Chapter 29

When he'd brought her to the shuttle grounds, the bodyguards already boarded and doing the relevant checks, he had unwinded the roof of the car as the sun slowly rose and bathed the world that it resembled the orange and red glasses of a church chapel.

The one they had gotten married in.

"I'll be leaving now," She told him slowly, as the wind gleefully swept in and tried to make them go with it but suceeded in lifting only their hair and pressing their clothes against them in a single direction. Athrun nodded, and she noticed then, that his hands were still tight on the steering wheel.

Cagalli swallowed. If she chose to step out to board now, what would she forgo?

"Here- I should return you this," And she held her hand out, waited for him to mimic her and dropped a band of silver into his outstretched palm, and he silently put it in his pocket, and she was reminded of why silence had so many variations, so many kinds of notes and nuances like those symphonies.

"I really enjoyed myself here," Cagalli said finally, "And I have you to thank."

"No matter," He said automatically, feeling rather wistful suddenly. He had woken her up in the wee hours of the morning so she would catch her flight on time, and it had resulted in both of them surviving the night with only a few hours of sleep each, granting the fact that they had returned to the house close to midnight. She was with him now, suited in the Emir attire, but had taken off the jacket and revealed the white, high collared blouse underneath it, tightly knitted at her throat and exposing nothing, as if a perilious secret was being guarded. He smiled wryly and thought this was probably accurate, and the memory of his dreams came back to haunt him now as he stared hard at her, her hair loose and soft and her lips shyly placed.

She looked slightly nervous."I don't know what to say, I-."

But her voice trailed off and she found that she couldn't continue, and therefore she sighed and murmured that she would best be going, and unlocked the door and brought herself out. The luggage had already been fetched by the bodyguards; she would only have herself and Athrun to worry about.

"Cagalli," He called softly, and she turned around, surprised to see that he had gotten out and was standing a slight distance behind her.

His voice was nearly lost to the wind, termulous and soaring but steady in its pain and acceptance.

"I'll always-,"

The wind brought her the last of his words. And they stood; a distance from each other, apart, and she knew she was ready to bolt if he came near. But he didn't.

And Athrun didn't say this like the way she had once dreamt he'd do, with a shout in his voice and his eyes bright and filled with that kind of passion that froze her in its dazzling strength. His eyes were hollow, and she knew there was a roughness in his voice that wasn't natural, manifested even when his speech was slow, tired and very strained. And she had once wished that he would lose his inhabitations and be as free-spirited as her, shout those words, proclaim them to the world, proclaim them to her, she wanted to be the world, she wanted to be his world, and now those words brought them both pain.

He was standing very rooted, very proud and lithe, panther-like in his profile, like his training had forced him to stand upright so much that he would not even allow the slightest show of weakness in his posture, but she knew he was breaking inside. She knew this because she was.

And she froze, he had never said that to her before, he'd always chosen to demonstrate it in that shy, awkward manner that was unique to him, and yet, he was saying it now, saying it as they parted. 'Too late,' She thought morosely, and turned around properly so she was facing him, absolute and full.

"Why didn't you tell me that until just?" She whispered, and he strained to hear. As it was, the wind was howling her frustration for them both.

"I mean," She said softly, and then she adjusted her volume and hollered so he could hear, "Thank you!"

With just the right amount of brightness and cheerful lilt, the kind like a song. The right ingredients for the right dish, the right notes for the right sound, it was almost like he had complimented her if someone had only heard her reply and not known what he had first said.

His expression faltered so slightly that she thought it was a trick of her eyes, but he waved and she imitated him with just the perfect amount of vigor and enthusiasm unlike his somber stance, and both turned back to the directions they were bound for, and when she couldn't help realising it was the opposite direction, she fiercely forced her feet forward and away from him.

"A chapter of my life has ended," She said quietly to the wind, "And it's ended with him."

It whistled to her, but offered no advice, which was more comforting than the thought of picking a date to tell the world the very same thing that she had so simply told the wind. A few tears were stripped away from her eyes and cheeks with the gusts that rose around her as the sun lingered beyond and insistently grew, and she was thankful for her control. Tears meant very little to him, she didn't need sympathy from anyone. She was too proud and too infallible for those things.

How many times had she told him that she had loved him?

