I don't own GS/GSD. R&R please.

Chapter 12

The sunlight filtered into the airy room, but it was shut out by the curtains that flapped only slightly in the breeze. The room, he had told her previously, had been his when he was a child. But the spacious four-poster must have seemed like a continent to him then, she had thought, it was large now even for two adults, for a mere child, it must have been strangely enormous. But his room was furnished in a sort of masculine way she didn't suppose a child would have requested for, no hanging models of planes or toy cars or anything of that sort, a few books here and there, yes, but mostly an expanse of airy space. There was a large oak wardrobe that they had haphazardly thrown their belongings in last night, then the walls were white with rich, satine-grey drapes that blocked almost all light out. All except the single shard that poked itself at her eyes.

And Cagalli woke with a start, entwined softly in his arms, and she almost screeched in a panic, "Get up! You're late!"

But then she remembered that they were on a sort of impromptu holiday where nobody, not even ZAFT and the Council, would get to them. Then she blinked unsurely and held a hand to block out the faint, golden sunlight that was kissing her face, and she looked over at Athrun, slumbering peacefully.

'Well obviously,' she thought dryly, she was sleeping in such a way that the sunlight would only reach her.

Then she paused and looked carefully at him. Cagalli was the kind who slept in strange ways, she would toss and turn and flip the bankets around during the entire stretch of night, and she needed a bolster or an extra pillow, something next to her that she would periodically graps and hug in a stranglehold, but then when morning came, it would be lying, forgotten, at her side. It wasn't as if she didn't need it, she did, she required it dreadfully and couldn't sleep without it next to her, but then, she didn't need it for contact, she just needed it there beside her. When the bolster had been inevitably replaced with a living person, she had found it terribly difficult. When she tossed, she would become entangled in limbs that didn't belong to herself, and that frustrated her and so she would kick vehemently.

Athrun wasn't spared any woes either. Granted, he was a light sleeper already, not by choice, war had forced him to be on the alert, slightly paranoid even, although he didn't particularly notice this trait reappearing, it had been there for far too long. He slept on his side, he could bear no other way of rest. When he had shared a bed with her, he had ended up having his hours of sleep shortened by the abrupt awakenings she forced upon him. She didn't snore, thank heavens she didn't, he could bear no noise when he rested, but then he had woken up in the morning, significantly sore and significantly bruised. It seemed that Cagalli kicked and punched alot in her sleep. He hadn't confronted her about this, he had merely looked at her serenly in the morning and let her stare, bewildered at the brusies he had sustained. But he always assured her that he had bumped into something when he was careless at work. So this continued until he found a solution to avoid the problems that inevitably rose when he shared a bed with Cagalli.

There was once when he had been determined to see exactly what she got up to in her sleep, so he had stayed awake, under the pretense of sleeping, just to observe her. Then in the midle of the night, she had started tossing and turning and making a mess of the covers he had carefully spread over them hours before, and then he had watched, trying hard not to laugh as she sprawled herself all over, cautiously avoiding her limbs when she stretched haphazardly. And Athrun had taken quite somet time to get used to sharing a bed with her, he had simply learnt that to sleep, he had to bind her in his arms throughout the night.

And gradually, Cagalli had gotten used to hugging something that hugged her back and lay, not motionless, but breathing steadily, by her side.

Now she looked at him, and a smile spread itself softly like butterfly wings on her lips. His eyelashes were exceptionally long for a man's, they rested on his cheekbones very delicately, giving him a sort of gentlenss she wouldn't have imagined him possesing if she hadn't been at the receiving end of his kind ways. Athrun wasn't a devious person, he had a cunning side, but then he was sincere and his brilliant wits made him seem cunning when he held nothing back in a bid to fight for something. And Athrun was quiet and mild by nature, he only reacted strongly to certain things that meant the world to him, and with a pang, she looked at him, sleeping silently, and realised that she was one of them.

