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 7

The morning light was blinding Lacus' eyes as she drew her curtains. Clad in her favourite pair of pink pyjamas, she shivered slightly as a chilling wind rushed through the opened window.

"Winds of change", she said aloud. Winds of change.

She brushed her hair back from her face, and stepped, wincing slightly as her heels tried to adjust after the hours of being pinched in a pair of tiny shoes. Her mouth opened in a tiny sigh of discomfort, but the feeling would eventually fade until the next event. She made sure she could walk properly- it would not be good to stumble around hallways.

Humming a little tune to herself, she walked out into the main hall of the PLANTS ambassador house situated in Earth Alliance's Berlin which she and Kira had settled into for a few months now.

Kira was currently based here to research on the new system of controlling farming machines with an OS similar to a gundam's, and lead a team to integrate and fuse the existing technology Berlin had with the sophisticated Gundam's OS programme of high efficiency to converted and triple the efficiency of the obsolete machinery in that area.

Since most of the Naturals had destroyed their machines and advanced technology the Coordinators had developed, all during the years of turmoil in a bid to show their anti-coordinator stance, there had been very little technology in farmlands and town sides as a whole. It was near impossible to sustain the huge city, added on with the GFAS-X1 Destroy's rampage that had mutilated the country to a horrific mess, Coordinate-area or not. When it had gone out of control, the berserk Destroy had rampaged even EA territories, something EA had never expected would happen.

Having made the decision to discard all coordinator-developed technology was a fatal mistake, Lacus realised, since Berlin's climate had recently shifted towards Russia's freezing climate in the last couple of years, and the agricultural side was not making progress but actually degenerating.

She sighed and made a mental note to speak to the environmental conservationists present in the last night's gala event in order to learn more about the rate of deforestation and global warming that was causing the drastic changes in climate the world would soon see.

"It wasn't a battle between ORB, PLANT and EA now", Lacus thought, more of a battle to pick themselves up and start afresh. Or as Kira had put it, they were 'replanting the flowers'. Shinn Asuka had gone back to ZAFT and was in the midst of instructing new recruits, she had heard, and she prayed that the boy would be happy for as long as he lived.

Hopefully, the tripled-increase of effective machinery Kira would head a team to develop would then fast-forward the technology here and speed up food production to prevent the granaries in Berlin from running out completely as projected in four years time.

Lacus hadn't been quite used to the fact that she would be posted here in a foreign area when PLANT's Supreme Council had sent her here a few months ago, but the place was becoming more and more suited to her tastes, and she was growing increasingly familiar with the area everyday. Besides, Kira was here too, and as long as he was there where she was, she wasn't about to pout and start complaining.

PLANT's council had made a decision for her to represent them in putting forth a decision to relocate a specific group of Berlin Naturals into PLANT and ORB, a joint decision that she and Cagalli would have to make in the next few weeks on how the relocating was to be done and the steps taken in advance to ensure their relocation would be smooth with no glitches.

This was mainly to make a breakthrough in mixing the various groups of people in different, Coordinator-predominant areas of the world, since interaction was ultimately the key to tolerance and understanding that would foster good relations and allow peace. However, it was going to be a field day for workplaces and schools.

Some would feel pressured to keep up and compete with others with superior qualities and some would feel stifled in an area that was progressing too slowly for their liking. But since ORB had managed to handle those problems and counter exactly that, PLANT and EA would just have to learn from it, although it would have to be translated onto an international degree. Controlling one country, no matter how large it was, was obviously much simpler than controlling the world.

ORB was just a single power, and for the plan to work, absolute trust was necessary between leaders of all three powers, hence the gala the night before to work relations better and present a hidden message to the people who would read the newspapers today of what was to come.

With the thought of newspapers fresh in her mind, Lacus jolted to attention and realised she had been standing in the hallway outside her room pondering over dreary thoughts for the last few minutes with a pink toothbrush in her hand.

She grinned and pranced over to the bathroom, promising herself that she would brush her teeth quickly and avoid sitting on the toilet seat with her pants fully done up as she tended to do for nearly twenty minutes every morning, lost in dreams and thoughts. She had much to see today that she wasn't about to miss.

As Lacus turned right and directed her feet towards the bathroom, a blue pajamas-clad Kira collided straight into her and effectively banged his head into hers. She wanted to laugh, but the immediate impact was too blinding.

