Mwu yawned as he watched the young soldier in front of him working on the rescue capsule Kira had brought in few minutes before. Even though he wasn't really that enthusiastic about meeting a probable politician inside the thing, he wanted to know what the person was doing in a dangerous area that incurred the wrath of a ZAFT submarine and inadvertently dragged Kira beside him to fight and kill. The small crowd gathered around the capsule proved that he wasn't alone in being curious about the passenger. The only exception was that Blue Cosmos woman who was playing with the young brunette's mechanical bird. "Do we have wait here longer?" he asked the mechanic.

"I'm working as fast as I can," Tolle replied as he continued working, "Even though this is a civilian rescue capsule manufactured by the non-military of ZAFT's Asimov Design Bureau, I have to ensure everything is all right before attempting to open it. The onboard computer seemed to be destroyed but at least the basic live support system is still working."

He continued his work, this time undisturbed, for a few more minutes before wiping the sweat off his forehead and pronounced. "It's done."

Slowly, the capsule's entrance open as everyone waited in trepidation.

"HARO!" A loud greeting echoed throughout the hangar bay as everyone had blinked at the small spherical object that bounced out of the life saver and had its eyes blinking and ears flapping while turning in a circle, looking at everyone.

"Haro?" Murrue questioned.

"HARO! HARO! HARO!" the thing chirped while rolling about, as if responding to her.

"How cute!" Mir said with a gushing expression on her face while there were few more voices agreeing with the statement.

Mwu looked at her as if she had grown another head before putting a hand behind his head. "This is very anti-climatic."

"Um…" an unfamiliar female voice from inside the capsule began before a young woman with smoky hair peered from the side of the entrance cautiously, "Thank you for saving me?"

Everyone's eyes turned upon here. "And you are...?" Murrue asked.

"I'm Meer…"

A green mechanical bird landed on her head, interrupting her. "BIRDY!"

"It is certainly a surprise to meet Lacus Clyne in person," Flay said quietly.

"Lacus?" Kira questioned. "But I thought that she's in PLANTs right now. I even saw her life telecast from the channel." He stopped to ponder. The name seemed familiar to him but he didn't know the reason why.

"Birdy recognizes her enough to land on her head or does it land on any stranger's head?"

The answer confounded the brunette. He knew very well that Birdy wouldn't simply land on anyone's head unless it recognize the person but he didn't really see how Flay linked that fact with the person being Lacus Clyne. "I saw Lacus' performance in PLANTs through the video feed before," he grimaced, "the fight so there's no way that she's here." He gestured toward the smoky haired woman with his hand. "Besides, look at her hair. Even though Birdy is on top of her head, I don't think it's there because it thinks her hair looks like a nest; Lacus, yes but definitely not her."

"Kira?" the woman suddenly called out, albeit hesitatingly.

The said person turned toward her, with questioning gaze. "Yes?"

"It is you!" the woman exclaimed in familiarity. "You have certainly changed since we last played together but there's no mistaking that callous bordering on being rude!"

"I don't think you should call someone you've met for the first time callous. Besides, you're the one to talk, given that you have yet to tell us your name…"

"I'm Lacus! Can't you recognize me?"

"But you're not Lacus. I saw her on the video and she's pinky!"

The woman giggled. "There you go again."

Mirriallia, who along with everyone else had been observing the whole exchange in stunned silence, turned toward her boyfriend only to see that he was checking his uniform before flapping his hands. Tolle, noticing her expression at what he was doing, shrugged. "I have to check whether this is actually one of those weird dreams, you know, like those where you go to college only pajamas."

Flay sat inside Spectrum, going through the maintenance check. The brouhaha regarding Lacus' rescue have simmered down and ended with the said person being whisked off for interrogation. With her being off duty, it was either that or spend the time inside her quarters; she didn't want to be bored out of her mind. She wanted to talk to Kira but at the moment, he was still inside the interrogation room along with Clyne, being grilled for information regarding his relationship with the heiress.

