The Golden Age: Chaotic Cosmos

by Maderfole

Book 1 of The Golden Age trilogy. Peace is attained, but even worse chaos lurks just below the surface, waiting to consume the entire Seed cosmos in a war to dwarf all previous wars. The beginning of the epic story. FINISHED. Continued in Eden Disaster.

98. Goldstruck

"All right Dearka, I can't pass that off as coincidence any more." Miriallia said suddenly, as they walked down one of the seemingly endless staircases leading down from the central city-spire precincts of Februarius One into the more residential areas on the leveler outer parts of the number one continent. They could have taken an express elevator, or even a fast moving escalator, but it was Miriallia's first time on the PLANTS and she was determined to get as much of a taste of them as she could... you could ride elevators or escalators anywhere. The same could not be said of walking down quiet and stately staircases lined with greenry and decorative waterfalls and streams while gazing out at a lush rural paradise framed by the backdrop of outer space. And on the PLANTS, with their relatively small sizes, walking down the stairs wasn't too much of a chore, since even the outer rim was only an hour or two away at a walk. The Elsman estate was only about a forty minute walk from the space port and while they could have covered the same distance in five minutes or less on an express elevator and then public transport, they had elected to walk, for previously stated reasons.

The stairways weren't particularly crowded, mostly people heading down from the hospitals and labs of the central spire to residences and apartments nearer the rim, or else teenagers getting off school and heading up to the malls and other societal delights of the city proper. In a lot of cases it was hard to tell one group from the other... everyone was awfully young by Earth standards, and on the PLANTS, where the legal age of independence was 15, most people got serious jobs early. And not things like working part time at a fast food joint or movie theater... such jobs were usually handled by automatic machines or elderly volunteers on the PLANTS. With a Coordinator's ability to learn and grasp complex concepts and processes at an earlier age, combined with the challenging and competitive nature of their educational society, it wasn't even strange for a child fresh out of their parent's home to find work as a doctor's assistant, medical researcher or any one of a hundred jobs that on Earth would be filled by someone in their mid twenties after getting a bachelors degree in college and attended further years of medical school. Miriallia was from Orb, which was a nation that had one of the highest standards of living on Earth and still she was highly impressed by the near idyllic way life on the PLANTS seemed.

"Can't pass what off as coincidence any more?" Dearka replied, returning a friendly wave from a group of nurses headed upslope to the afternoon shift in the hospitals and recovery wards. The group of teenagers, both male and female, were about his own age. He vaguely remembered seeing some of them in his elementary school classes. He didn't really remember, it had been years and years ago, and a lot had happened since then. Being a Coordinator didn't always give you a perfect memoy, especially when you made no real effort to remember.

"That's the seventh group of girls in the last five minutes to wave and call you by name. Ysak had intimated that you were something of a player in your latter days at school and at the ZAFT academy, but I think this goes a little beyond that! I would have hesitated to ask this before, seeing as it really isn't my business... but I'm just dying to know now! Just how many girlfriends have you had, anyway!?" Mir asked, as nicely as she could manage.

"Umm... they could just be waving at me because I'm the only son of the family in charge of adminstering all of Februarius, you know." Dearka returned, declining to wave at another pair of girls who passed them, giggling as they looked at him. He did remember them. Junior high proms, from two of the six he went to. He eyed Miriallia, who was far from satisfied with his answer and was just giving him a neutral stare that he knew meant he'd better come up with a better explanation fast. "Okay, okay... so I dated around a little bit. Nothing wrong with that, is there?"

"Well that really depends. I'd really hate to start thinking about you as the sort of guy who was a man-slut in junior and high school, both because it's demeaning to you and to me." Miriallia said, her voice getting chillier.

"Man-slut!? How cruel a term is that!? I never slept around... I mean, I may have spent the night at a few houses, fooled around a bit once or twice... but it was nothing serious! Believe me, it was just dating around amongst friends! Happens all the time! I never told anyone I loved them, before you!"

"Since that makes it all better, doesn't it?" Miriallia retorted witheringly. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not jealous of your past flings... I've had a few myself after all. I do hope I'm not going to hear a lot of stories about you breaking the hearts of a bunch of your "dating around friends" though. That sort of callous behavior would really make me angry at you."

"Judging me from my youth isn't exactly totally fair... I was an arrogant prick growing up!"

"Was?"

"That hurts, you know. Geez, you can behave good for all the time you know a girl, and then she starts prying into your past and suddenly all the brownie points go down the drain! It's not fair!"

"Given your response this isn't the first time a female companion has tried to "pry into" your past, is it?" Miriallia glanced away. "I should be very disappointed in you."

"But... Mir... what... wait-a-minute... you're teasing me, aren't you!?" Dearka accused. Miriallia turned and showed him the smirk she'd been working to hide. "Oh, that's funny all right. Had my heart in my throat and she's giggling. Yeah, you call me shallow."

"Glad to find a topic even you're embarrassed about. Should have seen the look on your face... haven't seen you look that panicked and scared since the battle outside Orb." Miriallia faltered slightly, remembering the battle herself. She shook it off. "Don't be so full of yourself... what do I care what other girl's think of you... you know what I think of you is what counts, right?"

"Oh, yeah, most definitely." Dearka agreed, both because it was true and because it was the only safe answer. "You're really going to have to keep your wicked sense of humor under wraps while we're at my house, just to warn you. I can take a joke at my expense, usually. My mom and dad can't, generally. And my siblings... yikes, I don't even wanna think about you conniving with my sisters."

"Aww, you don't think your sisters and I will get along?"

"No, I think you will. You and Cagalli and Katie would all get along great with my sisters. Which is what I'm dreading. I'm already outnumbered with just you... now there's going to be five against one." Dearka groaned. "When you meet my sisters you'll see why I was always dating around... I had to get revenge at you feminine devils somehow." Dearka shifted the load of the straps of their luggage on his shoulders and grabbed Mir by her hand, both to reassure her and to keep himself from any more less than constructive behavior. If years of being a playboy had taught him anything about girls, learning what they meant when they said "no, it's fine" or "I don't mind you looking and waving at other girls" or other outwardly pleasant and tolerant phrases was it. Mir was better about clearly explaining to him what she considered kosher in terms of his relationships with other girls and what was out of bounds than most of his girlfriends had been, but when a girl started denying that she was bothered by something you were doing, THAT was the time to start taking a good hard look at how she might be feeling, because she probably truly WAS bothered and was likely just being nice in public. Save yourself a lot of grief in the long run... a hard lesson he hadn't learned quickly. The thoughts sobered him quite a bit.

"Don't think I'd relate well to someone who hasn't been along for the ride anyway." He muttered, so low Mir, standing right next to him, could barely even hear a mumble.

"What's that?" Mir mock frowned. "Making smart comments under your breath are you?"

"Why should I need to? You're a Natural... as long as I don't grunt and scratch myself, you probably won't understand me anyway." Dearka replied, casually enough.

"Well, as long as you don't expect me to start picking lice out of your hair, I won't get mad at you for using terms beyond my knowledge." Miriallia rolled her eyes. "I hope you weren't trying to make me mad or upset, because that was really pathetic."

"Coming from me, yes." Dearka replied with a small grin that quickly faded. "But I can't account for everything that the people of Febuarius might say to you. There's a significant percentage of people here that consider Natural's a waste of time and space. They don't understand why anyone wouldn't make their child a Coordinator, and they often have trouble telling the difference between giving an opinion or making an unsolicited slander attack. Course, we don't exactly have that many Naturals around here to offend, usually, but well..."

"Don't freak out if someone gets in my face about genetics in public?" Miriallia sighed, amazed that he could think her so thin skinned. Compared to mobile suits trying to blast her into tiny little pieces, or insane bio-engineered little freaks trying to skin her alive, what was a few biased personal opinions, no matter how personally or harshly delievered?

"Well... that, and also... remember who my family is." Dearka said, eyes on the ground. "My dad's the worst, since he likes to argue and hates to admit he's wrong... but my mom and sisters tend to toss around terms like "Flatscans" or "Slot-Machine Babies" even in casual conversation. I used to be the same way. You know how lots of Naturals are jealous of Coordinators because of our abilities and whatnot... well, there's a significant number of Coordinators who regard Naturals as barely above the level of apes in the trees, on an cultural and evolutionary scale... anti-jealousy, you could call it. Arrogant pity, in other terms. I'll do what I can to remind them that you might consider such terms offensive, but... just... try not to flip out if they say something insensitive, okay?"

"So I have to be the grown up adult then?" Miriallia pouted at him. "That isn't very much fun. I was really looking foward to having a raging hissy fit with your Dad. A real socio-political meltdown to clear the air between us, you know. I think it would do him... and YOU... good." Miriallia watched Dearka turn pale... which, considering his tanned skin, made him look absolutely ghastly... and shook her head. White knight syndrome didn't suit Dearka at all. "I'm a big girl, Dearka. I'll be just fine, don't you worry. I won't go picking any fights, but I'm not going to turn the other cheek either. Something of an Orb national tradition, I think you'll find. How could I ever look Cagalli in the eye as an Orb citizen if I just let my lover's father walk all over me and my opinions just because I'm a Natural?"

"Okay. But don't say I didn't warn you." Dearka replied quietly, burying his worries. How bad could it be, after all? His dad would blow up at him, he would blow up at his dad, Mir would blow up at his dad, his dad would make a series of cutting personal critiques that would leave Mir in tears, he'd end up punching his own dad out... Dearka forced himself not to think about it. They were supposed to be relaxing, not stressing out more. He wished he was on a battlefield somewhere. By himself. With an entire squadron of Merciless's and Fury's arrayed against him. In a Strike Dagger with broken legs. Anywhere, no matter how dire. Anywhere but walking towards his parent's house, with his Natural girlfriend by his side, who'd as much as stated an intent to provoke his volcanically tempered dad into a shouting match that Athrun and Cagalli would probably be able to feel the vibrations from on December City. The staircase they were descending took a sharp angled turn that his muscle memory remembered well, and then there was no more time to worry... the Elsman estate lay spread out before them. He heard Mir stop and gasp in apparent awe. He supposed he couldn't blame her... his dad's place was something of a sight, at least the first few times.