She had only a quick glimpse of the startled expression his face held before her face was buried in his chest. And her hands roamed wildly, grasping in the air as she lost her balance, but clung on to him somehow. And the glimpse she got of Kira was both pleasing and amusing- he was clad in his pajamas, handsome and somehow childlike all at once.

Simultaneous 'owws' were heard as they retreated a few steps back after the head-on collision. When her head was clear again, she stared up at Kira as he smiled and greeted her, and she beamed back as her haro that had completed its recharging in her room ("almost like sleeping", she thought) bounced up from behind and hit them both on the head once more.

It was cursing and swearing in a colourful language she would have never thought of using in her lifetime, and Lacus suddenly realised that Kira had been fiddling with it again. She smacked him playfully and commanded, "You'd better fix that as soon as possible. I cannot have the ambassadors asking me where I acquired the language from!"

As he grasped the haro that was now spitting nonsensical misquotes from Shakespeare, Kira chortled, issuing a sound she was still getting used to hearing after he had become a withdrawn, placid person after the first war. He had been a little withdrawn even after the second war, but that had changed rapidly after it ended. He had begun to show signs of acting like a child sometimes, perhaps to unconsciously recover his lost childhood and innocence when he had been forced to be a sixteen-year old pilot like so many out there. But those were Coordinators, they were expected to be grown-ups by the time they hit thirteen. Thinking back, that had been ridiculous from the start.

Kira held out papers he had just gotten, yawning a little but still holding the haro so it could not bounce and make a nuisance of itself. Lacus looked at him and knew he was trying his best to readjust to living normally after the second war, and felt her heart swell with pride.

She eagerly reached for the papers he held, for she had been waiting to see them, and beamed with relief as she saw pictures of the four of them in a single camera shot splashed out in the front news with headlines that screamed " Reunion of friends at the Gala Dinner!"

She quickly scanned through the rest of the article and concluded they had been the highlight of the glitzy event that nearly all the important ambassadors and delegates and literati of ORB, PLANT and EA had attended, with follow-up articles of some minor plans and decisions their spokespersons had revealed to the press to inform the people of their plans to further improve relations.

No rumours printed of anything that had been going on before she and Kira had showed up, no intimate shots or anything that would have led to a scandal. "Nothing more", she thought in relief.

"You saved them, didn't you?" she said happily, turning around to face the waiting Kira.

He gently smiled down at her and said quietly, "I had to for now."

As she searched his face for anything that would latch onto what he was thinking other than trying to save Athrun and Cagalli from a possible scandal, she realised that nothing would be found there other than affection.

Humming a tune, she looked down at what he had produced from behind his back and recognized as the pastel-green dress she had worn the night before and had accidentally left it in the bathroom after changing into her pajamas.

"I thought you said you were going to wear the lavender one." Kira said, absently scratching his cheek at a non-existent itch.

She chuckled warmly and took it from him, "I thought a walk down memory lane would have been good for Athrun."

And suddenly, Kira understood why she had left his side to appear in the pastel-green gown in full view of Athrun and why she had chosen a dress so reminiscent of what Cagalli had once worn. The pastel green was pretty on Lacus, but then again, most colours seemed to be. In spite of her pink hair that would have made it wiser to wear either black or white all the time, Lacus chose bright colours to wear half the time. Therefore, both knew that she would have opted for a more feminine colour other than green.

She looked up at him and saw that his face was inscrutable, but that only meant that he was thinking hard. Ignoring the need to rashly throw her arms around him to hug and comfort him because she was reminded of that face she saw often during the war, she straightened up and told him she'd be down for breakfast in a jiffy. She knew he was strong enough now. She never wanted to see him the way he had looked again when he had told her at age sixteen, that he'd killed Nicole Amalfi. Choking back a sob, she swiftly made her way to the bathroom.

Not quite notching Lacus' reddening eyes, Kira watched her scamper like a pink rabbit into the toilet, and wondered how she had maintained so much of her youth and innocence even after watching her own look-a-alike die in her arms at eighteen.

He remembered the way she had not cried when Siegel Clyne had died and the way she had said so quietly during the first war, "I just wanted to tell you that" before her throat went faulty and her words choked together. He had watched her carefully and saw the look of intense sorrow that drifted upon her face when she had laid her head upon his shoulder. She hadn't cried when she had wanted to tell him that she had lost her father, she just sought comfort from a place she wanted to find it from. He hadn't loved her at first sight, he had to admit that to himself as much as he didn't want to, because Fllay had been around at that time. But after she had left the Archangel, he had felt somehow very lost in a place he thought was familiar to him, and that was when he knew.

