Sorry for the lack of updates. I'm starting to kick myself in the butt so I can get things done faster. Thanks for being patient.

I was just curious, if anyone has freetime on their hands, if there was anyone available to proofread my chapters. There is an increasing number of reviews from all my stories talking about spelling and grammer. Aside from the fact that I'm starting to get irritated at myself, I understand how frustrating it is to read a story that is not edited well enough.

If anyone is interested, e-mail me or send me a personal message. Do not tell me over the reviews.

Thanks for all your help.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed or Gundam Seed Destiny

Athrun stood up from his desk, leaving the rest of the paperwork for tommorrow. It was already late, and he was exhausted. Tommorrow would be another day filled with meetings and more work. Sleep, he had learned, was more valuable then he gave it credit.

Walking down the hallway, he yawned.

As he was about to grab the doorknob to his room, he stopped. Blinking his eyes a few times, he slowly opened the door and closed it behind him.

"I can hear you." he murmured.

He turned around as the red-haired solider jumped down from the ceiling. Athrun stepped backwards, grabbing the man's arm, he flipped him over his shoulder. He gritted his teeth as his attacker corrected himself, and raced towards him.

His attacker was from Twlight.

Athrun stood still as the solider raced towards him, then simply stuck out his arm and grabbed the other man's neck. Slamming him into the ground, planting his foot on top of the man's chest. After completely pinning his enemy to the floor, he reached behind his jacket and pulled out a gun, pointing it right between the man's eyes.

"You have five seconds to state your buisness before I kill you." Athrun whispered, speaking softly so no one in the hallway would hear and be suspicious. It was interesting that someone was able to break the security. Whoever had attacked him was not an amature. The man in black reached a shaking hand into his pocket and pulled something out, handing it to Athrun. Athrun took it, and his eyes grew wide as he stared at the shining objects.

"Wha-"

"She knows you well. She told me that if I didn't show these to you, that you would kill me." he said, "I neverthought that you to be this much stronger then me."

Athrun stood up, looking at the wedding rings in his hand. It was the same two rings that he had given Cagali.

"I am Katsuya Kiriyuhi."

"Kiriyuhi..." Athrun frowned.

"I have come on behalf of the princess...or rather..." he said, "I have come on behalf of your wife, Athrun-sama."

Athrun could not take his mind off the two rings. After a few moments, he looked at Katsuya.

"Go on..."

Athrun sat up in bed.

The two necklaces hung from his neck. One was the Haumea necklace that Cagali gave him. The other were the dogtags from ZAFT. Hanging on his dogtag collar were both of Cagali's rings. Looking around the room, he frowned.

After last night's jaunt with the Twlight-ZAFT solider, he had contacted Kira right away. By now, the crew of the Archangel were probably updating their plans and making up stradegies. During all of this Athrun was sitting in bed, at the palace. He was so restless that he was going insane.

They only had a week.

Cleaning himself up, he went to the dining hall for breakfest. Kisaka sat at the table with the reports, eating his own breakfest. He was Athrun's unoffical-offical advisor. Cagali trusted him, and because of that, Kisaka was the only one that Athrun really trusted other then Mana.

"Are you well, sir? You look tired."

"I did not sleep well." Athrun sighed, taking a bite of toast, his face leaning in one of his hands. Thinking about all the meetings he had to go to today. Suddenly, the thought of going to the gym for a workout seemed like a good idea. Athrun felt like he had a lot of pent-up energy.

Kisaka smirked at him,

"You want to fight, don't you?"

Athrun was silent a moment.

"I'm a solider, Kisaka-san." Athrun leaned back. He was not acting like his regular wise-mature self that morning. "I'm frustrated."

"We all are."

"I wanted to go."

"So did I, sir."

"What is the status of the Kusanagi?"

Kisaka chuckled, "I thought you would never ask, sir."

"What about Orb? What about-"

"The country can run itself for a short while." Kisaka nodded, "The Kusanagi is prepped for launch and your Inifinite Justice can be loaded within the hour."

Athrun smiled to himself, "Alert Shinn and the others. I'll have a talk with Yzak. Keep this to yourself, Kisaka. I don't want too many people to know that I am gone from Orb."

"Aye, sir."

He was going to save her, and he was going to do it on his own power.

Yzak sat in the control room, shouting orders to the teams below the control tower. They were conducting tests of all the mobile suits that were recently repaired on the Voltaire. Shiho's DEEP Arms was fighting all the rest of the suits in a mock-battle. Honestly, he had to admit that she was a wonderful pilot.

"Okay, that's enough for today. Take a break people."

"Aye sir!" voices sounded over the com.

He leaned back in the chair, letting out a shallow sigh.

"Sir?" Abby looked at him.

"I'm fine." he stood up, "Please excuse me."

He walked down the hallway, turning a left at the end of the hallway. Even though his wounds were healed, the doctor had told him to take it easy. His body overall was exhausted and strained from doing so much work while he was injured, and he was under strict orders not to overdo it.

Yzak found himself standing in front of the girl's locker room. There would only be one person in it at the moment. Opening the door, Shiho gasped,

"Yzak, you can't come in he-"

He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her against the lockers, brushing his lips over hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning into the kiss.

"You were amazing." he said.

"Thanks..." she murmured.

"Want to come over to my place tonight?"

"Sure." she nodded, "Aren't you worried someone might see us?"

"Let's them see." he said, "I don't care."

Kissing her once more, he let go of her, and sat on the bench as she finished getting dressed. By this time, she did not care if he was watching.

"So how many more drills do we have?"

"Five." he sighed, "It seems that we are all caught up, though. The Voltaire is almost completely repaired as well."

