Disclaimer: I own nothing of Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny, which can be a blessing, because if you did, then you'd have legions of ASUCAGA fans waiting to kill you if you didn't get ASUCAGA sorted out.

Chapter 2

He signed his letter of approval of with a flourish, half-heartedly noting that the title 'Chairman of the ETERNITY Council, Athrun Zala', was becoming more familiar everyday.

A year and a half, closer to two, had passed since the time he had defected from Zaft during the war and was reduced to doing what he did now everyday.

He had returned with a hero's welcome. And now, all that welcomed his eyes were papers, mundane, boring, and mundane. But he persevered. It wasn't half as bad as it could be.

In all truth, it wasn't that his job gave him no satisfaction. It did. It came from seeing the lives around him change as the Coordinators lost the fear that they had of interacting with the Naturals. The mutually defiant stances that the Naturals took to the Coordinators were changing. Athrun Zala, of all people, was witnessing the change. It had come under his efforts and so many others' combined, and the world was being drawn closer to the Plants than expected.

Athrun Zala sighed and briefly massaged his nose bridge. He would have to quit the habit he had recently picked up from reading too many electronic applications and official documents. He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and thinking about the wars he'd survived.

And it hit him, not for the first time in the two years so far, that his thoughts ran to her sometimes. There was always something he lacked- something missing. He'd grown used to that little hollowness somewhere, and he'd tried to sincerely like a few who had enough initiative to like him first. But it always ended strangely and it always felt like he'd let people down somehow. For some, he parted on good terms with, and with some others, this was not quite so. But it didn't matter. He'd given up after a while.

They had been sixteen then, but four years had passed and they were still none the wiser. She was an idiot, but he was more of an idiot still, he thought morosely. He reached for a script a subordinate had written and ignored the glaring errors for the moment.

When Plant's Supreme Council had been re-elected after the Second Bloody Valentine War, he had been summoned and asked to head ETERNITY. At that point, he hadn't even been fully recovered from the injuries he had sustained during the war, but he had accepted. If his father had sinned, done wrong, whatever people wanted to call it in their euphemistic words, Patrick Zala had made a mess and a royal mess at that.

'Imagine having despots following your footsteps,' Athrun thought somberly, 'And in your name, no less.'

Part of him wanted to change the world, even though ideals were better off dreams. But Athrun was a man who knew change was through action. And the other half wanted to atone for sins he hadn't committed but had somehow felt himself to be implicated in. It was quite natural, actually.

He sighed and looked a photograph of his mother, framed and smiling. She had told him, so many times, when he'd been a child, wide-eyed and somehow more carefree than anything he'd ever been before, that Patrick Zala was a busy man.

Busy trying to kill Naturals for killing the Coordinators who had killed Naturals and-

It never stopped, did it?

But he had sworn to, with a few people he trusted his life with.

Athrun had been sworn in along with Lacus, shortly after his former fiancée had become the official mediator of Plant.

Kira had gotten hold of prestige and international acclaim as an engineer and computer science expert shortly after that, and although he had still been an ORB citizen then. It wasn't long, perhaps within the time span of half a year that he'd joined ZAFT and risen right away, up the ranks to join Yzak Joule. He had never said why, but when the great steel walls parted and Athrun saw, from behind Kira's shoulder, a familiar, beautiful face, no longer serene and fair, but astonished and rather white, he had known immediately.

He had watched and smiled, while Lacus had ran into Kira's waiting arms, unafraid to fling her arms around her lover as he caught her joyfully and pressed her to him, afraid to let go.

At that time, Athrun had sill been in ORB's uniform, he had seen a few skeptical glances as he had entered the High Council Chamber, but then he'd gone back to ZAFT a week after that. The episode still made him shrug. Surely he wasn't expected to show up in a ripped red uniform, PLANT chamber or not?

Kira still managed to be with Lacus without anyone commenting on anything. Perhaps this was because they had already come out open after the second war and the public had obviously accepted their choice, encouraged it, even.

And that, naturally, left the last of the people he would have died for and had nearly come close to dying for by the time the peace treaty was well on its way after the horrific Second War.

Athrun tried not to think of how successful Cagalli had become, perhaps even more so than Lacus, simply because he didn't trust himself anymore even after these two years, not when it had anything to do with Cagalli Yula Atha.

Every day when he looked into the mirror and saw his own green eyes staring back at him, he desperately tried not to think of how she had once idly commented about his eyes being as green as the peppers she had tried to eat with her kebabs.

She had always been so unromantically honest.

