Hi gals (and guys)! Your reviews were awesome! I'm sorry to say that I won't be updating often and when I will, it'll probably be just as long as these first few chapters. I've got the patience of a T-rex (for lack of a better word), which is, like, ZILCH. Writing just isn't my thing. But I'll keep on writing as long as you guys keep on reviewing. You won't be disappointed (I hope)!

ONWARD!

Disclaimer: Yup, that's right. I don't own Gundam SEED/Destiny. I do in fact own this story, and most of the experiences they will have. If you dare claim this as your own, I hope someone beats the crap out of you until you're a bloody pulp, and you get what you deserve.

Destined to Be

-By HiddenNightmares-

Chapter 3

Cagalli blinked. Was her staring that obvious? The boy wasn't looking at Cagalli.

"Who are you? Why'd you save me? Do I know you? Are we flying?" Cagalli blurted out, somehow forgetting they were jumping from building to building. She waited but didn't receive an answer. "Well?"

The guy still didn't answer. Cagalli glared at him for a few brief seconds before angrily jutting her chin out with a small, but loud, "hmph! Boys…."

When the two finally landed, Cagalli realized how absurd it would sound when she told Shinn that she had been rescued by a boy who could practically fly. She didn't even know his name, for heaven's sake. Shinn would probably think she was on 'Crack' or whatever that stuff was called.

She snorted mentally at the thought. But she'd figure that out later. When she finally came back to reality, she saw that her rescuer had started walking and was leaving her in the middle of nowhere, as far as she was concerned.

Cagalli ran to catch up with the weird boy. As she did so, she looked at her surroundings. 'The Middle of Nowhere' turned out to be an old deserted neighborhood in which the buildings were falling apart. But apart from that, Cagalli didn't know where they were.

"Where are we?" wondered Cagalli out loud. The stranger surprised her by answering. In fact, he surprised her so much that she tripped over in surprise and fell flat on her face. Far from being embarrassed, she got angry.

He didn't see her fall, so he answered, "We're directly east of the park you ran out of."

"GET OVER HERE!" Cagalli bellowed, getting angrier by the second. "You—you—you MADE me fall!" she seethed, still on the ground. The stranger had stopped and was watching her with coolly.

Without waiting for a response from him, she got up quickly…. only to fall over once again when she felt a sharp pain in her ankle. She realized it was sprained.

"Ouchies, ouchies, OUCHIES! This is all your fault!" Cagalli accused.

"Yeah, right. It's not my fault you've got zero stability. I bet you don't even know what stability means. And if I wanted to, I could leave you right here." The boy sneered. "Alone," he couldn't resist adding.

As much as Cagalli wanted to yell and scream at him, she could see the truth in his words. So she waited for him to say something. After about 30 seconds of silence, he spoke up. "Get on my back." right after finishing this sentence, he crouched down and indicated for her to get on his back.

Having no choice, Cagalli sighed long-sufferingly and climbed on. "We're going back to the park, right?"

"Yes."

More silence after that. Soon it became stifling. Cagalli never did like silence. So she tried to think of something to say. A whole bunch of 8-year-old topics came to her mind and she just picked one randomly.

"You know, just in case you forgot, I asked you your name before. You still haven't told me. It won't kill you to tell me. And you need to loosen up a little, seriously. You sound like your 80." she stated in a matter-of-fact tone. When the boy didn't say anything, Cagalli felt herself getting mad all over again.

"Listen here, buster! You need to learn to live a little! God knows how many times I've had to say that to Shinny! And we can't forget Kisaka, either! Am I the only sane one around here! I wouldn't be surprised…. Anyways, if you're shy or something, you can tell me!" At this point she was trying to sound encouraging. "I won't beat you up or anything! Trust me!" Cagalli stopped talking to see the boy's reaction.

She had sort of forgotten that she was being carried by him, and, therefore, her 'little' temper tantrum had resulted in being screeched directly into the boy's ears. He swayed slightly for a minute in which Cagalli was scared that they would fall, but he regained his composure within a few more minutes. Clearing his throat slightly, he continued walking.

After a little while passed, the boy said, "Almost there." He sounded slightly woozy. And, if Cagalli didn't know any better, she would say he sounded relieved. She narrowed her eyes slightly at first, but then an evil grin appeared on her adorable little face and her eyes twinkled with mischief as she thought of ways to torture the boy until he told her his name… which, by the way things seemed to be going so far, would never happen. Her creepy grin widened.

'I'm SOOOOOOO glad to be alive. So very, very glad.' She let out an evil laugh, just to make things more dramatic.

Athrun's POV

That girl is SCARY. I hope that Stellar hasn't made friends with that boy… because then she'll be friends with this girl, too, as far as I can tell… and since I'm always with Stellar, that is NOT a good thing.

Not a good thing at all.

Normal POV

Athrun seemed to sigh in relief when they reached the park's open daylight, but Cagalli let it off as her imagination.

He had told her his name but that was it. (But only because she 'tortured' him.) She had told him her name too, just to be fair. Her torture usually made Shinn tell her everything (not that he wouldn't, after facing Cagalli's wrath), but Athrun didn't let her get to him… too much.

