. It was his clothes — a simple white teeshirt with faded jeans — and the fact that he looked so comfortable and natural in them. She was used to him in his neatly pressed uniform that the thought of him in anything else was ridiculous.

Yzak continued to sit there, silent. "I convinced him to come to take a break and come to Earth," Dearka said.

Miriallia looked from Yzak to her boyfriend, then back to Yzak again. "That's nice," she started. "Dearka has told me how you work constantly and never rest. It's good you've decided to take a vacation Yzak." She smiled at him.

"Yeah," Yzak said dryly. "It's wonderful." He stood up and walked over to the pile of bags and lifted two duffel bags and a suitcase. "Where's the car? That was a long flight and I'm tired."

"Oh, Cagalli parked back their," Miriallia said pointing over her shoulder to the parked car and the blonde girl leaning on the hood waiting for them. Dearka picked up his luggage and they started walking towards the car. Miriallia looked at Yzak and asked, "So, where are you staying Yzak? We can drop you off and let you have your nap."

Dearka and Yzak exchanged glances.

"No."

The moment the simple two letter, one syllable word emanated form Miriallia's mouth Dearka groaned and laid his head back on the seat in the back of Cagalli's car to look at the ceiling. His head shot back up and he looked at the back of Miriallia's head that wasn't blocked by the seat in front of him. "Please Miriallia?" he pleaded. "What's the big deal? It's just a couple of days and it isn't like he's going to take up too much space or sacrifice animals in your bathroom, or something weird like that."

"No," Miriallia responded flatly. "You know my apartment is barely big enough to accommodate your stay, but having Yzak their too? Plus, how do I know he won't go sacrificing animals in my bathroom? I don't want to have to scrub cat blood off the linoleum."

Dearka sighed heavily. "You're being unreasonable. Your apartment is plenty big for all three of us."

Yzak sat in the backseat next to Dearka watching the scene unfold before him with a small smirk on his face. It was fun watching Dearka get exasperated, even if it meant that he didn't have a place to stay for two weeks on a planet he wasn't entirely familiar with if Dearka lost this argument. Yzak vaguely thought that Cagalli found the whole scene of the pleading boyfriend and unyielding girlfriend quite humerus too, but if she did she didn't show it. She simply drove the car with a faint smile on her lips without a single word. Yzak was almost tempted to speak up when the idea of him sacrificing anything was thrown into the conversation, but decided against it.

"I'm being unreasonable?" Miriallia was saying. "Fine. I have one extra futon in the spare room. He can sleep in there."

Dearka leaned back in his seat with a triumphant smile. He glanced at Yzak to show how proud he was of his small victory. "See," he said to Miriallia. "Problem solved. Yzak can sleep in the spare room and you and I will share-"

"Oh no," Miriallia was quick to interrupt. "You can share the futon with Yzak."

Dearka's smile quickly disappeared and was replace by a look of genuine surprise and a hint of fear. "What? But... But things would be a lot easier if we shared a room like usual. I mean... Making Yzak and me share a small futon? I'd rather sleep on the couch..."

"Okay, Yzak can get the futon and you can have the couch."

Dearka opened his mouth to offer his rebuttal, and closed it a second later. He looked over at Yzak to find some support, but Yzak just smirked at him. He even looked to Cagalli for something, but she was too focused on driving to help him. He opened his mouth and closed it again before he leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms, looking too much like a child who was refused a new toy. Yzak chuckled lightly and his eyes drifted to the rear-view mirror and met Cagalli's eyes and saw that her smile had grown significantly.

They rode in silence for a few moments before Cagalli decided to speak up. "You know, you guys arrived at the perfect time. Athrun's birthday is tomorrow."

"Oh!" Miriallia exclaimed. "I almost forgot. I suppose there will be a party?"

"Of course," Cagalli responded.

"Wonderful," Dearka mumbled from Yzak's left, still pouting from being placed in the doghouse. Even at twenty-five he still acted like a child from time to time.