It couldn't be help as she was partly responsible for his situation since she had blown Clyne's cover and Tolle's glare toward the cockpit where she was working at from time to time reminded her of that fact. However, Flay was in no mood to explain her reason for doing so to the man, as well as remind the man of the fact that it was Lacus who revealed her past connection to Kira.

In Lacus' situation, it was better her real identity was established, both for her own sake as well as Archangel. It was to be expected for Lacus to masquerade as someone else if she ended up on a hostile ship but in her case, Archangel belonged to Orb, or at least unofficially. Therefore it would be better for her to come clean in the first place rather than later when preliminary tests that would be conducted on her raised suspicion, inevitably be exposed and subsequently not being trusted. On the other side, Murrue could probably get some useful information from her voluntarily, any scrap of information that wasn't classified or detrimental to PLANTs and ZAFT's security and in fact could be gained through normal diplomatic channel but may be of critical importance to Archangel to ensure the success of its mission.

"That's all?" Lacus asked, quite perplexed with the way her interrogation was conducted by the people she identified as Captain Murrue Ramius and Mwu la Flaga. The whole interrogation was rather pleasant. Also, she had been given the time to shower and freshen up before hand, allowing her to appear in front the two of them as herself, not as Meer, even though she opted to tie her hair in a bun instead of letting it lose as usual. "Honestly speaking, I expected to be questioned more, not that I'm ungrateful."

Mwu scratched his head. "Well, even though we found out that we're terrorists recently, we have yet to settle into the roles so you have to forgive us on that part."

"If I may ask, what are you talking about?"

"Have you seen the report about the attack on Pearl Harbor recently?" Murrue asked back.

"Yes. According to the modus operandi, it suggested that the attackers were also behind the attack on Sydney recently, causing twenty seven civilians dead and injuring several others."

Both Murrue and Mwu shared a look. "According to our," Murrue visibly struggled to say the next words, "resident strategist, there will be more attacks, especially in the civilian areas in both Alliance and ZAFT territories. Eventually, they will conclude that we're the ones behind the attacks."

"You forgot to say that everyone will be our enemies, Murrue."

"Thanks a lot, Flaga."

"My duty to serve, milady."

"But," Lacus interjected, "that's impossible. After all, you can't be travelling from Pearl Harbor to Sydney and then here without people noticing. Sure, I know enough about this ship to know that it's capable of atmospheric flight but doing that would make it easier to detect."

"Of course, that's impossible," Mwu, arms crossed, agreed. "You know it, we know it. Both Alliance's and ZAFT's top brass know it but they sure aren't going to tell the public that."

"But why? I don't see why they want to frame you? Why do they go to such length?" the pink princess asked in a rather passionate manner.

"Why are you doing here when you're supposed to be in PLANTs?" Murrue asked back with a steely gaze.

Lacus flinched.

"You're not supposed to answer that question, aren't you?" the Archangel continued asking while looking at the Clyne heiress carefully.

"Yes."

"Then, it's maybe better for you not to know the answer to the question you asked either," Murrue said before pressing the intercom button. "Kira, get in here."

The door opened and the young brunette entered.

"You're to chaperon Miss Lacus here. Bring her around the ship, if you will but remember not to bring her to any restricted areas."

Kira nodded before addressing Lacus, "Follow me," he said.

The two left the room, with both Murrue and Mwu watching their back. After the door had closed and few seconds elapsed, Mwu broke the silence. "Resident strategist?" She'll be happy to know that you hold her in high regard."

"I can call her 'pain-in-the-neck manipulator' but that wouldn't change the fact that I feel we're jumping the hoops at her beck and call."

"But Uzumi seems to put an awful lot of trust in her."

"I admit that, but still… It seems rather convenient that Kira would rescue Lacus Clyne out of all people with whom he had a little bit of history with, and his pet bird would recognize her even though she had disguised herself perfectly." Lacus had told them that she used a body double whose voice was uncannily similar to hers; Murrue wondered whether Lacus simply switched identity with that double.

