Disclaimer: I own nothing of GS/GSD. R&R please.

Chapter 31

"Good morning."

She returned his greeting with a fearful suspicion, like a snake coiling, inside her heart. His face registered nothing, devoid of emotion, no particular nuance of feeling there, but Cagalli did not trust him. He knew how to act, he knew how to use the mask she could somehow never sustain, and that made Athrun Zala more dangerous than anyone else.

"L-last night, did you-,"

She trailed off uncomfortably, immensely ill at ease, unable to continue on. He lifted an eyebrow, inquiring with his eyes, and she demurred, recklessly brushing her incomplete question with a clumsy hand and a deep colour on her cheeks.

Adjusting her chair as she sat down made her feel even more uncomfortable in his presence at the table, and she was glad she had taken a shower and therefore remove all traces of her perspiration during the previous night. Her eyes glazed over like clear gems, somehow so clear that they became empty as she pondered whether she had been either delirious or-

"What are you staring at?" Athrun asked politely, with a tinge of ice in his tone. She shook herself awake and muttered a non-committal reply, and he accepted this quietly as he drank his tea, surveying her over the rim of the porcelain.

Good morning. What audacity he had.

But then, Cagalli thought confusedly, he hadn't actually offended her or anything, not anything she could prove anyway, not when she was so volatile in this state, near to him after so long of abstaining from his touch and allowing herself to look fully and completely into his eyes.

He seemed to be understanding a little or all of her thoughts and his lips quirked sardonically. She coloured rapidly and said sharply, "What are you staring at?"

"Nothing," He drawled, "You've given me nothing to stare at, in any case."

This was true. She had selected the most conservative outfit she had ownership of for this morning, the one that she saved for important conferences with the elderly leaders of EA Europe, never mind that they weren't quite of the conservative sort in their private lives. She shuddered, recalling a tabloid she had happened to pick up that splashed one of them having multiple affairs with men less than half her age, some of them younger than Rainie even.

Athrun looked at her, not saying anything, just waiting for his provocation to fill the recesses of her mind in this morning's state and to make her cheeks stained like a rose. She had chosen a soft cashmere shirt and skirt that locked her entire torso to the tip of her throat, but somehow emphasized her curves and the way she strained again the fabric when she moved. She was always so naive towards men and their thoughts. He looked away, not caring to comment until she did.

But she never got past the stage of blushing and looking slightly offended, she only shrugged a bit self-consciously and picked up a newspaper, flipping through it in a very careless sort of manner that was a direct travesty compared to the way Athrun had moved its pages so precisely and nimbly.

"Will the car come?" He asked glibly, realising that she wasn't actually reading.

"Yes, oh, I think, no," She said wildly, afraid of being addressed directly by him.

It was a queer thing, to be with a man like him, a drug she had gotten herself clean off only to have his presence seeping into this house again, detect his slightly critical eyes soften each time he gazed at her retreating back, see his coat hanging with an inanimate ease at the side, all of that. And to be addicted again to the same drug, that was irony, pure irony after all that she had sworn off to be rid of him.

His eyebrows shot up. "Yes?"

"No," Cagalli said fiercely, angry at herself, "Kisaka's banned me from the office for a week, he says I need to rest."

"He's absolutely correct," Athrun said simply, "I'm not going back to work for a while, I might as well spend all the days I've saved up. And I'm tired of teaching the theory of piloting for three days in a week for the majority of my work days and fulfilling the Andes of paperwork that are the other days."

The words rang ominous in more ways than one. First, Athrun Zala was a bit of a contradiction. He loved piloting, he was superb at it, and yet he didn't like to kill with it as his tool when it was made precisely for that. And she suspected now, that he wanted to try going on a hunt for enemies like the way he had done in the wars to bring a bit of thrill back into his life. His eyes had that strange glint in them that she had once associated with his transfiguration of a man into a machine while in the mobile weapon.

Second, if she was off work, and he claimed he would be as well and already in the Atha Mansion, sipping his tea less than a meter away from her, would that be equivalent to him-

"You're not staying here, are you?" She blurted out, her eyes fearful and wide. Athrun caught sight of this and smiled cruelly.

"No," He said softly, very precariously, "Unless you want me to stay here and keep you comp-,"

Cagalli's eyes flashed and she interrupted with as much dignity she could muster then, "I sure as hell don't!"

"Suit yourself," Athrun said politely, like he had merely offered her a sweet and she had refused him. Damn bastard that he was.

"I will!" She said, suddenly petulant.

He eyed her coolly and got up with a feline grace that reminded her of a large cat. "You're the most stubborn woman I've been associated with in my entire life, you know that?"

And suddenly, without realising it all, without meaning to allow herself to, she was on her feet instantly. "And you're the most idiotic man I've known for all my twenty-four years!"

