Diclaimer: I do not ownGS/GSD. R&R Please.

Chapter 2

"Cagalli!" he called urgently, poking his head in the path of the doorway where he knew she could see him, "Phone call from Lacus!"

All Athrun heard was some dreadful gurgling from the bathroom and he sighed and spoke directly into the mouthpiece where he knew the songstress was giggling like a young child even though she was going to be a mother after being married to his best friend for about a year.

"I'll get her to call you back once she's done with her bath," Athrun said wryly, and Lacus laughed again, a pleasant tinkling sound that made him think of bells and tambourines, and then the line was cut without further ado.

He noticed the apples she had cut for him and left at the table. Brown already, he thought ruefully, oxidation was swift to occur and he had been distracted by the mails his secretary had sent over to him. She obviously didn't care if he was on his honeymoon, work was piling up and he would have to saddle both his work and his wife at one shot. And Cagalli was someone he would prefer to spend all his time on rather than halving the time and giving her only half when she deserved all.

"Cagalli," he called, his voice sonorous over the disruptive noise of the water and her abysmal singing, "Are you coming out soon?"

"What?" she was screeching now, pausing her shower-singing which he didn't mind but wouldn't want to record and play as music in his car, "Can't hear anything. Repear what you said?"

"I said, are you coming out soon?" he repeated loudly, wondering hwy one earth she didn't bother turning off the tap so he could be heard better.

"Oh," she was saying very loudly but just enough to let her voice loom over the noise the water was making as she rinsed, "I am! But then you've finished your shower already, so it won't matter even if I don't come out until the era's over and done with!"

And Athrun didn't bother trying to speak to her while she took her bath, it was like getting a donkey to resist carrots arranged tantalisingly in front of its very nose, quite hopeless really. But he didn't mind her lack of focus and attention while she showered, in fact, he didn't mind anything at all, and he was suddenly aware that a silly grin had somehow stretched itself over his face and he could do nothing to remove it from being plastered to his features like a leech.

It had been pure coincidence that the room they had checked into was really two rooms, and the hotel staff had been so desperate to make them stay that they had charged him as if it had been one room. Celebrity and its perks, he thought ruefully, it was insane how the world was interested in Cagalli and him like they were all part of the family or something ridiculous like that.

He had been overjoyed when she had agreed to marry him the night when he had made a last-ditch attempt to make her admit she loved him even while the world was ready to pounce on him because he was the key suspect for the ORB-Zala incident a year ago when the beach both of them had been on had been under fire for a misplaced and mistimed explosion.

"I even got my name linked to it," he said aloud in his disgust. There had been investigations, one after another at the time when Cagalli's eyes had been almost sewn shut, and he had been desperate to call her bluff when she had pushed him away and told him to leave her alone. Funny how the wars that he had blown his mobile weapons up in had no link to his name whatsoever. He hadn't wanted to fight in the Second War, but then he had too much to clear up with his dead father's presence lingering all around, and the piloting itself had dragged him into it. Athrun Zala was an ace-pilot for no better reason than the fact that he loved the piloting itself.

So he had a sort of instinctive need to scowl when he heard of the ORB-Zala incident, he had almost had to gamble everything away to win her. But he had succeeded and she was his now. Nobody would take her away, horrid tuneless singing and all that, he thought affectionately as the door of the shower in the conjoined room opened and she sailed out while drying her damp, blonde hair which had curled slightly at its ends.

"You're out," he observed quite needlessly, and she grinned and strode over from her room into his and arranged herself on the edge of his bed. He had finished his bath much earlier even though they had started bathing at the same time; she took her own sweet time in showering whereas he was swift to finish up.

"It's a blessing they gave us two rooms," she noted thoughtfully, "Makes it easier since we don't have to fight for the order of who gets a bath first."

"True," he agreed, stretching slightly and helping himself to a slice of apple, "And the door's good if I don't want to be distracted from work by your shower performances."

She mock-glared at him but gave up and snorted, it didn't bother her that Athrun thought her singing was horrid, that was part of the fun, wasn't it?

"Who called?" she asked curiously, standing up to fetch her slippers and wrapping her towel around her neck as she would a scarf.

And Athrun snorted, wondering if she honestly couldn't hear anything from the bathroom or preferred to not listen because she didn't want her bath to be disrupted by anything.

"Lacus," he answered promptly, "She told me to get you to call her, so you go ahead and I'll finish up the work and we can have the rest of the day to ourselves."

