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

Chapter 15

"You saw a blonde woman, didn't you?" he demanded fiercely, and the child looked up at him, quite shocked that a politician was half-shouting at him, interrupting his game of cards.

"Now, sir," the nurse said authoritatively, "I'm sure your wife is taking a drink in the canteen, recovering from the nasty appendictis, Philip here's probably talking about another blonde woman who passed by, don't frighten him now."

Athrun ignored her, and he only scarcely stopped himself from rattling the boy in his rage.

She looked strangely at him, wondering why Athrun Zala, Chairman of ETERNITY looked so terror-stricken, his eyes swollen and dark circles under his pale skin. She studied him closely, he looked like a hunted animal, good-looking, yes, if not very, but there was something vaguely unsettling about him now that she had never seen in the photographs.

Then the doctor cut in, and his voice was urgent like Athrun Zala's too.

"Landia," he said sternly, "Let Philip here speak."

"Philip," Athrun said, trying not to put any force into his speech, "Tell me properly again. You said you saw, while playing you cards, you saw a blonde woman?"

The child nodded helplessly, he was still clutching onto his cards while his playmates just looked scared. They had stayed awake the whole night, playing cards and amusing themselves, and then a man they all recognised, Athrun Zala, had barged in, demanding to know if they had seen a blonde woman, dressed in similar hospital gowns. Their nurse had rushed in upon hearing the commotion, and then she had seen Athrun Zala too, and then called the doctor in. Up till then, nothing made sense to the children.

One looked up hopefully at him, wanting to ask about how piloting was like, but then something warned him that Athrun Zala wasn't keen on answering that at this particular moment.

"And she didn't stop to say anything? Nothing?" Athrun questioned, his eyes sharp.

"No," the child offered timidly, "She looked at us, I saw that she had a strange look on her face, but then she left, I saw her go up the elevator, I thought it was weird because nobody can be that hungry so early in the morning."

"Did you note which level she went up to?" the doctor asked keenly, signalling to the nurse to move out of the room. She was starting to look suspicious, something was fishy here, why were they so concerned about a single woman who was recovering from appendicitis?

"Must be those damn politicians, important and the lot, they don't want no people gossiping." she muttered as she moved out.

They all ignored her, and the child, pondering the doctor's question, answered shyly, "I-I don't think so. But it must have been a very high level, the lift didn't arrive at our level again until quite a while later. Unless there were other people who wanted an early breakfast too, I suppose they must have been very hungry like her."

Athrun didn't hear the last sentence, he was already sprinting out of the room, jamming a button furiously with his index finger, and he sprung into it, pressing the button that would send the elevator to the roof. The elderly doctor, surprisingly agile for his age, skidded in at the side, and he looked at Athrun and warned, "Don't panic, your wife might be going through immediate depression, although this could be an acute case, possibly one of the more extreme ones we've faced. Of course, it might be a state of paranoia that you're going through, on no grounds can we confirm that the Representative is really not elsewhere. I'll check the canteen, you check the rooftop garden. If I find nobody there, I will meet you at the rooftop garden. But if you find her there, I must stress that you not panic and ruffle her."

He faced the doctor, his jaw was set in one firm hard line, and his answer was harsh.

"I've killed grown-men and never felt a thing, I think I can handle my wife," he said firmly.

On hindsight, he might have just something humourous, but then, it really wasn't meant to be.

And the doctor smiled softly, the smile, although gentle, was melancholic at its edges, and he exited.

Athrun moved swiftly out at the highest level, where the rooftop garden was, and yanked open the door, the grey one, in front of him. And then he gazed around in the semi-darkness, the wind was howling in his ears, shrieking.

He called out softly, "Cagalli?"

There wasn't an answer, and he increased his volume, gazing around, quite desperately.

And then he spotted her. Sitting directly there, on the metal rails, her back facing him. If she lost her footing and rolled off the ledge, she would surely die. Perhaps she had been planning for this the minute she had awoken, perhpas she hadn't been sleeping, perhaps she had only pretended to be doing that until he had fallen asleep too.

His heart dropped, but he was prepared for this.

She turned around, only her head, she looked at him from the corner of her eyes, and he noted how tired she looked. Her hair was blowing in the wind, golden, strangely luxiourous, made lustrous though the pregnancy had ended hours ago, and there was an ironic, luminosity in her skin although her face was haunted. She was like a living corpse, haunted but glorious, pitiful but stunning, broken but marvellously beautiful.

