Disclaimer: As you all know, I don't own GS/GSD.R&R please.
Warning: For those who don't like complications in the plots of fanfics they read, I suggest you stop at the previous chapter, just imagine the ultimate ending, (See Truth's Epilogue) has already been reached. I assure you though, Truth be Told ends on a less despairing note although the next segments, even this one, are going to be bumpy rides for fans of fairytales. I hope you'll enjoy this, nevertheless. I can assure those who continue reading, once again, there is a final, happy ending, mentioned in Truth. To reach there though, I can't assure you that you'll be seeing bunnies and butterflies and flowers by the roadside, heh.
Thank you to the many who PMed me, encouraging me to stick to my guns to reach the end as planned before instead of ending it with the previous chapter, like cara410 and Froggie and Pretz, you all were wonderful!
Chapter 13
The streets were filled with people, perfect for concealment and disguise. Athrun had been reluctant to step out of the hosue at all, he told her, his eyes serious and no smile on his face, that he couldn't afford to have her running around everywhere in December City. But Cagalli had cajoled and threatened, more of the latter, until he had finally relented with a sigh.
But he had attached himself to her, stubbornly following her, not that she minded, just that a man with midnight blue hair was quite conspicous even with the coordinators around them. He had put on a pair of shades and she had arranged her hair into a sort of pony-tail that was distressingly stumpy with the strands escaping here and there, even though the tie was still intact due to the general length.
It was easy being lulled into a fairytale world where there was only him and her, and that nothing existed outside it, all this was too easy to take for granted, to easy to become addicted to. The days they had spent there were melodious, tender, no tension, no nothing, it wasn't a real world, as much as they both wanted to be in it.
It just wasn't a real world. How could an entire world of theirs exist in a single room in any case?
And Cagalli tried hard to be snappy and a killjoy, because she knew she was being drawn far too deep into a world like that. The house wasn't helping, it was secluded, a world consisted of a room, a room was a world, it was far too easy to fall in love with a place like that. It was far too simple to never return to ORB where she was needed and where she needed to be.
Somehow, Athrun noticed the slight gloominess in her, he knew what she knew for himself. He never offered to bring her back into the room that encased a forest again, and she never went back there either. The only places that she grew accustomed to in the house, entirely on purpose, of course, were the bedroom, the kitchen, and the dining hall. Other than that, Cagalli was reluctant to get used to other places, for fear that she would feel pain at leaving when her time was up and she had to go back to ORB.
Athrun realised this too, he left her to her own devices, although there was always a sort of undeniable regret in his eyes when Cagalli refused to become too well acquainted with the house. She refused to become addicted to the melodies the sort of world that lay before her was playing, she had to return to the clashing dischords and dissonants the real world offered.
This morning, she had insisted they go out. If they didn't, she might have been tempted to open doors and become enamoured even more by the house and the Athrun who was with her when they were in it.
And the town of December was mostly quiet, the morning wasn't a busy one, and the people who passed by did so without staring or pointing. Well, Cagalli liked that.
It was difficult walking in the streets with him. Granted, Athrun wasn't the sort who was overprotective or fussy, but he walked particularly slowly today, as if to slow her down so he could catch her if she slipped or something ridiculous and unlikely as that. She hissed in frustration and tried to speed up, but she couldn't do it without it being obvious; his hand was on hers. At some point, Cagalli wondered if they were conspicous, a tall, midnight-haired person walking side by side with her. She didn't realise that her blonde hair, in the sunlight was almost golden, she was no less noticeable than Athrun.
"In a hurry?" he remarked dryly, watching her trying to move quickly to nowehere in particular.
She glared poisonously at him. "No, just that we're walking at the pace of a snail. Any slower will be backwards, Athrun."
"Snails don't walk," Athrun corrected her mildly, still forcing her to walk at the foreign pace she was terribly unused to, "And you don't have to rush around, remember that there aren't any ministers waiting to pounce on you, nor are there any meetings to be held in ten minutes time."
