The Far Afterdays

The large official limousine, with its uniformed ZAFT outrider escorts, swept through the electronic gates of the mansion which closed swiftly behind it. The two off-duty soldiers on the street outside, who had instinctively stood to attention while the vehicles passed, relaxed their stance.

One turned to the other and said in tones of awe: "You know who that is visiting the Clyne Compound, don't you? It's the great Athrun Zala himself!"

The other looked impressed. "Wow! I wish I'd got a better look. My grandfather was at Jachin Due. He's told me quite a few stories about that time – like something out of a legend. Zala hasn't been back to the PLANTs in years, though. I wonder if he's visiting her because of the big funeral service?"

"Yeah, I guess so," said the other. "I suppose there can't be that many of them left now. Most of the Naturals of that time have died off, given their shorter life spans, and even the Coordinators of those years are fading out now. Not too many contemporaries left, I guess."

This last was said with the philosophical shrug of someone who had yet to see his twentieth year and still felt immortal. He was secretly sure he was never going to get old. Couldn't imagine it. The conversation of the two young men drifted to other topics as they walked away down the street, in pursuit of their own destinies.

Back at the Clyne Compound, Lord Athrun Zala, the consort of the late Lioness of Orb, and unofficial co-ruler of that country for the over 60 years of their married life together, climbed slightly stiffly from the back seat of the car. He'd made the long journey from Orb almost non-stop and was grateful to have arrived at last. He tired more easily these days, though like most Coordinators, he was enjoying a vigorous old age, and barring accidents, could reasonably expect to live to be at least a hundred.

Accidents, however, did happen. And so General Dearka Elsman, who had intended to retire shortly to Orb with his wife Mir, had met his fate in the worst peace-time spaceship accident in a generation. Ironic, that one who had lived through two major wars and innumerable 'peace-keeping actions', should go down to simple, catastrophic, human error.

And of course, it is another of us gone. Athrun stifled the melancholy thought, as he acknowledged the salutes of his driver and the escorts, and began the ascent of the steps to the entrance of the mansion.

The door swung open, and standing there to greet him was Lacus, with that familiar sweet smile on her face. She had her hair piled up in a complicated bun and wore the long dignified robes of a PLANT representative in full mourning, but he could not look upon her and fail to see the shining spirit of their long-ago youth.

"Athrun, it is good of you to come on such short notice. I know how busy you always are." She extended her hands with a smile and he clasped them both, smiling down at her. There were white and silver strands amongst the pink of her hair now, but her face was still remarkably smooth and fresh.

"Not so busy these last couple of years, Lacus. With Uzumi succeeding his mother as the Lion of Orb, I've stepped back from direct involvement in state affairs. The transition has taken quite a while to put fully into place, but I can truthfully say that Orb is now in others' hands."

Lacus squeezed his hands and looked with understanding into the tired green eyes of the man before her, still handsome despite the fading of his hair from the vivid blue of youth to a pale blue-grey. He wore it now cut short in the front but long at the back, in the traditional style of the Orb aristocracy.

"Come in now, and have a cup of tea. I have had a room prepared for you, and your luggage arrived about half an hour ago if you want to freshen up or change clothes. There is nobody else here at the moment. Yzak is over at the Elsmans' looking after arrangements. I said we would join him there before the service, if that is agreeable to you?"

Athrun nodded. "How is Mir?"

Lacus shook her head. "She's barely coping. They've given her some sedatives to help her through the service, but afterwards…I don't know what will happen. She's a strong woman, but she's lived in the shadow of the dangers of his work for so many years, only to lose him now, when he was getting out. It's come as such an unexpected, crushing blow. Still, she has the support of the children and their families, and of course, Yzak."

"And Yzak – how is he?"

"You know what Yzak's like. He doesn't admit to having any softer emotions. But he has been very quiet. Actually, in his own way, I think he is as devastated as Mir."

Athrun's eyebrows rose. "I know that they've been friends for a very long time, but I find that hard to believe. Yzak's always been so tough, so pragmatic…his emotions run from irritation to anger and back again. There's not much scope there for softer feelings."

Lacus linked her arm through his and walked with him down the long hallway, with its carefully placed works of art and shining bowls of flowers on polished tables.

"You do him a disservice, Athrun. I think for Yzak, Dearka was the perhaps the only person, other than his mother, for whom he felt tenderness."

Athrun was so surprised he came to a complete halt, eyebrows raised, staring into the soft blue of her eyes. "Tenderness? I think I need to be convinced, Lacus."