"Come on, you're letting her get to you. Even if she recognized Clyne, there was no way she would know that the heiress would be in the escape pod. Besides, it was me who set up the patrol schedules and I can tell you that I didn't even listen to her suggestions. In fact, it was due to me doing the opposite of what she proposed that we managed to save Lacus." Mwu grinned. "Or are you going to start calling me a handsome and dashing manipulator as well?"

"Yeah, right, as if you can manipulate everyone."

He noticed that Murrue didn't object to him referring himself as handsome and dashing. "I will only manipulate your heart so that you will fall for me."

"Dream on." She sighed. "I guess you're right. Maybe I'm trying to look for something that wasn't there." Murrue had been trying to find evidences that would prove her suspicion that the redhead was a Coordinator that she was basically inventing them in her mind and it had clouded her judgment. There was no telling that maybe that was Flay's intention all along. If that was the case, then she would have to disappoint the Blue Cosmos ex-spy by not playing her game.

Flay finished entering the commands into the control. She could see that the mobile suit had already begun adapting to Kira, tuning its own performance to match his capabilities. Eventually, it could be said that the mobile suit was truly his. Just like how he established its name as Spectrum even though she was the first one to refer to it by that; its true name not known to anyone else onboard the ship. Thinking back, referring to the prototype as Spectrum wasn't really correct thing to do even though she had come to like it. The mobile suit had an alternate operating system which seemed to be similar to the one installed on ZAFT's prototypes. In fact, she suspected that Spectrum's alternate Operating System was a superset of those prototypes, which meant that the ones behind Spectrum was linked in some way to ZAFT and it would be another one of her missions to find out who they were.

Mission. Flay leaned on the seat, thinking about the word. Such a simple word could carry such a big burden behind it. Meeting up with Clyne had confirmed one uncomfortable truth that she was trying to deny: she had accessed Kira's mind. She knew that it wasn't her real memory when she recalled meeting Lacus whom she referred to as Pinky while searching for Birdy and she had suspected that it was Kira's but still to have it confirmed didn't exactly make her feel better. After all, that would confirm some things that she had earlier refused to accept things that weren't supposed to be.

Apart from that, there were matters pertaining to Kira…

Then her heart skipped and Flay clutched her uniform as pain pulsed throughout her body. It had only lasted for a moment but it left her hyperventilating. Quickly, she reached for a small plastic bottle inside her uniform, took out a pill from the said container and swallowed it. Waiting for the pill to take effect, she breathed slowly and deeply.

In all excitement surrounding Clyne's rescue, she had forgotten to take the pill. She was lucky that she was at the place where no one could see her when the pulse happened or else she risked her little black secret being found out; people such as Murrue for example.

She wouldn't allow such thing to happen, at least at the present time.

Being partly in the know regarding her secret, Uzumi had provided her with enough supply to last for a quite a while. Of course, he and the Orb scientists that synthesized the drug based on the sample she gave them didn't really understand what the drug's function was but they had enough data to conclude that eventually the subject being exposed to the drug would develop tolerance to it and diminishing the effect it was supposed to have and he told her about that finding. Despite that, it didn't matter to her as she knew that it was inevitable. However, she wanted to forestall it as long as possible.

Flay put a hand over her face as she felt a throb in her head. Meanwhile, her other hand crushed the bottle in frustration. She could barely feel the effect of the pill; it was not having the desired results on her.

"Maybe I shouldn't have blurted that I recognize you," Lacus said in an apologizing manner to her escort. "But I couldn't help myself. I hope I didn't get you in trouble with your superiors."

"No problem. Besides, they're not really my superiors."

"What do you mean?"

"Well…"

"If you can't tell me it is okay."

"No, no, no," Kira added hastily. "It's not that. It's just that I'm not sure where to begin. After all, this is not a military ship, well, it is a military ship but then it's supposed to be… then there's the fact that it will become a terrorist ship when it's not…" he scratched his head. "Frankly I'm not really sure about what's happening."