"It's about time." she said, "We can pay Twlight back for it's wonderful hospitality."

"I'm sorry that you have to do all this extra work. If I wasn't under strict orders, I would run the fight trails myself." Yzak sighed.

"Don't beat yourself up over it. It's good exercise."

"There's still a matter of finding Dearka." he said, "Athrun says that he's alive."

"Elthman hasn't contacted us yet."

"That means he's either dead or he just can't contact us now. It's hard to tell." Yzak leaned back on the lockers, "I'll have to hold off on that issue for now. There's not a lot we can do other then to issue a search."

"He's resourceful." Shiho said, "He told me that he had the highest score in survival training back at the Academy."

"Phfft." Yzak folded his arms behind his head, "Only because I had a test the day before and didn't sleep."

"Excuses." she smirked and shook her head.

"It's true!"

Shiho laughed at him, finishing the buttons on her uniform.

They had traveled 30 miles that day, and then had to stop becauase there were too many enemy forces in the area.

Dearka had them setting up camp, and by nightfall, everyone was inside. He did not want to run the risk of anyone getting harmed. Glancing at his watch, he had been up 30 hours straight now. Even though he was running mostly on the really strong coffee that Eli always made, Dearka was starting to get exhausted.

At this rate, he would keel over before they even made it halfway to Carpentaria.

After traveling for 3 days now, they would loose a lot of time that day for stopping so early. They already had to travel slow because of all the injured they had. Looking at the topography maps in his hand, they had been able to stay mostly hidden from sight. The sky was full of Twlight units, and Dearka was not willing to take any risks.

His head was dizzy.

He swayed slightly, and leaned against a tree. This was not a good time for his body to punk out on him.

"Elthman?"

Dearka instantly perked up, seeing Ellanor walking towards him.

"You're looking a little pale, you alright?"

He chuckled slightly, "I'm fine."

"You sure? With those bloodshot eyes, and Eli told me with all the hours your pulling-"

"I'm alright." he nodded, "I'm sorry to worry you, Ellanor-san."

"Hell, I'm not the one you should apologize too. Apologize to Miriallia. She's worried sick over you."

Dearka sighed, he was being careless.

"I'll go talk to her now. I'm on a break anyway."

"Good, and get some food and sleep while you're at it." she frowned, "Don't roll your eyes at me, young man."

He could not help but laugh as he walked off. Waving at some people as he headed towards Miriallia's tent.

Everyone in the camp knew him now, and he was quite popular. The people looked up to him for guidence and re-assurence. Sometimes Dearka did not mind it, and sometimes he was tired and just wanted to take a long shower and sleep. He was starting to somewhat understand how Yzak felt as a supreme council member and a military captain.

"Miriallia?" he called through the tent wall.

"Dearka? Come in."

He walked into the large tent. It was even large enough for him to stand in. Mostly because it was a tent she carried with her for work, and was large enough to keep all her equipment in. It had a sort of fake-wood floor that was transportable, so the tent was more like a collaspable cabin then a tent.

She was sitting in a chair in front of the mirror, brushing her hair. It looked like she had just taken a shower, and her hair was still straight. Dearka smiled at her,

"You're up late." he said.

"You're one to talk!" she pointed, "Eli-san tells me you haven't been eating or sleeping."

"Heh, sorry about that." he said, "I've just been too busy..."

"That's no excuse." she frowned, "You're just being hard on yourself."

"It's not easy, you know, to lead a whole village of people through the forrest without getting caught by Twlight." he said. His head was starting to get dizzy again.

"Well, if you let people HELP YOU more often, you wouldn't be so busy. You take on too many responsibilities."

"But I want...things done a certain way. It's...it's be...better if..."

"Dearka?"

She gasped as he swayed sinking to his knees. Miriallia fell to the floor, catching him in her arms. He lay there a moment, his eyes closed.

"Dearka?" she called, "Are you alright?"

He moaned, resting his head on her shoulder. She began to panic as he grew heavy in her arms.

"Wait here, I'll go get Ellanor-"

She yelped as he pulled her down onto the floor with him, wrapping his arms around her.

"Hm..." he mumbled, "...stay here..."

"Dearka." she frowned, laying her soft hands on his face, "You're working so hard to help us. Why don't you let someone help you for a change?"

His eyes opened slowly. Miriallia sat up, pulling him to his feet, she dumped him on her bed.

"What are you doing?" he murmured, half asleep already.

"You're going to lie here and your going to sleep."

"...don't wanna..."

"Shut it, Elthman." she pulled his shoes off, tossing them in the corner with her own, and then unbuttoned his shirt, making a face, "I'll have Eli-san bring you some clean clothes."

He let out a sigh as his head hit the pillow.

"But...what about the enemy units? I need to-"

"You need to sleep." she said, "No buts."

Dearka finally nodded, and his eyes slid closed again. Miriallia smiled at him, and as she was about to leave he pulled her down next to him, shutting off the lights.

"What-"

"I didn't say you could leave yet." he muttered.

"Dearka-"

He was fast asleep. It sometimes amazed her how quickly he could fall asleep if he needed to. His arms were wrapped gently around her, but tight enough where she could not get up.

But she really did not have the heart to disturb him. Right as she started to nod off herself, she could here him murmuring in his sleep.

"...Mir..."

She listened, waiting to see what he would say.

"...don't leave me..."

To her shock, a tear slid down his cheek. Miriallia wrapped her arms around him, pulling him closer to her. But it was the next set of words that alarmed her.

"...I love you..."

I made it through another chapter. Yay!

I hope you enjoyed it. Please send me a review and tell me what you think.

Arigato

Lilith