Once, when he was asleep and she lay awake and against him, hearing his heart beat steadily, uncompromising in its rhythm and steady tranquility as his bare, sinewy arms had shielded her against him as they had curled beneath the thick comfort of the sheets, protecting them against the silently falling snow of Berlin's winter. She hadn't had the courage or nerve to tell him when he was awake; it was difficult for the right words to be formed and too simplistic with just three words.

Once when she had tripped down the stairs in ORB and he had somehow been walking up as she had been coming down and caught her but broke her fall by her landing entirely on him. He had grunted in pain and she had apologized until he got irritated with assuring her that he hadn't broken anything except her fall and that he was perfectly aware that he was planning to do that, and then she'd meekly muttered, "I- love you."

"What?" He asked incredulously, not quite hearing properly, and she'd coloured like a nicely-cooked crab and replied furiously, "I said I didn't mean to fall on you!"

He never forced her to repeat what she had actually said even though he thought he had heard otherwise and he had been correct; he was too awkward. And she never offered; she was too shy and too sure that he understood her in spite of her pride and inability to tell him.

Another time when it had been raining with heavy thunderstorms and she'd simply curled up on a couch in the house and stared out of the window, her back pressed against his chest as they peered out while resting comfortably on the seat. They had played a lazy sort of game where he would say one thing he had never done before that she knew about, and she would have to reply with a thing that she had done that he didn't know about.

"Combed with a parting on the other side," He said decidedly, and she laughed, he was right. She had told him that before.

"Said I loved you," She replied vaguely, but he had been distracted by the phone that was ringing, Lacus calling to talk about something.

And he? He'd never said that to her, but she never held a grudge, although she'd wondered if he had started falling out of love with her after he'd taken her home from the hospital in PLANT. The shame and stigma of losing what he had wanted so badly had gnawed at her night after night, and she had longed for him to hold her near, but he had, for most of the time then, ignored her until the emptiness was something better than seeing him and feeling that familiar, dull ache of being someone he saw but didn't see.

And she was too proud to say now that she might have still loved him.

"Cagalli," Rainie was telling her suddenly, "Do you mind signing these?"

She snapped out of her reverie- a month had already passed and there she was thinking about the sunrise and the way he'd yelled that he would always love her when she had been there in PLANT for them to stage their charade.

"Sorry," She apologised quickly, turning back from the window where it reflected some passing lightning and the grey skies of rain and bleakly-coloured buildings illuminated by the flashes, "I was getting a bit distracted."

The girl laughed, shaking her head hastily, "No, I just came in, don't worry. And really," Her gaze grew wistful, "I know how you feel."

"How?" Cagalli asked a bit sharply, panicking for a instant. Had she verbalised her thoughts?

"I'd love to go home, get a nice mug of hot chocolate, curl up with my cat on my knee and sleep in this weather," Rainie replied absently and a bit sleepily, her eyes half-shaded with a sweet longing and a vagueness in her voice that befitted the weather outside the office.

She sighed in relief and looked up, smiling. "Let's see, we can finish this, and then we'll all go back early and have a long weekend of say, five extra hours to this week?"

Rainie's eyes became saucers and she cheered in her glee, mingling Cagalli's chuckles with her own raucous whoops of joy and approval.

"And you've seen these, of course," Rainie interrupted cheerfully, holding up paper clippings, "The PLANT media must really like you or Athrun, they've written really flattering stories of you both at the event, even the photographs are as flattering as they can get!"

Cagalli paused and stared at a large picture of herself being led by Athrun, his eyes sharp and pointed as he glared at someone at the side, maybe a reporter? And she was following blindly without choice, he was leading her, but her shoulders were not tense and she knew then, as she stared at the image of herself, that she trusted him.

"You look so beautiful!" Rainie gushed, emotional and hyper, "I couldn't stop talking to Vino about you."
"Really?" Cagalli said in amusement, "I think it's mostly Du Maurier's flair for this sort of thing, he's received a huge heap of good publicity after this event. Kira happened to remark that his clothes were the only ones he had worn beside his usual ones and the uniforms, and there's been a huge increase in demand for Du Maurier everywhere. What most of them don't realise however," She grinned ruefully, "Is that Kira literally meant that he has no other clothes than the usual ones he's had for a long time and the uniforms, not so much that Du Maurier's is his preferred choice."

She stretched as she finished off her work and took her plum-coloured jacket with her. "The car?"