Looking around, she felt herself brighten instantly by simply staring at the peaceful atmosphere. Athrun set her down on a nearby bench but Cagalli didn't notice since she was deep in thought. After awhile Cagalli looked up. Hoping that Shinn would be where he always was when the two friends were looking for each other, Cagalli ordered Athrun to take her to the nearest swing set, which was, coincidentally, the same swing set where she and Shinn had first met. "So, let's go!" she said when he didn't say anything after she had finished ordering him. But Athrun, being the annoying git he is, decided to spoil her good mood by telling her the exact opposite of the answer she wanted.

"No."

"WHAT!" she exploded in disbelief.

"Didn't you hear me? I said 'no'." she REALLY wanted to wipe that smug look off his face.

"YES!"

"Nope."

"Yes, yes, YES!"

"Stop being pathetic."

"HUH! WHO'RE YOU CALLING—"

"CALLI-CHAN!"

As you can probably tell, someone had interrupted Cagalli. She was ready to give this someone a piece of her mind… until she figured out who the someone was.

"Shinny!" she screamed in joy, nearly deafening anyone within 50 feet of her, the closest being our beloved Athrun. She jumped up, completely forgetting about her sprained ankle.

"Ouchies!" she yelped, feeling the pain in her ankle spread. She started collapsing, but she felt someone grab her in their warm embrace.

"Thanks, Shinny," she sighed in relief, immediately assuming the person who had stopped her fall to be her best friend. She opened her tightly clenched eyes (which she hadn't realized she'd closed) and looked up to see not Shinn, but Athrun. Yay for her.

Blushing lightly, she pried herself out of his grip, only to find herself fall on the ground with a small 'thump' since there was no longer a weight to support her.

She looked up, slightly embarrassed, now expecting Athrun to be standing there, smirking at her. But it was Shinn who was now standing above her with a wide smile on his face. Cagalli saw that there was another girl standing behind Shinn, watching her curiously. Just by looking at her, Cagalli knew that they were going to get along quite nicely. Looking over at Athrun, who seemed to be deep in thought, she knew that their friendship was a whole different story. She snapped out of her thoughts when she heard Shinn start speaking.

"Need a hand?" he asked good-naturedly. He held it out to her.

"You betcha." Cagalli responded happily. She grabbed his hand and hoisted herself up. Using Shinn's shoulder to support herself, she started speaking. "Soooo, who's your new girlfriend?" she asked, winking and nudging Shinn slightly with her elbow. At this, the girl began to look a bit uneasy and worried, but no one but Athrun noticed. Shinn knew she was kidding, though, and responded normally. (A/N: Does that sound right? And also, why in the world would an 8 YEAR OLD have a girlfriend? The things I think of…. shakes head sadly)

"This is Stellar, Calli-chan." he indicated between the two. "And Stellar, this is Calli." The two smiled at each other, Stellar relaxing since she now knew that Cagalli had been joking.

"And who's your new boyfriend?" Shinn teased in return. To everyone's surprise, Cagalli turned a furious red instead of responding calmly like he had.

"WHADDYA MEAN, BOYFRIEND!" She screeched.

"Calli, I was kidding." Shinn said after he recovered from his temporary deafness.

"Oh yeah," she rubbed the back of her head sheepishly, sweatdropping. "Sorry. This is Athrun, by the way," she pulled the clueless blue haired young boy out of nowhere, pulling him by (what else) his silky tresses that were soon going to have split ends thanks to Cagalli. "And he's NOT my boyfriend. So there." she added firmly.

"Yeah, yeah, we know." Shinn waved her off. After Athrun wretched himself out of her death-grip and ran off to god-knows-where, Cagalli and Stellar decided to get to know each other. WITHOUT Shinn there. So Shinn trudged off pitifully and the girls were left to do some serious girl-bonding. But Stellar said that she needed to talk to Athrun first.

After she found him lounging under a nearby tree, she quickly pulled him aside so Cagalli and Shinn wouldn't be able to see or hear them.

"Do you think we should tell them?" Stellar asked.

"Tell them what?" Athrun asked coolly, pretending to be clueless.

"You know what I'm talking about, Athrun. So stop being an idiot and tell me already." she said, annoyed.

Athrun sighed, running his hand through his already windblown hair. "I don't think we should. Not just yet. We need to know them better. And we need to know we can trust them. You know we haven't told anyone about IT before so what makes these two so special? And it's against Le Crueset's rules, remember? We might get assassinated by our own kind…." (A/N: Ohhh, major clue to plot right there…)

After Stellar considered Athrun's words for a minute, she nodded in reluctant agreement. "Yeah, you're right. But if we can trust them, might as well tell them later on. And you know, I bet Cagalli thinks you can fly. We'll have some explaining to do when the time comes." Athrun also nodded, but then went off into his own little world, daydreaming.

After that little conversation, Stellar went back to Cagalli, and, after half an hour of chatting, they became fast friends. Cagalli smiled happily. This looked like the beginning if a beautiful friendship. Shinn, her, Stellar, and maybe even Athrun. Friends forever. (A/N: Yes, I know that's corny, so leave me alone.)

'Or not.' Cagalli thought, frowning when she saw that Shinn was purposely annoying Athrun just for the fun of it. 'Then again, maybe if I help Shinn out a little…' she laughed happily as she ran over to where the two boys were, Stellar following. This was definitely the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

…

Yeah, yeah, I know you're probably pissed that this chapter is just as short as the other ones. But, pfft, we all have our off days. Sorry guys. Was that a good ending? Did it sound totally screwed up? Do you have any idea of what Stellar and Athrun's secret is? Mwa hahahaha…. I'm not telling just yet…