Cagalli looked at the plate of apples and frowned a little. They had browned, so he had been busy before that, and she clucked sympathetically at him and moved languidly to the telephone and dialled a number she had memorised by heart.

"I want to speak to Lacus please," she said clearly, seeing Athrun smile from the corner of his eye as he bent over to type his work out. They didn't give him any peace, but then neither did her office, she thought morosely, she'd be a saint if she said she didn't mind either of them having work to do while on honeymoon, but being chairman of a country and important security organisation respectively meant some things came with work attached.

"Wait," her brother was saying amusedly, knowing better than to ask about why she was calling, and Cagalli tapped her fingers against the wood of the desk patiently, glancing over at Athrun and seeing that he was already immersed in his work.

A second later, Lacus was saying brightly, "How's the honeymoon?"

"How's the honeymoon?" she repeated dumbly, "You mean you made me give an expensive long-distance call from Berlin to PLANT just to ask me that?"

A giggle was heard from the other end and Cagalli snorted.

"You might as well make use of the phone call you've already made, which I'm sure the hotel will pay for as a complimentary gift even you don't request for it," Lacus was cajoling merrily, "Answe my question and tell me now, won't you?"

"Good enough," Cagalli managed to say even thought she was tempted to shout down the line, "Bloody brilliant!" and Lacus was clucking her tongue and saying testily, "Just like that? Good enough? No expletives, nothing?"

"You know what I mean," she retorted, fighting to keep the blush from conquering her cheeks, "And how's the baby?"

She was aware Athrun was standing up in a graceful and fluid motion, and then he put down his pen and in an instant, was circling his arms around her but she ignored him and pointedly listened to Lacus saying sweetly, "Kira says Leon kicked, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Kira's lying. I didn't feel it at all, but Kira says he heard the baby kick."

"Then he's lying," Cagalli asserted confidently, arching her neck the opposite direction from Athrun's lips because she didn't want to get distracted while she was trying to milk the money she was spending on the call for all she could, "I've never heard of people who can hear babies kick, I only heard of people who felt babies kick. There's a difference, you know. And besides, if you didn't feel anything, what's it with Kira to say he did?"

"Precisely," Lacus was chuckling, "But he swears he did. In any case, I keep trying to put music on the record for the baby to listen to, the doctors say it's splendid for development and training the baby to be musical and all that. Kira agreed and he said he'd put the recods on the second I fell asleep, but the tapes he got were full of his assistant's voices, droning on and on for his sake and all that."

Cagalli briefly noted that she was finding it a chore to breathe with Athrun's arms winding around her tightly and she managed to regain her composure and say steadily into the phone, "Assistant's voice? You mean he recorded his colleague's voices for the baby to listen to?"

"Yes," Lacus said mirthlessly, "He got them to recite equations and names of some engineering device I was clueless about. And he had the cheek to make sure I was asleep before he played it throughout the whole night so I wouldn't know that Leon was listening to mathematical equations and not Mozart. Kira says we could settle on an agreement and go for Prokhoviev since the composer used Mathematics to compose music, but I'm not too fond of the jarring chords and everything."

She managed to laugh at what Lacus was saying even though she was trembling involuntarily and trying to sound like she was holding a normal conversation without Athrun distracting her, and she tried to glare at him silently while Lacus chattered on and on even though Cagalli wanted to respond to him instead of keeping Lacus entertained.

"Ah the baby kicked me!" Lacus was saying in surprise at the other end.

"That's wonderful," Cagalli tried to say nervously while half of her lips were being tugged by his own in a strange kiss, "Is it painful?"

"I don't know," Lacus responded in an airy voice, "It's queer, more a sensation than anything else, but it's not painful."

"Good," she said in relief, not because Lacus wasn't in pain, but because Athrun had decided to leave her lips alone for a rare moment, "Make sure you get the doctor's advice every single month, and keep me informed of everything."

"Say you have to go now," he was whispering, and she shivered as his breath tickled her ear mercilessly, and she pushed him roughly, but not excessively and said desperately, "And eat well, you need to get the baby healthy."

He had came back and had attached himself, limpet-like to her, and he was tormenting her even more than ever and she fought to keep her control as Lacus laughed sweetly at the other end and replied mildly, "I will, you know I will. At least Kira will force me too."

"He will," she gasped, trying to shake away the tingle of heat as he kissed her neck, damn him, "And-and,"

"Are you alright?" Lacus was asking concernedly, "You sound like you're a little out of breath, are you ill or something?"