"Waiting for you," Rainie chirped as she opened the door for Cagalli to step through," And," she winked, "Enjoy your weekend."
"Same," Cagalli mimicked, grinning wickedly. And Rainie hugged her suddenly, causing her lips to part in surprise as a soft sound of surprise escaped. Rainie was such a child.

By the time she reached the house, she was regretting her decision. She had, basically, only time to kill now. Her books were all well-read, and nothing seemed to occupy enough of the time she had gained from finishing early, and feeling a bit perturbed at the loneliness in the house since the part-time housekeeper had just made her weekly rounds only yesterday, she found herself walking aimlessly around the house she had lived in all her life.

She paused at each one and went in. Her father's bedroom, large, spacious, a bit empty with most of his belongings removed by Kisaka who had acted on his will so he would always remain as her father and not some mysterious, important politician, and a few chests, empty, unlocked, lying here and there.

The next room had been Mana's, it was somehow, filled with all the pictures of Cagalli as a child and one particularly large one of her scowling threateningly in a frock. Her first time wearing one as frilly as this, she thought fondly, and knew Mana was enjoying herself tremendously at the orphanage where she had more children to boss around.

And their room, she hadn't gone in that one for so long, it was empty too, except for the usual things, the desk, the chairs, the bed. She had slept alone inside here for so much of the time when she had came back from the hospital, and Athrun had insisted on sleeping in his old room, but then she had been to broken and weak to ask why he was doing this. And then as time went by, she found that once he had left the house and ORB, she could no longer stay here for more than a few minutes and had started sleeping in her childhood bedroom.

She left quickly and peered into it. It was a strange world, some schoolbooks here and there, a large cupboard with her old clothes she had outgrown but hadn't been able to throw away due to Mana's sentimental attachment, and now, her uniform laid out on the chair and the desk filled with her work things and the bed a bit small but sufficient and single.

A peep into another room revealed something almost like her father's but a lingering knowledge that Athrun had once lived here. It wasn't a very large room, but then bodyguards didn't need that sort of space, and Athrun was perfectly capable of holing up here, he'd told her he'd lived in a cupboard for a week when he had been sent to spy on some mission and had been discovered and forced to flee and hide.

She sat heavily on it and wondered what would happen next. Outside, the rain was still pouring.

Then she leant back and slipped her hand into the little gap between Athrun's bed and the wall, and felt something prodding at her fingers and pulled an envelope out. Before she could wonder what was in it, glossy, although a bit dusty photographs spilled out in still colours and snapshots, and she picked them up, frowning, and then with a gasp, the realisation of what they were struck at her like a blow. Photographs she had taken with him, their honeymoon, some of her and Kira smiling and waving to the camera and one with Lacus hugging her and she tickling Lacus mercilessly, and a few of them with Athrun, so many she couldn't remember exactly where they had been taken.

For a while, she sat, trying hard, trying very hard.

Then she got up, went to the shower and stood under it for a long while, feeling the water run down her cheeks in a bid, in a miserable, desperate bid.

When she could finally turn off the tap and feel the last of the water drip down, she got out, took off her wet clothes and put on new ones mechanically, methodically. The glossy memories stared up at her, smiling, mocking, teasing, shouting hurtful things to her and to him, but those were all things she'd once had.

She had lost all those, hadn't she?

She got up slowly, resolutely and put them away in the drawer of his room.

And not seeing the memories made it easier for them to ebb out of her being slowly. Painfully, slowly, but one at a time was a start. Because not remembering was less painful than remembering. So it was easier to let the months pass until she knew one day, that he had been away a year and a few months for now. But the pain didn't come anymore.

Truth be told, it came sometimes when she watched Vino try to impress Rainie, or when she watched the people around her go home to their families and not an empty house. But the pain didn't come so often, and not as much as before.

Cagalli wasn't as glad as she thought she would have been, but it was something she held onto although it wasn't as warm as hope that could be kept alive in a beating heart, not was it as warm as a fulfilled desire's triumph.

In PLANT, Leon was playing with a haro and childishly scolding it for being noisy. But his parents were involved in far deeper conversation at the other end of the table, and his mother had a slightly perturbed look on her face the boy identified with the time he had accidentally yanked a corner of the tablecloth and sent a vase crashing earthwards. And so he kept silent, careful not to disturb them. The haro was beginning to beep a sonata, and Leon focused his attention on it.

