Disclaimer: I don't own GS/GSD. Please R&R

Chapter 14

Athrun was sitting in a chair outside the ward, his eyes closed, his jaw tight, his fists clenched, but no expression, none whatsoever except the signs of tension that were more or less telltale. He always shifted into numbness when he had to kill, but now, he knew it was the pain. The pain itself was numbing.

The guilt was worse, she had been alone when she had lost their child. And he hadn't even been there to bring her to where the pain would stop so her life would at least be saved.

"Leon's five this year!"

Leon was only one.

Cagalli had called him as he was finishing his work, preparing to go home. She had called, and he had imagined for a minute that she was in trouble, but then he thought that perhaps, she was calling to say goodnight. But he suspected something was wrong, she was speaking deliriously, like she was in intense pain, so intense that she was numbed, and her voice was breathless although the things she had been saying were perfectly normal at first.

But then she had revealed, even in her daze, that she had been experiencing some pain here and there and that was when Athrun lost it. He had shouted in his fear, not quite caring that every ZAFT soldier around in the vicinity would hear his voice, for her to call for help with the numbers he had pre-stored, but she was telling him about something absolutely irrelelvant, and that was when he realised that she was in too much pain to think straight.

The phone had gone dead then, and he had rushed out, driven like a madman to the shuttle grounds and used his authority as ETERNITY's head to rush back to PLANT. He had yelled his orders, akin to Yzak, and the shocked soldiers had sped up the operations at double time. They hadn't even questioned what the matter was when they had seen the beads of sweat on his forehead, the crazed look in his eyes, the tension in his jaw, and the terror running though his frame.

They had never seen Athrun Zala, famously cool and collected, emotionless, well-controlled, in this state.

By the time he had rushed back to the house, he wondered if it had been some imagination on his part, some weird mess-up, since it was quiet. The crickets were chirping merrily, and he had called her name, receiving silence, and rushed into the bed room, and seen that it was totally empty, save for the quilts that were thrown haphazardly on the floor with little care to how they were neatly arranged before.

He glanced around in a panic, wondering what the hell had been going on, and then his phone rang.

The kindly lady's words brought a chill into him, and he trembled like he had contracted the ague. So Cagalli hadn't broken her promise after all, she had called the neighbours before collapsing.

And then he looked at the bed, for the first time, noticing, not the absence of Cagalli's sleeping form, but the blood, not very much of it, just light drops here and there, like blood-red flowers that made him stumble backwards. But it was enough for Athrun to sink to the floor, crying desperately.

The neighbours had called to say that she was safe in a hospital which Athrun was now rushing to, the doctors had gotten hold of her in time, they had forced her through an operation that had saved her life and-

Athrun had cut the line off.

When he had reached, the neigbour had comforted him, and Athrun had been too dazed to say anything, too numb to be grateful that she was still alive although she could have died if the doctors hadn't saved her by flushing out whatever that was causing her pain.

The neighbour had left eventually, they had gotten no response out of the young man who had sank into a chair, his eyes, one described to the other, souless.

There were three in total, all elderly, all very well jaded with a wealth of pain they knew for themselves. But when they looked at the man before them, they were silent, they could offer nothing more.

One muttered, "I think we best keep this to ourselves, I don't feel so good telling anyone, lest of all the media and-"

He stopped abruptly, Athrun Zala was staring through him, pain in his emerald eyes.

The others took him and pulled him away, they left in a hurry, in a sort of heightened state of shock and ghoulish excitement, although it wasn't intentional at all. The night had held some unexpected events for them, and yet, they were wise and prudent enough to keep their mouths tightly closed.

The nighbours had rushed in with the spare key the Chairman Zala had requested they keep, they had found his wife in the bed, unconscious, bloodstains around her. They knew it had been too late, the baby was lost, but then there was still the mother left, and they had hauled her up and gotten her to a hospital, and then prayed that the young woman with hair that seemed to be spun from sunshine, would live.