"This... this is ALL your family's!?" Miriallia whispered in shock. She'd lived on space stations for most of her life, so she was more than familiar with the concept of space being at a premium. Power, water, heating, cooling, air recycling, waste control, food production... all those systems took up a huge amount of space when they were supporting long term habitats for hundreds of thousands of people. Housing generally consisted of apartment style complexes for all but the very well off, and even the most expensive private homes were barely above middle class quality on Earth. So far what she'd seen in the PLANTS suggested that things were less crowded and more roomy here, but she'd been expecting a couple thousand square feet of space, maybe two or three floors, with a small pool or jacquizzi, maybe a garden in front. That was what the Heliopolis Mayor's home had been like. The Elsman estate looked like it had just been freshly transplanted from the hills of Italy onto Febuarius One.

"Pretty much. A lot of it we hold in trust for the city... we certainly can't eat all those crops just by ourselves." Dearka eyed the plantations in question with a familiar and critical eye. Looked like everything but the plum orchard was thriving as usual, and the plum orchard had always had problems with its irrigation and drainage... it was always either dry as a bone or wet as a swamp. That and the crop was frequently picked over by students from the nearby schools on dares, or just looking for a sweet treat for after lunch. Technically it was a misdemeanor to "steal" produce from the Elsman estate, but that really only applied if you got caught... and despite a multitude of motion sensor activated cameras, it was rare that culprits actually got caught. Perhaps because someone had programmed a few flaws into the system to cover his own childhood forays, maybe. And besides, it wasn't like they were uprooting trees or stripping the place bare... it was just a few dozen plums every month or two.

"How... how big is this place?" Miriallia was still staring, goggle eyed, at the checkered expanses of fields, orchards, utility sheds, greenhouses, storage barns, irrigation systems, ponds, groves of trees and other rural, idyllic features that you wouldn't exactly expect to see on a space station. She was pretty sure she could see a vineyard on a distant hill, complete with its own old fashioned manual wine press and other assorted equipment for the making and bottling of wine. Small ATV trucks with hoppers full of harvested crops, or tanks of liquid fertilizers and nutrient suppliments trundled through many fields, and teams of organized people of all ages were visible everywhere, tending plants, repairing mechanical systems or even just walking around aimlessly, just seeming to enjoy themselves.

"Two dozen square kilometers all told. It extends around most of the outer circumference of the city. About a third of it is actually OURS, the rest is owned by the city but operated and maintained by my family." Dearka replied, happy to enjoy himself playing tour guide while he could. "We provide forty percent of the fresh produce for Febuarius One due to our weekly harvest rotation. We grow pretty much anything you can think of, from potatos to pineapples, all of it genetically engineered to stay fresh longer, grow faster, and use less resources while it grows. Most of the plants also enrich the soil as part of their life cycle, generating us roughly five thousand tons of new, crop ready mulch every month, which we usually export to Junius or use for the few crops that are not positively enrichment balanced, mostly the orchards."

"Is it all hand gathered? Isn't that kind of... inefficient?" Miriallia asked, nodding at the work parties picking fruit or vegetation by hand and carefully placing it in personal sacks or ATV carried hoppers.

"Some things we use automated harvesting systems, like wheat, corn and other tall, closely packed starch type producers. But most of the fruits and ground born vegetables are indeed harvested by hand, and you are right, ordinarily that would be highly inefficient... the Junius colonies are almost entirely automated in their production of similar crops. But ninety nine percent of the people you see down there, except for anyone wearing a dark blue set of coveralls, is a hospital outpatient in the last few weeks and months of their recovery process, when they've been judged fit enough to leave the hospital's direct care but still need to be nearby in case of potential future complications or non debilitative treatments. Of course, working hours are generally light, voluntary in many cases, but most people are all too glad to get out of small enclosed rooms and doing something productive again, especially the war wounded. We pay them a minimal stipend, and workers are also allowed an allotment of their choice of the harvest every week, for them and their family, completely free as well. Free fresh produce, even in the PLANTS, is far from a minor reward, when most people still eat frozen or manufactured meals breakfast, lunch and dinner. It was something of a... downward switch for me, the first few weeks of five minute dinners." Dearka made a face, remembering his ravaged taste buds.

"And I assume you... I mean, the Elsman's, do make a tidy profit off all this?" Miriallia wondered, shaking her head. War wounded cycling through as harvest workers before returning to the front lines... PLANT society sure did have its beautifully designed aspects. She'd wondered at its efficiency... what could be more efficient than gainfully employing battleworn and injured people in the relatively simple business of tending, nurturing and providing a source of life for their community? Certainly better than leaving them cooped up in room upon room of tiered bunkbeds, with nothing better to do than go out on the town and get into trouble.

"Well, yeah... it is our land after all." Dearka shrugged. "The city pays us twenty five percent of the profit on crops grown on "their" land, and handles the pay and food supplies of the workers, while also exempting us from taxes on the crops grown on our personal soil, allowing us to sell it more competitively. You'd have to ask my mom for the details... she's the one with degrees in Agricultural Science, Land Utilization Processes, Agricultural Geology, Space Agriculture and Business Accounting. But I think we pull down something like forty to fifty million dollars a year from our crops." Dearka shrugged, to Miriallia's amazement, as if that much money was just "ho hum". "With Dad and my older sister's salaries, it's closer to sixty million a year. Of course, we see about two million of that for family use, the rest gets dumped back into financial markets, personal research projects and charity organizations. My parents are major fundraisers for the Clyne Faction... The Elsman Foundation for Peaceful Lives has been sending Lacus checks for one point five million dollars a month ever since Jachin Due."

Miriallia shook her head, overwhelmed. I mean, she'd known, at some level, that Dearka's family was wealthy and important... his dad was on the PLANTS Supreme Council after all, and was effectively Mayor of all the Febuarius Colony's... but sixty million dollars of income a year, no matter how it was invested or used... that was a LOT of money. And the level of personal education he spoke of... "What level degrees does your mom have?" Miriallia asked, though she was pretty sure she already knew the answer.

"Huh?" Dearka lost his train of thought for a moment. He'd just been thinking how good Mir would look in shorts, t-shirt and sun hat, working in the orchards or vineyard with him. He was sure his dad or mom would put him to work somehow and not just let him lie around the house anyway, so he planned to head them off by volunteering himself first. Show them that he was NOT the same Dearka that had run away from home two years ago. "We only have one level of degree. We call it "Comprehensive Certification" or C2 for short... I'm pretty sure its close to Doctorates or whatever you call it on Earth. Why?"

"Oh, just wondering." Miriallia rolled her eyes. His mom had five doctorates... four of them related, but she hadn't even know it was possible to get a doctorate level education in Business Accounting. "I don't suppose your mother is... exceptional... for her education, considering her age and social position?"

"Compared to Ysak's or Athrun's mom she's pretty lazy actually. My mom went into semi-retirement shortly after she married my dad, by common agreement, or so I hear. She wanted a big family, and she wanted to be there for all her kids, at least as much as possible. That's why she just runs the finances and the farms. It's really more of a hobby. What's that exasperated look for?" Dearka answered, warily eyeing Mir.

"Your mother has five top level education certifications and runs a multi-million dollar business as a hobby?" Miriallia asked, just trying to ensure her facts were straight. "So that she can spend more time with your sisters and you?"

"Well, she also does a lot of political things in support of my dad, who can be hard to pry out of the lab at times. But yeah, that's pretty much true. What about it?"

"Spoiled little rich boy." Mir shook her head, hands on her hips. "Seriously."

"I'm not a spoiled rich boy! I've been disowned, remember? And I'm quite a bit bigger than you!" Dearka protested.

"FORMER spoiled little rich boy. I don't suppose you had to work a part time job picking up trash and mowing lawns in middle school so you could afford your prom clothing, did you? Or that you had to take out a loan your family will be twenty years in paying off in order to get into a good technical college? Do you even know what the word DEBT means?" Miriallia retorted. "After taxes, before everything else, my parents make about a hundred and thirty thousand dollars a year, maybe eight to twelve of which makes it into their savings account and retirment funds every year. Most of it goes towards cost of living, our house mortage, two car payments and my college loans. Before I was old enough to babysit I did thirty hours a week of chores around the house at two dollars an hour to pay for anything I wanted, like a scooter or a phone. I worked forty hours a week in addition to going to school in Heliopolis in order to pay rent on a small duplex I shared with three other girls, since my parents couldn't afford it. My dad has a Master's degree in Applied Aerospace Engineering, which means he's a supervisor at a suborbital jet transport factory, while my mom has a bachelors in Accounting and one in Law, so she works as a finance advisor for small businesses. Both my parents work fifty hours or more a week, and we don't vacation often or very far."

"Are you... mad at me, Mir?" Dearka asked, puzzled and wary.

"No, I'm not mad at YOU." Miriallia shook her head again. "Just lifestyle envy, I guess. How am I supposed to feel like a contributing member of a family if my education, unless I spend tens of thousands of dollars and decades of time, is going to be roughly equal to that of a twelve year old's and so my income is likely to be about a significant digit smaller than..." Miriallia trailed off, pulse pounding a bit faster than usual. She'd been about to say "my husband's". But that was a way big step forward, so much that she froze up just thinking about it. She wasn't even eighteen yet. Okay, maybe she wasn't a virgin any longer, and maybe she had been through some pretty serious romantic trauma in the past few years, enough to put many girls she knew in strong, supervised therapy. Her entire life was topsy turvy right now, with Orb an occupied nation, unable to contact her own parents, much less begin rebuilding her old life. And if it wasn't already dead, her hope for starting a new life in the PLANTS instead had just been crushed by this casual conversation. She just wouldn't be competitive in this society in any meaningful way. Maybe she could get a job based on her combat experience, but she'd never advance very far and certainly not very fast. If she really was going to potentially have to live in the PLANTS for a long time, perhaps the rest of her life, she'd pretty much have to mooch from her friends to survive, and that left her feeling sick inside. Well, either that or she could become a very permanent part of Dearka's life.