"There's been something they're hiding from us," Kira said calmly, his fingers bent beneath his chin, rubbing his eyes wearily with another hand. His eyes were beginning to feel the strain of reading so many documents in an hour, and his heart was chiding him for not taking a break.

Near the hallway, Lacus was writing a confirmation to her assistant, and she put her pen down for a minute as the oven made an impatient sound. He looked up expectantly as she scampered to the other room and came back, bearing a tray of muffins Leon had helped to make.

She looked at him and sighed, but nodded at his comment, pausing as if to think but eventually choosing her reply, and it was softly given. Her hair was tied in a tail and looped to prevent it from becoming a hassle and her cheeks were rosy with the heat of the kitchen and her figure was unreasonably beautiful in an apron and a simple dress.

He studied her, studied the being the men in PLANT, not just those in the high circles of society, had wanted as a trophy wife, proof of their status in the gentry. But she was too pure and too unadulterated for being manipulated as such, and somehow, he could only see a woman he loved, remembered her in a soft white and pink dress, her milky shoulders somewhat bare but shawled by her long hair as she comforted him at his weakest as he lay in bandages.

"If I'm not wrong," She hesitated, "Since the time they met here a year ago, they haven't seen each other. Cagalli told you they were in contact, did she not? And Athrun, he's impenetratable, I cannot tell what he is thinking. It is none of our business, and yet, I know something is not quite- correct."

He nodded slightly, and was distracted by his son tottering over and asking him to unlock the haro he had accidentally frozen. Kira absent-mindedly did this and it sprang into action, causing Leon to chase excitedly after it.

"The lunch they had here the other time," He said carefully, "I think they argued before that, they were slightly uncomfortable with each other. I cannot place my finger on it though, I couldn't then and I cannot now."

She looked upset but shook her thoughts away and smiled lightly, getting up. It was the end of the discussion, provided that there had been one in the first place. The rule was fairly simple, it being unspoken as well. If they didn't know exactly what was happening, they would make no assumptions that they knew how to go about resolving an issue outside their own marriage.

"Leon wants to visit Yzak," Lacus said as an afterthought, her voice floated from the kitchen as the tap paused and the sounds of plates being put away were heard, "And that leaves our Saturday free."

"Really?" He said teasingly, and Lacus, misinterpretating his meaning, giggled because she could scarcely help it and then called as if to admonish her husband. "Yzak isn't that bad, he's very soft-hearted actually."

It was his turn to laugh. "No," Kira said with some mischief as she reappeared at the table, "I meant the bit about our Saturday free."

He considered bringing her over to him so he could steal a kiss, she might have given it willingly but he preferred a stolen one. And then the phone rang and she moved hastily to get it and he sighed to himself. A minute later, however, he saw that she had turned away from the wall where she had been facing to receive the phone call, and her already fair face was going chalk-white.

"In general," Cagalli was saying, five hours ago and into a phone, imagining what the Latin American Prime Minister's face looked like there and then, "ORB has pledged to give help to the economy if, and only if, the terms were fulfilled. But until the forests are safe for our people to work in, I cannot condone mere accidents as you say, when such carelessness towards lives have been accepted in the deep forests."

"I agree," the man was saying calmly, but she sensed he was boiling underneath, she was glad she had been neutral in her tone even upon receiving the news that a few men had been killed because the trees hadn't been secured properly while on their jobs, "I will do my best to see that the proper measures will be carried out and implemented."

"You do that then," Cagalli said authoritatively, "And I will allow the ORB companies to do business in your forests. Until then, this is at the status quo."

She put down the phone gently and sighed at the ceiling.

"He was an arse if there ever was one," Kisaka said unapologetically, standing at the side and observing her.

"Yeah?" She echoed flippantly, "I think I've seen bigger idiots."

They half-grinned and half-grimaced at each other.

"Speaking of which," Cagalli said genially, reaching for some papers, "I need to speak to Renault, he arranged a meeting to discuss his new strategies for our population, didn't he? He kept going on and on about negative externalities, which I understand perfectly, I wish he'd credit me with comprehension at very least. But I'm sad to conclude that Tobias doesn't realise he's encouraging those very negative effects he's been blasting about."