The woman next to him giggled. As if impersonating her, the pink contraption she called 'Haro' flipped its 'ears' excitedly. "I'm just teasing you. After all, you teased me first when we were small."

"Hey, I was telling the truth that time. Birdy really thinks that you head resembles a nest." As if on cue, the said pet flew toward the two of them and landed on Lacus head, cocking its head animatedly.

"See?" he pointed out. "It still recognizes you."

"You programmed it."

"I didn't!" He insisted. "Besides, I wouldn't dream of modifying Birdy, not when it was given by my best friend."

"I understand the feeling," Lacus said as Haro tried to jump up and down but couldn't due to gravity. Instead, it managed to roll itself around the two of them. Meanwhile, Birdy was still on her head, making chirping sound every now and then. "This Haro and others were given by my fiance to keep me company so I really cherish them."

"Sounds like a nice man, your fiance."

Arms crossed and leaning on the feet of his mobile suit, Yzak gestured at Athrun who was at the opposite end of the hangar, engrossed in a discussion with the maintenance crew. "Frankly, I think Athrun is a spineless coward and not really fit to lead us. I mean, we have been under his command and look where we are. Defeat, defeat and more defeats."

"But, Yzak" Nicol began his protest. "It wasn't really his fault that we lost all this time."

"You got to admit, it hurt since we've at an advantage against Alliance but now we're slightly better than those brainless idiots," Dearka added his own thought on the matter.

"And he's the gall to flirt with the egghead," Yzak continued, referring to the man who was talking excitedly with the ship's SCCS operator. "And here comes her Sis-Con sibling."

Lunamaria stopped. "Sorry, were you talking about me?" she asked while pointing to herself.

"Yes. You. The one who has a sister complex. That's you. Who knows what the two of you do when you're alone,"

Lunamaria stepped in front of Yzak, glaring. "What did you say?"

"I say you're have a sister complex and your idiot is fawning over Athrun. Do you have any problem with that?" Yzak challenged while sneering at her. "I don't believe in being chivalrous so if you want to 'settle' our differences, I'm open to it."

"WHAT THE!" Luna suddenly uttered while pointing to her left.

Instinctively, Yzak looked in the same direction. The next thing he knew, he was bowing in pain, due to a well-placed hit below the belt. He barely reacted when Luna delivered a sweeping kick that dropped him on his butts. With fluid movements, the DINN pilot quickly caught him in a Combat Sambo cross arm lock where she grabbed his arm and secured it between her thighs while her legs were on his chest and neck. She then twisted the arm and pulled it toward her while simultaneously pushed him away using her hips, causing the arm to extend unnaturally.

Yzak grunted in pain.

"I hope this shows you that you helped to contribute to our loss because you're 'stupider' than the so-called 'apes' you like to ridicule so much," Luna said while maintaining her lock on the man.

"What do you mean?" Nicol asked.

"Haven't you stopped to think why you and your mobile suits are so successful in space missions but now you've encountered setbacks upon setbacks?"

"The enemy has a more advanced unit?"

"If the unit you're referring to is the no-face white jackass, then maybe. But how about your battle against Archangel's mobile suits? They messed you up, didn't they?"

"But we killed many of them!" Yzak manage to utter before Luna applying more pressure on him causing him to yelp in pain.

"But Strike was destroyed and two other suffered major damage. Do you know why you're here and Strike's pilot not? I tell you why. They targeted the most dangerous threat first."

"Strike is the most dangerous?" Dearka asked incredulously. "Sure, it can change its equipment but I don't see why…"

"Gravity." Lunamaria said simply. "Even though you have adjusted yourself to Earth's gravity pull, you forgot to adjust to it. This idiot friend of yours for example," she say amid Yzak's grunt of pain. "You were so used to moving around in space that you fail to retrain to move on Earth, save for the basic movements. The same thing with your mobile suits. They are as invincible on Earth as they were in space but that factor wouldn't help them to fly."