Not that he would mind that, she knew. No, he was hers for the asking, she knew that. The trouble was convincing herself. It made her feel quite shameful at times, continuing this relationship with a man who had once ripped her world to shreds with a casual and unfortunate comment. She'd almost murdered him, a helpless prisoner at the time, and she hadn't felt anything but self righteous and self pity at the time. But despite that, despite all the times she'd teased him forward, only to push him away when he got close, all the times she'd abused his feelings for her, even in small ways, he'd remained steadily determined to protect her. And then it had evolved into a great deal more than just a desire to protect her, and it had taken the intervention of Cagalli and Lacus for her to realize she was still abusing his feelings. And he had accepted her apology, such as it was, unconditionally. He'd treated her like she was the center of his universe, adhering to her every rule and whim, despite his own feelings and wishes as she struggled to build a relationship with him when she still wasn't totally sure of her own feelings.

Oh, there was no doubt that she had deep personal feelings for him. That she loved him. She knew what that felt like, because it was how she'd felt about Tolle. And Dearka had been there for her in a lot of ways Tolle probably couldn't have been. Dearka had trusted her in ways that Tolle would have found hard to do, bringing her into battle not just on the same side as her, but actually alongside himself... and not allowing his own actions to be unduly influenced by her presence, mostly. Say what you would about eternal devotion and other stuff like that, how could you say "I love you and trust you" more than by putting your own life into that person's hands on multiple occasions without even hesitating? Dearka didn't treat her like an inferior, even though he was smarter than her, stronger than her, tougher than her, richer than her, more skilled and talented in most things than she was and was generally a shining diamond compared to her flawed quartz. Instead, he looked up to her, relied upon her, treated her like she was an integral part of whatever he was doing. In combat he didn't coddle her, didn't tell her to stay and wait to be protected by him... he asked that she come along and help him, because he couldn't do it by himself. What more could a girl want from a guy, besides trust, support and honesty, all of which Dearka gave to her unhesitatingly?

But still... still, despite not just that, but the intimacy they'd shared, the mutual gasps and cries of physical and mental pleasure, the closeness of a single bed, a single seat, a single time and place and intention... despite that, she still found herself stopping just short of taking the final step. She knew many of her friends were already crossing that line, or were planning to cross it soon. They had their minds made up, and despite trials and travails, Mir had no doubt that things would work out. Seeing Kira and Lacus happy together, only the blindest and most self deceiving could deny the depth of their bond. Even if they never married officially, they were as good as, even better than. Trying to ascribe to or ask for the blessing of a higher power on their relationship was not only redundant but slightly demeaning. The same for Cagalli and Athrun. Sometimes two people were just MEANT for each other, and you could tell at a glance. Oh, sometimes there would be arguments and blowups, since people were human after all, or it might take time to realize it, but even Cagalli admitted to having been smitten by Athrun from the moment she met him, even though they were enemies at the time... it was only her feelings for Kira that made her at all hesitant or uncertain, or later the loss of her Father. As for Lacus... well, Lacus wouldn't talk on the matter, but when Miriallia looked back on the time when Lacus was a "sort of" prisoner on the Archangel and Kira directly disobeyed orders to return her to Athrun... well, morality of war aside, that wasn't a risk you just took with anyone. Lacus was good hearted and forgiving to an extreme... but she was far from the naive or silly pop star girl many people assumed she was.

But Miriallia was conflicted because she DIDN'T have that sort of total surety with Dearka. She loved him. Loved the way he looked, the way he smiled, the way he held her hand, told jokes neither of them listened too, never let anyone take life too seriously, was there for his friends whenever they needed company, was away from his friends whenever they needed space, the way he talked with her, both on the battlefield and off, the way he panicked over such inconsequential things, while also treating the most dire of situations like it was all a big joke. She loved how he could make her smile when she was depressed, make her laugh when she was angry, help her see the absurd side of things when everthing seemed overwhelming. She loved how he whispered in her ear at night, and how his hands roved and teased, under her control and yet controlling her at the same time, playing her skin and her nerves like a musical instrument. She loved waking up next to him in the morning, with all the sheets on her side and most of the pillows as well, as he pretended to be asleep and played with her fingers or toes. The mental desire was there. The emotional desire was there. The physical desire was there. And she knew he returned them all, in spades and more. But she still couldn't shake the nervousness, and every time she started to hint at that final step, she choked and she still couldn't figure out why. And so she kept Dearka waiting, and felt both glad, because he continued to patiently wait for her like he always promised... and sad, because she was making such a wonderful and giving person sacrifice his life and potential happiness for her. But she definitely couldn't tell him to get lost either... that would be like tearing out her own heart through her nose. It was enough to make a girl want to cry and pound her head through a wall at times.

"Well, I don't think you need to worry too much about that. I've got something of a reputation as a lazy son of a bitch to maintain. Long as you generate some sort of positive cashflow, I promise I'll use up as much of your hard earned money as I can on trivial pursuits, so you can feel properly adult and exasperated at my irresponsibility. Trust me, I won't complain at all." Dearka smirked. "Besides, for someone with the education of a twelve year old, you're awfully cute, especially when you're chewing your lip in rage like that." Dearka began sidling away from her, down the staircase.

"Dearka..." Miriallia trailed off and looked at him right in his attentive face. "I love you."

"Oh." Dearka paused, and then a devilish smile crossed his features. "Well thank you. I'm rather fond of myself too, come to think of it. I'm smart, funny, athletic, charismatic, adorable..."

"Endangered."

"Yes, endange... AHK! Not the head! Anywhere but the head!" Dearka took off down the stairs at a steady lope, as Miriallia pushed and pummeled at his back, both of them laughing loud enough to be clearly heard in the fields several hundred meters away. Several people looked up and then promptly got back to work. Just another pair of silly, lovey-dovey teens. They were all over the PLANTS. Just another reminder of what they were all fighting to protect, once they were pronounced well enough to return to their units. A time which couldn't come soon enough for some. There were rumors and hints already hitting the local grapevines... something big was coming. Soon. What exactly... well, ask twelve different people and you'd likely get close to a dozen different stories. One of them might even be true.

--

For a property as huge as it was on, the actual Elsman house wasn't very big at all. She'd been expecting a huge castle or mansion, but the estate, while certainly extravagent for a space environment, wasn't any ritzier than any of several hundred houses she'd once delievered newspapers to down in Orb. Two levels, with the bottom level mostly underground, perhaps five thousand square feet all told, plus a seperate garage, all done in what looked like white washed adobe bricks, with bronze tinted metallic windows and bright red painted doors and trim. Dearka had said that the upper level was mostly kitchen, dining room, a small lounge area and bedrooms for his mom and dad and sisters. Downstairs was a large entertainment area, storage rooms, utility/machinery rooms, a hobby workshop, and bedrooms for Dearka and any guests. There was also a large walk out patio and garden overhung by a deck from the upper story, and it was actually to there that Dearka led her, not to the front door. Apparently the Elsman family had a tradition of spending as much time outside relaxing when they were at home as possible, due to how much time they spent indoors while at work. It was similar to the tradition of old Latin and Central American nations of taking a break during the heat of midday, called a "siesta", during which all serious activity, beyond non-athletic entertainment or eating lunch, was suspended. Dearka summed it up as "play hard, work harder", which were apparently his father's words.

Despite her strong assertations of earlier, Miriallia couldn't help but feel nervous. She was being invited into a guy's home, to stay for a while and meet his family. She'd spent time at Tolle's house, had met and got along well with his parents, had illictly made out in his room behind a mostly closed door on several occasions... but that experience didn't exactly prepare her for meeting a senior member of the PLANT government and his wife and other children, all Coordinators, in their own home, which was orders of magnitude bigger and more expensive than any house she'd ever been to before. Still, she refused to let herself be totally intimidated by the location... because at least one of them had to be brave anyway. Dearka was looking like a rat trapped in a bucket being lowered into a firepit, and she could actually feel his hand trembling in hers. Her Dearka, who had faced down the likes of Cray Thresher and Zacharis Frost with fire in his eyes and steel in his spine, was shaking with dread at the prospect of meeting his OWN PARENTS. It was almost funny, and more than a little sad. Miriallia used those feelings to bolster her own... by the end of their time at the Elsman house, Dearka would never be afraid to meet his parents again, she promised herself.

They rounded the corner of the house and the patio came into view. It was a charmingly designed place of blue and green brick tiles, with several large shade trees and a central fountain, from which streams of water flowed all across the patio area through small channels, about a foot wide and a foot deep, that etched geometric shapes of shiny, light reflecting water in the blue-green background. It was a deeply peaceful place, with plenty of indirect sunlight and ventilation, but cooled by enough shade from the deck overhead and the trees that you wouldn't feel uncomfortable staying there for long periods of time. The gentle sound of falling and running water all around also served to subconsciously relax people, while the evaporation from the water cooled the ambient temperature still further, down to the high sixties, rather than the near constant low eighties of the greater PLANT environment. The perfect place to eat a lunch after working in the sun for a few hours, or go to calm down after stressful time in the office. There was a small crowd of people apparently doing just those things, sitting in small groups around tables or by the trunks of trees. However, most of those people, older Coordinators mostly, quite a few of them obviously war wounded, got up and left as Miriallia and Dearka approached, muttering polite thank you's and good byes to Tad Elsman, who had been talking with a group of Coordinators clad in the long blue coats of politicians near the center of the patio area.