"Yes," Kisaka said after a pause. He looked at her carefully, there was a manic energy in her eyes and her hands as she worked, a sort of sickening need to slave and a particular point of obsession in her role.

But he understood that, she was certainly Uzumi Nara Atha's daughter. She had been like this for a long time, he understood, and he was as proud of her as her father would have been, but all the same, he wished she would regain the carefree spirit she once had. Instead, a firmness had taken over her entire ways and she was no longer resolute as much as unshakeable in fulfilling her task. There was a difference, and he knew this for sure.

"Athrun should be coming back in a few months," Kisaka mused, helping her keep some things in order as he bustled around, remarkably agile for his size, "The ZAFT project has gone well, and I heard from Rainie that their troops have been entirely retrained and re-educated in the war history. He's just been credited, another medal to his cupboard of metal pieces then, I think it was another Nebula or something higher than that. In fact, because of the speech he made a month ago, there'll probably be no more Dullindal textbooks then, just pure common sense with what actually happened and the absolute truth."

"Good for all of them," Cagalli said easily, although her eyes were dulled gold.

"Better for you," Kisaka echoed, not noticing a difference, "I know you missed him."

"I did," She repeated calmly, although hit was on the verge of sounding wooden. But she was far past all of this. When she had left PLANT, she had left him standing there, the wind bellowing, his midnight hair shading over his eyes so she couldn't see his expression and was not to know that they had been filled and his vision blurred. Her country was her life now, no more of him to hold her and to kiss her or show in his quiet ways, that he would have given up anything for her if only she had asked.

"I need some fresh air," She announced, and stood up hurriedly, ignoring Kisaka's calls that it would rain soon.

Outside, the skies were a sinister bluish-grey, the kind of colour that could be either miserable or somber, depending how one's mood was. Hers was the latter. The wind wasn't strong; it was almost dying, but she suspected that it would pick itself up sooner or later. But for now, she would sit at a bench under a tree until it truly rained, and she would run back for shelter.

This place was vacated. Very rarely did anyone come to this park, not when it was so near the governmental office and there was a generally enigmatic and somehow official air around it. Cagalli blamed it on the memorial to Uzumi Nara Atha, the slab of beautiful white marble speckled with black grains and glossed to reflect the world around it. Somehow, nobody really came here but her, although she had seen some young students on a History school trip here once, and she had hidden behind some trees until they had gone off for lunch. Having her photograph taken hadn't been high on her list of priorities.

But Cagalli knew this place well, her lunch breaks were often here, just her, some newspapers and her lunch and the occasional bird songs above her.

She sat achingly slowly on the stone bench, her face devoid of any emotion. She was far past caring about how she felt, because she was too proud to do anything that deviated from her words, no matter how rash they had been at that point in time.

But it wasn't illegal to think of how it might have been if she had spoken up or allowed herself to be less stubborn, less strong, less independent and less unforgiving. What if she had given in to the urge to kiss him? What if she had given up her pride and exchanged it for his being with her instead? What if she had asked for him to never leave her, never mind the sure flames on her face and her shaking voice? What if-

She laughed dryly, a slight wheezing sound, but her entire chest ached with a pain that wasn't natural. Someone had once told her that hindsight was twenty-twenty, but regret was forever. How apt.

It was becoming slightly stuffy, as it usually would before a storm. Therefore, she abandoned her plum jacket at the side and sat, allowing the wind to caress her neck and the hollow beneath it that led deep down to her abdomen once she had unbuttoned enough of her white blouse.

Her hair was rather long by this time, well beyond her shoulders instead of its former length where it had teased it rather than swept past the shoulder, and since she wasn't used to tying her hair, given its previous length, she had left on lying luxuriously around her shoulders, trailing its golden paths down, trying, with their amber-tipped tendrils, to touch her chest. Rainie had been surprised, told her that she looked like the sort of princess with golden locks and flowy dresses and the singsong voice the knight would be allured by, but this could have been no further from the truth. It was true that her hair was long now, but she was stubborn in her fidelity to her uniform, her code of honour to ORB, and her voice was mellow rather than melodious.

Uzumi Nara Atha's memorial was a glint in the distance. She squinted for it under the greying skies and asked quietly, "Are you proud of me yet?"

Nobody answered, but she had expected that mostly.

"Mind if I join you?"