Athrun could still remember how been tired she had been that day, how unconsciously she had been resting her head on his shoulder with her blonde hair fanned out everywhere, soft, reaching just above her shoulders like a silky nest and smelling of strawberries and something strangely sweet for her tomboyish manners. He'd been surprised at the physical contact, she was quite shy, even in the most unexpected of ways, but then he realized that it had been unconscious. He'd remained in a tranquil sort of silence, and then she'd suddenly wisecracked that green peppers were a 'nice change from chilli sauce, but he had caught her drinking more water than usual and trying not to gag soon after that.

He had almost mercilessly teased her for ages about that when he had lived with her as Alex Dino. She had allowed him to stay with her in ORB, she'd offered it even, somehow able to detect that he was unwilling to go but unwilling to bring her trouble. But she'd insisted that he stay, and he had felt compelled to, not because of duty then, but because he wanted to. He wanted to be with her.

Now, Athrun's eyes scanned over his hands. They were clenched.

What was wrong with him today?

Granted, he had those slips sometimes, when he thought of her upon seeing something that reminded him of her fiery temper, the blazing golden and amber her eyes seemed to be made of, things like that. But today- it was going too far already.

Then he put his head in his hands and felt as hollow as he had ever been. Athrun Zala was a desperate person, desperate for her to stay out of his mind as far as he was concerned. He could barely afford wasting away by thinking of her while his brain cells deactivated and strayed away from the Himalayas Mountains of paperwork his desk was attracting. And yet, he knew it was a lie somewhere. He wanted her out of his mind, but he wanted her with him.

A soft smile rearranged itself on his face. He hadn't smiled like this for so long, that sort of unknowing, gentleness that worked its way around. Each time he smiled for a picture, it was a practiced one. Practiced to be natural. He wanted her with him.

Perhaps he could tell her what he had been doing since they'd left without her, for the battle at Messiah. Perhaps he would be able to make her laugh, smile for him, look at him with that queer, lovely smile of hers and the shy, bright eyes and perhaps, just perhaps-

Athrun growled in frustration and yanked a few strands of midnight hair from his scalp. And as the slight tinges of pain shot in, he frowned, immediately regretting his rash actions and vaguely thinking how he would have to go for intensive eye and scalp surgery in two years' time.

He stood up and promptly began to circle the large, admittedly spacious office like a hawk, making the area feel small and constricted.

An abrupt knock then interrupted his rather scattered thoughts and made him spring into a stiff posture that reminded him forcibly of the way he had been trained to spring into a salute the minute a superior had barked instructions.

Jenny, wait, no Janie, or was it Jaedie popped into the room, her uniform crisp and freshly ironed. She then flashed him her megawatt smile that made him cringe inwardly as he stiffly gestured for her to put down the new additions of paper enemies on his desk.

Staring at an interesting spot on his desk because he really didn't want to look at her, Athrun proceeded to quietly voice a thought that his desk was groaning under the agony of extra weight, but her puzzled look that wired in a mental picture of a cow getting milked made him shake his head dejectedly and say, ' forget it.'.

Athrun was a hundred percent sure Kira would have gotten the same image too, especially since they had milked the cow together as children when their school had brought them on a outdoor trip to a farm where they had gotten to become best friends at six.

And a smirk twitched on his lips while his secretary droned on about something trivial until he knew, quite assuredly, that he wasn't listening.

If there was one thing his father had done right, he thought sadly, it would have been sending him to a pre-school where he had met Kira when they were five.

After the battle at Messiah, he hadn't met Kira as often as he would have liked to do so. He had taken on a new role and so had Kira, but there had been times when he had arranged to meet Kira by the beach. As busy as both of them were, work was one thing and living was another, but for now…

'Good morning Chairman Zala!" his secretary chirped energetically, and he aped her greeting in a monotone, automatically cutting himself off before he greeted her as ' Chairman Zala' in an effort to be polite.

Athrun had replaced Jae-something's predecessor a month straight after he had come into office, something he half-regretted now. The secretary, Yulia, assigned to him when he first headed ETERNITY had been quiet and a little meek, rather mousy in a weak, not quite unattractive manner, alluring for men who liked their wives to double as maids. But the current one he had now seemed to be powered on Energizer batteries he recommended Lacus to use for her haros to keep them active at all times.

With Jaedie's predecessor, he had been quite happy to simply ignore her while she crept about like a little ghost and he forcefully concentrated on his work the way a bull harnessed to a plough would.