And for a second, his heart skipped a beat, he feared he would fail to make her come back to him.

"Athrun."

He watched quietly as she sighed, still standing, half-frozen, while she sat off the rails, directly above the concrete ledge, fourty-five levels above ground.

The wind howled, and he wondered why and how it had gone so wrong.

"Cagalli," Athrun said softly, "I thought you'd be here."

It was a statement to stall for time, more than anything else, he was moving quietly behind her, like a shadow, cunningly like a serpent, but then they both knew he was encroaching upon her.

"I didn't know where else I could go to to think," she replied hopelessly, still gazing ahead at the still-dark skies. The buildings around them were menaching, steel-colured, cold glass windows in the distance, and Athrun felt a chill. She swung her legs slightly, and he started, there was something ominous, something menaching in the way she swung her legs. Almost as if tempting herself to slide off the rails and jump, just to see what it would be like to leap off and plummet down. Just to feel what it would be like, almost as if she had lost all fear and ability to think and feel.

"The doctor was looking for you," he said carefully, keeping his eyes planted on her, "He was worried about you. He thought you might be-"

He fell silent, he was busy concentrating on moving up behind her, and she looked at him slowly, her eyes were red.

"The doctor," Cagalli murmured, "He is very kind."

"Yes he is," Athrun agreed carefully, still inching nearer and nearer to her, trying not to imagine that the pounding he was hearting came from his own heart, "And he's worried about you, just like I am."

She laughed, and he wondered what was going through her mind, but then the sound died in the wind, like those bell chimes that rang hopelessly in blizzards, their sounds lost in the howling, lost by their mere insignificance in comparison to the forces around them.

Then he swung himself, neatly and fluidly, over the rails, until he sat next to her, and he reached out and grasped her hand, preparing to pull her back if she leapt off unexpectedly. Her eyes flew to his, he saw that they were wide, surprised at his actions, and he said uncertainly, "I thought you might be-"

Her hair was still blowing, lost in the wind, she looked away and he saw that she sighed inwardly although it was not done outwardly. Her skin looked soft, slightly tinged with peach, but there was something grey, grave, sick about it, then he realised that it had been made supple with her dried tears.

"You know," he said somewhat rashly, "Someone once told me that the greater fight was to live, the greater battle to continue on. I don't think you'd go back and say you were wrong, you're far too proud for that, you're far too proud to tell me that all you said before doesn't hold truth now. Cagalli Yula Atha hates admitting she's wrong, you won't do that now, I know you won't."

He was rambling, he was being presumptuous, something he abhorred being, something Cagalli knew he never was, but then now, there was a thread of urgency weacing its way through him, he needed to do something, he wanted to do something.

The doctor had reminded him not to aggravate Cagalli, but then he couldn't help speaking as he thought. Athrun Zala, brilliant tacticist, controlled soldier, firm deductionist, was only a man when he dealt with matters concerning Cagalli, she was his pillar, a sort of sky to him, he couldn't afford to think in advance, he couldn't begin to rationalise, infer and think on his feet then. All he could do was to try and make her stay on.

She looked sharply at him, her face held pain.

"Don't mock me. Don't flatter me. I never once considered ending this," Cagalli said, her voice low, tired, sonorous, proud, weak, miserable, triumphant, all these mixed into a dispassionate sort of emotion he couldn't decipher or even begin to. These contradictions were just there, he could do nothing to sort them out to understand the tone itself, but the intent was fully comprehended, he, after all, might have been the father of her first child, he might have been a father.

He thought he felt something in him break more than it already had.

He stared into her face, searching for any sign of a lie, but there was only misery there.

"I suppose I could have jumped or something," she said softly, taking her hand away from his, he panicked for a split-second, he thought she was going to lunge herself forward, but her words were calm, controlled, they were all that kept him from losing his mind there and then.

Cagalli looked away. "I don't really have-"

Her voice cracked, but she went on, her words a sudden, terrible rush, and her eyes were wild. Once, Athrun had seen a horse, chased and pursued by hunters for four days and four nights, on the fifth morning, its mane was no longer chestnut but white, it's eyes were rimmed with white and it had insanity blooming within. She looked like that now, and he was sickened by the realisation that he found her fraility exquisite. Fear was running though his veins like poision now, but he showed no sign. He was too well-trained for that.

