We begin part 3 here! Enjoy!
Part Three: Believe
Chapter Forty-Nine: River
It was a week after I reunited with my parents.
I was still settling down then, trying to put everything behind me. Problem was, Elle and Stellar served as reminders that what I went through was real, that it indeed happened, so I could never forget it. Finally, I started writing out the beginning of my story, starting with the day the violence began, just to see if it would make me feel better. None of it seemed to helping.
Mom and Dad adjusted enough to having two extra mouths to feed. They wanted to adopt Elle away to any willing relatvies but she refused to leave my side. Those months of caring for her, that and being the one person onboard the Archangel guaranteed to not have killed her mother made me the only person Elle could trust in the world. To leave me for some aunt or uncle or cousin she barely knew was tantamount to being alone forever.
Stellar . . . Stellar got along with them well. She was just full of happiness. After giving Mom and Dad careful warnings about some of Stellar's issues, they were able to avoid freaking Stellar out. And Stellar without any words triggering her breakdowns was a model child. She'd do anything for anyone who considered her a family member. Albeit, she needed to be taught everything first. Washing dishes was not something she was taught as an Extended.
But me? I spent a lot of time alone by a river near where I lived, just lost in thought, occasionally writing a passage of my experiences on my tablet. I couldn't help myself. I just needed to think. For the last two months, I had a purpose. I had a mission. Now I had nothing and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I had been turned into a soldier and now I wasn't one.
What was I going to do with my life?
I couldn't stand around doing nothing. I exercised, tried my hand at parkour again to find out my skills had atrophied and moves I used to be able to make were no longer doable. After several scrapes and falls, I had to downgrade the intensity of my workouts.
Writing wasn't satisfying my need for an outlet either. Then what would?
That's when Mom appeared to me one day at the river.
"Are you all right, Cagalli?"
Hearing that asked of me still nearly brought me to tears. I had never been asked that onboard the Archangel. Not by anyone other than a couple people like Kira and Murrue. To most of them I was akin to a weapon or a shield. Only to a few was I something more than that, that I was a human being with flaws and emotions. Hearing that question at that moment just made me feel vulnerable.
"No," I replied honestly. "I'm restless and depressed and feel like I'm going crazy. I just have no idea what I want to do right now."
Mom sat down next to me. "I understand. It's only been a week since you came home. It must still be a shock to you."
I had told Mom and Dad some of what happened to me, how that I had no choice but to fight and kill. It was the only way I was going to live. I didn't go into extreme detail, though. I wasn't comfortable talking about the extreme details, particularly of the later battles on the Earth. I wasn't sure if I would ever feel comfortable describing the Earth battles in detail or anyone ever again.
"It is. I got used to being on that ship, Mom, despite all of the danger and exhaustion that came with it. I got sick of being on that ship and killing people . . . and I still have nightmares about what I had to do . . . and I don't know how I'm going to move on."
Mom wrapped her shoulder around me. "We're going to help you, Cagalli. You're a strong girl. You were really brave. You know we're proud of you, and we're going to do whatever we can to help you re-adjust. I promise."
Mom's words were warm and comforting, but they didn't help as much as I wanted them to. In fact, all she and Dad reminded me about was the rumors about who or what I really was. Why ZAFT and Blue Cosmos regarded me as so important. What was I, then, to be considered so important by two vastly different organizations? Did it have to do with how I was born? Why I never knew my birth parents? Why I kept envisioning a brown seed shatter and then I could pilot like no one else?
"Thank you, Mom," I said softly, and I let myself lean into Mom's shoulder, just for a moment.
"Mom, what am I?"
"Cagalli?" Mom sounded confused, but I could hear the slight change of tone in her voice. She sounded like she had been bracing herself for my question.
"Everyone either wanted me dead or on their side while I was on that ship," I said. "They kept coming after me. I had several attempts on my life. Is it because I'm a Coordinator who was fighting on an Earth Alliance ship? Or is there something more? Why am I a Coordinator, Mom?"
Mom's hand gripped me, just a little harder. "Cagalli . . ."
"I'm scared, Mom. I used to not care why I was made a Coordinator by my birth parents or even who they were. But now that seems highly important to other people and if you know something, anything, you have to tell me. So I have some idea of what's going on."
"Your birth mother, who was my sister . . . was a brilliant, compassionate woman," Mom replied finally. "She did not marry a good man. Your birth father was many things, he was a brilliant scientist, he was talented, he had a clear vision . . . but he was not the most moral person. His research and breakthroughs became more important to him than life itself. I wished for you to have a life as far away from that as possible. I wanted you to have a peaceful, wonderful life."
