Chapter 2: The Other Students

Breakfast was delayed as many of the students struggled to rise after their flight. Tolle's excitement about being on Earth overrode his fatigue and the first thing Kira knew in the morning was Tolle hitting him with a pillow to wake him. "Wake up bonehead! Food!"

The prospect of food certainly held more sway over Kira than he thought and the boy grudgingly rose out of his rather comfortable bed. The two friends showered and dressed and then headed for the restaurant for breakfast. Sai and Simon were already present, holding a table large enough to seat all of them.

Kira cheerfully greeted the two of them already at the table, but then sighed to himself as he sat as far from Simon as possible. Simon Grey was the son of a wealthy business man, and acted even more conceited and stuck-up than Flay ever could. The tall black-haired boy rarely talked or got along with Kira and often made lewd comments about Coordinators.

He fortunately didn't have endure much more of Simon alone as Miriallia and Flay joined them, the latter sitting across from Sai and the former sitting right beside Kira. Kuzzey appeared out of nowhere plopping down in the last free seat in between Simon and Tolle. "Where were you last night?" Sai asked Kuzzey.

The boy shrugged. "Around." Kira was too hungry to consider pressing the matter, so he stood to wait in line at the buffet table. Miriallia joined him. "So what did you think of the flight down?" she asked, picking up a plate.

"It was neat, but I wish I wasn't so tired today. How are you?" he replied, failing to stifle a yawn. Miriallia giggled. "That's from the real gravity. Your body is adjusting; it'll take a few days. But I'm happy to be back on Earth again and I'm really excited to see these ruins they just discovered. Think about it Kira, we're some of the first people to see a newly discovered civilization!" Her excitement was obvious.

"Uh huh." Kira said lamely as he loaded his plate with bacon, eggs, sausage, toast and some cinnamon buns. "I heard a rumor that we weren't the only school down here to see the ruins. I wonder who else is here."

Miriallia took a more healthy approach to her breakfast, picking some fresh cut fruit, yogurt and some cereal. "That would be neat, to meet students from different colonies, or even from Earth." They sat down at their table as the rest of their group waited in line.

After everyone had finished their breakfast, Ron announced that the buses for the dig site would be leaving in 40 minutes from the main hotel entrance. Students were recommended to wear footwear and clothing suitable for terrain that was more rugged. They all met in front of the doors a little early so they could get good seats together.

Kira wore beige cargo pants, hiking boots and a grey t-shirt under his black spring jacket. Miriallia showed up wearing jeans and a t-shirt and had her jacket slung over one shoulder. Sai was all decked out with clothes that looked more suitable for climbing a mountain, backpack included. Flay was apparently not worried about the conditions, wearing a knee-length pink skirt and white t-shirt.

When they arrived at the site, Sai immediately realized that he was a little over-prepared for this. Flay was still rather under-prepared, but she didn't care that much about it. Manson was busy conversing with a burly man, and then turned to the assembled students before him. "Our two esteemed guides and colleagues will be surface-side in just a few moments. In the meantime, feel free to wander around the courtyard area, but do not venture into the site itself or past anywhere barricaded."

Kira looked around, marveling at the few parts of the ruins that poked through the dirt. Then a group of students on the other side of the courtyard caught his attention. They didn't look like they were from Heliopolis, so perhaps there was some truth behind the rumors of more students. "Mister Manson!" Kira called out. Getting his teacher's attention, he continued. "Where are those students over there from?" he asked, pointing at the group.

Ron smiled. "Glad you asked. They're a group from the PLANTs, here under Rau le Creuset. Go introduce yourself; I think you'd get along with them." Ron suggested.

As he approached the group from the PLANTs, several of them walked away, leaving three of them, one about Kira's height with blue hair, one shorter than Kira with green hair and one taller than Kira with blond hair. "Hey there, I heard you're from the PLANTs." Kira said.

"We sure are. I'm Athrun Zala." The blue haired boy introduced himself.

"Nichol Amarfi." Said the green haired boy.

"Miguel Aiyman." Introduced the blond boy.

"So you're all Coordinators?" Kira asked.

Immediately all of their eyes narrowed in suspicion. "What's it to you?" Miguel growled dangerously.