Miriallia felt pretty much each and every Coordinator there give her a surprised look at the very least, and more than a few gazes were cool or even downright coldly angry, as various Coordinators made their way off the patio area and back into the fields. It was more than just "you interrupted my lunch break" looks... some of these people were actually angered by her presence, plainly viewing her as an enemy just because she was a Natural. She supposed she could understand why some might think like that, given all the terrible things Naturals had done to Coordinators, largely unprovoked... but it was still no fun to be judged before people got to know her. Dearka's hand released hers, but then his arm draped itself protectively across her shoulders and returned some of the more hostile looks with a calmly baleful look of his own as they reached the now largely empty patio area. The group of politicians nodded as Mr. Elsman told them something and they moved into the house as a group, holding computers and sheathes of documents and talking animatedly amongst themselves... though Miriallia still caught more than a few of them shooting her discreet glances as well. She squared her shoulders a bit more, and put her own arm around Dearka's waist. She may be the minority here, might make some people uncomfortable... but that was their problem. She wasn't going to lump people into a category without getting to know them first, even if most of them wouldn't give her the same courtesy.

Dearka's family seemed to appear from the ground like ghosts... Miriallia could have sworn that one moment Mr. Elsman was alone, and then the next he was joined by four younger women with the same deeply tanned skin, purple eyes and blond hair Dearka had, as well as an older woman with black skin, red hair and brilliant blue eyes. Mr. Elsman and his two oldest daughters were dressed in casual-formal wear, and there were a trio of labcoats folded over the backs of nearby chairs that looked to be theirs. The third oldest daughter wore a blue politicians coat and the youngest daughter, the only one younger than Dearka and Miriallia, was dressed in some sort of school uniform, while his mother was wearing a formal jacket and professional skirt, suitable for a lawyer or legal assistant. Mir almost felt under dressed, considering she was in a comfortable skirt, T-shirt and light, short sleeved, open front coat. Dearka was also dressed in just slightly rumpled slacks and a t-shirt, though she had noticed that he'd tucked the shirt into his pants and was wearing a belt today, which was much more than he usually did in casual situations. Of course, this wasn't really a casual situation for him, was it?

"Dearka." Mr. Elsman said shortly, obviously searching for a good way to start things off.

"Dad. Mom. Assorted evil demons." Dearka nodded at his parents and sisters. "I hope we didn't interrupt anything important?"

"Just some city business." Mr. Elsman shrugged. "They can wait. Though I must say, I was expecting you quite some time ago. You took your time getting here." He not quite accused.

"I wanted a scenic tour." Miriallia was quick to speak up. "I've never been to the PLANT's before, and other space colonies... don't really compare."

"We never did like the idea of living like termites in a hive. I'll never understand how... other people... could stand it." The second oldest sister, who had the longest hair, near Lacus style, replied breezily, her verbal correction the only mar. Obviously she'd been about to say something about Naturals, but had caught herself at the last moment. Miriallia almost wished she'd just said what she'd thought... the last thing she needed was conversations full of polite omissions bogging everything down. She was actually interested to know what sort of racial slurs there WERE for Naturals... space-monsters was the only one she knew about for Coordinators.

"It's all in what you're used to, I guess." Miriallia shrugged. "It took some time adjusting from living in Orb to living on Heliopolis, but humans can adapt to pretty much any environment if you give them time, right? My name is Miriallia Haww, I'm very glad to meet you all, and you for the second time, Mr. Elsman, under less stressful circumstances."

"I'm Elizabeth Elsman." Dearka's mom, with her rare combination of black skin and naturally red hair and blue eyes, stepped forward to clasp Miriallia's free hand in both of her own. "It's my pleasure to welcome any woman able to tame my wild son and bring him back to me to my house. Please call me Liz... I hate being called Elizabeth or Mrs. Elsman outside of work. Let me introduce you to our family properly, since the men seem unable to muster the nerve." Liz shot reproachful glances at Mr. Elsman and Dearka, who'd both been not quite glaring at each other over Mr. Elsman's comment on timeliness. "All right ladies, go ahead. You've got voices."

"I'm Kamilla." The oldest daughter, who looked to be in that mid twenties range most Coordinators lived in for the greater part of their lives and had shoulder length hair done up in a pratical bun. "Please call me Kami. And if Dearka tells you to call me Kamil, feel free to twist his nose off to spare me the trouble. I work with my dad in biochemisty and genealogical research."

"I'm Adelle, pleased to meet you." The girl with the long hair said, with a slight sniff and a stiff posture that said to Mir that she wasn't particularly pleased, who looked only slightly younger than Kamilla. "I'm twenty two by the way, in case you were wondering, and everyone is born two years apart. It can be hard to tell, since we don't age as fast as... you people. I also work with dad and Kam, though I'm a cosmetic surgeon by training."

"My name is Lynset. Call me Lyn please." The third daughter had a warm, sunny smile and a mischevious glint in her eyes that definitely reminded Mir of Dearka. "I'm daddy's secretary and thusly the omnipotent ruler of this city. I'm sure we're going to get along INCREDIBLY well. I can't wait to pick your brain, Miriallia, and let you pick mine. I'm certain theres SO many interesting things we can tell each other about Dearka. And there's nothing you can do to stop me, little brother." Lyn chuckled happily, even as Dearka rolled his eyes.

"I'm Marionne. Please, PLEASE call me Mari." The youngest daughter, who would be fourteen if what Adelle said was true, said with a heavy sigh. "I'm in what Nu... you people would call College. I'm going to be working in Artificial Environment Construction. Please don't ask me about it, I'm not sure I can bring it down to the level of a N... I mean, its kinda complex." Mari twisted away from the elbow Lyn dug into her side. "And I don't think we're going to get along at all. I hate Nulls like you!"

"Mari!" Liz Elsman said sharpely. "Apologize this moment!"

"Um, what's a Null?" Miriallia asked with a smile. "Well, I mean, it must mean Naturals like me... but why that word?"

Dearka heaved a heavy sigh of his own and shot a daggerlike look at his younger sister. "It... it refers to the fact that when Naturals have children with Coordinators, the babies are always Coordinators. Genetically speaking, Naturals are always a "zero" compared to a Coordinator's "one" or "two" or whatever."

"Oh. That makes sense... in a nerdy, socially awkward, geeky way." Miriallia smiled and shook her head in amazement. Nulls. It was insulting... sort of... but come ON!? How could she feel bad, especially when it was coming from a fourteen year old? Admittedly one who was at least as educated as she was, but still... fourteen was not the most mature of ages. Hell, seventeen going on eighteen wasn't a very mature age either, come to think of it. "Well... that's just the way of things isn't it? Some genes are dominant, some are recessive. We've known about that for centuries, right?"

"Well..." Mari was wrongfooted, since she'd been expecting ANYTHING but chuckles and a polite and logical dismissal.

"Let's get this out into the open." Miriallia interrupted. "I'm a Natural. Dearka is a Coordinator, as are all of you. However, regardless of the circumstances of our birth, or the choices of our parents during our time in the womb, we're still all human beings, right? We all get old, we all die eventually. We laugh, we cry, we have good days and bad days. I know Naturals... speaking of the greater group... have been intolerant of and actively violent against Coordinators. But I don't hate Coordinators, and the people of Orb, my nation, don't hate Coordinators either, as a whole. As a matter of fact, I really admire Coordinators in general, and one specific Coordinator especially. I'm also hoping to be able to get the chance to admire his family too, and receive their admiration in turn. I'm not asking that you forget your feelings for Naturals as a whole... just try to judge me by what I do, not by what EVERYONE has done, okay?"

"Well, what DO you do then, besides... well... you know... with my brother." Mari blushed, unable to speak her accusation out loud, in front of her family.

"Hey!" Dearka made as if to step forward to accost his younger sister more directly. "Didn't you..."

"Back off, Dearka, its's a perfectly good question." Miriallia pulled him back to her. "I'm not afraid of direct questions. I actually prefer them. By all means, I'd much rather be grilled on my personal life by a hostile audience than shoot at... and get shot at... by people I would probably be friends with if I had the chance." She turned a frosty look of her own on Mari. "However, you'll be disappointed if you expect me to play nice if you don't want to play nice yourself, Mari. I used to be the sort of girl that would let herself get pushed around, but that was a good long while ago. But to answer your question, I was a Liberal Arts student, my major was Film and Photography, with a minor in Journalism. But then ZAFT attacked Heliopolis and I became part of the crew of the Archangel after Heliopolis was destroyed. I served as the Combat Information Controller for the Archangel for its entire service in the first Valentine War, which means I was the person in charge of relaying orders from the Captain to the crew, including the mobile suit pilots, and then relaying the reports from the crew and pilots back to the Captain. It's very stressful, and I had to watch, helplessly, as several people who were... very close to me... died on the battlefields." Mir swallowed hard at the memory.

"You're a soldier?" Adelle asked, somewhat sceptically. "You're a bit young for an Earth Forces..."

"I'm a volunteer." Miriallia interrupted. "My friend was risking his life to protect me and several dozen civilians, and it was really hurting him to do it. So I, along with my friends, volunteered to help the short handed crew however we could, to help my friend. By the time I was given the opportunity to stop, I'd already become a part of the crew, and I've never regretted my decision to stay for long. That's not to say I haven't regretted it at times, but overall... no. I wouldn't have it another way now, unless of course I could have somehow magically stopped the war earlier of course."

"You're really a soldier?" Mari was obviously stunned. "But you're... pretty. Kind of."