He had been at the door, and now he paused, standing on one leg and with his coat flung around one side of his back, held with a single finger that displayed a reckless confidence and angry ease, and the other hand already snug in his pocket. "How many men have you known anyway, Cagalli?"

His tone was irreverent, cold, mocking, all of that. She strode over, hurt by him talking of her pride, willing to hurt him, not sure if that would put a salve to the throb in her chest that was a stab of pain, only that she wanted to kill Athrun Zala for ever hurting her by making her love him and have him wound her so many times without him even knowing it.

"I've known more men than you could ever think of!" Her voice was trembling and her hands, tiny but strong, waiting to push him out of the door as he went, a final insult, the only one she could think of then in her state of mind, prepared then, that when he got out of the house, she would as well, get to a place with some peace and silence, calm down, maybe confide in the cold slab of marble that was her father's memorial, maybe-

But he had blocked the doorway with his body and turned around. His face was morphing from one of careless indifference to ice that was fire to touch or even see.

How many men had she known? Barely any other than her family and her friends, she hadn't had a serious relationship before in her life, but then she was so young when she met Athrun Zala, so painfully innocent when they had fallen in love, still so unassuming when she'd become his wife. She knew Andrew, he had been a very good friend in school, until he had tried to convince her to be his girlfriend and Cagalli had convinced him otherwise, she knew Mick, he was very handsome, he had liked cars and she had liked him until she had realised he was already dating her then-best friend and had therefore stuck to liking cars, and of course Yuuna, she knew him, but she didn't want to. She didn't want to be his bride, didn't want to be his trophy wife, didn't want to grow her hair long for him, didn't want to wear a dress because she knew he'd like that, didn't want to be in ORB without her father around while Yuuna was there, didn't want to let herself be hugged by him in front of Athrun, didn't want to let herself be taken away from Athrun while he watched from afar.

Athrun Zala, he was better than all of them put together and worse than all of them because he could make her hate him and love him at the same time.

"Repeat that." He said, thinly veiled jealousy rearing in his eyes.

Defiant, and as madly incensed as Athrun was, but in a quite different sort of way, the more passionate anger obvious than the cold anger he displayed, Cagalli turned away and spat, "You heard me the first time."

"Is that correct?" His voice was soft and punishing, lethal. "Do you really?"

"I don't lie," She lied, willing him to just get out and never come back so she could do what she had promised she'd do for a year and a half. His eyes were narrowing, she could feel them boring holes into her back, she shivered, but had no time to feel her fear entirely, he had tossed his coat to the couch and had seized her wrists, bounding them entirely with his fingers and pressing down on them mercilessly until she cried out and was forced to face him.

"You say you don't lie," He breathed into her face, and petrified, she couldn't blink in their proximity to each other, "You say that don't you? Then tell me, tell me Cagalli," She was struggling in an insane way now, like a hare caught in a unyielding snare, pathetic and weak, "Is Shinn Asuka one of them?"

The incredulity of it all struck at her face with a sound blow that registered with the shock that surfaced. And it was all Athrun needed, although he kept her wrists locked, Cagalli no longer struggling in her astonishment.

"I thought so," Athrun said, thoroughly satisfied with her shock and even more satiated with her trembling lip. "You're a terrible liar, you'd make a terrible politician if you didn't have the people's interests truly at heart."

His words, slightly softer now, did not quite mollify her. She looked like a provoked animal, furious and wounded but wildly beautiful. It was simply not fair, he thought dazedly, simply not fair how she could affect him so badly and expect him to pick the pieces for her.

"Let go, Athrun!"

"That's something I haven't heard in a long time, actually, " He mused, half-lost in his thoughts but his grip none the less as firm as before, "You haven't called me by my name for a very long time."

"None of your business," She snarled, still trying desperately to free herself.

"I'll make it mine then," He whispered, his face even closer to hers, she could feel his body nearly enveloping hers, she could see every single eyelash that framed the green, the way the rims of the pupils were dark with something both of them had repressed for so long, something so potentially destructive, and that would mean-

He bent forward and ravished her lips with his own. For a stunned second, she did not respond, but something jolted like a bolt of electricity that passed from his seeking lips to the ends of her toes, and she parted her lips to protest. He seized the opportunity to deepen his kiss, and she cried out in her pain but the sound failed her. His grip, however, had slackened, and she dashed free of the bounds and wild with despair, broke free entirely and then slapped him hard across the cheek.

Stunned, she captured the offending hand with the other and her eyes were petrified. His eyes coolly traced her and he gingerly touched his cheek.

"You didn't actually mind." His voice was serious but she took this to be a taunt. Incensed, she turned entirely around, keeping her wrists in front of her this time, and not realising that Athrun's face now held a wistful smile. So naive she was, he thought sadly.