"Oh hush Dearka, or I'll make you sleep on the floor." Yzak had to chuckle at Miriallia's threat. Any punches thrown at his friend pleased him. Perhaps he should be worried at his enjoyment of watching his friend suffer instead of so readily accepting it? Dearka sighed and crossed his arms over his chest and settled on looking out of the window of the moving vehicle. He had decided to give up on pouting since it was getting him nowhere.

"I'm sure," Cagalli started, distracting everyone from the childish behavior going on in the backseat, "that Athrun will be... um... surprised... that you'll be there Yzak." Why did that not sound as good as Yzak supposed it was supposed to sound?

Either way Yzak grunted in response and looked out of his window. The girls held a private conversation in front while the boys stared out the windows in back. After a minute or two, Dearka leaned toward Yzak and said in a hushed voice, "A party means girls, and I'm sure there will be at least one interested in giving a grumpy, pale twenty-five-year-old his first kiss."

Yzak looked at Dearka and the big, idiotic grin that was plastered on his face and tried to think of something to say in reply. Coming up with nothing he simply said "I hate you" and resumed looking out of the window. His response earned him a sigh and a "I'm trying to help you and you say you hate me?" Yzak responded with a grunt, hoping the subject could just end. Dearka didn't share Yzak's sentiments and looked at Miriallia — who had ended her conversation with Cagalli — and just had to ask "Do you have any single friends?" Miriallia shifted in her seat to look back at Dearka and asked "Why?" to which Dearka offered a "I'm trying to find Yzak a girlfriend." There was a pause while Miriallia thought that was ended by the sound of brakes and the car being brought to a stop and Cagalli saying "We're here."

Yzak, Dearka, and Miriallia stepped out of the car and retrieved the bags located in the trunk and said their goodbyes to Cagalli before she headed back to her large estate, her work, and her husband.

Miriallia ushered them into the tall apartment complex and passed the front desk where the person stationed there had obviously just woke up from a little afternoon nap when they arrived and to the elevator where Miriallia hit the five button and the trio waited for the elevator to arrive on the fifth floor so they could disembark and walk down the hall to her apartment, which they did. They entered the snug (a nice word for small) two-bedroom apartment with an open kitchen. There were two bathrooms — the main one and a half-bath located between the two bedrooms — and a good sized closet. The living-room was furnished with a nice couch and two chairs to either side of it, all facing the television.

Yzak decided it looked comfortable enough. He couldn't complain; it was either this or the street.

Miriallia showed them where they would be staying. She opened the door to the small bedroom with a futon sitting in the middle and an assortment of other crap that wouldn't go anywhere in the apartment. She showed Dearka the couch with a smirk while he frowned. She then proceeded to say she was going to get some blankets and pillows for the boys which Dearka translated into taking a nap for Yzak when she shut the door to her bedroom.

The two men, left to their own devices, decided to make themselves at home, and while Yzak fell into one of the comfy arm-chairs, Dearka raided Miriallia's fridge. He returned with two beverages — a bottle of green tea for himself and a juice box for Yzak — and tossed Yzak the juice while he sprawled out on the couch. Yzak looked at his juice and asked, "Is this a joke?"

Dearka took a swig of his tea and said, "It's juice Yzak. Just drink it."

Yzak did just that and found the contents of the rectangular box of laminated cardboard quickly gone and leaving a desire for more. He glared at the box while he crushed it and stood up to throw it away. Yzak returned to his seat and sat there staring at the ceiling, deciding he was far to tired from the long shuttle ride to do anything else.

"Do you wanna hit the clubs?" he heard Dearka ask jokingly.

Yzak snorted and replied, "I doubt your girlfriend would like to wake up and find a note saying 'Gone clubbing. Be home later'." Yzak looked down at his friend and asked, "Why is she sleeping anyway? Wouldn't she want to talk to you or something equally tedious?"