She blinked once and sighed. Cagalli looked at him, he seemed top be enjoying himself, and there were no lines of tension in between his eyes, no strain of his jaw, just a tranquil sort of air. She was afraid then, that she wanted this kind of Athrun in this kind of place when reality wasn't like that, it wasn't like that at all. But this time, she knew he had brought her here precisely because he wanted to show her this side of the world. She saw it in his emerald eyes, and she stopped the retort slipping off the edge of her tongue.
And so, Cagalli conceded defeat. "Alright, and I suppose if I walk too quickly, the people around here will be startled."
It would have been like a tractor running though the midst of grazing cows, too idiotic and slow to move away.
They looked around. Everyone was walking, or rather strolling at such calm paces, Cagalli felt almsot disconcerted. December City was the kind of place that resembled a countryside, albeit a wealthy, plentiful one, and nobody seemed to be rrushing to work. Of course, they had jobs that didn't exactly demand full-time occuptaion, they were mostly traders and exporters, but then, they were peaceufl and mostly unassuming.Heck, they hadn't noticed Athrun much, and he was the head of a big-time security council!
"Funny how nobdy notices you," she mentioned offhandedly, as they passed by a little slop, trodding on the cobblestones and watching a man painting the scenery nearby. Athrun didn't look to comfortable at the way she tripped around on purpose, but she did it precisely to see him squirm. Cagalli wasn't a saddist, just that he had gotten on her nerves with his carefulness around her, and that had made her irrationally iritable although it wasn't obvious yet.
He frowned. "No, they don't really care about politics here, not after the war anyway. I'm a nobody here."
"And that's what you like," Cagalli added pointedly, as if echoing his thoughts.
Athrun was like that, he hated attention even though he always seemed to draw it. He could somehow, never fade into the background the way Kira could always manage to, and somehow, that made Athrun resent that inability to blend in perfectly well.
He cleared his throat awkwardly, embarrassed at the lack of defences around him, "What did the doctor say?"
The wind blew across the grass and the lake before them shone and glimmered as the morning's beams danced across the water's surface. Nearby, there was a child rowing a boat, huffing and puffing furiously, while an elder was fishing quite lazily and shouting orders for the boat to be rowed into the lake's centre, quite the epitome of child labour, Cagalli thought with some amusement.
"Nothing much," she said simply, "Just that the child's healthy so far, it's okay, although it doesn't seem to be a very active child, doesn't kick much, but that's fine he said, more kicking in the future. And the gender is to early to be confirmed, although the doctor had a lucky guess that it will be a girl.Give her some time, he said, it's been there for only a week or so, how's she supposed to kick anyway?"
"How'd he know that kind of things on whether the child's a girl?" Athrun asked doubtfully, staring at the trees in the front.
Inwardly, he was a bit terrified of being a father, it was all new to him and he still had to force on a brave front and convince Cagalli that they were going to be perfect as parents. But Athrun wasn't very convinced himself, not with a father like Patrick Zala anyway. Not that Cagalli knew, of course. There were some things Athrun kept away from Cagalli, and with good reasons backing his decision.
"Lucky guess," Cagalli repeated a bit impatiently.
They walked in awkward silence.
Then he spoke up regretfully, "I'll be leaving later in the afternoon, so take care and make sure you lock the doors at night. Enjoy your two days of leave, I don't suppose you'll be getting many more until later."
She grinned and reminded him carelessly, "I don't think Jun Thornier even knows that we're here."
He only frowned.
Paranoid git that he was.
Athrun had been worried about leaving her in the house alone, she was barely two weeks into the pregnancy, he said, and he was afraid she'd need help. But she had laughed it off, knowing perfectly well that he couldn't extend his leave, and that she didn't want to appear helpless and stupid either. But he had made her promise to call him if she had any trouble, no matter how slight, and that she'd call the neighbours too.
When he left later, she simply waved and avoided any contact with him, and the slight dismay and doubt in his eyes made her squirm this time. Cagalli couldn't help it though, she didn't want him touching her, but she couldn't place her finger on the why part either.
"I'll be seeing you soon," he reminded her a bit guardedly.
