Title: Just a Friend (part 5 of 6)
Author: the Black Rose
Pairing: Athrun x Lacus
Fandom: Gundam Seed
Theme: #17, kHz
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed. This fanfiction has no commercial value and I am not making any kind of profit or income off of this story, or the use of characters owned by Sunrise and Bandai.

AN: I have completed this story. There's one more part and the only thing holding that up is spending the time copying and pasting out of a live journal entry and doing all the formatting, etc. etc. I'll do my best to get the last piece up in the next few days. Thanks and Merry Christmas to those that celebrate it. Love, Rose

Just a Friend

Part 5

"I haven't seen him since that night."

The air in the room froze. I think I stopped breathing. And just somehow didn't die.

-

I glanced towards the front of the classroom. Professor Azrael stood from his seat and I ducked my head. Getting caught 'cheating' on a test when I was a week away from graduation didn't sound like something I wanted to try. Fate, for once, was on my side as our esteemed professor pushed open the door to the hall and disappeared.

Just for looks, I grabbed the test paper and moved it where I might actually be able to read and answer it. "What do you mean, you haven't seen him?" I kept my voice low despite the fact my heart was pounding like a jackhammer.

"I…I mean…"

I could barely hear her.

"I'm not seeing him anymore."

I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. She was smiling. How could she be smiling?

"You mean…you broke up?"

-

My fingers trembled where they touched her cheek, and I wasn't sure all of it could be blamed on the cold. She had closed her eyes when I first dared to brush my hand against the side of her face. But, when she opened them again, she didn't look at me. I took the hint and retracted my hand.

She stared in the direction of the ground.

"So?"

I drained the rest of my beer from the bottle. "So, what?"

"Tell me about her." That's when she looked up at me. And she was smiling… Smiling about the fact that I was in love with someone that wasn't her.

Whatever hope I still stupidly held onto, broke up with me, threw something, and eloped with the Easter Bunny. I think I sighed. I sat forward and leaned my elbows on my knees. "What do you want to know?"

"Was she pretty?"

I nodded. "Very."

"I imagine she was nice and probably very intelligent." Her voice was sweet, but I could hear it tremble. We should probably both go inside…

"Yeah. She is."

"How…how did you know… That you were in love with her?"

"How'd I know?" I rolled the bottle back and forth between the palms of my hands. "It wasn't like anything in particular. It was just..."

You smiled at me. And you looked…so beautiful.

"One day, I looked at her. And she smiled at me a certain way. I just… It was like this picture in my mind."

Of feeling like there was someone who cared…

"I could imagine her, thirty years from now, with that exact same smile."

One that said I could be forgiven…accepted. By someone like you.

"It wasn't a bolt of lightning, it wasn't something sexual." I placed the bottle on the ground to my right, stood up, and shoved both hands in my pockets. "It just occurred to me that I'd like to spend forever with her. And that's probably when I figured it out."

"Probably?" Her voice sounded light, like she was teasing me.

I shrugged. "I'll spare you the process of logical deduction." I turned to glance at her over my shoulder.

She giggled.

"But." I accidentally met her gaze. She stared at me.

I looked away. "It just couldn't be anything else, I guess…"

"I see."

I heard the cables holding up the swing creak against the wood. Lacus was either shifting in the seat or swinging.

"Nothing special." I said to the stars.

"Athrun." The cables squeaked and clattered against something metal. She stood and moved closer.

"You're just not romantic." Her hand grasped my left arm just above my elbow. The wind chose that moment to pick up – in strength and volume.

"I know." I leaned sideways to speak near her ear. "You tell me all the time."

She tilted her head up to face me. Her lips were...

"Are you still friends with her?" Lacus's mouth, when she spoke... I caught myself wondering if her lips were as soft as they looked (mine were chapped something awful).

"Athrun?"

I blinked. "Huh? Friends. With who?"

"The girl you were in love with." Her hand left my forearm.