The way she had sobbed her heart out while he silently held her close when they had put Mia Campbell to rest was still fresh in his mind. He was always awkward when females cried, he didn't know how to react, but being there for her had been the most crucial at that time. Eighteen was a tender age to watch someone die in your arms, he thought, but then again, fifteen was also a little young to kill another boy barely his age as he had done. That was what they were trying to prevent.

Another war with the same mistakes and the same unmistakeable consequences.

Distracted from his thoughts by the sounds of Lacus' long hair swishing and the door closing, he watched the last of Lacus disappearing behind the door and promised himself that he'd do anything to protect them all by preventing another war.

The Bloody Valentine war in C.E 70 and the second one in C.E 73 had taken a toll on all their mental states for a period of time, but that was over now, and as far as he was concerned, he'd make sure it never happen again.

He walked to a large French window at the side after hearing the roar of an obviously high-performance engine and saw a familiar Black Lamborghini pull up at the embassy house that Lacus and he had moved into a month ago. Gazing at the sleek lines of the vehicle, he admitted to himself that his best friend did have very good taste. After all, he had been together with his sister, so it was natural he had good taste.

Harrumphing aloud at his own humour that he had developed after the war's horrors were gone from his mind and his dreams at night, Kira trampled down the stairs to greet Athrun who had turned up very early for breakfast with Lacus and him.

Lacus watched both friends embrace in the veranda from the tiny window she had opened in the bathroom and sighed absently to herself. From where she was, she could see that Kira had forgotten to change out of his blue-cartooned pyjamas and was hugging Athrun and greeting him enthusiastically. She couldn't help noting that Athrun in contrast, was impeccably decked in a work suit that fit beautifully. The reporters would have a field day about ORB's head of Engineering Science and Technology's abysmal fashion sense. Kira was such a child at times.

As they sat down to breakfast, Lacus laughingly clucked her tongue like a mother hen at Kira who suddenly realised he was still clad in his pyjamas even after finishing his wash-up. He hastily excused himself and ran up the stairs to change while Lacus and Athrun laughed at the intelligent engineer who had revamped so many technological systems in the past two years than what seemed humanely possible, but seemed to be more absent-minded than an average person at times.

As Lacus' personal android served them breakfast, she smiled at her former fiancée who had created her haro army. His lips quirked up at her, and she saw a glint of silver near his neck when he moved to pour himself a drink. Squinting carefully, she saw a flash of ruby at the base of the string that he wore almost hidden from other's eyes. It suddenly hit her that it was the engagement ring Cagalli had once wore, and she smiled slyly up at him.

She quietly pondered about the first time she had realised when she was about sixteen that she hadn't really felt for Athrun the way she now felt for Kira. When she had first stepped aboard the Archangel, she had been perfectly at ease, much to the amazement of those aboard the Archangel.

And she never lost her calm even when they threatened to murder her. The reason was only known to herself, she hadn't even told Kira because she knew it would disturb him immensely. He had asked her how she had been so collected and gentle in such a tense situation, but she had merely shrugged and told him she didn't know why she was like that either.

The truth was that when she had stepped aboard, she had already been prepared to die. In her safety pod, she had been so frightened she couldn't even cry out while her haro screamed for help. By the time a giant hand grabbed the pod which she identified as a gundam's, she was ready to die.

At that time, the sixteen-year old Lacus knew very well that people had died on the Silver Wing to protect her, and she knew through the blur of fear that her friends had joined ZAFT to fight and left her behind with virtually nobody left, since her father very rarely came home. When she had been eleven, she had sung herself out of depression, although nobody actually knew she had. She herself didn't know she had until she re-read her diary when she was fourteen and she had been in a better mental state by then. By the time they realised that she had a beautiful voice and could be marketable, she had already become the Princess of PLANT.

Lacus Clyne had very little to live for in reality. Had the Archangel crew killed her, she would have willingly died, because she had very little to treasure at that time. She had been prepared to die when she stepped out of the life-pod, but a young brown-haired boy had taken her hand and pulled her to him, effectively giving her hope.