"I know, Mom." She was absolutely right about that. Mom and Dad were nothing if not supportive of me. And I knew I spent a good portion of my childhood in those Coordinator academies because they wanted the best for me. They wanted me to succeed. "You and Dad have worked so hard for my sake. We spent way too much time apart when I was a little kid being spirited to those acadmies on the Moon."
"Neither of us wanted you to have any baggage," Mom says. "That's why we've never told you anything, even after you figured out you were adopted. We just wanted you to be happy, Cagalli. And right now, I'd still prefer if you did not know, but if you wish to . . . there isn't much I can do to stop you, is there?"
Suddenly, Mom's free hand, her right, reached into her pocket and she pulled out a music player. "This . . . this player has . . . has your mother's voice. She recorded . . . a lot in her final months in this world. You will hear your father's voice as well. Is this something you wish to hear, Cagalli?"
I wondered if my answers to my questions were on that player. All it would take was listening to it. I could take it from Mom's hand right now and start listening. And then . . .
What?
What was I going to do with all of this information? I knew nothing good had to be on that player, otherwise Mom wouldn't be so reluctant to let me listen. Clearly it was something bad. Clearly.
"No," I finally said. "Put it away. I don't want to hear it right now."
"You sure?" Mom masked. "If you think you are ready to hear it, I will let you listen."
"Just . . . just tell me my birth parents' names. That's all I want to know."
Mom bit her lip. "What I'm afraid of, Cagalli, is that you'll try to dig in deeper and deeper the more information you have. I-"
"I'm not going to do that, Mom. Have I ever lied to you?"
"No." Mom's lips relaxed. "Your parents' names were Ulen Hibiki and Via Hibiki. Via was my sister."
"Thank you." Of course, I had more questions to ask, but I wasn't going to break my promise to Mom about researching my birth parents. But I did want to know more about them.
"What was my birth mother like?" I finally asked.
"She was . . . she was a good person. Via Hibiki was ethical and she loved you very much," Mom said. "She barely got to see you before she died. When she sensed that she was in imminent danger, she passed you on to me. I never saw or even heard of her again until one day I found out she was dead."
I could piece enough together to figure out what had probably happened. "Were my birth parents killed because I was made into a Coordinator, Mom?"
"I don't know, and that's the truth," Mom replied. Her hand around my shoulder squeezed me even tighter. "I'm not sure I ever want to know why your birth parents were killed. They got themselves involved in dangerous business at your birth father's behest. What kind of dangerous business I don't know either. All I know is what Via recorded and passed on to me."
I could sense that reminiscing about this was painful for Mom. Incredibly painful.
"Thank you, Mom." I turned and faced her, and tried to smile. Mom's eyes were shimmering, like she was struggling to keep from crying. "You don't need to say anything more. You're my mom. You'll always be my mom. I love you."
I kissed her on the cheek and hugged her. She returned the embrace. "Thank you, Cagalli," she finally said.
I knew that someday I was going to want to listen to the recordings my birth mother made. They were clearly important. Perhaps they'd shine light on what I was, and why I seemed to be different, even from other Coordinators.
But now wasn't the time. That time would be years away, I thought. I just wanted to enjoy the time I had with my parents and try to relax. After all, I felt a little more piece of mind knowing my parents' names at long last. Ulen and Via Hibiki. And they were scientists. I was assuming, but I thought that it was pretty clear they had a role in creating the modern Coordinators and that was probably why I was made into one. And I wasn't going to begrudge them for it. I was born before ZAFT and PLANT became their own separate political entities from Earth. And I wasn't going to begrudge my adoptive parents either for keeping things hidden from me. They wanted me to grow up as a normal girl (albeit a normal Coordinator girl) and find my own path through life.
I can't blame them for it.
After all, considering what happened next, Mom and Dad's beliefs would turn out to be totally justified.
I wasn't ready to know.
It was a good enough evening, full of relaxation and good food. Then people came over to try and kill me.
It was a normal dinner at first. Mom's a great cook. She can make anything from any type of cuisine and put her own personal touch on it and make it amazing. She used to be a chef in one of those exclusive restaurants patronized by VIP-types, so that kind of justifies it. Mom mostly writes adult romance novels (and teen urban fantasy novels under a pseudonym) as her pastime now, supplementing Dad's income. Not a day would go by without at least call and subsequent argument with her editors and publishers. Her teen novels actually sold better than the romance stuff she released under her real name, which was a constant source of annoyance or amusement, depending on Mom's mood.