Ouch. Okay, so maybe some prejudice DID hurt. Miriallia was trying to figure out how to respond to what was obviously a deeply held opinion Mari didn't even realize was offensive, but Dearka stepped up to bat before she could find a good solution. "Marionne." Dearka's tone was firm and direct, and Mir knew just from that that he was truly angry. Dearka wasn't serious often, and almost never FULLY serious, even in battle... but this was his one hundred percent serious voice. "Watch what you say. We all have feelings that can be hurt, and I'd really not like to see someone crying just when I get home again."

"Well, its not MY fault if she's sensitive! It's just a fact, right?" Mari retorted defensively.

"I wasn't talking about Miriallia." Dearka replied coldly. "Mir can take any stupid thing you have to say without blinking, even if it does hurt her feelings. Mir can take a lot more punishment, verbal, emotional, even physical... than you'd think. More than I can at times. Certainly more than you can, pipsqueak."

"Don't call me that!" Mari retorted, flushing a bit. "I'll get taller!"

"You're missing the point, dummy." Lyn reproached, winking at Dearka and Miriallia over her little sister's head.

"I'm not a DUMMY!" Mari protested. "I get perfect grades in school and..."

"And you're still missing the point." Kam sighed and glanced at the sky, as if praying for patience. "Regardless of your grades, you've managed to make your brother... who's nicer to you than anyone else in this family, if you can remember that far back... really mad, and you've hurt Miriallia's feelings, even if she is too mature to show it. You're being rude and thoughtless to a guest who might someday be your sister-in-law, and she's been nothing but respectful and kind back to you. It's shameful, really. I'm kind of embarassed that you're my sister."

"It IS a statistically proven fact that military women... Naturals anyway... are commonly rated as less attractive than civilian females of identical age and backgrounds." Adelle spoke up in defense of her little sister... mostly just because she didn't particularly care for the impudent mooch hanging off her kid brother much either.

"It's also a statistically proven fact that you can use statistics to make anything into a "fact" if you chew the data through enough filters." Miriallia spoke up. "I'll admit, you four girls are definitely a lot prettier than me. So is Lacus Clyne for that matter. I personally think Cagalli is way hotter than me too, but that's just my opinion. I'm happy with the way I look, and I don't see any real reason to get worked up over someone who I've just met's opinion, even if it does sting my pride a bit. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I firmly believe, and..."

"This beholder certainly sees beauty." Dearka finished for her. "She's definitely prettier than some gangly, breastless kid with a big mouth, theres no doubt of that. And looks aren't even the point at all, kiddo. You think a bullet cares how pretty you are? Or a knife? Do you think it matters so much if you look like a goddess or a tomboy while you're risking your life to save millions of people you've never even met? Can how you look help you when it's life or death for you and all your friends that you can give them the right info at the right time, as close to ten times out of ten as it's possible to get? Can "pretty" save a single innocent life by itself?" Dearka snorted heavily. "You can keep "pretty" like you meant it. Mir's beautiful not only because of how she looks, but because of WHO she is and WHAT she does, and that's the sort of thing that isn't affected by being a Coordinator or not at all."

"Looks aside, son, have you considered the realites of the situation!?" Mr. Elsman, who had been silently watching from the corners of the verbal brawl, spotted his opportunity to make his point and moved in. "Through no fault of her own, Miriallia is still a Natural, with the vulnerabilities and disadvantages thereof. Reproductive disadvantages like what Marionne brought up are just one part of the problem. Natural's are vulnerable to all sorts of viruses and chronological illnesses, especially as they get older. Cancer. Alzheimer's. Dietary onset Diabetes. Heart disease. Kidney failure. The list is huge. Modern genetic science has cured most "hand me down" genetic flaws, but old age is old age. The body breaks down and eventually cannot repair itself, even with outside help. And the age at which that happens is twenty to forty years younger for Naturals than Coordinators, sometimes more! It's a biological fact of life!"

Mr. Elsman's point was one of the things Miriallia herself was worried about, long term anyway. Nobody liked looking at their own mortality, and it was especially hard to look at it when you knew that when you were lying on your deathbed, your partner... husband or just lover, whichever... would still be in late middle age. Still able to perhaps marry someone else, able to enjoy another thirty years of active, medically unassisted life. That she'd probably never live long enough to see a single wrinkle on Dearka's skin, even long after she'd grown used to her own. But the key phrase was "long term worry". She had a good while to come to terms with the end of her life, and she didn't want such morbid considerations to be a determining factor in how she lived her life NOW. Hell, with things going like they were, there were pretty good chances she'd never have to worry about it, because she'd probably get killed by something or someone long before old age became a problem.

"You're not going to like this answer dad, but its how I feel." Dearka said quietly. "At the moment, Mir and I are part of the Clyne Faction. I'm the pilot of a Gundam, and she's my co-pilot. I can't even remember how many times we've been in life or death situations together. How many times she's saved my life. How many times I've saved hers. It's not something you keep track of after a while. We've suffered a major defeat recently, but we are adamantly NOT defeated! We WILL find a way to bring this godforsaken war to an end WITHOUT using genocide or weapons of mass destruction. Don't ask me how, but we will. You're bringing up things like kids and old age and diseases and inevitable mortality and comparative lifespans... it's BULLSHIT, dad. Bullshit. I've done the odds myself... given current battlefield conditions, there's a roughly twenty percent chance I'm gonna buy the farm in the next major battle, and Miriallia along with me, since she sits about two feet in front of me, assuming its ANYTHING like the battle we just lost. If certain other, unnamed, parties get involved, that chance goes up to the mid eighty percent mark, and keeps rising on a secondly basis the longer that certain party remains involved. Do you REALLY think I care so much about fifty years from now? I don't. I just DON'T, dad."

"You cannot live your entire life one day at a time, Dearka!" Mr. Elsman insisted vehemently. "And don't talk about war or you dying while at home! It's hard enough on your mother and I as it is."

"Hard things need to be said sometimes." Miriallia cut in. "You're asking Dearka and I to face harsh realities. Is it so wrong for US to ask YOU to do the same? Like it or not, people die in wars. I don't want to die. I don't want Dearka to die. I don't want ANYONE to die. Well, ONE guy... but he's..." Mir shook off the end of that sentence. "But we're willing to put our lives in danger because we think it's the right thing to do. Dying to bring peace is NOT an option for me or Dearka... but sometimes people don't GET an option. Doesn't matter how good you are, how skilled, how well protected or deserving or how many people love you... death, especially in war, is always sudden and even random at times. I hate it, but that IS how it IS! I always get the shakes before launching, and I sure as hell get them when we get back, even if we aren't even scratched."

"Me too." Dearka added. "I'm not planning on living my life one day at a time, dad. That's not something I can do anymore... not with more than just my life at stake from my decisions. But right now, there's so much I DON'T KNOW and CAN'T CONTROL that planning more than a week or so in advance is just a WASTE of time. Bad enough that I have to worry about my life, and my family, and all of the PLANTS... but I've also got Miriallia to worry about, and the other people of the Clyne Faction and the people of EARTH as well. Any long term plan I make has to include considerations for ALL of them, and if I wanted to make enough plans so I could have one no matter the situation or how it changes, I'd do nothing but plan myself into a COMA! I'm sorry dad, I know you really hate leaving things to chance, hate not having a plan... but you can't treat war like a lab problem. It just doesn't work like that. If I poke at a problem, it's going to poke back... and it might not even be at ME. Let me tell a little story, dad, and I want you to tell me what I should have done. What you would have done."

"You are confronted with someone who is a clinically evaluated homicidal sociopath. He's armed and dangerous and running amuck, killing people at random. You've been pursuing him for quite some time, while he commits various atrocities to goad you... little things like blowing up child care buildings or killing your best friend in front of your eyes, or so you believe. You've finally got close enough to confront him... but he's surrounded himself with hostages, and even though you have a shot at him, if you do shoot, the hostages will be killed too, such is the nature of your weapons. He can't be talked down, and when you try anyway he starts shooting at you... through the hostages bodies. Crippled children. The elderly. Random people off the street. He's the sort of person that will keep doing things like this until someone stops him by force, so even if you retreat, it won't stop him, because he ENJOYS killing. If you stop him here and now, all the hostages around him he hasn't killed yet will die by your hand. If you don't stop him here and now, they'll all die anyway and he'll probably kill you too and get away, to do it all again another day. What sort of plan could I have had to deal with a situation like that, dad? What should I have done? What would you do? And this ISN'T a hypothetical trap or trick question. This is a real life scenario, that actually happened to us."

"You couldn't have seen this coming BEFORE said madman started running amuck?" Mr. Elsman arched an eyebrow.

"If you knew Purgatory Day was going to happen before it did, and didn't do anything about it, I don't care if you are my dad, I'm going to shoot you." Dearka replied harshly.

"You know I don't know anything about being a soldier... that I detest even the idea of war or fighting in one." Mr. Elsman started to reply, equally harshly, before his wife cut him off with a raised hand.

"Tad, dear, please don't try and slide around the question by turning it into a debate about what you know. I can parse it into a biochemical analogy if you want, which you ARE knowledgeable about and comfortable with, but it doesn't change the underlying point. There's simply some parts of life you can't plan for, that no answer you decide beforehand can adequately cover. Panic moments, where you have to act according to how you feel at the time. Your son is trying to tell you that right now, his life is just one big panic moment... but he doesn't necessarily LIKE it that way, though he can't change it right now." Liz Elsman explained, with a resigned tone of voice.

"You're a very wise woman." Miriallia complimented. "No offense, but given what Dearka said on the way down here I wasn't expecting... well..."