One who had been sitting with her at the back had prayed for the first time in ten years, that Cagalli Yula Atha would live. The baby was lost, they all knew that. And the most heartwrenching part was not the fact that they coudl ahve done nothing to prevent it, as the doctors had assured them, rather, it had been the fact that she had miscarried alone, possibly in a stupor nobody was there to bring her out of.

Not that the baby would have been saved anyway. It just wasn't meant to be.

But how were they supposed to tell Athrun Zala that? And how was he supposed to tell his wife that in return?

And the neighbour who had received the call personally had sat alone for a while, crying and sobbing into her hands for the young woman and the baby she had lost. Cagalli, she knew her name was Cagalli, would probably live, the doctors had complete faith in their abilities to flush out the tissue that would otherwise claim her life, but then the neighbour had seen the look in Athrun Zala's eyes.

And then she swore to herself that she would never let anyone present here tonight say anything about the tragedy. They had done enough.

One of them had sighed, shaking her head as she left. Terrible, she said to herself, poor man's going to have to fight through alot to get to his wife, she's lost the child and he's probably lost himself too.

She didn't know how much truth her words had struck at.

He sat, alone, his head in his hands, asking, "Why?"

Of course, he found no answer, and the answer he got later wasn't satisfactory either. But to be fair to the doctors, no answer would have been, not when his child was already lost.

The doctors didn't appear until an hour and a half later, and the only sign of acknoledgement they gave was a curt nod, although it wasn't unkind, just to indicate that Cagalli had survived the operation. A doctor had paused briefly and looked at Athrun, realising that what he was trying to tell Athrun about the first-trimester miscarriage, and the undetermined cause was not getting through in the least.

His emerald eyes held nothing except pain, and the doctor knew then that Athrun Zala was hearing what he had to say, but whoever said that hearing was the same as listening?

"Among factors known to cause first-trimester miscarriages," the doctor said quietly, "the most common is a chromosomal abnormality in the fetus. If a cell has the wrong number of chromosomes, the embryo has a chromosomal abnormality and is usually miscarried.Up to seventy percent of first-trimester miscarriages are caused by chromosomal abnormalities in the fetus.Because your wife's pregnancy was lost in barely just two weeks, I suspect it is the case for this, although a miscarriage like this is virutally impossible to pinpoint in its cause."

He paused, running a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, trying not to notice the look in the Chairman Zala's eyes.

Of course he recognised Athrun Zala, the man was quite media-shy, but if he didn't know ETERNITY's chairman, then he was probably a reclusive hermit or something. His marriage to ORB's Princess or Supreme Commander, whichever mattered more, had been worldwide news, the world had rejoiced for them when she had given her hand to him. The doctor had lived through the first and second war, he had seen pictures of the Justice and later, the Infinite Justice and the pilot in war pictures, mug shots, that sort of thing, and Athrun Zala had never looked more joyous and at peace with the world when the marriage's photographs had been published in thousands of pictures everywhere. The world had rejoiced for him then. And now-

The doctor studied the man before him, planning what to say next.

Athrun Zala was twenty-three this year, the doctor thought to himself, a perfect age for a father, pity-

He looked away, and then he patted Athrun's shoulder gently and said gruffly, "I'm sorry son, your wife will recover, take heed that you help her. Give her as much space as possible if she needs it, I recommend letting her recover at her own speed."

He looked at Athrun now, and saw that Athrun's pain wasn't fading. Of course it wasn't, how could it, so quickly with a few words?

Condolences were too formal, pity was slightly contemptuous, sympathy became patronising in a person's unbearable grief, and words were a hindrance rather than a help.

These things were always difficult, weren't they?

So he left, pointing to signal that Athrun could go in now.

When he went in, Athrun could only stare in silence. The heartbeat radar was steady, it was giving out little beeps periodically in comfortingly jagged lines, electric green, across the pitch black screen. The bed was white, on it lay Cagalli, chained to the machines that were keeping her alive but seemed to be stealing the fire from her even as she lay there.