Dad was tired. His company was restructuring after the Heliopolis debacle and he was spending a lot of late nights there. While he didn't work for Morgenroete directly, his company supplied a lot of the parts Morgenroete used. While Morgenroete was big enough that it could brush off Heliopolis' destruction, Dad's company was not. It was struggling and still laying a lot of people off, and there were concerns that they wouldn't be able to make their quota in sales this quarter.
Stellar found everything fascinating as usual. I was amazed at how much chatter came flying out of her mouth. Elle was quiet, she usually ate in silence unless spoken to. I think we reminded her of her former family to a degree because she clearly looked lonely.
"So how are you rich if so much of your money is in stocks?" Stellar asked. "I don't get it. You don't get access to stocks unless you buy them, but if you buy them, you use up money that you have and then you have this invisible thing that goes up and down. How do you have money when you have stocks?"
Dad and Mom looked at each other. Then Dad looked at Stellar. "You'll understand if you go to business school."
"Business school?" Stellar asked. "You have to go to school to be employed by a business?"
"No, not exactly," Dad said, clearly wanting to end this conversation. He had dark circles under his eyes, he obviously just wanted to finish his dinner and go to sleep.
"Then why does business school exist?" Stellar asked. "It just seems pointless to me."
Dad, a business school graduate, just hung his head. Mom rubbed his back encouragingly. "We can explain this another time," Dad finally said.
"You say that a lot," Stellar replied.
Dad hung his head again. Mom managed to smile uneasily. "Right now, we're just trying to get you acclimated, Stellar. We can answer your more difficult questions at another time."
"Oh." Stellar picked at her food. "That makes sense."
I could just hear Dad's soft sigh of relief.
I looked over at Elle, who was eating in silence. "You all right, Elle? You haven't said a word."
"I'm okay. The food is good," Elle replied.
"Thank you, I'm glad you like it, Elle," Mom said. She seemed to like Elle, which was comforting. Then again, Elle was a normal girl. Stellar wasn't. Elle was going to adjust much quicker than Stellar ever would.
Stellar suddenly set her utensils down. "Something's wrong."
"Hmm?" Dad asked.
"Outside. Something's wrong. I can feel it."
"Outside?" Mom asked. "What're you talking about?"
"Front of the house. Something's wrong. Something . . . something bad." Stellar got up from her seat. "Something bad is coming our way."
Mom and Dad both looked confused. But I wasn't. I had experience with Stellar's abilities. I even had them myself for a little while. I knew full well what Stellar was trying to say and it was already putting butterflies in my stomach and sending shivers down my spine. This was the last thing I wanted or expected.
"Mom, Dad, what Stellar's saying is that we're in trouble," I say. "She thinks someone is here to . . ." I just bit back the words 'kill us'. Barely. Last thing I wanted was Stellar freaking out.
But Mom understood. Her eyes widened and she turned to Dad. "Honey, grab the guns. Hurry."
"Wait, what?" Dad asked.
"Grab them. Cagalli, get the children into the basement and stay there," Mom said. "We'll see if something is-"
That's when it began.
Gunfire strafing the house.
Immediately I grabbed Elle and dove to the ground as bullets shot through the front of the house. They were high-caliber machine-gun bullets, capable of shooting through several walls at a time. The dining room was in the back of the house and bullets were still powering their way through the plaster and over our heads.
Elle was screaming. I wanted to scream too. I also wanted to throw up. My stomach, full of food, seemed to be flipping over and over inside me.
I thought about my parents, and turned to see they had dived to the ground too. "What the hell?" was the only coherent words I heard, from my father.
I looked up at Stellar, who had ducked at all. The look in her violet eyes scared me to death.
"They're . . . they're here to . . ."
I immediately knew where this was going. "Stellar, calm down. We can't have you freaking out on us now. Keep it together. Please, Stellar, keep it together."
"They're . . . they're gonna-"
"Stellar, don't say it. Damn it, don't say it!"
"We're . . . we're gonna die."
That's when Stellar's eyes changed completely, and I saw the hardened look of the killer I had seen in the Indian Ocean Blue Cosmos facility.
"Stellar, look, I'm not-"
Stellar sprung to her feet and took off, just as the bullets finally came to a rest.
"Where's she going?" Dad asked, holding his hands over his ears.
"She's gonna kill them all," I said.
"She's what?" Mom asked.
That's when I heard masculine cries of pain and guns beginning to go off. Rifles. Inside the house. They had shot up the house and now they had sent in a squad to mop up, only to find Stellar as berserk as ever.