"My personal views on those unfortunate enough to be Naturals have little to do with what we're talking about, dearie. I share many of the same concerns as my husband for my son's... and indirectly your's... long term happiness. But I do understand what you're trying to say. I'm familiar with panic moments. I have raised four daughters and a son who sometimes acted like a tweeny girl, maturity wise. And a husband who still acts like he did when he was fourteen, which is depressing at times. But you didn't force Dearka to come home to us just to get into an argument with us, or not just to get into an arguement with us. You came to relax, and to get to know more about Dearka and us, and to allow us to get to know you, since you are an intimate part of our son's life that isn't going to go away no matter how many scientific facts and harsh mortalistic realities we bring up." Liz replied with a small smile. "Thank you for helping Dearka come home to us. I am grateful beyond any words."

"I've met people without families. Dearka doesn't deserve that, even more than anyone doesn't deserve that. My parent's are very important to me, and are a big part of every facet of my life. The thought of Dearka not being able to say the same thing made me angry. And while I may not be the mover and shaker while angry that some of my friends are, there's at least one person who knows better than to argue with me when I make a FIRM decision." Miriallia answered.

"You've got him whipped already? Good job!" Lyn applauded.

"Not surprising." Adelle shook her head. "He always was a wimp at heart."

"Not so much a wimp as... easy to make cry." Kam corrected with a smirk.

"Aww, jeez... I can't even tell my friends that my brother is so tough anymore." Mari pouted. "Not when he get's himself put on a short leash by a Natural."

"Hey! I could do WITHOUT the peanut gallery." Dearka commented. "There's SO much more to it than what you know right now. And I get enough crap from Ysak, thank you. Though he's one to talk, since he's on an even shorter leash than ME, and his girlfriend is ALSO a Natural. A really scary, freaky Natural, but she's still a Natural. It's almost funny actually... the only Coordinator couple I know is Kira and Lacus, and they're the only ones who wouldn't, or haven't, cared either way."

"Cagalli, Katie and I must have got a soft batch." Miriallia chuckled. "We've taken out Athrun Zala, Ysak Joule and Dearka Elsman. Three redcoat elites, defeated utterly by a tomboy princess, a traumatized girl with mental powers and me, a photojournalist in training. I don't see how you guys can have any sense of self pride."

"A photojournalist in training that ALMOST stabbed me to death with a scapel while I was tied to a bed, remember! Don't try and hide the facts... you three girls are FRIGHTENING."

"I sooo have to hear that story." Lyn demanded.

"I think I'll skip it." Mr. Elsman said, somewhat unsteadily. "I really don't need to know MORE about how my son was almost killed by his girlfriend. His Natural girlfriend, after he became a redcoat elite."

"I was TIED TO A BED! Key words... TIED TO BED! That I escaped at ALL is something of a miracle!"

"Yeah, yeah... you learned to keep your big mouth shut though, didn't you?" Miriallia shrugged, somewhat nervously. That certainly hadn't been her at her best, that episode. "And I did stop Fllay from shooting you."

"For which I remain eternally grateful. I'm GLAD to let Athrun keep the distinction of being shot by his girlfriend or one of her friends. And Ysak can DEFINITELY keep the honor of being jerked around like a sock puppet by a telepathic commando girl."

"Did he really just say telepathic commando girl?" Lyn muttered to Kam.

"I'm more worried because he didn't sound like he was joking." Kam replied. "I might have to schedule him an appointment with a friend."

"I am NOT crazy. There's no way I can prove it to you except by holding Kira hostage and pointing a gun at his head in front of Lacus Clyne... which I'm NOT EVER going to do... but believe me... I'm NOT crazy when I talk about Katie and what she can do."

"I understand if you can't acknowledge that you know this term, Mr. Elsman, but Katie said you might know what it meant. Please keep it to yourself though. It would be in your best interest. Katie is an Active Newtype." Miriallia added. She thought she saw a brief flicker of recognition in Mr. Elsman's eyes, but it was so brief she couldn't be sure. Certainly none of the rest of the Elsman family had any idea what she was talking about.

"That's a new one." Mr. Elsman replied evenly. "I'll have to look it up. Or might that be a bad idea?"

"That depends on why you would be looking it up. Simple curiousity isn't a problem. Beyond that... well, you'll have to make up your own mind, hopefully before it gets made up for you." Miriallia replied, equally evenly.

"Dad's talking political again." Mari pouted. She really hated being excluded from conversations. Lyn had once called it "talking over her" and Mari was really sensitive about her shortness, so to this day she HATED being kept out of a conversation.

"Well, as intriguing as that little tete a tete was, I think it's better for us to focus on what we can ALL talk about, hmm?" Mrs. Elsman prompted. "How about we come inside and let you two at least drop off your belongings before we mercilessly interrogate you about every detail of the last two years. And Thaddeus, you WILL have to fob off the city council today. Their business can keep for twenty four hours while you catch up with your son." Mrs. Elsman turned a steady look on Dearka and Miriallia. "I assume I won't be needing to turn out a guest bedroom?"

"Mom!"

"You'd assume right. Dearka is very used to sleeping on the floor. Sometimes even on the floor OUTSIDE the room."

"That happened ONCE! And NOT for the reason you all are thinking!"

"Sure, bro, whatever. Perv."

--

Miriallia wiped the sweat off her forehead and glanced at her watch in the same motion. Only about thirty minutes to go before she could stop. She sighed, arched to stretch her back and restraightened her sunhat on her head. It was slightly disconcerting for her still, it being high noon temperature and brightness twenty four hours a day. It was almost four in the afternoon, and she'd been working in the Elsman family fields since eight that morning, and the sun hadn't moved across the sky, the temperature hadn't changed a bit and there hadn't even been a single cloud of shade. She knew why Dearka and his family all had such amazingly tanned skin now, if this is what they did two or three days a week, if not more, on their off time. She herself had slathered down with high SPF, long lasting sunscreen and she was still reasonably sure she was going to walk away with a good bit of sunburn today. She shrugged, wincing slightly at the tension in her back and shoulder and arm muscles.

"Not nearly as easy as it looks, is it?" Lyn Elsman, who had appointed herself Miriallia's constant companion while she stayed at the Elsman house, at least whenever she wasn't doing her secretarial duties for her father, which seemed to largely consist of denying various groups any time in her father's "busy schedule" with varying degrees of evil relish, said commiserately from the next row over. "Strawberries are SOOO good... but picking them by hand is a bitch and a half. Of course, you couldn't have known that when you volunteered this morning. And if you did, and volunteered anyway just to torment me..."

"I wouldn't do that. You're not Dearka." Miriallia replied with a brief smile. "But you are definitely correct. I feel like I've bent my spine in half permanently. And thirty pound bags of strawberries are still, regrettably, thirty pound bags. How exactly is this sort of torture supposed to be good for rehabilitation?"

"Beats going back to Basic Physical Training. Or so I hear anyway, since I've never been to BPT. It has to really suck though, if its worse than an eight hour shift picking strawberries." Liz grabbed one especially big fruit and popped it into her mouth, chewing with a look of bliss. "Especially since you wouldn't be able to eat strawberries whenever you wanted."

"That WOULD be terrible. These strawberries are incredible. I've been looking, and I haven't seen a single berry that was sickly or over-ripe or under-ripe or malformed or ANYTHING, all day. I hadn't realized genetic engineering could do so much." Miriallia bent and picked one for herself, studying the half dollar sized pinkish-red fruit before chewing it down, immensly enjoying the cool taste of the sweet juice and the just firm enough texture of the flesh. It was the best strawberry she'd ever had to date. Of course, the one she'd picked about ten minutes before had only been beaten out because THIS one was fresher from the vine. "All your crops are like this?"

"All OUR crops are, yes." Lyn replied, stressing the ownership term as she rapidly transferred strawberries from bush to the bag at her side. "But the Elsman crops are higher quality than the mass produced stuff from Junius. Not saying the stuff on Junius is bad, far from it, but these are... you could call them "next generation" crops. Potential advances in agricultural science are tested here before the new strains are mass grown. In crop terms, our stuff is Coordinators, while the Junius stuff is Naturals."

"Oh. So do the Junius strawberries send little ships to burn these fields then? Or threaten to cut off soil shipments to starve them to death?" Miriallia replied wryly. Lyn giggled and shook her head.

"Wow, that's a politically incorrect image if I've ever heard one. Adelle would have shat a brick if she heard you make light of the situation like that."

"Adelle can kiss my "stastically inferior" little ass." Miriallia replied without sympathy. "No offense, but she's a snooty, rotten bitch. Statistically speaking anyway."

Lyn snorted in amusement. "Adelle never did have much in the way of tact. But you're the one who said you wanted us to be direct and not pull any punches. You should hear what she says to Dearka."

"I probably shouldn't. I don't like people picking on Dearka, even if... especially if... they happen to be members of his family. I almost got into a fight with your dad the first time I met him. So far the only truly likeable people in your family I've met are you, Dearka and your mom. And I'm pretty sure your mom is just being nice for Dearka's sake. Adelle thinks I'm scum, Mari thinks I'm some sort of rutting ape and Kam, for all her politeness, is so condescending that I can't stand to be around her for more than five minutes by myself." Miriallia said, bending down to pick strawberries again as well.

"Well, to be honest, I'm not totally sure I'm one hundred percent for you either, Mir." Lyn replied softly. "You're a nice person. A strong person. I like you, really. I even think you might be the right person for my silly little brother. But it's not exactly easy overcoming twenty years of family rhetoric, and almost two and a half years of unprovoked tragedy, much less contemplating the probable future. I know it's not YOUR fault, that you've been trying your best to defend and help us... but its very hard to tell the difference between sharks and dolphins, when you're standing on shore and you can only see the dorsal fins."

"Well, I've only known you for about a week... its not surprising at all that you feel like that." Miriallia replied after a few moment's thought. "It took me most of eight months to warm to Dearka, and the intervention of a couple of my friends as well. I didn't expect to win you all over in a week or two... I'm really just happy that Dearka can come home again, and talk with his family. I think it's probably going to take years and years, if it happens at all, before I really get on friendly terms with your parents."