Dearka was about to refute her statement but then he understood what she meant. In outer space, not much force was needed to move and mobile suit could simply use its vernier thrusters to navigate. It could also use its limbs to help shift the gravitational center, allowing quicker turning when used in conjunction with the turning thrusters. Thus a mobile suit had a distinct advantage against a mobile armor jet in a space battle. However, on Earth, those advantages were nullified because of gravity. For example, while his Buster could operate on Earth, it couldn't fly unassisted. Even with the assistance of a Guul unit, it was still slow due to aerodynamic drag. In response, while a jet fighter couldn't hit his mobile suit, it could still try attacking the Guul unit from Beyond Visual Range using its missiles and escape before he could even retaliate properly. "Wait. You're telling me that Captain Talia asked us to retreat when we're about to fight the Alliance carrier because we would be at a disadvantage?"

"Yes. And right now, my sister is carrying out modification on Aegis to remedy that gravity problem while all of you were thinking of adding more and more weapons to your mobile suits, causing them to become slower and slower in aerial fight. Adding extra armor on Duel? What a joke. And talking about my sister," Lunamaria said as she caused Yzak to howl in pain for few seconds. "I don't give a damn about who you are, and I don't care if you call me Sis-con or whatever but if you mess with her, you mess with me. Understand?"

The trapped man grunted back.

"I can't hear you."

"YES!"

"Good," Luna slowly released the hold and stood up cautiously. However, Yzak was in no position to attempt revenge. She turned around to see that some people began coming toward them, curious about what happened. It was time to make her exit as she could see Meyrin was among them. "Oh, by the way, if you think that me beating the crap out of you is bad, let me tell you that I'm actually saving your hide. You really don't want to mess with my sister."

Dearka watched her leave appreciatively. "Wow, that's my kind of woman," he said after she was far enough.

Lacus hummed happily as she stirred the ladle of the stewing spaghetti sauce in front of her. The job that she was currently doing was at best considered as menial but she didn't really care. After all, no matter how menial the task was, it remained one of the most important onboard the ship.

Captain Murrue, after some deliberation had allowed her work in some of the low security area of the ship. Apparently the captain wasn't prepared to deal with a diplomat and decided it was better to assign some work rather than locking her up in her room. Of course, the freedom came with restrictions and conditions that she had no problem to adhere to. After all, she wanted to pass her time doing something substantial and as long as it didn't involve fighting, it would be okay.

In her opinion, the ship had a strange crew, one not to be expected to be carrying a secret mission.

Secret mission?

She stopped stirring. Archangel was probably after the same thing that she was searching for.

"You forgot to add some salt?" a somewhat familiar voice called out.

Lacus turned toward the person. "No, it's just… it's you."

A redhead woman wearing a black Alliance uniform sat at the nearest table, gazing at her.

"You're that Blue Cosmos Double Dealer."

"That's quite a mouthful name to call me, Little Miss Space Monster."

"Sorry," Lacus apologized as she realized her mistake. It seemed that Kira had infected her with the foot-in-the-mouth virus.

"That's all right. I don't care about that." The Blue Cosmos tilted her head toward a spot on the table in front of her.

"Oh. I didn't expect anyone to be here before lunch time but please wait."

A few minutes later, Lacus set a plate of spaghetti and a glass of water in front of the woman.

"Thank you." The woman was about to pick the cutleries when she noticed that another plate and another glass were being set on the table.

"I hope you don't mind if I join you… um… Miss?"

"Flay… Flay Allster. No, I don't mind." Flay said before she began eating from her plate.

"Thank you."

Few minutes passed in relative silent before Lacus broke it. "Sorry to ask, Miss Allster, but have we met before?"

The forkful of spaghetti that was the middle of delivering its payload stopped. "What makes you say that?"

"You look familiar. In fact, I feel as if I know you."

Flay brought the fork back to her lips and chewed leisurely and waved the fork around. "That's a good pick up line but I'm heterosexual. You should watch your words."