"Oh, Athrun. Didn't you ever see that Dearka and Yzak had that special closeness that you shared with Kira? I think for Dearka that was probably all it was, certainly after he met Mir. Though I have wondered sometimes: there have been hints over the years just now and then, that once their relationship was something else…something more fundamental."

She shrugged, "You know yourself, how powerful the emotions of young people are stirred, by being caught up in a war. Two young men, devoted to each other, in constant danger, under all that tension; there might well have been times when they sought comfort in each other. Such things happen in wartime, do they not?"

Athrun nodded reflectively. "If you're right, then poor Yzak is even worse off than Mir, in some ways. Still, he is made of very tough stuff. You have cause to acknowledge that yourself from the way he has been opposing you on the Supreme Council these last few years."

Lacus nodded and smiled. "You are quite right, but whatever my objections to his political views, our hopes for the future of the PLANTs are less in conflict than many people realise. We differ as to methods, but not fundamentally on our objectives. Which is why we have a proposition for you."

Athrun frowned. "A proposition? What is going on, Lacus? What are you up to?"

She smiled ruefully. "Oh, dear, I had meant to bring this up only after the service, when you had time to catch your breath! I'm not sure that this is the best time to mention it."

"La-a-a-cus!" the long drawled out exasperated exclamation of her name, reminiscent of so many occasions from their past, made her smile again.

"Very well. We don't have much time at the moment so I will put it very briefly. It is poor Dearka's funeral that has brought you here, but I had intended soon to invite you to visit me anyway. We want you to come back to the PLANTs. Come and live in this house; I have an entire unused wing, and I would love the company. Resume your PLANT citizenship, and take up the work here that needs to be done, and can be best done by someone who has your vision and experience. You have given your life for many years to Orb, for Cagalli's sake; will you give the rest of it to the PLANTs, for the sake of all Coordinators?"

Athrun was stunned. His first instinct was to reject the idea out of hand, but decades of experience of high-level diplomacy and shrewd negotiation made him question further. "Just who do you mean when you say "we", Lacus?"

"Yzak and I have each discussed this with our supporters. We have an agreement: if you will come back to the PLANTs and lend your name and influence to the work we are trying to do, then both our factions on the Council will support the reinstatement of your PLANT citizenship with full rights, including the right to stand for the Council itself."

Athrun shook his head. "It would never work Lacus, even if Yzak's group went along with it. Do you imagine that the people of the PLANTs would willingly vote for someone with the name of Zala? There are those who will always hate me for my father's sake, and there are those who will always hate me for my own."

She looked up at him with pain in her eyes despite the smile, and there was a hint of steel in her voice as she replied: "There will always be those who hate us for what we did, for what we are. I have more cause than anyone to know this in my heart. They took Kira from me. I will not let that prevent me from doing what I think is right. Nor should you."

Standing there in that civilised hallway, Athrun's mind flashed back to a scene of brutal tragedy: the dying gunman, shot by Lacus' security moments too late, after Kira had stepped in front of her to take the assassin's bullet through his heart. Lacus, sitting on the floor by the podium where she had been about to speak, cradling Kira's body in her lap, while his life blood pooled across her dress and the floor around them.

They'd never got a chance to say goodbye. This was a painful realisation that had never fully impacted on Athrun before this moment. It was not something he had truly understood twenty-five years ago when Kira had died; but he knew the value of time to say farewell now, and knew at last how much that must have added to Lacus' grief and agony, when her husband of forty years was snatched away from her that night. At least with Cagalli's illness we had the time to talk. To look back, to prepare ourselves, painful though it was. Still is.

With a little tug from Lacus they resumed their walk down the hallway in silence. Athrun broke it with the question: "Does the pain fade in time, Lacus?"

She didn't need an explanation of what he meant by the question. She had seen the raw grief in his face when she made her farewells to Cagalli just over two years before. "It lessens, but it never goes. Or perhaps I should say that it becomes so familiar, that it takes less energy to bear it. Life goes on and it is possible to find some happiness again, though nothing is ever quite the same."

He sighed. "Thank you. It is good to talk to someone who has already travelled some way further down the road I'm on."

Lacus sighed softly. "The loss of Dearka makes this a time of great sadness for us both. Memories are always stirred up at such times. We shouldn't push them away. However sad, they are precious. They are part of what we are. And they can give us the strength to go on. You are not finished yet, Athrun Zala. You have still got work to do." She gave him that familiar impish smile: "Besides needing you on the Council, several of my haros are very much in need of maintenance I'll have you know!"

For the first time in many months, Athrun felt himself moved to genuine laughter. "La-a-a-acus!..."

They entered the drawing room and the doors swung shut behind them, cutting off the sound of their voices and soft laughter. Life would go on.