She hadn't wanted to notice the way he had looked at Fllay but she couldn't help it, but at that time, she hadn't realised that what she was feeling were the stirrings of first love. Only when she had returned to PLANT with every strand of hair intact had she looked at the world and said quietly to herself, "I want to live for myself."

To the world, she was a perfect princess with everything she needed and the kind of eternal light that would shine even in a world stained with blood and lies. But Lacus would never tell Kira what she had thought when she had first stepped onto the Archangel.

Athrun had been the first boy she had ever been close too, but that was arranged since their parents had brought them into an engagement. She was quite sure that he hadn't kissed any girl before her, because he had been so awkward that she had laughed helplessly for days after that.

Athrun had been sipping his drink when he noticed Lacus' twinkling blue eyes and her sly smile that was a rare sight compared to her usually open smile. He followed her line of vision and was met by the ruby ring he had fastened around a chain that had been slightly revealed to eyes other than his own. He redirected his eyes to Lacus' blue ones and saw her looking directly at him.

"Meyrin gave that back to you, didn't she now?" she asked sweetly.

He didn't answer straightaway, but retorted, a little defensively, "How'd you know that anyway?"

She grinned, showing him a very nice set of white teeth and replied, "She told me. We are friends obviously, since Copernicus' shopping malls agreed with both of us very well."

Athrun looked at her carefully and saw she wasn't lying. Then he recalled how excited the younger Hawke girl and Lacus had been, like children opening presents, when they were shopping, and shook his head.

" What else did she say?" he muttered, staring straight into her face while she relaxed into her chair and started chopping the top bit of her boiled egg off.

"W-ell, about a year ago, I was reading the newly chosen set of laws PLANT would enforce that required part of my approval, you know, the code 1831, but I was distracted by a call. Meyrin called me and she asked if she could come round to my office to speak to me, because her sister was off training in some remote island she wasn't quite too sure about, and in any case, she didn't feel quite comfortable confiding in either Lunamaria or Shinn.

Meyrin admitted that her sister was too busy with her own training in ZAFT, and as for Shinn, well; she said she was a bit afraid of him when her sister wasn't around to control him. So of course I invited the dear girl over and she told me everything."

Lacus paused for breath and raised her eyes to his, her hands still busy with the egg shell ceremony, as Kira had called it. She had so many quirks, it was quite normal for her to be extraordinary anyway.

"What else did she say?" Athrun asked, curiously, never quite understanding why Meyrin who had been his impromptu secretary had suddenly resigned and given him the ring with no explanation for either action.

In fact, he was still puzzled where she had obtained the ring from, since it couldn't have been Cagalli who had taken it off her finger and passed it to either her brother or Lacus eons ago at that time. All for one damned Seiran, he thought dully.

"She gave it to Meyrin you know, not me or Kira." Lacus said, clearly but with a hint of sudden sadness.

She? Cagalli did? He could hardly believe his ears. It didn't make sense to him there and then at that point.

"You're lying aren't you? She could never have given it to Meyrin! She didn't even have it at that time when I woke up after defecting from ZAFT and saw her sitting next to me!" he cried, astonished that he had been so ignorant of anything that had been going on.

"Cagalli passed it to her before she left the ship to go back to ORB as we were heading off for the final battle at Messiah," Lacus said quietly, "and then she told Meyrin to look after you for her before giving her the ring and leaving."

He stared at Lacus with wide eyes as she calmly started peeling the thin membrane of her egg, trying to take in the revelation that had been placed in front of him without him least expecting it. He tried to open his mouth to speak but could not find the words that could be plucked out correctly.

Lacus had finished peeling the membrane off her egg and was using a silver spoon to divide into halves, quarters then eights, pausing only to continue when she had finished dividing the egg into neat portions.

"She realised you would never have any feelings for her that would come as close to those you used to have for Cagalli, ' Lacus quiet voice seemed to be saying to him from a distance, and suddenly, he felt a roar in his head like a waterfall that had suddenly exploded through a rock crevice.

"I still have those feelings!" he roared, not quite caring if anyone could hear him, and then he was suddenly was aware that he had leapt to his feet and was towering over Lacus who was now eating an eighth of the egg daintily.

A wave of shame swept over him as he realised that even now, this was the first time in two long years that he had admitted the fact that he still harbored the feelings to himself when he had only meant to admit it to Lacus.