Dearka sat up and tried to get into a more comfortable position on the couch. "She usually doesn't get much sleep before my visits. The anticipation and all I guess. Most of the talking happens the morning after I come."

"Oh," Yzak said, looking back at the ceiling.

"So," Dearka said after a brief moment of silence. "Athrun's birthday is tomorrow, huh? How about we get him a little gift?"

"Athrun's a big boy now," Yzak replied nonchalant. "He doesn't need birthday presents from us."

"I was thinking more along the lines of a little gift for the after-party. Something we could enjoy that would embarrass Athrun to no end. Kira too."

As stated earlier, Yzak enjoyed seeing his friends suffer, and suffering from embarrassment was suffering of the best kind, so Yzak's interest was peaked. "What did you have in mind?" Yzak asked calmly. Dearka just grinned and pumped his eyebrows. Yzak thought a moment what that could mean until he remembered a similar occurrence in the past. "You know that Athrun's married," Yzak said as he figured out what Dearka was getting at. "Cagalli will kill you if she finds out. And Kira's engaged. Lacus would probably see no problem in aiding Cagalli in what is sure to be stabbity violence directed towards you. You know all of this, right?"

"Of course," Dearka said with a wave of his hand. "Athrun and Kira won't want those two to find out so they'll keep quiet. And even if they do talk it isn't like it'll be the real thing. We can get a guy this time."

Yzak sighed and shook his head. "Fine, but if questioned, I had nothing to do with this."

"Agreed," Dearka said. "Now it's what, five o'clock? That's plenty of time to get what we need. And Milly will probably stay out far a couple hours at the least. She'll never know we left."

Yzak sighed again and shrugged as the two men stood to head out of the door.

Athrun and Kira were going to hate them.

Rewind to three years ago.

On PLANT a friend of Dearka and Yzak was celebrating his twenty-ninth birthday. As he danced and drank and danced some more he had no idea what was waiting for him after his party. And after the music quieted and the guests vacated his house, Dearka and Yzak stayed behind, along with a couple of other colleagues. The birthday boy was now pretty drunk and reclining on his couch while four of his so-called friends wheeled in a thin cardboard replica of a cake. They parked it in front of the drunk man who looked at it with mild surprise.

The four friends stood off to the sides of the cake while the man inquired about what the cake was for.

After some slurred thank yous the man was going to stand up and get a piece of what he though was a human size cake when fists began punching holes through the cardboard and a moment later a human figure jumped from the mess that had once resembled a cake and stood a few feet from where he sat on his couch with a death-grip on his cushions staring at the human figure in front of him.

Standing a few feet away from him was the ugliest woman he had ever seen dancing maniacally to music that wasn't there.

After all was said and done the four who had planned the act had several good laughs and the other man had a terrible story to tell for the rest of his life. Or at least what he remembered of the experience.

Fast forward three years and you will find Yzak and Dearka hunting Orb for a male stripper for their friend's twenty-fourth birthday. They felt obligated to do this for their friend, who they had become quite chummy with over the past eight years. Gone were the days of their boyhood rivalries and jealousies that none will ever admit to. Now they were close friends and this was just incentive for Athrun to come up with something equally embarrassing to do to those two.

Which he would no doubt do.

Such was the nature of their relationship that this would become a funny story to talk about for some time to come.

As long as the women heard nothing about it.

A/N: Hmm... This part of the story (the beginning) is what I'm using to reintroduce the characters and get you caught up on the past eight years. That part will include the next chapter and perhaps the one after that. I never thought that that would include any forms of crazy dancing people who Dearka and Yzak are paying to embarrass their friends. Oh well, the main plot starts after the party. Now, click submit review and let your voice (text) be heard (read) by all (me and possibly my roommate cause he reads my email sometimes. asshole). Don't feel like reviewing you say? Then send me an angry email telling me how much you hate me and my story. You and I both know you want to, so just do it already! Hmm... I need more coffee.