Occasionally

Title: Memoria
Genre: Drama/Romance
Word count: 2099
Summary: "Reduced to just a memory?"
Notes: Written for a challenge a while ago.

Glass shattered against the wall. The tiny pieces rained down all over the floor and...

"Yzak, calm down!"

Ignoring the voice of his best friend, Yzak left the box he had just opened and turned to another. He tore the tape off and ripped the box open.

"Are you listening to me?" Dearka asked. Glass cracked beneath his shoes as he stepped forward and put his hand on Yzak's shoulder. "What are you looking for?"

The only response he got was Yzak shrugging his hand off and more frantic digging through the box. Dearka sighed as he stepped back. Yzak did not even hear him.

The first morning after was not natural, not awkward. It was hardly a morning after, they had both failed to fall asleep and when the sun rose it was yet another silent moment passing.

"…hey."

"Hey."

He pulled up the covers, they had slid off them a little during the night. She snuggled closer, not that they weren't close enough to begin with.

"You know what I was thinking?" she said, eyes half closed and voice laced with want of sleep.

He shook his head. At some point it occurred to him that she might say that it was best for her to leave, or that they should just pretend that none of this ever happened. The thought of being reduced to just a memory would have sent a shiver through his body if he had not been so determined to not show his fear.

But rather than leaving she just crawled on top of him, resting her head against his chest.

"I was thinking that we should order pizza, watch bad TV in bed and stay here all day."

His heart took an extra skip and he hoped that she wouldn't notice.

"What makes you think that I don't have work that I'd rather do?" he spoke defensively.

It was so typical of him to say something like that and he often did it without questioning why. But the moment the words came out of his mouth the thought of her leaving somehow made him feel fear again.

And he could not understand why.

Neither could he understand that despite what he had just said, she still did not move.

Instead she just looked up to meet his gaze and did so with a smug look on her face.

"If I recall it correctly… last night you were the one who wanted to cuddle."

Another piece of glass shattered as it hit the floor. He didn't even see what it was. The moment he had picked it up from the box and known that it was the wrong box he had been digging through a sense of fury had hit him which could only be relieved by throwing the object away from him. The relief did not last long and he moved on to the next box.

His hands had scrape marks all over them from tearing up so many boxes.

"What excuse should I make up today?"

He looked up upon hearing her voice. He was still lying in bed, while she had just gotten out of the shower and had taken the liberty to borrow his bath robe.

"Last week it was me running out of soap and finding a bottle of shower gel that an old boyfriend had left behind," she went on and sat down on the bed while drying her long hair with a towel. "The week before that it was me going out and shopping for a cologne for a guy friend's birthday. The week before that was just another bizarre excuse to cover up why I smell of masculine shower gel when I turn up for work."

"You still haven't used the exploring your masculine side excuse we came up with," he said absent mindedly. His hand found the opening of the bathrobe and slipped inside to touch her thigh.

She laughed dryly.

He smiled.

"Thanks but no thanks," she answered. "I'm not willing to sacrifice that much to keep our secret. I'm bringing my own shower gel next time."

She kissed him lightly on his lips and then stood up.

"The second drawer," he blurted out suddenly.

For some reason he felt oddly nervous and bit his lip even when all she did was to look at him over her shoulder.

"What?"

"The second drawer," he repeated, pointing quickly at the dresser in the corner. "I cleaned it out."

…for you.

"If you would just tell me what you're looking for I could help you out!" Dearka nearly shouted, growing increasingly impatient with his friend. "Yzak!"

In an attempt to stop his crazed behavior, Dearka pushed Yzak away from the box with as much force as he could muster. Yzak fell backwards, landing on his back but wasting no time in getting back up again and opening the next box.

"It has to be here…"

"Keys?"

The ventilation system seemed awfully loud when the room was enveloped in silence. Not ten minutes had passed since the Voltaire had launched into space and here he was already, dangling a pair of keys in front of her face while she stared wide eyed at him.

"I got tired of all the running around every night," he explained. "Use these from now on."

Rather than taking them as she should have, she slapped his hand away and sent the keys flying across the room. Before he had the chance to question what she was doing, she was pushing him rather violently against the wall.

"Commander, you may be my superior at work but during my spare time I prefer to not be bossed around by you! If you think that you can just hand me a set of keys and I'll come running to you whenever you feel like it, you're dead wrong!"

"MAJOR!"

Him shouting back at her and not calling her by her name seemed to make her step back. It was almost as if she wanted to salute.

"The keys aren't for… that," he muttered. "I don't want you to come running… I want you to stay."

If possible, her eyes widened even more.

Then, slowly yet gladly, a nod.

"O-okay."

He smirked but had they been in the privacy of his home, their home, he would have dared to touch her without the fear of being noticed.