Two years ago, Heine Westenfluss had been his drinking partner, but that was only an excuse for Athrun to escape the clutches of his 'fiancée'. He really didn't want to be associated with Mia Campbell, not when she had Lacus' face and a body that was decidedly not the former girl's, and for the first time in a long time, he had gone and gotten himself roaring drunk.

They'd started off with him eagerly snatching a mug and draining it, as if to quench his thirst after he'd run a long way to meet Heine. Heine had watched with an inquisitive expression, eyebrows in danger of disappearing into his hairline, as Athrun had held the empty glass up, triumphant, as Mia pouted and swept off.

At that time, he had already been away from Cagalli for nearly half a year, and he knew he told Heine that while in a drunken stupor. He was really quite sure that Heine had basically heard him ramble and babble too much about her, certainly more than what Athrun might have said if he weren't drunk, but Heine had been a real friend, and he hadn't mentioned a single syllable of anything to do with Cagalli to Athrun even after that embarrassing night of drunk rambling.

The very next morning, Athrun had woken up with the alcohol still surging through his body and a foreign buzz behind his head, and then he had seen a strange lump next to him. With a mounting, ominous fear, Athrun had reeled away the blankets to find Mia Campbell curled up next to him, snoring lightly with her wet, pink lips parted, as if expecting a kiss. He had nearly gone into an actue stage of hyperventilation, his face stained with the color of shock and subsequent embarrassment. And Luna had knocked and he had been in his shorts and a thin shirt and Mia in that décolleté-friendly, pink, fur-lined-

"Oh God," Athrun said in a horribly muffled sort of trance, thinking about the past. His secretary, unaware of the things that were running through her superior's head in chaos, merely continued on chirping his list of planned events in the airtight schedule.

Heine had been his first drinking partner, and it had become Yzak after the Second War. Yzak wasn't quite a good choice as a drinking partner, Athrun was sure he would go home and tell everything Athrun had said to his beloved Shiho, but he didn't quite care anymore. Having Yzak as a drinking partner would most likely land you in a bar-brawl or some truly embarrassing situation, but it was by far, the better alternative next to having to keep all his woes to himself.

And then Athrun had gone out to drink with Yzak about four months ago and he had arrived in the morning roaring drunk but still miraculously able to keep from slurring his sentences and appearing generally sane. Yzak, on the other hand, began to slur his words, peppering them in broken French and swearing so much, the passerbys had probably diagnosed him as having Tourette's syndrome. Athrun was a charmed drinker, but then he had always been quite a good drinker since he had been about seventeen.

But when Yulia had stepped into the office, he had, with the half-bright, half-idiotic eyes liquor had given him, seen Cagalli staring right at him with her intense amber eyes and blonde hair. It didn't help that his then-secretary had tripped over a step as she closed the door, and had landed rather ungainly, and he had been compelled to stand up so he could help her up. She had no doubt been embarrassed by her clumsiness and had looked right into his face, not averting her eyes for once, and her lips were moist and her blonde hair swept into her face.

She wasn't smiling or laughing, just staring at him. So he had gotten up relatively steadily and moved towards her, trying to get close to her to pull her to him, wondering why she wouldn't laugh or smile for him, then he walked straight into the wall, still wondering why she wasn't smiling but looking very bewildered. In retrospect, Yulia Arthur never laughed or smiled anyway, she just looked blank half the time.

The very next day, he promoted his secretary, effectively transferring her out of his office and out of his sight.

He couldn't take the personal jab at him that the secretary before Jae-something had short blonde hair which was suspiciously unruly and windswept. To top it all of, the former secretary's name had been Yulia Arthur. Yula Atha. A little too close for comfort, he thought sourly, and stared absently at the current brown-haired secretary, 'Jaedie', who was reading his lists of assignments for the day.

Each time Yulia had turned her back towards him as she made her way out of his office, the memory had been entirely too familiar, and he had to swallow a bitter disappointment each time he viewed her from the back. The coffee that the former secretary had made was too strong and too sweet, but it was always tongue-scalding and intensely hot, once more, a jolt back to memory lane that he wasn't too sure he appreciated entirely.

It was far too easy to imagine that the person who had left the steaming mug on the table was not Yulia but someone very different.

The coffee she had once made for him when he had woken up in a room next to hers as Alex Dino, the bodyguard, had burnt his tongue to a quivering painful mass and left him floundering and panting comically like a dog. Her laugh, channelled at his carelessness in not waiting for it to cool somewhat was still fresh in his memory, and he felt a rising irritation that his Coordinator-powered brain was still selective in its memory function.