"I'm…" The icy wind blew through my coat and skin to chill everything inside my body. I felt like I was turning to ice from the inside out - and it hurt.

"I-I'm still…I guess I'm still…kinda hung up on her." I tried to chuckle. I don't think it sounded cheerful at all.

"Oh… I see." I think she was speaking to my toes.

Silence blasted in with the cold.

I realized, that night, I had two internal voices. Not at all like those little angels and devils that hang out on people's shoulders in the movies. Just, disembodied voices that argued constantly in my head. I think they've always been there, I just didn't notice them until the voices decided to have a screaming match in my brain.

And after Lacus and I had our 'talk' (about her that was somehow not about her), I was trying desperately to ignore them both….

One voice seemed prone to poetic turns of phrase (see, it's not me, it's my internal voice) and leant me to believe it should be whispering softly, sweetly in my ear.

Instead, it bellowed at me to tell her…what I had never been able to say.

-

"You broke up?" I glanced back down at the exam paper.

The tips of her fingers found my arm. "I…I didn't tell you because I didn't know how to say it. But I had broken up with him as soon as…" Her touch slid away. "Well, before the party."

The exam swam in front of my eyes. I really needed to take it, to at least attempt it. I didn't have to do well to pass. I just basically had to turn in the page with my name on it.

Of course, I still had my GPA to think about.

Yeah, right.

-

The second voice, I knew – it's the one I generally referred to as "the voice of reason". That one, apparently had a different motive altogether than the other. And it was equally as adamant that it was 'right'.

My 'voice of reason' shouted, in another part of my brain, for me to leave the party, Dearka's house, the planet (possibly even the universe) - and Lacus - to go somewhere 'safe'.

And definitely not admit to anything. I listened to them argue for a while – until I began wondering what she was thinking…

"Do…" Lacus finally pushed the thin curtain of silence aside. "Do I know her?"

"Yeah." I dug my hands deeper into my pockets.

'TELL HER!' Voice one shouted.

She leaned closer. "Would you tell me?"

'NO! LEAVE! GO NOW!' Reason yelled back.

"Dunno." I stared up at the night sky. Translucent clouds whisked by the almost full moon. "If you get me drunk enough, I'd probably tell you anything." I turned to smile at her.

Lacus wrinkled her nose. I couldn't stand being that close…

And still being such a coward.

I finally gave in to the voice of reason. I turned back towards the house under the guise of finding myself another drink.

She caught my arm before I could escape. "Athrun…"

-

"I told him there was someone else." Lacus continued to speak in a low tone. She really wasn't quiet…. Lacus couldn't whisper – her voice was too high pitched, so every word would sound like she was hissing. Instead, she tried to speak in a lower octave, but her voice kept fluctuating.

I caught a couple of fellow classmates sending us curious glances. I hoped our professor stayed gone for a while.

"Johnny…He was so serious. I didn't…I didn't want to hurt him. I ended up hurting you, instead."

I stared at the test paper and tried not to think about the clock. '40 minutes left…' I winced at the thought.

So, she told the boyfriend she wanted to break up because there was someone else. That explained it, at least – why the guy was so pissed.

I sighed. "I understand. Hey. At least I can take care of myself, right?"

I picked up my pen, and opened the cover of the exam. We'd made up. Things could go back to the way they were. We could be friends. Maybe I—

Her hand grabbed mine. The pen clattered to the desk. "That's…that's all you have to say?"

My heart lurched, and my knee-jerk reaction was to look at her. She stared back; something in her eyes wavered in the light. "Lacus?"

"Even though…" She looked down. She still held my hand…

"Even after…"

Oh shit. The room turned cold and the classroom did its impression of the trash compactor section of the Death Star.

"Athrun. Tell me the truth."

I tried to pull my hand away; my palms were sweating. 'No. I can't.'

"Why…" Her voice managed to sound steady even though the building was spinning…

"Why did you kiss me?"