Raising his hands in apology, Kira smiled sincerely. "Sorry, I meant no offense. I haven't met another Coordinator since I was seven and living on the moon. You'd think in a neutral colony there would be more, but I was apparently wrong." He explained.

"So you're a Coordinator then." Athrun stated. Kira nodded.

"I apologize if we seemed brusque, but there are a lot of anti-Coordinator tensions running around Earth. We were surprised when arrangements were made for us to come to Earth." Nichol said.

"I can understand where you're coming from. So you're all here to see the ruins as well?"

"Yeah. This could be the last time that Coordinators are on Earth peacefully. Do your friends know that you're a Coordinator?" Athrun asked.

"Kira!" he was interrupted by Miriallia calling out his name. "We can go down into the ruins now! Come on!"

"Okay, be right there!" he told his friend and then turned back to Athrun. "Sorry, looks like that's my cue. I'll hopefully see you down there." As Kira ran to Miriallia, a tall and tanned blond walked over. "Who was that and who's the cute girl?"

"That was Kira, he's from Heliopolis. As for the girl, I don't know, probably his friend." Miguel explained. "Are we supposed to report to Commander le Creuset now?"

"Yes, Yzak and Rusty are already there, Matthew and Olor will be there soon, he's just waiting for you guys."

"Well I guess we shouldn't keep the Commander waiting, right Dearka?" Athrun said.

"Right."

"So who were they?" Miriallia asked as they walked towards the ruins.

"A group of students from the PLANTs, they're the other group that was rumored to be here. They seem nice." Kira replied. Mir frowned. "So they're Coordinators?" she asked.

Kira slowed his pace. "What's wrong with that?" he asked darkly. Mir immediately regretted asking the question. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean it like that. I just didn't think that a group of Coordinators would be down here on Earth with the tensions between the PLANTs and the Earth so high."

"It's not your fault; I asked them the same thing. I haven't seen another Coordinator since I left the moon." Kira informed her. "Another Coordinator?" she echoed, confused at his choice of words.

"That sounded weird to you as well? Sorry, I don't think my brain is awake yet." He chuckled. They neared their group as two older men at the front were talking. "On behalf of the Atlantic Federation Archeologist Society, we'd like to thank you all for attending this momentous occasion and welcome you all too former North America."

"I am Doctor Carl Ryan; I'm in charge of cataloguing the artifacts and exploring the ruins themselves." The slightly shorter of the two introduced himself.

"And I am Professor Cyril Ferguson, in charge of translating any text inside the ruins. Without much further ado, let's go inside the ruins. Doctor Ryan will explain a few rules that you must obey without question. They are for your own safety and for the preservation of any critical discoveries inside."

"First rule, do not go anywhere unsupervised. Between myself, Professor Ferguson and the number of student aides, one of us will be able to show you where any of the facilities are located. Second rule, do not touch anything that isn't marked. This is for all of our safety, these ruins are many centuries old, and I do not want any accidents. Third rule; don't be afraid to ask questions. We may not know everything about this place, but we'll do our best to help."

The first room they entered was the Main Hall, large and spacious. It seemed like any other ancient culture's main hall, enough room to gather a fair number of people and speak to them, and if needed mount a good defense. The archeologists used this place as their base of operations, having already set up communications equipment, a few tents and several tables, holographic displays and even some old white boards for brainstorming.

There were a fair number of people running around in here, muttering to themselves as they held coffee cups, assorted pastries or buns or scraps of paper. Carl and Cyril led them to the adjacent hallway, which led to a virtual maze of passages. "We've mapped probably less than ten percent of this place, mostly due to a lack of manpower. Slowly but surely we'll discover all of its secrets." Carl informed them.

The tour continued, just a basic overview of what was to come tomorrow on the more detailed tour. Their most crowning achievement was discovering an ancient book in nearly perfect condition. Several experts were working around the clock to decipher the text so all of the secrets could be learned. After several hours, the students were finally led back to the Main Hall.

"I'd like to thank you all for your participation, and I look forward to your return tomorrow, where we'll go into greater detail about the history of this place. I bid you all a good night." Cyril dismissed them.

On the surface, Kira ran into Athrun again. "Hey Kira." Athrun greeted his new friend. "Hey Athrun. Were you on the tour as well?" he didn't see any of the Coordinators down there with them.