She wanted to stroke his cheek, but her arms were locked under his, and her face was nearly converging with his chest, due to their inherent height differences, and her heart started accelerating in its rhythm.He was still deep in slumber, his chest rising slightly as he breathed, and somehow, she slowly slid herself out of his grasp with much difficulty; Athrun had long learnt that her tossing habits were curbed only by the strongest lock.Then she breathed heavily at the effort of separating herself from his warm, sleeping form and slid out, getting dressed with as little noise as she could possibly manage.

The house was a thing of beauty, Cagalli thought in wonder, as she slipped around like a little ghost, clad in no slippers but only a snow-coloured dressing gown, fastened at the waist with an ash-coloured cord. Her feet were cold from the marble, but she didn't feel obliged to find a pair of shoes, because strangely, the cold that permeated her soles made her one with her surroundings. Athrun had mentioned last night that the caretakers came in once every half a year to do a check and cleaning, and its mysterious, slightly classical interior added on to its charm. She caught herself staring at everything that her eyes met as her feet bade her to wander down corridors and hallways that were not lit, no need for that when the sun was lingering just sufficiently to make the hallways glow. Here and there, she encountered some carpets, in good condition and their colours plush, the caretakers had probably discarded the moth-eaten ones some time ago.

And Cagalli paused at a stairway cutting into the floor, and she saw then, that it led almost underground. The tiles laid for the floor were no longer marble, but stone, and feeling deliciously thrilled, she meandered towards it in a sort of dazed pleasure, feeling an abrupt warmth from the tiles that had been heated by the sun's gentle rays.

But as she stepped towards the stairway, she heard footsteps of someone padding swiftly behind her, and Athrun saying hurriedly, "Cagalli!"

By pure instinct, she froze and then she looked up uncertainly, her lips parted slightly. He stood nearby, panting slightly, a robe carelessly thrown over him, and he was barefoot, similar to her. So he had awoken too, Cagalli thought wryly, his hair was slightly mangled and tousled from the night, possibly because of her, he always slept properly, and his eyes were filled with alarm.

"Good morning," she grinned, her hand still on the wall that was joined to the passage downwards.

"Good morning," he replied a bit haplessly, and they stared at each other for a queer moment or two until she chuckled at the random moment they shared. They were standing there, she swathed in white, he clad in a rich wine colour, and they were both barefooted.

"Come here," Athrun ordered hastily, "It's not safe there."

He was jumpy, on the edgy side, he didn't want to see her becoming accident-prone in this sort of situation, not with her carrying a child anyway. But she ignored him, much to his exasperation. And Athrun knew better than to bark orders at her, she wouldn't take kindly to that either, that he knew very well.

She was glancing down apprehensively, but the world below, just below her, seemed to be even more inviting and persuasive, less of a danger than what he seemed to deem it as.

"Why?'" Cagalli laughingly enquired, "You didn't tell me there was a passage under this house!"

But she still crossed over to him, and something in his eyes and the slight inclination of his arms made her feel as if he was waiting to catch her, as if she would slip and fall or do something that would make her break like she was a fragile doll. Terribly puzzled, she moved towards him, and he held her by her shoulders securely and smiled, his smile a little less tense.

"What's the matter?" she ventured curiously, "There isn't some dark, scary secret in this house, is there? Skeletons and coffins and the lot?"

"No," he smilingly replied, "Not at all. Just that I don't want to risk having you fall down."

He laid a hand softly on her where they both sensed there was life, and she suddenly felt embarrassed and his face heated up as well. It was a singularly strange moment, not in nature, but in the very fact that the excitement and anticipation was saturated around them then.

"You're paranoid, you are," she retorted teasingly, ruffling his hair affectionately like the way she might have done for a child, "You're so panicky! I'm not that careless, and I'm not that fragile either!"

"No," he assured her swiftly, "Just being careful."

He guided her down the steps, making sure she held tight to the railings and that he walked before she did.

'As if he were expecting that I'd need to use him to cusion a fall,' Cagalli thought in amusement, but she felt strangely touched and her cheeks burned a little. As they descended, deeper and deeper, the light seemed to fade around them, and for a minute or two, she was actually worried that she wouldn't be able to see him, but his hand was firm upon hers, and the contact itself was comfortingly warm.