"Do you now? Why then, were you so distant and uncaring when news was everywhere that she was marrying Yuna Roma Seiran?

Why then, were you so harsh to her when she and Kira met you after the Battle of Gulnahan and Dardanelles?

Why then, did you not say anything to Cagalli on board the Archangel when you awoke beside her, such that it would have made her come back to you?" Lacus countered, her eyes like chips of blue steel, placing aside the egg for the first time that morning. Her hands were folded in her skirt, but they were trembling like leaves swept by a breeze. She made sure he couldn't see how rattled she was, then she looked at him, placing the right amount of frown in her face to pick a fight. She knew that was the only way.

He glared at her, not really quite angry with her but at the whole situation. He opened his mouth to tell her exactly why he had been so cold and distant, how he had wanted to hurt Cagalli at that time for hurting him, and how he knew it would have been impossible to make her stay on board the Archangel when ORB had needed her so badly two years ago.

He wanted to tell Lacus everything, but as he opened his mouth to speak, she spoke first, and to his surprise, her eyes were suddenly moist and her tone was gentle. She had given up picking a fight and goading him into blasting out everything he kept inside, because she suddenly realised there wasn't a need to. She had been the defeated in their battle of wills.

"I know everything that you wanted to say. But she doesn't. At that time, ORB needed her so badly you had to be paced at second priority, but right now, this isn't the case. The worst is over, because these two years weren't spent in vain! Don't you see that you just have to tell her what you were about to say just only to me, to make it all come back together, Athrun?" she whispered, reaching forward to place a hand on his cheek.

He remained silent, sinking into his chair once more and subsequently allowed her to brush away the unwelcome wetness at the side of his own eyes. He didn't know why he was tearing, but perhaps it had to do with the realization that getting her back was not going to be as simple as saying a simple sorry and doing a bit of an explanation.

Both of them knew that Cagalli was changed, her true self hidden beneath thick veneers of cold ice that made her a stranger to him, and her warmth and fire was ebbing away. The pain of not being able to do anything because they didn't know what to do exactly was causing the ache in both his and Lacus' chests, and he was suddenly weary of the unspoken problems, the uncovered promises and the seemingly hopelessness of the whole issue.

But he felt Lacus's soft hand on his cheek and her comforting gaze, and wondered how he could have pushed her away when they were fifteen as he snapped at a startled Lacus that he couldn't possibly be fighting a war with a smile on his face.

She was suddenly smiling at him and telling him it would all be better soon if he made the first move with determination, and he felt the steel of core in him expanding as he picked up his own spoon and firmly cut his own egg into halves, quarters, then eights. She smiled at him again, and they wiped their eyes and tried desperately to regain their composure before Kira came back.

Kira, hidden behind a pillar adjoined to the staircase, quietly left and went back to his room. He had known Lacus would speak to Athrun and try to help sort his thoughts out, and as soon as he had left the table, he had hidden behind a pillar that would conceal him entirely to hear the conversation. He hadn't wanted to eavesdrop initially, but Lacus would surely understand why he had to do what he did.

He quickly shed himself of his pajamas and changed into a suit, then randomly counted to twenty just to be sure, and then he walked down once more. When he arrived, Lacus was excitedly telling Athrun something about how the haro's speech could be reprogrammed into a language unknown to human ears and only to dolphins, and Athrun was keenly commenting that it was an ingenious idea to improve communications and understanding between humans and animals, and asking if Kira had developed the system.

Clearing his throat expectantly, Kira viewed the two pairs of slightly red eyes that darted instantly to him, watching as his lover and best friend smiled at him with an ease that pleased him greatly.

Tori abruptly flew over his head, flapping its steel wings with loud snapping sounds and then pointedly commented in a series of mechanical chirps what a disgrace it was to eat eggs in front of a bird, providing a rather late announcement to Kira's re-entrance at the dining table, while Lacus laughed and Athrun grinned.

"Yes, I did," he said proudly.

Turning away, he flipped open a cell phone and instructed his secretary to reschedule everything in order for a three days extension in Berlin.

He was very aware, thanks to Kira, that the Chairman Atha's schedule consisted of three more days here for visiting the Earth Alliance and speaking to the people which comprised mainly of Naturals before returning to ORB, and as he cut off his still violently protesting secretary, he made a decision at that very instant.

He was going to get Cagalli to change back for him.