Cagalli there, his Cagalli, not looking up and calling his name, not laughing, not speaking, how could she?

The nurses had clothed her in the hospital gown, white, it was a failed attempt at decency. Her original clothes would be washed of the stains, he wondered if they would come off easily.

From afar, she appeared fine, soft, snow-like in the white, but as Athrun approaced, steadily, his heart heavy, his mind still numbed, he saw that she looked less like a slumbering angel up close. Her eyes were tightly shut in a pained wince that went straight to his heart as well, although her golden eyelashes were splayed delicately over her cheekbones. She was beautiful in her fraility, but he knew that that beauty was a warped, terrible, helpless one, no soul, no life, simply his Cagalli, close to death, saved, and barely able to be in this world.

And her forehead was beaded with sweat. Her lips, or what he could make out of them with a mask over them, were deathly pale, she looked frozen, encapsulated even.

He approached her, hauling a chair roughly and sinking into it, watching her silently. Then he reached out and touched her hand, it was icy to touch and he recoiled.

Her fingers twitched a little, his attention was drawn to her entire arm, the sharp needles piercing into her delicate flesh, and his eyes travelled up the tubes to the fluid bags she was attached to. The beeping was still going steady, almost rhythmic even.

They hadn't bothered covering her with a blanket, so the important instruments wouldn't be allowed to get entangled with each other. But she was lying there, crudely arranged with countless tubes here and there, and Athrun closed his eyes, involuntarily.

Then she stirred and her eyes fluttered open and shut forcefully, blinded for an instant by the bright hospital lights. And she struggled to speak, not finding the strength to remove the mask from her mouth, her arms binded by her own lack of strength and by the tubes protruding obsecenely from the flesh.

He lifted it tenderly, and put it aside, and he caressed her cheek lovingly with his fingertips, even though he was weeping inside.

"Athrun," she smiled weakly, "I called you to say I was fine, why'd you come back all the wa-"

And she remembered.

Her smile froze. Her amber eyes held panic and fear.

He couldn't smile back at her, his fingers were still gentle on her cheek, but they were ice now. She was trembling, searching his face for reassurance, hope, but she found nothing but an impermeable wall. She knew however, that it was pain behind the wall.

"The baby," Cagalli rasped, "The baby-?"

He looked away, and his face crumpled. He forced out, "Be strong, Cagalli."

And she stared at him, realisation dawning on her pale face, and she screamed in pain, but the scream died in her throat before it even forced its way out, and when he mustered the courage to look at Cagalli once more, he saw that there were tears trickling from her eyes, running down her cheeks, into her golden hair that lay limply, framing her beautiful, but now wan face.

His fingertips were wet with her tears, and she was choking on her own sobs, crying for him, for herself, for the child they had lost. Cagalli didn't cry very often, and if she did, there was a very good reason for it. She was too fierce, too proud, too free-spirited for that. But she couldn't help it now, she just couldn't. Athrun, on the other hand, couldn't cry, no more tears would form, they had all been spent earlier, and now, he had to be strong for her.

But he couldn't even lift her up to take her in his arms to comfort her. The tubes jutted out everywhere, the hospital gown didn't seem snow coloured, it looked more like the leprosy's white, and he waited until she was spent from her crying.

And he wiped her tears one by one, feeling her tremble like a leaf in the cold breeze, and then Athrun leant forward. Her grief washed over him, combining with his, re-emerging, strengthening the pain in him, but he forced his voice to be soft and comforting as he told her gently, "Sleep and forget."

"How?" Cagalli cried. He could see the wildness in her eyes, her pupils were dilated like a feline's, he could see her eye whites, she looked insane in her grief.

"Close your eyes," Athrun recited softly, as if singing a lullaby a child to sleep, the irony pierced his heart like a sword, "Close your eyes. Be still."

She did as he asked, her pain made her see no other way. And he slipped a hand onto hers, covering it with his own, trying to ignore the bile that rose in his throat as he felt a tube stretching as her fingers curled around his. She needed him, he had to make her sleep so the wounds would close.They had to. If they didn't, he wouldn't know what he'd do.