"No," she stammered, trying to struggle free form his arms but failing entirely, "Just felt like sneezing," and then she gasped as he plucked the phone away and kissed her while she muffled into the phone, "Honestly, I don't know what's coming over me."

"Poor dear," Lacus murmured very sympathetically, bless that girl, "You have to even bother with tissues while you're speaking to me. I can hear the muffled voice and the nasal sounds, don't worry, it doesn't sound too serious. Just rest well and don't get too near to Athrun too much, he'll get the bug too."

"Heard that?" she mouthed furiously at him while trying to tug his hands away from her, and then she said aloud, cursing the lies she was telling to her best friend, "I'll do as you say, Lacus, and-,"

"And?" Lacus prompted, but Cagalli couldn't answer because he was fiddling with the string around her neck and taking his own sweet time to tickle the fine hairs of her neck with his warm breath, and she choked terribly and half-shouted down the phone in her haste, "I've got to go now, see you, see you take care, bye!"

And she slammed down the phone without waiting for Lacus' reply, her face as red as a lobster and she spun as best as she could while still being locked in his arms. Then Cagalli tried to put her hands on her hips in an effort to look intimidating, but she failed because his hips were joined to hers in the embrace, and then she hissed angrily, "You have the cheek to do that while I'm talking to Lacus!"

"I do," he echoed bemusedly, noting her terribly flushed cheeks and the way she was struggling against him but only half-heartedly.

"And you dare admit it like that," she ranted, her eyes narrow slits and her chin obstinately forward.

"I just did," Athrun pressed on carelessly, playing with the shell tied securely around her lovely neck, and ignoring the look on her face that suggested she was going to blow up.

"You did it just to make me pissed, didn't you?" she cried, attempting to get out of his way and promptly moving away from him and the desk the telephone had been placed on, but then Athrun clucked his tongue and shook his head slightly, pulling her along and capturing her again and caressing her cheek lazily.

"Go on, admite it," she hissed, irritated beyond doubt, "You jut wanted to have your bit of fun and make Lacus think that I was insane, didn't you, Athrun Zala?"

He grunted noncommittally because it was true and also because he had buried his face near her neck and was breathing in her exquisite scent, and she sighed resignedly and shoved him away slightly, then she moved swiftly to the clothes rack and pulled a scarf from it.

"Where are you going?" he questioned briefly, leaning against the desk and idly arranging his completed paperwork and shutting it securely.

Cagalli turned and looked at him, titling her head lightly and grinning, then she chuckled, "You had plans to go out, didn't you? Why am I the one who has to remind you of those now?"

"Ah, those," he said distractedly, watching her spin back to face a mirror and to tie her scarf around her neck, "I guess we can go now then."

Then he watched her sigh in resignation and she tugged the scarf around tighter and wind it a double time around her neck.

"Why are you trying it so tightly," he asked in amusement, although inside, he knew exactly why she was doing exactly what she did but he still pressed on persistently, trying to test the waters.

Snorting, she finished up the arranging of the woollen strip and fetched his scarf.proceeding to throw it over to him across the room, and she stated in a matter-of-factly tone, "In case you didn't notice, my neck has marks the size of tattoos because of you."

"I see," he said noncommittally and his lips twitched, but she saw him doing that and scowled, then she launched herself at him, but he caught her and said softly, his green eyes suddenly pools of liquid emerald, "Feisty aren't we?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she cried crossly, "Let's just get out of here now before I get a knife and stab you or something because you're being such an insufferable donkey!"

But her words were empty threats and he pulled her to him and kissed her fiercely, thanking everything that had allowed him to win Cagalli Yula Atha, the last member of the Atha House over to his side. He would keep her there now, she wouldn't be allowed to go and leave him behind anymore.

So they spent the rest of the day wandering around town and keeping an eye out for snow, but the temperatures, while low, weren't exactly sub-zero that would allow snow to fall. Athrun wasn't fond of snow in particular, he preferred autumn because the colours were more stunning that anything in other season, but then Cagalli had bet with him that it wouldn't snow just for the heck of it and he had offered high stakes if he lost the bet. But that was because she had offered high stakes he was keen on winning in the first place, and he was desperate for snow to fall.