"-the courage to jump. I could never kill myself, if I am incapable of doing anything, it must be killing myself. I came up here to think, because nowhere else would have been suitable enough. I wanted to go where nobody else would be. I would never leave the world like this; I don't want to give up on life like this, Kira would be disappointed, Lacus too, and you'd never forgive me, would you?"

She looked at him mutely, her grief taking away her ability to pronounce anymore words. Her words, jumbled together, incoherent, made him understand even more than if she had spelt evey single word perfectly out for him.

"I wouldn't," Athrun replied, he bit every word bitterly, "I won't ever, if you choose to go without me, after telling me all that that made me abandon the Justice at Genesis. I'd never forgive you, I'd hold it against you even. You said I was an idiot for being so heroic, that all I wanted was to save those I deemed important without realising that I was causing them more pain, so I chose to go back with you. Now, you cannot do what I chose not to. I will be selfish and keep you by me, I won't allow you to go like that."

His voice was steady, it trembled only when he said the word 'go', and then he was silent, inside, he was proud of his ability not to break down. There were a few, lost, misplaced even, tears sliding tiredly down her cheeks and she wiped them away, and he was glad to see that she did them as if they had been proof of cardinal sin, an offence, as if they had insisted on escaping from her eyes the way convicts would kill to break out from jail.

And probably, they had insisted on that escape, precisely that.

He moved back over the rails, safe again, and on impulse, he slid his arms, slowly, around her shoulders, encircling her chest, one after the other, although he knew his touch would be possibly, more hurtful than comforting, right after the child had been lost. She started, but then an instant later, she woodenly, numbly leant back against his chest, tortured. Then her hands slid up to touch the arms around her shoulders and she whispered hoarsely, like she had been screaming her lungs out over and over again, "I will go back now."

Perhaps she had been screaming in agony, just that he hadn't seen her lose control yet, and then he knew that she would have never let him in any case.

He silently helped her over the rails, she stood there, him holding her hands, she looking at her feet, stubbornly avoiding his gaze, he staring at her.

The doctor, hidden behind the door, sighed, although it wasn't a particularly unhappy one, then he turned away to leave.

The wind was still howling, still freezing the wetness on her cheeks, until they had no proof of existence, save for the slight frozen, stiffness of the skin. She was barefoot, clad in only the hospital gown, Spartan and wounded like a hunted animal.

But around them, the warmth was ebbing, circulating, concentrating upon their bodies, again, just as it did every day, just like it would every day for the rest of the time, if they chose to live on to witness it doing as it did now.

The sun was rising above them, just as it had always done, just as it would always do.

He brought her back to ORB that very afternoon, and he informed Kisaka that she would be taking a prolonged rest for a week or two. Kisaka, bless him, held back all questions, he simply assumed that Cagalli's flu was more of a hindrance than expected, and Athrun knew that even if the man suspected that anything might be wrong, Kisaka was too faithful to question if not offered anything.

She rested a week, he went back to work as usual. The doctor had told him to treat her normally, try to pretend that it was life back to how it had always been, because that would have been the most effective way to ensuring that it would be. It wounded Athrun to not be close to her, but he endured it silently like he was a mute, he thought that it was the best way to bring Cagalli back to life.

Her body was healing quite well, rapidly even, he made sure that she took her medication and insisted that she sleep more than twelve hours a day for optimum rest. But that was partially so that if she was sleeping, he would not even have the chance to try and talk to her and force her to be reliant on him.

Cagalli didn't speak much, he hated the silence sometimes, but then he endured it, more for her sake than his.

Ocassionally, Cagalli would venture to ask if he would stay with her in the day during weekends, but he would firmly and as gently as he could allow, refuse her. He was reluctant to let her come close to him, her wounds had to be healed by herself first, only when she felt it was time, would he allow life to go on properly.

But then she was becoming more distant from him, he was almost estranged from her to a certain extent.

Part of the healing process, he convinced himself, leave her alone if she needs to be.

A month later, it was still difficult for both of them.

Cagalli had already returned to work, ORB was country she was in charge of running, she never shirked her duties, never, and Athrun threw himself headlong into his work. Neither could afford not to do so, if they didn't, then the nightmares that sometimes haunted both of them would come in the day.