Come to think of it, Kira and Lacus didn't even know she was pregnant. It had been too early to tell them about the pregnancy, too goddamn early and now-

He looked away, and she saw him turning away from her, and she closed her eyes, hurt.

And finally, the dry sobs stopped, and he knew she was lost in a fitful slumber.

Eventually, he was a slave to his weariness, and he fell asleep, his hand still protective around hers, his head lolling softly on his neck, neither letting go of each other's hands. Some time later, the doctor peeped in to see if the tempest had spent itself, and he noted with some pain and some helpless satisfaction, that both were asleep.

"Good," the doctor whispered to nobody in particular, "Sleep is the best escape."

He plodded off to see his other patients, to pay them his visits, but not once, did he mention anything about Chairman Zala and Supreme Commander Atha of PLANT and ORB respectively. Some of his patients who were well enough to gossip asked if ETERNITY's chairman was really in the hospital with his wife, and the doctor looked at them and said simply, "Yes, appendicitis."

If the doctor said so, then it must have been, so no more questions were asked and generally, nobody saw a midnight-haired man who had hid his face in his hands and wept alone, just hours ago.

And now, nobody saw a girl who looked as if she were a tortured angel, get up slowly from her bed, still in the hospital's gown, unplugging the tubes and needles and everything from her, looking sadly at the man who slept in a chair next to her.

Cagalli moved out of the room, slowly, achingly, her feet were unclad. She ignored the fluffy white slippers lying near Athrun's chair, she cared not for those. And she plodded out slowly, every step was a stab in her side, and her wrists, bound previously to instruments, ached. She moved languidly, passing some patients playing cards, those were children, she looked smilingly at them but they ignored her, they were too engrossed in their game, still shouting and talking merrily to each other.

She sighed softly to herself and rubbed her eyes. No tears would come, and her eyes were badly swollen, a glance in the window told her so.

Her heart was so heavy, she thought she wouldn't be able to move, but somehow she did, and she moved on, like a weary, wounded, but equally fierce warrior that couldn't die just yet. Cagalli wondered why she wasn't dead with the pain shooting everywhere in her heart, she stared woodenly at the flashing buttons in the lift, hearing the recorded voice telling her which storeys she was passing by. It didn't really make a difference then, she had pressed only one button.

She was silent, until a bell broke the quiet, and then she knew that she had reached her destination.

She pressed the doorhandle down, and a pathway of light shone into her face. The sun would rise in twenty minutes time, she could approximate that at very least. That would be enough time for her to think and decide.

The rooftop garden was well-kept, the watersprinklers weren't in function, but that was obvious, no sprinklers would have been on at five-thirty in the morning. The plants were green and lush, the foliage would have been pleasing if she had had thge mood to be pleased by those plants and their delicate blossoms.

Cagalli stopped, staring around. there wasn't anybody there, so she ran a hand tiredly through her hair, feeling the strands bend to her force. Her gown was pressing against her skin, it felt foreign against her, and she looked at it, frowning a little.

The wind was strong, she shivered a little in her thin gown, but then she ignored it. She had no time or will to matter about these, no time at all. And then Cagalli swung her leg, somehow managing to make it move fluidly over the metal rails, and then the other, and she sat firmly, her hands supporting her, facing the open sky, seeing the lights from buildings in the distance winking at her instead of stars. There was a wide ledge beneath her feet, lest she fall, one could even walk on it. In fact, anybody could, as long as the person wasn't afraid of falling down, or was at least foolhardy enough to court death like that.

It was still dark, light wasn't very apparent, nor was it strong either. She sat there, by the rails, quite unafraid of the height of the rooftop garden, quite fearless of the possibility of falling off the rails, stumbling over the concrete ledge to certain death, quite certain that she belonged there.

There was silence around, only just the wind blowing.

And fourteen levels below, Athrun awoke with a start and saw that the bed, previously containing Cagalli, was empty.