"Good," he said on his way out. "Because I already called some people and told them to pack all your stuff and move them to my place."

There was a long pause.

"What has to be here?"

Tired of constantly asking questions and not receiving an answer, Dearka sat down and rested his head against his hands. Yzak dug into one box after another, leaving a trail of everything from clothes to CDs behind him. It was as if he was possessed by something or, worse, something inside him had driven him to this.

"I have to find it," Yzak just murmured. "I have to!"

He finished rummaging through yet another box and pushed it aside. Standing up, he let his eyes wander all over the room. It was a complete mess. Everything he had found was just lying in piles here and there and all the boxes were open in a disarray.

Save for one.

"Yzak, what's going on here?" Dearka asked.

He said nothing and just stood there with his arms crossed and eyes fixed at the monitor. While everyone around him began talking, speculating, doubting, he remained strangely calm. Still, it did not mean that he was not asking himself the same questions that everyone else were. Who was the real Lacus Clyne? It had to be the one with Cagalli, but then what was up with the other one?

"Commander."

She was still standing next to him as she had during the broadcast.

"Do you know what's going on?"

"Whatever it is it's not good," he muttered and started to leave the mess hall. All those confused soldiers were too much and eventually everyone would turn to him to know what was happening. He didn't want to deal with them or their questions.

After all, he was not sure that he had any answers for them.

It was there it was, in the bottom of the very last box.

A small leather book.

He stared at it blankly for a few seconds and then opened it.

"DEARKA!"

Gripping the controls tightly, he steered his ZAKU with full speed and swooped in just in time to take out the unit before another set of missiles could be launch. Parts of the unit exploded and even in the safety of the cockpit he could feel the tremors.

But once the explosion was over, it was all done. He looked up at one of the smaller monitors and saw Dearka's helmet covered face smile at him while giving him a thumbs up. In return he just nodded, a silent "You're welcome" that Dearka was very familiar with by now.

A quiet "beep" brought his gaze downwards and he looked down at the radar to see that a new object had appeared. He growled as he took notice of the coordinates and the direction the object was flying from. Another ZAFT unit. But no matter, the most important thing was protecting the Eternal. The unit would have to face him first and he was in no mood to play nice today.

He watched the object on the radar. It was coming closer.

His thumb automatically placed itself on the firing control.

"Commander!"

He froze.

On the upper left corner of his monitor, a small window suddenly popped up.

"Commander, can you hear me?"

"M-major Hahnenfuss…" he whispered, almost to himself, upon seeing her face. His hand released the control.

"Commander, why are you fighting against our own units! What are you doing!"

"I should be asking you that!" he shouted back, recovering from the shock of seeing her. "I gave orders that the ship wouldn't enter battle and that goes for everything and everyone who's on it!"

"It's a photo album," Dearka said, moving and sitting next to Yzak.

The latter had still not said anything and just sat there in daze. Occassionally he would flip the pages of the photo album and be met by smiles and captions of awkward or funny moments. He had seen a picture of the first team that had been assigned to him. She had been one of them and in the pictures she was always looking at the camera fearlessly.

In the very end was a series of pictures of the two of them together, taken one sunny day when she had forced him to go into a photo booth with her.

"Is that all she is now?" Yzak spoke dully.

"Go back to the Voltaire!"

"Not without you!"

"I'm not joking, this is an order…"

"Yzak!"

He nearly froze again when she actually called him by his name. Rather than continuing shouting orders at her, he watched her face in the small section of his monitor and saw the sincerity in her eyes.

"All this time, I've been by your side…" Her voice was becoming shaky. "Don't ask me to leave you now. I don't know what you are doing defending the Eternal and fighting ZAFT, but I'm telling you now that you can't make me leave now. I don't care what you say, I-"

Noise.

No signal.

He growled angrily and hit a few buttons aggressively. Stupid communications link had to choose now of all times to get screwed up.

"A pretty picture? Reduced to just a memory?"

Dearka sighed and looked away. He ran his fingers through his hair and accidentally caught sight of the clock on the wall. Eleven fifteen. They had to go soon, or else they'd be late.

"Shiho!"

No answer.

He switched to another channel, perhaps that would work.

"Shiho!"

No answer.

It was typical. With the battle going on, all the missiles, beams and ammunition being fired it was not strange that the communication links would be affected by it.

He looked down at the radar.

There was nothing there.

"…Shiho?"

The clock struck eleven twenty. Dearka stood up and practically pulled Yzak up on his feet. He handed Yzak a black blazer, which Yzak accepted without a word and quietly slipping it on. Though he tried, Dearka could not think of a single comforting thing to say. The words would not come out and he was not even sure that the right words existed. Instead, he just put his hand on Yzak's shoulder and led him out of the apartment.

"It's time," he said, picking up the bouquet of white roses on his way out.