Sometimes, she returned home, and she would eat, silently, only mildly responsive to his attempts to hold a conversation with her. And Athrun tried not to insist that she heal quickly, how could he insist on that, when he wasn't even capable of it himself?

He left her mostly alone, he was afraid to speak to her, to force her to recover faster than what she deemed appropiate. There were times when an entire day would pass with them exchanging no more than a few sentences. He was in pain, inside, but she never seemed to want to say anymore, she never approached him to speak about anything more, and he endured it, biting the bullets as bravely as he could.

At times, Cagalli would search the newspapers in a frenzy, every single page, every single paragraph, to spot a mention of anything of her in the hospital December City had. Nothing appeared, and she would breathe heavily in her relief, frightened that Kira and Lacus would know, and they would try to speak to her and make sure that she was alright. She didn't want to speak about it, and Athrun understood this. He never made an attempt to force her to speak about what had happened. The next day, she would search again, until two months passed, and she could finally stop.

There were times when Athrun caught her staring silently at him, as if she were about to say something. He was afraid that he had forced her to, he never ventured to ask her what was on her mind, afraid that she would be forced to tell him something just to answer him. She never said anything much after the failed attempt to speak, he told himself it was for the best, although he would ahve very much preferred to hear her speak to him

He tried with his utmost effort, to carry on as if nothing had happened, but it was difficult, precisely because something had. Athrun never once breathed a word to Kira, he knew Cagalli would have been shattered even more, sometimes he wondered if he was doing the right thing by keeping silent, but then he couldn't bear to bring harm to Cagalli. Lacus might have been able to sort something out, but then these days, Cagalli wasn't interested in hearing about Leon, there was a seed of bitterness she tried to keep hidden, yet Athrun knew it had been irrevocably sowed. The most he could amuse her with by telling her about Leon's antics as the child approached his second birthday, was only sufficient enough to see her eyes warm up a little and her lips curve reluctantly into a wistful smile. She never laughed much these days anyway, Kisaka blamed it on the workload, but Cagalli declined to have any, any at all, lifted off her shoulders.

And then, sometimes, Cagalli sat in the drawing room, she didn't write letters to anybody much, Athrun did most of the talking to Kira and Lacus, they didn't suspect anything, it was mostly quite a firm facade that they had simply returned from the short holiday and life had gone on. But Athrun knew that she wept inside, quietly enough for him not to notice, but then he still knew. He never went in, although he would have preferred to rush in and try anything, any way that he could, to comfort her, to make Cagalli smile for him the way she had once done, but then the doctor's words rang in his head.

Athrun would give her as much space and as much time as she needed.

He tried not to touch her, he didn't want her to feel forced back into the speed of life when she was still healing from the wounds that he was desperately trying to recover from too. Sometimes, during certain nights when he was still awake, trying, desperately to sleep to preserve his energy for work the next day, she would tug at his sleeves and curl into his arms for comfort and warmth, and his heart would pick up, speed madly and pound insanely as he gave in and allowed himself to take the oasis of her embrace.

And he imagined that in the morning, she would have finally recovered, and the distance he was trying so hard to keep would finally have fulfilled its purpose, and Cagalli would laugh and smile for him again. He always forced himself to let go of her after a while, he didn't want to force her to need him to recover, he'd give her as much distance as she needed to live properly again.

But in the morning, nothing had changed, her eyes were cold and lost again, and he wondered when it would all be over.

Once, nearly three-quarters of a year since her grief had erupted like irretractable scars on flesh, he had grown tired.

She had been sitting in the drawing room again, he had entered, noting that she was simply staring into space, wearing the green dress she always wore at home, and she was fiddling with some blank pieces of paper absently. He wondered if she was still thinking about an incident he had tried so much to make her forget, even distancing himself for her sake.

When Athrun had entered, she had looked up, and then her eyes had became dull once more, and she had murmured a greeting in response to his returning home, and he had strode to her, harsh and impatient in his step, and ordered brusquely, "Get up!"

Her eyes drifted, almost lazily, to his face, something moved in the glass-like amber, and Cagalli had remained seated where she had been when he had came in.