Lacus smiled. "I apologize. After all, I don't want to attract the attention of someone without a shadow."

There were tingling sounds as the fork bounced on the edge of the table before dropping on the floor.

The Clyne heiress craned her head to look at the cutlery. "Oh my. I'll get a new one for you."

Flay picked up the fork and put it in the middle of the plate, next to the spoon, signifying that she was done with her meal. "There's no need. I'm just surprised by your ability to be direct, that's all. You're not an airhead singer bimbo after all."

"Thanks the compliment, though I would have to ask you not to insult my hobby."

Pushing her plate aside, Flay asked, "So, how much do you know?"

"Is that a trade?"

"Tell me all you know about me and I will judge the value of the information."

"How about the fact that the dog your father kept is named Lucy?"

"He never kept a dog."

Lacus was still smiling. "Ah, of course, my mistake."

Flay's eyes widened in understanding. "So, that's what you mean." She chuckled. "I should have expected such thing from someone like you, with you being a diplomat and probably a politician in the future. Looks like your shuttling here and there aren't in vain after all."

"Thank you."

"So," the redhead asked casually, "Are you trying to find out about me or you're more interested about this ship?"

"This ship?"

"You know, blackmailing me into telling this ship's mission."

"I never said that I'm blackmailing you. I was just wanted to have a conversation with you to pass the time."

Flay rested her head on her left hand and gave an appraising look. "You're right. After all, the ferocious tiger that lurks behind that façade of innocence; even that is another façade to hide the fact that you're a normal people who isn't cut out for these things. You really shouldn't enter politics or even if you really want to dabble in it, you should at least let someone else write the songs your double sings."

The redhead was making it clear that she also possessed some secret information on Lacus in retaliation to what she had said. However, as Lacus had mentioned, she had no need to use the information she had so she had no real reason to be concerned. "Even if I'm unable to sing, I would like my voice to reach out. Meer is helping me do exactly that."

"Meanwhile, you're chasing after the two asteroids that originated from PLANT."

Lacus dabbed her lips with a napkin. Flay wasn't trying to get her to reveal what she was doing. The woman across her had blatantly made the statement and subtly mentioned the ship's exact mission, which she had guessed all along. By doing so, however, it also revealed that they, or at least Flay, knew what she was doing in the area. "They interest me and since I have some time to spare, why not?"

"It was a bad decision, though, because you ended up here. The captain has been mulling over releasing you in a rescue beacon rather have you onboard as our prisoner. But I guess you wouldn't like that so we have to find somewhere safer to release you, preferably to ZAFT or a neutral country, though I think it's best to hand you to your own political faction as you don't want to people to know what you're doing here."

"By your own deduction, I would be stuck here for a while, which is good in a way."

"Hmm? And why is that?"

"Nothing, it's just that I think it's better to think positive." It was true though she had another reason. Lacus had been seeing something irrational in some of the ZAFT's planning lately. For example, its main battleship had been sent in the middle of a battle between an Alliance carrier and the ship where she was on presently. The other one was the information she received that led her into the current situation as well as the confusion that caused one of ZAFT's submarines to attack her plane even though it was clearly marked as a civilian's. She hoped that those were coincidental as the other two possibilities were quite scary.

"Well, might as well. Due to obvious reason, there's no phoning home and there's no flying bicycle around."

There was still a subtle jab at her being a space monster but the Clyne heiress could only smile as there was no real animosity in it. However, she did wish she could contact her father to let him know that she was safe and doing fine.

The door to the car was closed amidst flashing strobes and the vehicle began to accelerate away from the concert hall as one of its occupants, a female, waved away. Then the person turned toward the man beside her, "You really don't have to come for me, Siegel. After all, everyone knows that you're very busy as it is and 'Lacus' wouldn't want to trouble her father, right?"