She swore badly in her shock, and startled, she jumped to her feet and came face to face with a pair of ruby eyes.

And for a moment when sanity was on a hiatus, she saw a Venetian court noble standing before her. Before she knew whether she was hallucinating or even conscious of her being, she had taken her jacket away for him to sit down, saying softly to calm herself down, "I didn't expect to see you here, Shinn."

"I chanced by," He explained, comfortably slouched against the stone surface like her, but his eyes keen and somehow sharp. She thought about how bestial they looked at times, when he was full of rage and hatred, or how unsure they had looked at times, like a dog that was beaten into submission and forced into a cage and fed only the sounds of the world that went on around it.

But he was a handsome young man, no longer as rash or reckless as the youth she had seen, and his once pale complexion had taken on a slightly peachy tone as if he had been sunburnt a little. Perhaps he had been, ORB's climate would have certainly facilitated that. And he had grown taller in the final stage of the spurt youths went though, he was now clearly taller than her, although she wouldn't have liked to admit it. His arms were sinewy, proof of his maturation, and she was forcibly reminded of Kira, the same raw strength and somehow gentleness that were combined simultaneously. His shirt was stretched a little over his chest, and she wondered if he had changed any more than this.

But Shinn, to her, she didn't know what he was, or of he had truly forgiven those who had hurt him or himself for hurting them back. And she was twenty-four, going to be twenty-five, she'd been blind once, she'd carried a child and lost it and learnt to stand up from it and yet, she thought bitterly, she was still a bit afraid of this person who had torn every ideal of hers down once.

It must have shown in the slight tenseness. He was looking critically at her and she shrank a little, afraid of the gaze his ruby eyes imprinted on her, and she somehow needed to cross her arms defensively over herself, as if protecting herself from him and the watchful eyes that had directed themselves there. The few seconds of silence that followed were disastrous.

"This place is usually empty," Cagalli said weakly, "So I have lunch here sometimes when I need a change of surrounding. I don't suppose you're here on ZAFT's order?"

"No," he laughed, it sounded like a bark, "I resigned just a week ago. I'm enjoying some freedom for a while, and then I think I'll further my studies in engineering or teach."

Her eyes were wide amber, "Teach?"

"Physical fitness," He answered blithely, looking at her so intently that she felt a bit disconcerted by the drops of ink saturated in the two spots of blood in the middle of a flawless white sheet of snow that were his eyes.

"Oh," She replied rather dumbly, "I didn't think you'd like teaching little children. Of course though, you'd be good at it, and I don't suppose anyone would be more qualified than you seeing that you were an officer, and I've never been to school in the truest sense of the word, discounting the two years I sneaked off to join those of my age, and I wouldn't know anyhow, the best way a student would like to be taught and-."

"Miss Cagalli," he interrupted finally, and she jerked in a mandatory fashion, "I came here hoping to catch a glimpse of my old home. Would you grant me the opportunity to apologise?"

"Apologise?" She said in terror.

His eyes were upon hers, and she suddenly knew the sorrow in them, she was watching her father become a distant figure again, the flames erupting and absorbing all and her screams that did little to help them both.

And then before she could speak, she had somehow closed the distance between them and was hugging him in a distressingly child-like manner, but she couldn't care less, and he was whispering that he hadn't meant to hurt her when he had been sixteen. He returned her embrace when she clung on, like to a little brother that she was clearly very fond of, but when a hand slid beneath the curtain of hair to touch her neck, she jerked away even when she assured herself that it had been harmless.

She had thought of Athrun for a split second.

He didn't notice anything either, he was completely innocent. She tried to tell herself so. But she didn't dare to look at the strange, glowing blood drops in his face, for some innate fear that could jot be justified by anything but instinct. Her chest rose and fell too strongly for her to ignore her thumping heart. She knew he was watching, and she folded her arms across her defensively. The smile in his eyes was kind, slightly curious and puzzled at how nervous she was, but she found herself becoming tenser.

"If you want a recommendation here, I'll give you one," She said finally, glancing at him, "I suppose a primary school's students are too immature for your liking?"

"It matters very little," Shinn replied, smiling politely, "I'd be thrilled to work in ORB."