"She's already started," I said. I grabbed a sobbing Elle and picked her up. "I'm heading to the basement. I think you . . . you should just stay out of Stellar's way until she's done. I don't know if . . . if she can tell friend from foe right now . . ."
It was unnerving. The way I was talking, the way I was rationalizing what was going on. It was like I was used to it. Of course I was. I had been a soldier. I had only a week of rest between the Archangel arriving in Orb and now this. It wasn't much of a break at all. I had little opportunity to become an ordinary civilian again.
"What the hell is she?" Dad asked, his voice soft, maybe even a little scared.
"I told you what she was," I replied. "She was being trained to be a super-soldier."
More masculine cries of pain, and Stellar yelling something unintelligible above more loud cracks of gunfire. She was killing them all. That's what she was trained to do. She was a soldier too.
Mom ran into the kitchen, and she overturned a couple of drawers until she drew a pistol. "Mom, where'd you get that?" I asked. I had no idea that my parents had owned weapons, and Mom's admission just seconds before about 'getting the guns' had been lost on me for some reason.
"Your father and I have been prepared for a while for an assassin coming to kill you," Mom said, and she handed Dad another pistol. "We weren't prepared for an entire team, though."
Suddenly Mom raised her pistol. She was clearly not a soldier but she had obviously taken courses in how to properly handle the weapon. She fired three times, and I heard another masculine grunt of pain and a sickening spack type of noise, followed by a thump.
"Soldiers," Mom said softly, her eyes wide in fright and shock. "The people that are attacking us . . . they're soldiers."
Elle whimpered in my arms. "It's okay," I said. "It's okay, Elle. We're gonna protect you, all right? You're going to be safe."
I walked out to where Mom was standing, making sure to stay hidden behind the wall. I saw the soldier Mom had shot up, and I wished I didn't. Mom had hit him in the chestand drilled him in the head. There was blood all over the corpse.
I could still hear the background chaos. Most of it sounded like it was happening outside now. Stellar was still alive, there wouldn't be so much gunfire right now if she wasn't. She had clearly taken the fight to the rest of the squad, platoon, or whoever was here to kill us.
Dad walked up to the soldier and ripped off the right shoulder patch. "Earth Alliance," he said grimly. "Atlantic Federation."
"Atlantic Federation?" I asked. "I just fought for the Atlantic Federation! There's no way!"
But I was lying to myself and I knew it. I had royally pissed off Blue Cosmos. These people didn't really serve the Atlantic Federation. They were from Blue Cosmos, and they were here for me. They knew where I lived.
"Cagalli," Mom said. I felt a hand on my shoulder and I barely resisted the urge to deck my own mother out of pure fear. I looked into her blue eyes and forced myself to keep calm. I couldn't freak out. Not right now.
"Cagalli, take Elle to the basement. Stay there. Your father and I may not be soldiers but we can take care of ourselves. This is our responsibility."
I knew she was right, but I still didn't want to leave. "Mom . . . Dad, you're both going to need to calm Stellar down. Remind her, when the battle is over, that she's safe. Say it how many times it needs to be said, ten, fifty, a hundred, whatever. Just reinforce it to her that . . . that's she's safe. She'll . . . she'll get ahold of herself."
"We will," Mom said. "Now get out of here. Haruma, call . . . call the authorities, if the line's not down."
"I-I'm already on it," Haruma managed as he was dialing the phone. "I-I think . . . I think the line's been d-disabled."
"May not matter," Mom said. "All of this noise has to have gotten somebody's attention."
She looked at me. "Cagalli, what are you doing? Go!"
"R-Right, Mom."
I took Elle then and ran her into the basement, where the girl desperately clung to me. I found a corner and sat down, cradling her in my arms, whispering to her that we were going to be okay. That Stellar and Mom and Dad were going to make sure that we were all going to be okay.
Because there was no way we wouldn't be okay. There just wasn't.
But I knew, in my heart, that it wasn't true. I had thought that I had finally found safety, that I had found peace, but it had turned out to be an illusion.
They were hunting me. Blue Cosmos and probably ZAFT too. Both of them, either wanting to seize me or ensure that I could never be used against them. I was little more than a pawn to either organization, waiting to be used or taken out of their horrific game.
I sat in the basement, and I waited.
And waited.
Waited for the peace, waited for the quiet.
Waited for the illusion to appear again.
Waited just to believe, even if it was just one more second . . .
That I was safe.
Kekekekekekekeke.
Yes, this is going to be a dark and twisty little part here. And we're not even at Part 4 yet.