They had been discussing how their weekends would be spent after the honeymoon, and although she was prepared to give only Sundays to him and Saturdays for the Cabinet, he wasn't. And they hadn't been able to reach a resolution at all, but then Cagalli had been so frustrated that he had bet with her that if it snowed, she would have to agree to follow what he said.And she had a better chance of winning in reality, he thought wryly, he had checked the forecast and snow wasn't on the agenda. But that ddn't mean he couldn't keep his hopes up.

But it remained stubbornly cold and with no snow at all, not even a miserable snowflake he had been prepared to use as proof that he had won the wager.

Cagalli was leaning against the old, weathered wood of the stiles very causally, and she closed her eyes and lifted them slowly to the grey wintry skies. He stood at her side silently, unwilling to lean in the unconcerned, causal manner as she did. The other comrades had once teased Athrun for carrying himself too seriously even in ZAFT, a volunteer army where the protocol was less strict than expected, but they hadn't understood that Athrun had been that way since he had seen his mother die with the rest of Junius Seven. But Cagalli did, and she never blamed him or said anything, and he was grateful for that. He didn't need to say anything to tell her that though, words were unnecessary, more a hindrance than help, and she never needed words to tell him she accepted him fro who he was.

"I suppose Leon will have brown hair like Kira's," she said softly, almost like an after-thought, but he caught it well while they stood somewhere as part of a perimeter around the empty field of grass, the cold wind blowing slightly and not a single flock of cattle in sight.

'What the hell were they doing here when even all the cattle were all in their own warm homes?' he thought dryly, but he didn't mind that they had bothered to venture to a place where she could be at peace with nobody to be near her but him.

"What else did you expect?" he said aloud and very amusedly, "I recall Lacus having pink hair only because of a genetic modification, nobody in the Clyne House had pink hair, and your mother had brown hair that was passed onto Kira wasn't it? Obviously that gene's more dominant and will be where the child is concerned. It'd be terrible if the boy had pink hair, I can't imagine the other children thinking it as a start of a trend they'd want to follow even in PLANT where olive-coloured hair is surprisingly common. "

"Yes," she said, half in assent, but the other half was still lost in thought, "I didn't know my hair came from Ulen Hibiki though, I thought it came from my father's past lover although I never realised that they hadn't even married until I was fourteen."

"You mean you thought another person was your mother and you never suspected she wasn't?" Athrun questioned curiously, moving closer and staring at her beautiful face, its features softened by memories and a bit of pain that she failed to conceal without leaving a trace of bitterness in her eyes.

She nodded slightly, not bothering to move nearer to him for comfort, believing that the old wounds were already healed by his very presence. She didn't want him to move nearer either, she was afraid she would drop her facade and start bawling uncontrollably. Cagalli had been homeschooled not just because her safety was important with her status as the heir of the Atha House. Kisaka had helped her father make that decision when she had came home one day, dirty and muddied from fighting with some classmates who had jeered and taunted that she was not really Uzumi Nara Athat's child. The bruises and ruined clothes hadn't affected their decision, but it had been her hot, angry tears although she tried to hide them even when she was five.

Looking down at her feet, she continued softly, "I found a picture of a very pretty blond woman with my father, taken quite a long time ago I suppose, when I was rifling through his things when I was a child, and I thought my mother had died and I couldn't remember when or how she had, but I didn't dare ask. My father never brought anyone else back, so I didn't see a need- to question him. But then when I was fourteen, I decided that I had a right to know what was what, I asked Kisaka about her and he said she had left my father when he had became the Supreme Commander of ORB, and that I wasn't her child nor his either."

"Oh," he said quietly, and Athrun saw that her eyes had dimmed a little with tears she was trying to suppress, and he pulled her over to him, smiling slightly when he head Cagalli mutter, "It's nothing, just some dust in my eye. Nothing to worry about at all. You know I'm not affected by things like that, it won't make me affected."

"I know," he repeated, mutely absorbing her warmth and feeling an intense love and some agony rise in his chest which he welcomed as obligingly as the arms that had hesitantly wound themselves around his back, "I know it's nothing to worry about. You're strong; I know that, you won't be hurt easily because you're strong."

And Athrun wielded her to him and murmured nonsense that was borne out of his need to protect her, then she was still and her embrace was tight while they stood there, isolated from the rest of the world, victims of their own circumstances while the heavens watched silently.

She buried her face in his chest, marvelling at the feeling of soft flesh encasing the firm muscles and let him stroke her head gently while she choked back, "I am."

And the first snow of the winter began to fall from above.