"Good then," she said hastily, looking around, the sky were clearly grey now, and she experienced a little drip of water that slid down her arm, enough to know that it was starting, just only, to drizzle, "I'll arrange this and I'll get back to you so that-,"

"Miss Cagalli," He interrupted again, and there was a slightly innocent key in his voice that she found herself being frightened of, like it was there only to placate her and to calm her to him, "Will Athrun be coming back soon?"

"Just Cagalli will do," she instructed vaguely, running a careless hand through her mane, trying not to notice his eyes following her because the slight disconcertment rose in her, "And yes, I think so."

His eyebrows shot up and she kicked herself for the uncertain words. But she knew better than to rephrase those, it would have been even worse a mistake than the previous one. And a smile was stretching itself shyly from each end of his face, and he said softly, "That's good to hear."

"Why, in particular?"

"Nothing, really."

The rain without warning, wept from the skies. And Cagalli cursed in dismay, but Shinn merely laughed. Then she shivered, feeling cold now, and realized that a few of the buttons were undone and quickly redid them, not feeling self-conscious but quite perturbed at her lack of focus for the day. He was staring into the distance, like he had gotten lost in a forest of thought but his eyes cleared and he soon got up, offering his hand, and she took it quite willingly.

"Run?" She questioned lightly.

He nodded, smiling, and she lifted her jacket above both their heads and they darted forward, laughing and splashing threw some puddles that they could not avoid, until they were safe under the shelter of the pathway leading up to the Parliament House, and she tilted her head slightly, asking, "Want to come?"

He shook his head, "No, I have some unfinished business, I'll wait for the rain to stop a bit, and then I'll be on my way. We'll meet up again, don't worry. But for now, it's goodbye."

His words were somehow disconcerting, but she smiled and reached up, brushing some wet strands from his eyes, making his eyes widen and causing him to look like a young boy for a minute.

"I'll be on my way then," she muttered, she was a bit uncomfortable for some reason she could not detect very well. He cocked his head at her like a slightly baffled puppy but extended his hand for her to shake.

He wasn't a young boy but he wasn't quite a man either, she reassured nobody in particular. But when she took his hand, he withdrew it but effectively grasped her in a crushing hug, and she responded after a few seconds of startled silence, and reluctantly, she broke the hug, feeling as if she would never see a brother again. And she knew that that few moments of raw silence had forced them both into epiphany, that she would always understand him and he would for her as well, and a numbness in her melted away until she found herself staring straight at him.

And then it clicked. He reminded her of Kira in that strange, maddening way of his, so grown-up but so naive about the world in his own ways, just that Kira had an uncanny knack for being indecisive and Shinn was rash instead. On impulse, Cagalli let go and stared up at his face, wondering why he had shot up so suddenly like a runner-bean, and then she asked lightly, "Are you going?"

He grinned and touched her cheek lightly with his lips, surprising her and therefore rendering her speechless, but then he turned to leave, and he was blushing and she was laughing at his clumsiness when he stuttered and asked if she would meet him again. She had agreed, teasingly, he was such a strange boy. In her heart, she was afraid he would suddenly turn around and hate her, hurl words at her like slaps and yank at her soul with his blood-coloured eyes and bared white teeth that snarled and spat. Her father had somehow killed his family. And there was nobody left but her to repay for this.

Her cell rang, and she fumbled around for it, both of them mere steps away from her work room. She could see Rainie in the distance, waving from afar, her long, brown hair swinging, rooted to a frame as a luxurious curtain would have been. She ignored her however; the questions in her heart, and flipped it open, wondering why Lacus was calling her like this. And she said inquiringly into the mouthpiece, her voice filled with as many questions as Shinn's eyes as she turned away from him, facing the rain they were both sheltered from, "What is it, Lacus?"

And the voice on the other end was frantic and when Cagalli could speak again, her voice was filled with rough urgency. "I'll be right there."

The waterfall erupted in her ears and she clenched her fists unconsciously, willing herself to not say anything yet, not at least until she could articulate what she would do now. In all matters of truth, she did not know what she would have done then.

But soon enough, even though her eyes had seemed to be shut for eternity, she shut the phone, turned around to face a bewildered Shinn, her frame visibly trembling but her face filled with fierce determination.

Would he understand?

Her voice betrayed the fears in her body in an instant, and she watched Shinn's eyes widen and his lips grow taut in a line, and knew instantly, that he understood her perfectly.

"I'm going to PLANT to see Malchio."