"How did you know I woke up?" she asked after a bit, still minding her step as carefully as he did for his own.

"Simple," Athrun replied steadily, bringing her forward, "I've been used to a certain level of warmth you provide, and if my arms don't feel occupied holding yours down, then obviously, I would have awoken. Which proves that this holds truth, it worked today didn't it?"

"Sure," Cagalli grinned, "But I suppose the lack of tossing and turning was more of the determining factor."

True," Athrun agreed, mock-seriously, "And I got up and tried finding you. Not easy, especially in a house this size. But I guessed that you wouldn't have gotten very far, so my suspicions did hold water."

Then she was silent as her eyes were startled by a stronger light. And she gasped in amazement as everything around her was suddenly as clear as pure water to her senses, the rustle of leaves that she was standing on, the light spreading in from everywhere, and the windows that surrounded both of them like courtiers around their queen. The walls were grey, she could make that out at least, but it was with some effort, since the creamy honeysuckle and ivy adorned so much of the four walls that very little else could be seen of the bare walls.

The floor was strewn with creeping plants and some flowering shrubs she couldn't begin to name, and Cagalli stood in wonder, holding his hand, seeing a world she would have never dreamt of seeing even if her imagination was wilder than what she possesed. The room, no, the world she was in wasn't stifling even in all its fertile abundance and crowded greenery, it was airy and somehow charming, enshrouded from eyes even from the surface.

"I suppose you like it," Athrun enquired wryly, noting her stunned expression and bright eyes. She stared at him, in a sort of half-daze, and then she licked her lips and gulped twice, then she asked eagerly, "What's this place?"

He grinned at her barely-contained excitement, realising that she looked somehwat like Souffle with her golden hair and trusting, honest eyes, filled with pleasure and thrilled realisation of the world around her. He gazed around too, and then he offered steadily, "You've seen this place before, it's the room my mother sat in for her portrait to be taken."

Gasping, she promptly let go of his hand and moved around, looking for anything that might remind her of the very place that Lenore Zala had sat in, and then she found, a lonely, solitary chair by a particular window that was almost hidden by leaves. The chair's wood had almost rotted away, it stood, however, steadfast, on three-and-a-half legs, facing the forest it was placed in, a place where someone had sat once, pressing a book to her heart, a life growing in her.. And there was a strange prickling wetness to Cagalli's eyes and she muttered, "Bloody hormones."

Athrun said nothing, coming up from behind her and watching as she laid a slightly unsteady hand on the chair that was bound to the floor by vines, but there was a reassurance in his eyes that made her breathe properly again.

"This place was once a spare room," he told nobody in particular, his eyes had a glazed look, a faraway place filled with thoughts he expressed to nobody, but then she looked at him eagerly, holding onto every word that left his lips.

"It didn't have these plants," Athrun said softly, addressing a sprig of honeysuckle that winked at them from behind a curtain of vines, "My mother brought a few pots in here, I suppose they grew over time when we left for Coppernicus. The caretakers never bothered coming here, there's nothing to clean, really. The plants need little watering; PLANT itself is ideal for their growth because of it's climate."

He laughed ruefully at his point, turning towards her, saying softly, "Not natural, but strange how nature still responds as such."

She swallowed, not sure if any speech on her part would ravage the enigma of the world that lay around them in a singular hemisphere of beauty.

"When my father sent both of us to Coppernicus," Athrun continued mildly, not seeming to notice her, "I don't think he came back here either. He left for Aprilius, his work was there for the majority of the time, and my mother and I, of course we werne'a round either. But she made sure that the plants would survive," he pointed to the ceiling, and Cagalli's eyes shot upwards.

"She had someone comissioned to come in here and cut a tunnel in the stone ceiling for light and rain to move in," he added, his voice laced with a sort of emotion she couldn't begin to identify, "And that must be how they eventually thrived. Those," he said, his green eyes darting towards the side, "were what you could call pioneers."