Siegel Clyne chuckled. "True, but as a father, I would be expected to spend my time with my daughter, aren't I?" He smiled at the woman. "Also, Lacus would like me to take care of her friend, so that would entail me bringing you out to lunch so that we catch up, even though that lunch is at a private spot where no reporters would allowed."

Meer reciprocated his smile. "Well, thank you, I appreciate that."

"How's the songs?"

"They're beautiful." The fake songstress' expression fell. "Even though I'm truly honored, I feel guilty singing them."

"Nonsense," Siegel said while waving it off. "She wanted, no, she insisted that you sing them." That was the truth. When Lacus offered to help her father in shuttle diplomacy, he initially refused as that would mean she would be unable to concentrate on her fledging career in singing. However, she persisted and he relented; the world in its present state would require every diplomacy effort to prevent it from degenerating even further. While her involvement was still limited to communicating with head of states that he knew personally, her help made a significant difference in the effort.

Because she was unable to concentrate on her career, she suggested Meer to become her double and he readily acquiesced, not realizing that she was planning something else. He learned about her real plan to develop Meer's career while slowly her bowing out when it was already in progress. When he confronted her about it, she calmly replied that was she wanted since she really wanted to help him. However, if she was a Coordinator, she was still a single human being and because of that she had decided to retire from being an artist to concentrate on what she deemed as more important. He tried to change her mind but she was determined, or in a father's dictionary stubborn, and wouldn't budge on the matter. In the end, she won and he agreed to her plan. At the same time all of those things took place behind the scene, the person who was sitting next to him was oblivious to everything, thinking that she was only covering for Lacus because she herself had no real talent. That wasn't true, of course, as he could see that Meer had as much talent as his daughter in singing and that observation came from a father who was proud of his daughter.

Siegel thought about Lacus, wondering how she was doing. She has yet to contact him and even though that made him worry, he knew that it wasn't easy for her to do so since secrecy must be maintained at all time. Yet, he was still a father and a father had to worry.

"Siegel," Meer's voice brought him out of his train of thought.

"Yes?"

"I know this is not in my place, but may I have a personal question about Lacus?"

He slowly considered the request. "Tell you what: You ask the question and if it's something I can answer, I will answer. If not, well, you get the picture. Fair enough?"

"Yes. I had been wondering about something. You know that Lacus and I had been spending time together during the time when she was mentoring me.

"And?"

"I heard her called out the name 'Arkheion' in the middle of her sleep. Is he her boyfriend?"

Sigel took a deep breath. He had not been expecting the question.

Meer took his silence as signal that he didn't want to answer. "I'm sorry, it's just that I have a ready answer in case someone is asking…"

"You do know about the story about her when she was small?"

"Yes. She told me that she was kidnapped by someone."

"Her mother and I were told by the police that the kidnappers might be related to Blue Cosmos terrorists. Naturally, the two of us were livid with fears at that time, wondering about her fate. However, she returned, or should I say was returned, safely in the end. I don't have the real detail about it but I do know that the one who saved her was this 'Arkheion' person."

"Oh."

"So please don't tell anyone including her about it because I doubt that Lacus herself remembers about what happened."

Meer nodded solemnly.

"Well, let's not dwell on the past, shall we?" he said as the car came to a stop. "Let's focus on how you're doing in the concert."

While what he told Meer was true, Siegel purposely omitted the other story he had heard about the name. He had heard the name being linked to an unconfirmed rumor about a project to create an Ultimate Coordinator through the use of genetic manipulation and artificial womb incubation. According to the story on the Ultimate Coordinator project, its researcher was aiming to create an ultimate human being that would be able to achieve the highest potential of humanity, something that has yet to be achieved. Siegel had been in politics long enough to hear many things. However, the story was too fantastic to believe.

He didn't know that he was wrong.

1

Author's note (9 January 2011)

1. Happy New Year. My resolution this year is to continue this story, of course.

2. The arrival of Lacus onboard Archangel is reminiscent of the one in Gundam SEED. Of course, the situation is a bit different but the idea's basically there. I thought about using the 'Silverwind model' but decided not.