"We had our own tour today. Tomorrow I think we're merging with your group." Athrun explained. Kira's face brightened a little. "Cool. Where are you all staying? All of my class is bunked in the Ramada Inn."

"That's our hotel as well. We've got rooms 205 to 210, and I'm in 207. What about you?"

"My friends and I are one the third floor. I've got room 325, so that means we're a floor up and on the other side of the building. But for a hotel that has seven floors, we're pretty close." Kira said.

The students began to board their buses to go back to the hotel for dinner and relaxation. "Listen, why don't you come over to my room at around 9, then I can introduce you to the rest of my tea … classmates." Athrun suggested.

"Sounds good." Kira waved goodbye as he stepped on the bus right behind Miriallia. He took his usual seat right beside his good friend. "So when's supper? I'm starving?" he wondered.

Miriallia groaned Kira would probably never change. Tolle echoed Kira's sentiments, and both of them hoped there would be good food available. In the end, neither of them actually cared what they piled on their plates, it was edible food to be consumed, and consumed it was. Rather voraciously too. Kira excused himself after dinner to go see his new friends in their rooms.

Eight people were already piled into room 207 by the time Kira knocked on the door. A gruff "who's there?" greeted him. "Uh … Kira. Kira Yamato." There was shuffling noises and a few curses before the door opened, revealing Athrun at the door and seven people in various sitting positions on the floor and beds.

"Kira, come in." Kira did so, closing the door behind him. Athrun introduced the people behind him. Yzak, Dearka and Nichol, then Rusty, Miguel, Olor and Matthew. Miguel, Olor and Matthew were a few years Athrun's senior, while Nichol was the youngest.

Yzak and Dearka were a little reserved as they talked with Kira, everyone else seemed more open, but Kira could tell that they were all keeping secrets, or one big one. For the moment he didn't care, he was among people who weren't condescending towards Coordinators, he felt at peace.

A slightly guilty feeling gnawed at him, reminding him that among others, Tolle and Miriallia wouldn't care if he was a Natural or a Coordinator, they were accepting people and he was glad to call them his friends. It was early in the morning by the time Kira returned to his room, Tolle was fast asleep.

They had talked about a lot of things, from the differences between an O'Neill Cylinder colony and a PLANT colony to how much different the Earth was from both types to amusing anecdotes from their childhood. The last topic they explored was just how far the archeologists would be delving into the ruins tomorrow.

From their short time inside the ruined temple, they all agreed that it a design no one had ever seen before. The text on the wall looked more alien than human, and the size of the rooms and corridors seemed to be far too large, even for royalty. "But we're not here for a project or an assignment, for us it's a vacation." Yzak had reminded them.

"It's the same for us, a reward for working so hard. We should leave the question answering to the paid experts and just have fun while we're here. It is possible that none of us may ever return to Earth again, and I don't want to waste more time than I have to." Kira had agreed.

"Speaking of time, I need to hit the sack, I'll see you guys at breakfast or the site. G'night." Miguel and Rusty were the first to leave; following them was Olor and Matthew, and then Yzak and Dearka.

Flopping on his bed, Kira stared at the ceiling, giving one last thought about the ancient ruins before falling asleep. He was awoken by a persistent shaking and words. "Kira, wake up. C'mon buddy, breakfast time! Food! Kira!" Tolle tried.

Not bothering to open his eyes, Kira flailed around to stop Tolle. "Alright, shut up already. I'll be there in a few minutes, go without me and save me a seat." Kira groaned, wishing the morning hadn't arrived so early.

"Are you sure buddy?" Tolle asked.

"Go." Kira commanded, rolling over on his side. Upon hearing the door shut with a satisfying click, he shook his head to try and clear it.

Tolle sat down in one of the chairs that had been saved for him with a heaping plate of food. "Thanks for the seat, I'm starving." Tolle said before digging into the mound of delicious food.

Miriallia eyed her friend. "Where's Kira? He's going to miss breakfast at this rate." Tolle shrugged as he continued to eat. "He told me he'd be along in a few minutes, so I went ahead."

"Is something wrong with him? Kira never misses breakfast, or lunch, or any chance to eat! Maybe he's sick." Miriallia wondered. Sai laughed. "I've never known Kira to miss a meal either, but I've never known him to get sick."