"Years and years." Lyn repeated. "So you are serious about him then? He's the one? Pardon me for saying so, but sometimes you don't act like you feel that way about him."

"It's..." Miriallia trailed off and swallowed hard. "I wish I could put it into words. He's everything I could ever want, and I can't bear the thought of a world without him... but... I'm worried about the same things your parents are, Lyn. Straight facts are, barring fatal accident, I'm going to die well before Dearka. And I know what that would do to him. I don't want him to hurt like that. Two years without a family was too hard on him already..."

Lyn was silent for a long time. "I didn't want to bring this up, both because its way too personal and because I really don't want to be cruel, but if that's the sort of thing you're worrying about, you need to know this. Dearka is, like my sisters and I, a second generation Coordinator. And second generation Coordinators have, for a still unknown reason..."

"A twenty percent chance of being unable to reproduce." Miriallia interrupted. "Dearka already told me, way back in Switzerland. I know. All my friends know. I felt it wasn't something we wanted suddenly popping up later on in a relationship. None of us were intimate at the time, though Cagalli and Athrun were toeing the line, but still... it's extremely sobering and uncomfortable. Dearka said that your father is working primarily on fixing that... problem, right?"

"Night and day, so much that Kam and I have to drag him out of the lab sometimes so he doesn't collapse from exhaustion. He's obsessed about it. The only things that pry him away on his own volition are Supreme Council meetings, emergency war meetings, and major events, like Dearka coming home." Lyn replied slowly. She was glad Dearka had found the balls to tell Miriallia about that sticky issue, which NOBODY in the PLANTS liked to think about... but there were things Dearka didn't know, since he hadn't talked with his family in years. And there wasn't going to be any easy way of telling Miriallia, beyond harsh truth.

"Well, there are worse things to be obsessed about." Mir smiled slightly, though her smile faltered when she saw Lyn looking at her. "Um, I didn't mean to offend you by that..."

"No, you're entirely right. I was daddy's secretary during the incident with GENESIS. I met Patrick Zala. Fixing a widespread genetic problem is a VERY good thing to devote your life too." Lyn replied. "But dad isn't motivated by altruism. His motivation is entirely... personal."

"I don't quite get what you mean. Mr. Elsman seems like the sort of person that money and status really doesn't mean anything to, especially considering the finances Dearka told me about."

"There's no easy way to say this, Miriallia." Lyn frowned. "You're not stupid, despite what Mari thinks. Let me say it this way. You don't need to waste any money buying condoms as long as you're with Dearka, okay?"

"... What?" Miriallia asked, faintly, her mind shocked into confusion.

"For that matter, neither does Kam, Adelle, myself or Mari, in whatever relationships we have or may have." Lyn turned her face away, not wanting to see the stricken expression on Miriallia's face any more than she had to. "We're all part of that twenty percent. Unless dad and Kam and Adelle and their research group hit a sudden breakthrough, which has eluded our best medical scientists for most of forty years now, we're the last generation of the Elsmans. That's why dad is so obsessed with finding out a way to fix the problem."

"Does... Dearka know about this?" Miriallia asked, trying to sort out her whirlwind of emotions. Children weren't something she was worried about short term... but she did want a family SOMETIME in her life. Who didn't?

"I'd imagine not. Dad only started doing the comprehensive testing on our repro cultures after Dearka joined the military. And though he was... and still is... furious at Dearka, no parent worth the name is going to call up their insecure, teenage son, who's risking his life on a daily basis for not only the future of his country, but his own future as well, and tell them that they might as well castrate themselves, for all the difference it was going to make to the gene pool. I don't think the military would have let him if he'd tried... people commit suicide over news a LOT less jarring than that, especially when they're sixteen and seventeen. Mari doesn't know either, and she'd better not find out from you or I can garuntee that you'll never be welcome in this family."

"I wouldn't do that to her." Miriallia retorted, offended that Lyn could even think she'd do something like that to a fourteen year old girl.

"People say funny things when they're angry. It makes us all wince whenever Mari talks about "Nulls", unknowingly including the rest of us in that category. It'd tear her apart if she knew. I don't know how we're going to break it to her." Lyn shook her head. "I imagine you'll be telling Dearka. Thanks in advance... I wasn't looking forward to dad and mom trying to tell him."

"Um... yes." Miriallia looked at her sack of strawberries with a numb expression. "Uh... do you mind if I...?"

"The sooner the better. Should I tell mom not to expect you two for dinner?"

"That... that would be... prudent, I think." Miriallia replied. She turned to go, before a sudden thought struck her like a hammerblow. "Um... I don't suppose you know... about any of his friends? Ysak, Athrun... Lacus?"

"Dad hasn't mentioned anything." Lyn answered. "And it's really none of your business. They can mail a sample to my father's lab if they want to know. He'll be able to tell them about a month later."

"Okay. Thanks, Lyn. I know it has to be hard, telling me, someone you hardly know, something like that. You have my word, I won't tell anyone but Dearka."

"Get on with you." Lyn smiled, and bent her head to wipe the moisture out of one eye. "The big crybaby is going to need some time... he never was a very strong man."

--

Dearka had forgotten just how much of a stone bitch it was hauling and spreading mulch in the orchards. The decaying organic fertilizer was necessary to keep the soil of the orchards rich enough for the nutrient greedy fruit trees to produce their fruit up to six times faster than similar trees faster than they did on Earth. Like his father had once said, way back when Dearka had just hit puberty and could get the analogy... the mulch was pretty much a sex drug for trees. The image still made him chuckle, even as his back and legs and arms protested from almost eight hours of lifting, carrying, and emptying of eighty pound sacks of the pungent green semi-slush, then using a shovel and rake to spread it evenly around the base of each tree. It had taken him most of the morning to get back into the swing of things, but after lunch he was once again working about as efficiently as he had before he'd run away from home, finishing a tree about every five minutes or so. Orchard duty used to be the bane of his existence, but now he found it relaxing almost. Just straight up physical labor, nothing really to think about, not complex at all. And the bags didn't seem nearly so heavy now.

It was also nice to be able to grab an apple, or pear, or peach or cherry or whatever type of fruit grew on the tree he was working on at the time for a piece of at work reward, whenever he felt like he wanted a short break. He never would have done anything of the sort before... well, not standing in plain view like he was, anyway. His parents took a dim view of pilfering from the crops that were supposed to be harvested... but everyone did it anyway. The stuff was just too good to pass up. He smirked as he remembered the time his father had told everyone they could either be paid to work or eat sparingly from the crop while harvesting, not both... and everyone had immediately just started chowing down on whatever was at hand, now that they didn't have to try and hide their preference anymore. Who cared about minimum wage per hour anyway?

He wasn't the only person working the orchards, but all the other workers were keeping their distance from him. Since they were almost all ZAFT soldiers, Dearka supposed he couldn't blame them... he was, technically, a deserter from ZAFT. No one had yet tried to bring up or press that point... but neither was he included in the banter and camraderie like everyone else was and he frequently caught glimpses out of the corners of his eyes of people glancing at him and whispering to each other. He shrugged and returned to the automated truck to grab another bag of mulch. He could totally understand how they felt. He'd never actually attacked ZAFT forces... that being one of the conditions he and Ysak had made to the Clyne Faction leadership for their help... but he was friends with people that did, and guilt was definitely an associative thing. And it certainly didn't help his image, in their eyes, that he was a "genetic sellout", a Coordinator pursuing a relationship with a Natural. Most Coordinators didn't care who you slept with... love was not a public matter. But some did, and those that did were often members of ZAFT. He'd once been one of them.

As if summoned by his line of thought, Dearka looked up as a ripple of silence and even a few catcalls passed through the orchard, headed towards him. It didn't take him long to see Miriallia headed towards him at a steady trot, an extremely determined and firm expression on her face. She had something she considered serious to discuss then. He was stumped as to what, and he just hoped his family hadn't gone and ganged up on her while he was away. He'd tried to make it clear to his family that he wasn't going to stand for them trying to belittle and drive Mir away because she was a Natural, that if it came down to it he was on HER side, not theirs, but he wasn't sure they really believed him. And despite Mir's assurances that she was fine, that she could handle whatever prejudice his family could dish out, he was still worried... his family, especially his parents, were experts at verbally disassembling people and making them feel insignificant. And Mir did have her weak spots... the guy named Tolle for instance. The ZAFT soldiers certainly weren't making things easy on her... they didn't step into her path, but neither did they step out of it, forcing her to weave around themwhile they frowned and muttered and gave her the evil eye. It was a good thing Mir wasn't Cagalli or Katie... there'd already be blood on the ground if she was like them, he was sure.

"So, what's up? Little early, aren't you? Did you miss me so much?" He asked, as lightly as he could manage, hoping he could perhaps defuse a possible public meltdown with a little humor. He was pretty good at that, or so he liked to think. Course, very few people appreciated it... Ysak and Athrun sure didn't, most times, and Kira would laugh at jokes you found on the underside of bottlecaps, so he didn't count. But he could generally get at least a chuckle or two from Katie or Mir, and sometimes from Cagalli and Lacus, though they were harder, especially Lacus, who had a sense of humor cleaner than his by magnitudes.

"We need to talk." Miriallia's tone gave no room for excuses.

"I figured as much. Was it something someone said?" Dearka swallowed, wondering what he was going to do now... he'd actually been having a not so bad time for the last weeks, reconnecting with his family. He'd left a insecure and angry boy and he felt he'd come back as a man, and it was incredible how differently he saw things now... all the little facets of life he'd been too self centered to see before. Like how late his mom always stayed up, waiting, often in vain, for his dad to come home from the office. How his dad, whenever he did come home, was often sullen and uncommunicative, or else nearly boisterous and giddy, depending on his research results of the day... he'd never realized just how much his dad's work MATTERED to him. Or how, despite his suspicions, his sisters really DIDN'T spend every waking moment planning new ways to torment him, that actually, in a lot of cases, they took the heat from his parents in his place. He really didn't want to have to spark an angry confrontation with them now that he actually appreciated them... but he'd blow up like an Earthshaker shell if he had to, if they'd hurt Mir's feelings badly. He wasn't afraid to confront his parents and call out "bullshit" when he saw it anymore either.