"When will you be ready to let go?Are you going to just go on like this and never learn to move forward?" He was railing now, he hadn't lost his temper at her for a long time, now, he was impatient, furious at her inability to rely on others, her choice not to rely on him, his inability to do anything that would make her move on even though he was trying so hard and dying for his efforts.

She shook her head tiredly, and then she opened her mouth mutely at first and answered softly, "I already have. You just never realised it."

Her voice held no untruths, it was steady, and then he knew that he had been wrong to assume that she had been still unwilling to let go of what had happened. There was strength as she stood, her stance aloof, he was startled to see that there was slight anger and something accusing in her eyes as she moved to him, but a second later, she had wrapped her arms around him, languidly, and whispered, almost pleasingly, "Welcome home."

She was prepared to let go, he should have allowed her to, just like the way he had promised he wouldn't force himself upon her to let the wounds heal, but this time, he couldn't deny the truth anymore.

He was eager to feel her against him, she would have moved away and sat back down, gone back to doing who-knows-what, but then he was forcing her to the ground, kissing her ravenously, devouring her warmth, hearing the beating of her heart, quite ignoring her lack of response and the dullness in her eyes. Only until later, did he see the contempt in them much too late and then Athrun knew that something was wrong, but he didn't know where. She might have pushed him away when he had recalled the debt, far too early, he realised.

Truth be told, she didn't.

Suspicion filled his heart, he thought he had seen pain flicker in amber when he had told her, "I've had enough of waiting."

But when he looked, a split-second later, there was nothing.

The fact of the matter was that Cagalli was still his, Athrun knew that she was dependent on him, after he rested her against the couch she had previously been seated on, she looked at him and silently clung onto his hand, although that was the only sign of affection he would get out of her for that entire day or night to be accurate.

At a certain point, he looked at her, unable to quease the uneasiness spreading like poison in his heart, and said softly, "You're fine now."

She laughed, her laughter wasn't pleasing to his ears, there was something pained in them.

"I recovered," Cagalli said evenly, her eyes were contemptuous, definitely pride in them, "You left me alone to my own devices, you thought that I could recover."

He should have felt assured at her words, wasn't that what the doctor had assured him likewise, that if he gave her space and left her alone, she would move on eventually?

That was coming true now, but why was it so strange, why was she behaving so abruptly and hatefully?

Bewildered, Athrun gazed in silence at her, she was playing with the ends of the sash she had retied herself, as if the previous one had displeased her and needed to be redone. She did it angrily, flopping it back and forth, punishing it, her movements jerky, her breathing now ragged.

He raised a hand to his hip, his shirt-tails hanging untidly out, but he didn't bother re-tucking them in.

"What's the matter now?" He asked bluntly.

She drew in a sharp breath, almost like he had struck her, but then she looked at him with eyes that betrayed nothing, and said quietly, "Nothing. Nothing at all."

'If you say so,' Athrun might have said, but he sensed that his silence was less akward than an answer like that. It was truly perculiar. She had healed, without his help, that had been painful for him, but then he had done what he had needed to do, and she had done what she had to do to heal. Weren't things supposed to go back to what it had been like in the past?

"I suppose you've planned something to work on, extra time, for tomorrow," Cagalli spoke, her voice was cold.

He had been planning to return to the camp tomorrow, similar to all the other weekends to stay away from her, give her the space she needed. She had never requested that he stay with her, and that had hurt more than staying away from her itself.

"I did," Athrun admitted steadily, "I suppose I can do away with those plans now."

"Don't," Cagalli cut in sharply, "Do what you've been doing, it's fine, I don't want to hinder you in any way."

His nerves were rattled, but he stared at her, his gaze level, even.

"Why are you behaving like this?" he inquired coolly, although he might have preferred to demand why instead. His eyes lingered over her neck, it was distracting him, but her voice was directed sharply at him, so accusing that it cut off other thoughts.

"Don't ask pointless questions," Cagalli stated jerkily, "It doesn't contibute towards anything that is becoming of you."

She got up unsteadily, and straightened herself with a sort of macabre grace he had never witnessed in her before. And without another glance, she simply stalked out of the room, leaving him alone, silent in the room.

He wondered if his decision had cost him more harm than good that it did her. And he wondered if he had opened Pandora's Box, he wondered if it was all a dream he was having, and when he could wake up and breathe properly without the water filling his lungs, when all the suffering would come to cease.