"Stop worrying Miriallia, I'm sure he'll be here soon." Tolle said, finishing his first plateful and standing up to get his second round. "I'm going to check on him." Miriallia decided.

"That won't be necessary." a voice said from behind her. Miriallia turned. "Kira!" Kira smiled. "Sorry for the wait. I hope there's something left for me." his stomach growled to reinforce the point. Miriallia smiled as she stood in line with her good friend. "You know, you actually had me worried that you'd be skipping a meal for the first time in your life."

"Me skip a meal? Not in this lifetime Miriallia Haw. Come hell or high water, no rain nor sleet nor snow shall keep me from my meals." Kira announced proudly, holding his plate up high. Miriallia giggled.

Between the several helpings that both Tolle and Kira took, there was very little food left at the end of the breakfast. Kira patted his stomach contently. "Now that was a breakfast."

An announcement crackled to life over the intercom system in the hotel. "The buses for the dig site will be leaving in 45 minutes."

"Good." Kira said. "Another 45 minutes for me to sleep." he started to walk back to his room but Miriallia latched onto his arm and followed him. "No more sleeping for you this morning. You almost skipped breakfast. A nice hot shower should get you going." Miriallia scolded him.

"So … you're coming along because you want to shower with me?" Kira asked, arching an eyebrow. He knew that Milly would do no such thing, but it was fun to tease her. Sure enough a mortified look settled on her face. "What? How … wait … when …" her ability to form a comprehensive sentence was gone for the moment.

"I'm teasing you. Unless of course you want to shower with me?" Her mortified expression remained plastered on her face, causing Kira to laugh. "Right, that's still a no. Well you can stay in my room if you're bored while I shower."

He took fifteen minutes to clean and dry himself. Stepping out of the bathroom clad in only a white towel wrapped around his waist, he ruffled through his bags looking for something to wear. Miriallia had seen Kira half-naked many times before, but never fresh from a shower.

She had to admit he looked good with his toned upper body. He and Tolle often went to the gym together to work out, and not until now did Milly know just how much he had developed. Standing up victoriously with clothes in hand, Kira smirked and then went back into the bathroom to change.

Emerging scant seconds later, this time fully clothed, he looked around for a clock. "How much time do we have left?" he asked. Mir looked at her watch. "I'd say about 20 minutes."

Kira nodded and then flopped onto his bed. "Sleep time." he said, closing his eyes. Miriallia rolled her eyes as Kira laced his fingers behind his head. His breathing became a steady pace, and it looked like he had actually fallen back asleep in his clothes. An evil idea entered her mind and she acted on it almost immediately.

As gracefully as a cat, Miriallia pounced, jumping from the bed she was sitting on to Kira's bed, landing on him completely. Expecting to hear a surprised groan from Kira, she was surprised herself when Kira suddenly had her trapped in his arms. "Going somewhere Miss Haw?" he asked, his eyes still closed.

Not giving her the chance to reply, Kira rolled over, trapping Miriallia on the bed, pinning both of her arms above her head. He lowered his head mere inches from hers and spoke in a quiet tone. "Are you wearing that to the dig site?" he asked, referring to her sweatpants and t-shirt.

It was certainly an odd question to ask given their current positions, and before Miriallia could reply, the door to Kira's room opened. "What the hell are you two doing?" Tolle asked, pausing at the doorway to witness the sight before him.

Kira immediately rolled off of Mir and consequently off the bed and onto the floor with a thud. Popping his head over the horizon of the bed, Kira eyed Tolle distastefully. "Don't you knock?"

It was then that Kira realized just how stupid his question was. Tolle was his roommate, and above that, he and Milly weren't doing anything. In response Tolle smiled and walked out, leaving Kira alone again with Miriallia. "Well, I'd better go change before we get on the bus. Save me a seat if I'm not there when you get on, okay?" Miriallia said, standing up.

Kira nodded, and then Milly left.

Thanks for all of the kind reviews, and I would like to address Kedima personally:

You mentioned liking the Kira/Miriallia pairing, so perhaps you could drop me a line?
I realize your e-mail is in your profile, but I kept getting a sending error, so I'll leave a few ways to contact me:
OttomanFIA(at)hotmail(dot)com (MSN Capable)
PrayerReverie(at)yahoo(dot)com (soon to be YIM capable)

Thanks again to all of you, please read and Review,
Until next time,
Prayer