Heck, his current secretary's name was still trying to formulate itself form the smithereens of memory pieces scattered everywhere, and all he could remember was her laugh?

"Ugh," he said aloud as he sipped the coffee. Jae-something rolled her eyes, apparently thinking her coffee wasn't up to his expectations yet again. She tossed her hair angrily, formerly long but now as short as her predecessor's, and he thanked the gods that her hair was distressingly brown and not gold like her predecessor's and that girl's hair colour.

"Is that the fashion now, short hair?" he muttered as he returned to his documents. Jenny or Jaeda, whatever her dratted name was simply preened and handed him a letter sealed with gold wax. Apparently, she didn't care what he thought of her hairstyle, but he had caught her saying to the receptionist below that she thought Chairman Zala's hair length was more suited for girls.

Not that he cared either, he wasn't about to trim it just to please a secretary whose name he couldn't even remember.

And that was that, he thought, as she flipped a short tassel the way he had seen her do in front of the new, handsome clerk downstairs, and strutted out like a haughty hen that had just laid a dozen eggs and would get praised by the cockerel or the farmer or something damned stupid like that. He put his head into his hands, frustrated at the lack of concentration for the morning, and then Athrun cursed in the most colourful language he could muster, something rather out of character and deviant from his normal composure. And this was something he realized there and then, Athrun Zala would never do when meeting the other officials.

And then he tried to erase the thoughts of the girl who had flipped her hair in the most unadulterated way he had ever seen to stop it from being a nuisance as she fired her bazookas with absolute ease while shouting orders to Kisaka.

What had she been like then? Sylph-like under her heavy battle-equipment? Yes. He had seen her by the fireside, huddling under the blanket he had tossed her, her not fully-developed, slightly boyish but decidedly female form not quite hidden by the soft folds of the cloth, and he had seen how rich with promise it had been, he had witnessed in the years to come, how subtle the changes had been, but how perfect she had become. But that night, they had been enemies, unaware of what the future held for them. Ashamed to be seen weak, but not strong enough to fight the cold of the night, she had glared at him with weary, hunted eyes, she could not trust him, not when she needed to keep awake in case the enemy, him, struck suddenly. She had a pretty face, no doubt, delicate at a closer glance, but with that touch of defiance and potential willfulness molded in her fine jaw-

He realized what he had been doing, and swore again. Then he turned back to the invitation, reading the contents with a raised eyebrow, re-reading the key words like his mother had taught him to do to extract information quicker than most, and then re-read everything once more.

You are hereby cordially invited to the ORB/EA and PLANT GALA exactly one week from now, where your presence is highly valued and requested.

The details of the Gala are found in the extract below and Lacus Clyne, mediator of EA and PLANT relations, and Siegfred Rohm, head ambassador of EA, sincerely desires for you to be present.

Transport to Earth Alliance's convention hall in Berlin is necessary in advance as we foresee an influx of ambassadors arriving if the schedule attached below is not followed as accurately as possible.

Please refer to the insert below and attend with all details met and note that the transport on the twentieth of June PLANT has provided will take you directly to the house-cum-office EA has provided for all delegates, ambassadors and officials from ORB, EA and PLANT.

He resumed to swearing in the most satisfying way he could manage and kicked his darned desk for extra effect. Jaedie or something to that effect marched in and concernedly asked if anything was the matter, and as if in retaliation for its former abuse, the desk creaked and gave way, throwing up the piles of paper and documents in the air that cascaded down everywhere.

As the paper cascaded down and blocked parts of his vision like those snow-white, blindingly beautiful doves that danced in the air, he thought he saw Cagalli standing in front of him with her hands on her hips and laughing, then he realised it was his not-yet-named secretary who was laughing at him.

Feeling remarkably bad-tempered, he madly swiped down a random piece and pinned it to the ground, trying to extract his revenge from the helpless paper. He silently noted that his secretary had stopped laughing and looking edgy in case he got angry with her. He straightened, trying to regain his normality, but then he couldn't help the thought that if she were Cagalli, she would have been already been crouching down to where he was and still laughing at him before he tackled her.

And they might have then indulged in those playful but still wildly intense tussles in a strange parody of the way they'd fought for elusive survival on that abandoned island, the way he leapt with his knife gleaming hungrily for the silk of her flesh and the blood of her white throat, and how shaken he had been to realize that the soldier was a girl, and a very beautiful and unpredictable one at that.

"Damn it!" he swore.