Cagalli saw then that there were five or slightly more pots, broken at the sides with the vines spreading like thickets. It was impossible to count how many pots there were, they were all too irreparably fragmented to sum up at a single glance, and her tongue was lost, a rare occurence for someone like her.

Then Athrun slipped out of his reverie, and he looked a bit startled, as if she had gone there and shook him herself. Then he ran a hand awkwardly through his hair, as if he had suddenly realised how strange they looked, standing there like an Adam and Eve in a garden, clad in robes with no shoes, nothing else.Then he cleared his throat a little and said dryly, "Sorry about the rambling."

And just like that, she was shaken out of her reverie too, but she was glad and she moved languidly to him as they stood for a while longer, gazing at everything before them.

"Did your mother love the sun?" Cagalli inquired, rubbing her arms nervously.

He smiled gently, "A reason why she named me Athrun was its meaning as 'dawn'."

"Oh," Cagalli said, suddenly understanding, "So that's why she didn't name you after your father."

She had said the wrong thing, his brow suddenly knitted togehter and his eyes darkened from emerald to a forest colour, a bit wintry, and she took a step back from him, involuntarily, frightened at what she had said without thinking. But then he saw that she was frigthened, and his eyes softened and he pulled her nearer to him, apologising softly, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way. Just-"

He sighed a little and she waited in silence.

"Just that it was a decision I had to make in coming back here to this house," he said eventually, looking around, "I missed it too much. My father, I don't think he loved this place as much as my mother did, but even when he descended into madness in the end, I don't think he-"

She smiled knowingly at him, continuing confidently as he trailed off, "It didn't mean he loved both of you any less."

"I was afraid of becoming like him," Athrun said uneasily after a momentary pause, "He only wanted to do what he thought was right, he did everything against his conscience and fooled himself into believing that he owned none. All because he wasn't able to let go of my mother. There were times when I saw him and I could barely approach him, but he always kept a photograph of my mother near him. During the Second War, I- I imagined for a while that I was becoming like him, doing everything I could do and not knowing if it was right, but doing it because I saw no other way. The most ironic thing was that I left you and ORB to set out and try to right the wrongs my father did."

Then he smiled wryly, and asked almost bitterly, "I don't suppose my father made a very good first impression on you when you met him?"

She remembered the way Patrick Zala had been, she had been startled, almsot horrified to hear Athrun calling out desperately, "Father!" as they had flung open the doors and seen a deserted room, filled with computers with nobody to handle them, all but a dying Patrick Zala, choking on his own blood, bullet wounds bored into his flesh. She had never imagined, at sixteen, that she would have encountered so bitter and so pitiful a man, and then in that heady minute, she had looked at the world with different eyes. Athrun to her, he had been everything, she trusted him and she had thought that he was invicible then, he would not falter, and yet, his father had and so had he.

But she had loved Athrun more, she had sensed that he was more human and more humane than anybody else after the tragedy occruing before their very eyes in the first war. And she had given up everything, chased after him as he tried to self-destruct to cease the GENESIS and prevent a tragedy by creating one of his own, and Cagalli had screamed for him to return, to come back and fight the proper fight. But in truth, she didn't care what he did, as long he came back to her. And so she had chased after the Justice then, desperate to make him follow her back where she would be able to hold him with her own two arms.

And Patrick Zala had clutched Athrun's hand when Athrun had reached for him, but his last words had been filled with loathing, vengeance, and in that instant, Cagalli had realised that Patirck Zala was captured in the past, too bitter and too miserable to let go.

"No," Cagalli replied slowly, "He didn't. But I- I think I understood why he did what he did. And Athrun,"

She paused briefly, his eyes locked on hers, amber melding, consummating, into emerald, "I think he loved you more than he loved himself."

Then she looked around for the last time that day and offered, "Let's go. There are enough memories here already."

"Yes," he told her, his eyes determined but infinitely gentle when they gazed at her, "We have our own ones to create."