"Get out. Don't come back."

The door was quietly shut, he didn't like banging doors and throwing tantrums, he wasn't that sort of person. And sometimes, Cagalli hated him so much more for being in control and being the mover of the chess pieces he was so skillful at playing with, just shuffling them here and there, being polite, being courteous and well-mannered and then winning all the stakes at the last minute without really putting in any obvious effort to. No wonder Yzak Joule hated him so. No wonder he vented his anger on the chairs like that. And Cagalli felt that she really understood Yzak Joule more than she understood herself now.

She heard Athrun get into a car he had taken from the ORB office yesterday evening as he had brought her home in the rain, taken her from the rain and sheltered her from the grays and blues of the world but brought another kind of pain into her being. And she counted to ten, and there was silence from the surroundings.

Only then did she dare turn around. She was still breathing heavily.

When Shinn visited two days later, she was lounging by the fountain side and looking at the tiny fishes that peppered the mossy floors of the huge stone ponds, or more accurately, lakes, with tiny dots of orange that were their bodies.

The guards at the gates of the senate phoned her and informed her that Shinn Asuka, correctly identified and all the security checks they had there. He had tried to look for her, but obviously, Cagalli wasn't present, but agreed to see him when he came to the Atha Mansion. In less than half an hour, he had arrived on a motorbike that sputtered indignantly as he shut it off and moved through the large iron gates that were more than four times his height.

"Hello," Cagalli said pleasantly, smiling at him. He grinned, but it was with a trace of shyness.

"I thought I'd check up to see if you were okay." Shinn offered easily, sitting down where she gestured for him to and watching her watch the fishes dart and play their own games in the clear waters that were tanked by the mossy green stone embankments that went on for stretches. Her fingertips were dipped into the cold water as the sun beamed down and was effectively filtered through by the leaves above their heads and the sturdy sepia branches that extended skyward.

"I am," She replied a bit wistfully, "Although Lacus isn't quite. She knew Malchio for longer than I did, he watched her grow up, I think. But she'll be okay, she's got Kira and Leon with her to take her mind off things, and I've spoken to her, she's a bit dazed, I can tell, but she's going to be fine. I know that at the very least."

He smiled a little. "That's some good news then."

They watched the fishes for a while in slightly less calculated silence, it was a peaceful lull more than anything else.

"Shinn," Cagalli asked inquisitively, wondering if she was pushing too far at once, "Why did you call it off with Lunamaria?"

He stilled, and her breath became shallow, as if her fears had been founded. But Shinn was somehow so calming to her at this time of the day, when all they could hear were the gurgles and laughter of the streams, and she had forgotten herself. However, he smiled soon enough and spoke up.

"Call it off?" He laughed, "You make it sound like a pending divorce! We didn't get married like you and Athrun, in case you've already forgotten that!"

Her face paled a bit but he didn't notice; Shinn was far too busy, lost in the scenery around them and lost in his own thoughts.

And she recovered sufficiently to steady herself and corrected hastily, "You know what I mean."
"When we started being together," Shinn said, becoming thoughtful now, "I was a bit insane. She wasn't, she was entirely steadfast and very true to both of us, and maybe that was the problem. She was always a friend to me, pushing it beyond when I was myself at that time," His eyes were wry, "Was stupid of both of us, actually."

"But that doesn't warrant anything!" She declared in response, not understanding how simply he could laugh it off.

"No," Shinn said decisively, "But I saw more and more of another person in her than Luna herself, and I think she realised that after a bit. She didn't ask, but she gave her blessing anyway and told me that if I messed up, she'd never rest until she hunted me and killed me and then revived me to murder me again. Lovely girl."

The stunned silence made him chortle. "Yes, feel shell-shocked, whatever you like to call it, but I think Meyrin doesn't know anything."

"She wouldn't obviously," Cagalli cried, "You're a lousy lout, you!"

She could see them, in her mind's eye, Alice dancing with a prince, catching the attention of those around them, Meyrin's cherubic features and doe-like eyes and Shinn's smile as he twirled her and made her laugh even more, but the plea in Shinn's eyes were lost to the creature he was beginning to become besotted with.

How could she have not noticed by then? Both she and Meyrin were oblivious to the same thing, both lost in their own worlds that revolved around Athrun Zala, both too dazed in their dense stupors to wake up from the never-ending dream.

She punched him lightly on the shoulder and he mock-oofed and doubled up in pretense pain but laughed so hard the pain had probably been significant.

"When did you know?"

"I think," Shinn considered briefly, "When I was still with Lunamaria, about a year ago, when Meyrin had agreed to meet Luna for a meal and I was there to pick Luna up. By that time, we were getting bored of each other, not in the bad sense, actually, but the predictability, or so Luna says, was a killjoy. You know her."