She smiled a bit reluctantly and allowed him to kiss her, but only on her forehead.
She recoiled a bit even then, and he looked slightly puzzled, but shrugged and left somehow.
The house was empty for the rest of the day without him around, so Cagalli spent her entire day opening up random chests of old clothes and items. He had handed her the keys before he left, he told her amusedly, that she had two more days left and amusing herself was probably necessary in a town like this. For a while, she thought that she might have found a diary or two of Athrun's parents, or his, even, but then she scolded herself later. She wasn't Alice in Wonderland, what right did she have hoping for such ridiculous things?
Because Cagalli Yula Atha was ORB's Supreme Commander, on leave or not, in a supremely fairy-tale like world or not.
The whole day passed, just her and the house.
And the next day, she woke up alone. But it wasn't that bad, the next morning, she'd be back in ORB with him.
She sighed and flopped down in the evening, suddenly tired with the day's events, or rather, lack of thereof. She considered giving him a call to check how Athrun was doing in ORB, but then she decided against it, because she didn't want to make herself too needy on Athrun, she hated that sort of thing.
Of course, Cagalli secretly hoped that he would call, but then he didn't, he must have gotten the message she had been trying to send across.
The evening was strange, she got out a tv dinner and ate it sullenly, staring at nobody sitting across her. She didn't finish any of it, and Athrun had prepared something he deemed as more nutritious, but then Cagalli had ignored it. Her appetite was failing her anyway, the tv dinner was somehow even more inappetising than anything else, and she felt dinstinctively nauseous.
She cursed loudly and threw the rest of it away, promising that she'd get on a shuttle soon and get back to ORB, she was getting sick of the place already. Perhaps it was the lack of Athrun's presence, funny how she wanted to drive him away at one point and get him back at another. She was a bundle of contradictions lately, she didn't know why she was behaving like that either.
The night was even stranger, she wasn't used to sleeping alone again like this, but she eventually fell asleep, feeling queasy and downright terrified. The only way she slept in the end was by hiding under the quilts in complete, safe darkness, until weariness claimed her in its totality.
She dreamt of strange, warped things, purple roses, putrid and lethal, and that Kira was telling her that Leon was already five years old while she had been sleeping, and then she woke up in total shock.
It took a few seconds for the realisation to hit her, that she was curled up in a ball, a hand clutching her throbbing forehead and the other near her abdomen.
She was in absolute pain, her forehead was bathed in sweat, and she was crying out and shaking uncontrollably.
She somehow rolled out, got herself to the kitchen, still panting and thinking that at least the pain wasn't so bad yet, and forced some headache and indigestion pills down, gulping water and spilling most of it clumsily, all over the counter. She promised herself that she would clean it up in the morning when she felt better, and she half-stumbled her way back to bed.
And she lay there, panting slighty as the pain started subsiding, but then she felt uneasiness encase her being, and she picked up her cell unsteadily, and made a call.
A series of connections later, Athrun answered, and his voice was concerned.
She couldn't really hear what he was saying, there was a roar in her head, she didn't remember that he had carefully instructed her to call the hospital with a number stored on her cell, and it slipped her mind, almost completely, that she was vulnerable with her first child. He was asking if she was alright, what the matter was, where the pain was, and she was in a blur, telling him dazedly that she had taken painkillers and that she was fine, the indigestion would be fine in the morning, the buzzing would be gone, she thought she'd just call to say goodnight.
He was shouting something now, she couldn't hear him.
And in her pain and semi-consciouness, Cagalli forgot that he had made her promise to call the neighbours the minute she experienced pain, no matter where it was, so that they could do something even if she or he couldn't. And then she giggled insanely and muttered that they would have to buy a birthday present for Leon, he was already five this year.
Then the darkness pervaded her and she smiled deliriously and said goodnight to a now screaming Athrun, hung up, stumbled back into the bed and did call the neigbour, she faintly recalled saying something, crying out in pain as she was enveloped by it, and then Cagalli , now hissing in pain, lost her consciousness as she miscarried there and then.