"Yes, but not like you're thinking." Miriallia replied curtly. She looked around, as if noticing the other Coordinators in the orchard for the first time. She cleared her throat. "I need to talk to Dearka. Do you all mind at least leaving hearing distance?"

"Don't see as to why we should be too considerate of what you want, Natural. You guys won't leave us in peace, why should we be so courteous back?" One of the nearer soldiers replied contemptuously. "In fact, we should probably hang around, just in case you've been spying. I wouldn't put it past you and... him." The soldier nodded his head at Dearka.

"I'm not a spy." Miriallia returned, her voice as gentle as she could manage. "I need to talk to him about a delicate personal matter. Is it so hard for you to extend us just a little bit of privacy? I don't deny that Naturals have done terrible things to Coordinators... but I HAVEN'T, okay? I HAPPEN to LIKE Coordinators, as you MIGHT be able to figure out? Hmm, Mr. Smartypants ZAFT soldier? Maybe the image of ZAFT I've gotten... that you're all brash and jaunty on the battlefield, but kind and considerate off it... is that wrong? I thought you were supposed to be BETTER than Naturals? Is it really going to hurt you so much to give us fifteen minutes of verbal privacy for me to catch my breath after I ran almost three kilometers to get here?"

"Well..." The soldier, suddenly singled out by the barrage of questions, looked around nervously. He couldn't have been more than nineteen, and he was one of the older soldiers in the orchard.

"Are you that afraid of me?" Miriallia asked. "I don't even know how to use a gun or a knife. I'm a CIC technician. I'm a seventeen year old girl... am I really THAT big a threat to you? I'm not asking you to go away entirely... just to move further away until Dearka and I can leave. I don't care if you listen, really, but I don't want to embarass a group of strangers, and I really don't want to embarass Dearka, okay? Please?"

"Uhm... do I need to hop out and buy a ring or something?" Dearka asked queasily. Miriallia thumped him on the chest... HARD. Not playfully at all... she'd practically punched him in the ribs. Had he hit a nerve? She sure had. "Ow?"

"Oh screw it, Rich... I don't think this is going to be a subversive conversation. Besides, she's right. How am I supposed to sleep at night, with freaking non-combatant Natural girls accusing me of bullying them?" Another soldier spoke up. "And she did say please." There was a general murmur of somewhat embarassed agreement. It was kind of ridiculous, now that they thought about it. It didn't hurt that she really wasn't THAT bad looking, either. And she was being polite. And whatever their opinion of Dearka Elsman, he was the only redcoat, former or otherwise, in the orchard. And it was HIS land, in a way. The ZAFT soldiers drifted away in ones and twos, trying to make it at least LOOK like they hadn't been collectively shamed by a seventeen year old Natural girl.

"That actually hurt, you know." Dearka commented, as soon as he was certain the soldiers were out of earshot. Before he could say more, Mir had thrown her arms around him and was glomping him as hard as she ever had, which totally caught him off guard. Mir wasn't much of one for public displays of affection beyond the holding of hands or arm around the shoulders stage. He could feel her heart beating, and it was definitely beating in an agitated fashion. He slowly put his arms around her as well. "It's okay though, because this feels really good." He looked down at the top of her head, since she was burying her face in his shoulder. She was really distraught by something... but she'd said it wasn't because of his family. Or not because of something hurtful they'd said. "Seriously... do I need to go out and start making some doctor appointments?" Dearka asked, his stomach doing some loops at what he assumed was the issue. Damn it, he'd been SURE he and Mir had been careful, and with modern contraceptives accidental pregnacy was supposed to be IMPOSSIBLE. He was shocked when he heard and felt her start crying a bit, and she squeezed him so tightly he couldn't breathe for a moment. "Mir?"

"Don't say things like that. It's making this hurt worse." Mir mumbled into his shirt.

"Mir... tell me. Are you preg..." Dearka started to ask the dreaded question of any younger than entirely legal boyfriend. Before he could finish Mir suddenly pushed forward unexpectedly and slammed his back into the tree behind him. "Owww..."

"Shut up, please." Mir ordered, her voice quavering and the tears streaming more freely. "It's hard enough trying to talk when you keep twisting the knife."

"So you ar..." Dearka trailed off when she turned her face up to glare at him.

"No. No, I'm not, Dearka." Miriallia choked back a small breakdown. "I'm... I'm afraid... that's not going to be... an issue for us..."

"Wait... what the HELL do you mean?" Dearka demanded. "Not an issue!? What are you trying to SAY!?"

"One in five, Dearka, like you said in Switzerland." Mir sobbed. "One in five."

Dearka felt like the entire world just dropped out from under him. "But... but there's no way of knowing... that..."

"If anyone would know... it would be your family, wouldn't it?" Mir retorted, her face in his shoulder again. "It's not just you, either. It's your sisters as well. All of them."

"That... THAT'S NOT TRUE!" Dearka protested, shaking his head. "That CAN'T BE TRUE!"

"Lyn doesn't... strike me as a liar..." Mir replied softly. "And if she wanted to hurt us... why would she admit it about herself and your other sisters too? Mari doesn't know yet, and shouldn't know yet, I believe."

"But... but why didn't... why didn't they SAY something?" Dearka asked, his heart feeling like it was clenched by a giant fist. "Why did they tell you, and not me? Why did they have to make it hurt you too?"

"Because your father only found out AFTER you joined the military. You can still barely talk civilly with him... how was HE supposed to tell you? How were ANY of them supposed to tell you?"

"Well... but..." Dearka tightened his arms around her even more. "But why did they have to involve you, Mir? Bad enough to... for ME to know that... that... why take the hope away from you so soon?" Mir felt water dripping onto the top of her head. "I know it's not something we're planning for right now..." Dearka sniffed awkwardly. "... But we were planning on it, weren't we? It was supposed to happen... eventually, right?"

"Yes." Mir answered. "Yes it was. Eventually."

"Then I don't see how I can forgive my family for dragging you into this like this." Dearka said slowly. "It's better to have false hope than NO hope. It was cruel of Lyn to tell you this about me. She SHOULD have told me, no matter how hard it was." He could feel his hands clenching into fists entirely beyond his ability to stop.

"No." Mir's refutation stopped him cold. "No... it was the right thing for her to do, I think. Maybe she was being cruel... but it wasn't to me. This issue is tearing at the heart of every person in your family who knows about it. Your father is practically killing himself to find a "cure", as are your two oldest sisters. Your mother is hurting because of what your father is doing. Lyn is hurting because she's the one who has to be cheerful for everyone else. It had to cut her heart like a knife to tell me, a Natural that your family doesn't approve of, of this issue. She was trying to INCLUDE me in the family, Dearka, even if she doesn't realize it. This is an Elsman family problem, and now its my problem as well. It hurts... but I feel almost honored, really."

"Still..."

"No, there is no still." Miriallia spoke more firmly, her eyes starting to dry. "I told your family I wanted honesty... and boy, did they give it to me. I promised myself... and you... that no matter what happened, I wouldn't falter. And I won't. It hurts... but no worse, certainly, than the thought of us dying in the next battle. And I've been dealing with that for months now. If anything, it gives me just that much more motivation to see things through to the proper end. Who knows... once this stupid fucking war is over, maybe we can put the kind of funding into your dad's research that will make a difference. We've both got a good long while ahead of us, Dearka. I'm not going to give up hope even if there isn't CURRENTLY any hope. I think we both have some experience with finding that something we thought was impossible was quite possible after all, looking back."

"I don't deserve you." Dearka mumbled. "You're much too good for the Elsman family." He slowly slid down the tree until he and Mir were sitting on the ground together.

"Well... I can get up and leave..."

"You can try, but there really ISN'T any hope there." Dearka retorted fondly, blinking his own eyes dryer. "I may not be the smartest Coordinator out there, but I know when I've struck gold. And I'm a really greedy bastard when it comes to gold."

"I told Lyn to tell your parents we wouldn't be back for dinner." Mir said quietly. "No doubt when Lyn tells them what she told me, they'll expect us to be basket cases tonight."

"Baskets are good." Dearka unclenched his fists and started putting his hands to better use. He'd daydreamed about seeing Mir in a sunhat, shorts and short sleeves on the first day here, but hadn't got to see it until now. Sweaty, slightly sunburned, smudged with dirt and plant sap... God, but she was a lovely vision. "I prefer beds, but baskets will do in a pinch."

"We have an audience." Mir squirmed in his lap.

"Oh, I hope so." Dearka leaned down and kissed her lips. "Mmm... strawberries good..."

"I was... actually thinking... of showing up... and surprising them..." Miriallia gasped when he let her lips go.

"Dinner's not till six. It's barely ten past four. And you know what we're sitting on?"

"Mulch? Decaying vegetation? What's that got to do with anything?"

"You know what my dad calls mulch? Sex enhancers, but for trees. It certainly can't HURT matters."

"You aren't a tree. And that was a very crude image. You should be ashamed. I can't believe you just made a JOKE about it, when you were in tears not minutes ago!"

"Not only am I greedy, I'm insensitive, especially about things I can't change. You know that better than most. As for being a tree... well, maybe not an oak... but..."

"Get over yourself already, geez." Miriallia grimace-grinned and rolled her eyes. "Maybe a bonsai, if you use the right kind of magnification."

"I think I'm going to cry again."

"Me too. But it's okay. We'll get through it. We'll make it work, somehow. That's what we do."

"Yeah. That's what we do alright."