This was no doubt the truth. Meeting Lunamaria just once was enough to secure the impression of the spunky, adventurous young woman that Cagalli had seen on the Minerva, although the act of borrowing another soldier's gun to point it at Athrun and her had been quite baffling. Cagalli might have laughed then, had the situation been less sober.

"In any case," Shinn continued softly, "I saw her from quite a distance and I called out to Meyrin because she was heading to the wrong eatery. I chased after her and then she suddenly turned a corner and ended up in the right one and I realised that she isn't quite the child she was."

Cagalli listened and hesitated. Her eyes were wistful, slightly similar to Shinn's except they were thoughtful and more limpid than hers. Love filled his mind, sorrow filled hers.

'Neither are you, Shinn.' She thought morosely.

"Have you had any headway?" She inquired lightly, leaning back slightly and supporting her weight with a knee propped under her uplifted arms.

He grimaced. "She's as clueless as a goose. That's one thing Luna wasn't, actually, if you want to compare them both. People say they're as different as the cliche goes, night and day, all of that, but it isn't true. Meyrin's exceptionally courageous, she's terribly reckless but she isn't obvious about it like Luna, who revels in the shock-factor they others obtain from seeing her do those stunts. And Meyrin's more shy, she doesn't like attention."

"If she's clueless," Cagalli said carelessly, "Then she'll probably think you're the kind who's lost his marbles after a bit."

They looked at each other with sardonic grins and laughed.

"No, seriously though," Shinn said solemnly, "I had an ulterior motive in my coming. I need your help."

She gaped at him and removed her hand so suddenly from the water that the fishes were out of sight in a minute, compared to them being stationary around her hand for quite some time. "You're truly insane!"

"I'm not," he insisted, "I can't approach Luna because I don't think it's right, and Vino's worse than me at this sort of thing, Youlant's too busy now, he being on attachment with the other mechanics."

"Lacus' is probably close to Meyrin than I am," Cagalli grumbled, looking miffed. He took no heed but chuckled, "I don't reckon you are any less, but I'm intimidated by Lacus Clyne."

"No!"

"Yes," He conceded without any shame, "And therefore I beg you to help me."

She looked at him, he was pleading with his eyes and she scowled, pretending and said eventually with the smile that made his heart skip a beat for more than one reason, "Alright. But if Meyrin finds out, we're meat for the dogs, she's fiesty, that one."

He grinned and she returned it, but her heart was sinking. What was she playing at, helping Shinn like this?

She had absolutely no right to decide if she could help others if she couldn't even help herself.

"First though," He said excitedly, "I need you to help me in talking to Bonita. I'll find a way to introduce both of you, she's quite a nice person, but I called her a bitch once and she's never forgiven me, so asking for her help is as good as seducing a dustbin can and bringing it home as a significant other half."

"Bonita?" Cagalli said in surprise, "Oh, I know her already! We met at the gala, in fact, I promised to visit her kid brother, although I think she's forgotten about it by now."

His eyes had glazed over. "I knew I made the right choice in coming here to seek your help. You do realise we've made headway without really having to put anything into it?"

"No," Cagalli answered stupidly, "I don't quite see what you're getting at, Shinn. Her kid brother's not going to help us much in your conquest to convince Meyrin to be with you. Unless she knows the brother and listens to him the way I listen to Kisaka for advice when dealing with those weird proposals those ministers keep coming up with, a pay cut for nurses who get pregnant, things like that."

"Don't you see?" He asked impatiently, showing the indication of the rash energy that he had once been characterized by, "You can speak to Bonita on the premises that you're visiting her brother, and hint to her that Meyrin should stop being so inaccessible to non-females!"

"I see your point, "Cagalli said, catching on fairly well, trying not to let herself sound faint, "And I can catch up with her, I've got her number and-,"

"Not that," Shinn said seriously, watching her with the intensity the blood of his eyes gave him, "You'll be going to PLANT soon, I suppose, and I'll go with you. Bonita won't know what hit her. But first,-"

She dreaded this, she knew what was coming, and the pit of her stomach felt terrible, and she could have sworn that she wanted to throw up there and then. Her flesh felt cold, and her palms were faintly wet. But Shinn eyed her and smiled gratefully, so desperate for his acceptance she was, Cagalli realised, that she would have done anything for him. Besides, she had already given her word and this was irretraceable to someone like Shinn.

The fish were edging back, quite forgetting their previous fear at the sudden shock of her hand being removed from the water. The larks above them were singing, and the birdsong was melodious but it had little calming effect on Cagalli. While the wind blew, a troubled expression passed her brow but she did not let Shinn see this, afraid he would know how to read her the way Athrun was adept at doing.

"You'll have to go to PLANT." Shinn said in as a sort of afterthought