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 10

"Cagalli, are you listening to me?" her brother asked very suddenly, and she could detect a strange, teasing note in his somber tone.

His hair was tousled, messy in the shining winds of the world as they drove. He had a pale cream, unbuttoned shirt on that was a kite in the wind, it flapped and fluttered, revealing the inner white one that he had on. His eyes were tracing hers in the review mirror.

She promptly colored but controlled her urge to blush an even deeper shade.

"Y-yes, why would you expect otherwise?" she managed a little shakily. Her eyes were lowered and she was shaken out of her reverie.

"Because I asked if you thought the answer was a yes or no, and you said yes, but there wasn't any yes or no to answer me with in the first place," Kira said sharply, raking his eyes over her face in the review mirror. Lacus chuckled and turned back to her, mouthing, "Ignore him."

So she did, but turned her eyes skywards, thinking she could get away with it, but he caught her doing that and said cheekily, "I saw you do that."

His mouth was a little knot of jest.

She looked at her brother and coloured a little, ashamed that she had been caught daydreaming in her own thoughts. Lacus was giggling next to her and she felt a little wave of irritation that she had been made a fool by Kira, but successfully stamped it out. She had to be as subdued and calm as humanely possible at all times, and she wasn't keen to get into a fight with her brother an hour after she had arrived.

She had had a quick breakfast after Meyrin had left, not that she tasted much if anything, of course. When she had been seating there eating, she had suddenly looked up and said loudly, "Meyrin!"

Then all the ambassadors and delegates there had looked up in shock at her and one had even choked on his apple juice and Kira had to trot over there to thump his back and made breakfast a complete fiasco.

The ring-

She had then gone and locked herself in Kira's study and proceeded to finish all her work and the work assigned four days in advance, all perfectly done with no errors. She double-checked. It was the only way to preoccupy her thoughts, but it was a different case when she was sitting in the backseat with nothing to take her thoughts away from everything happening around her.

What if she hadn't given the ring? If so, might Meyrin have still-

"You're not being yourself, Cagalli," her twin was saying coolly, as he made an expert turning with his steering wheel that rendered the car they were in to the nearby beach that Lacus had promised was composed entirely of seashells.

She wasn't? Well now, wasn't that nice of her twin to say something about it.

She briefly wondered what had made her usually impassive brother comment on it, but her unspoken question was answered almost immediately.

"In the past, you would have screeched that it was none of my sodding business that you weren't being yourself, instead of going all silent on me," Kira continued, directing the car into a nice slot that allowed easy access of the beach by foot.

She looked into the rear mirror and wondered if her comebacks had really been that predictable in the past, or were Kira and Athrun so close as best friends that they had telepathy that she and Kira ought to have had as twins, but unfortunately did not have.

And then she realised that she was thinking of him even though she had promised herself last night that she wouldn't, and couldn't help swearing aloud. Then she looked out and saw the ocean and wondered if a place like that would give her peace ever again.

When she had been a child, she often ran to the extensive forests and beaches of ORB to play when her teachers weren't keeping their eyes on her. She would return with her clothes, once soft, now stiff with caked mud and her hands and feet scratched from the blackberry and hawthorn bushes she had hidden in to avoid them from finding her.

She had been an excellent student despite her short-attention span and her lack of interest in most subjects except history, especially war history. The war history had been an obsession- then horror when she'd experienced it, became part of war history.

The irony was immense and startling.

Cagalli had been home schooled for almost the whole of her life, and perhaps that had made her a little awkward in communication and rash in her decisions. It hadn't been easy to do well under the tutelage of her teachers who were the best, but she had managed it just to prove that she had a bright mind. In fact, she would have graduated at the top if there had been a class at all. Being home schooled automatically made you the top no matter how badly one did anyway.

Kira was opening the door for her and Lacus who had sat next to him was already at the car boot taking out the food they had brought to have a picnic, and he was offering a hand to her and saying with an air of satisfaction she found herself smiling fondly at, "I knew Cagalli Yula Atha was still my sister."

Try as she might, she could not find a comeback to shoot at him, and moved to the back to help Lacus carry out everything that was packed in three baskets. They each took one and set off to the lovely beach where Cagalli had to admit that Lacus was quite right when she had declared the whole beach was just a treasure trove of seashells. It was, and for a minute Cagalli wanted to laugh and play and frolic like she had on some little beach she had once called her own.

She stooped down, enjoying the salty spray of the air and the clean slices of the wind, and she untucked her shirt and it flapped back, revealing her waist as she picked one, delicately- shaped and a faint sunset color. She held it to her ear in a trance-like state, and heard the songs of another world and the promises they held in it.

While Kira set up the cosy looking red-and-white checked table cloth he had sniped from somewhere to make a picnic mat, she gazed around, trying to imprint the beauty of the beach as a memory. The shells were in all shorts of shapes and sizes, sorted according to size by the distance from the sea, since the waves tended to throw heavier, larger shells further up the coast and had only enough energy to take back the less bulky, coarser ones, hence the smaller shells nearer to the open sea. She strolled here and there, imagining that the boundaries of the shell-sorting were marked only by the sea and not the footsteps she'd left on it.

The sand was sparse in comparison- she smiled and let it sift through her fingers, golden and warm at the top, cool and wet below.

Lacus was picking up a few and examining them with great interest, commenting that they would be lovely if they were strung into a necklace. Cagalli glanced over and had to agree, because the shells were so lovely that even she who tried to avoid fussy things like jewellery would have to admit a shell necklace would be nice to wear. She secretly liked that sort of thing, but Cagalli was like glass. Hard yet fragile, beautiful in its vulnerability and aching stubbornness, made bold with its defiance to comply. Her country was aware of her tough-lady persona, but Kisaka, he was different.

Since she had been a child, she had been stubborn and independent, climbing gates to escape from the Manor, following her father to work in secret, because she was afraid people would realise that she was lonely half the time, but then she cried easily and blushed without much of any effort directed to it.

It was then that she spotted a well, strangely placed in the middle of a beach, although it was mostly shaded by cool palm trees that had managed to grow in the sandy soil the shells had not covered. Startled by the discovery, she yelled to Lacus that there was a well, and both of them ran over like children who had found Christmas presents early, drawn in by their curiosity.

They placed their hands on the mossy stone well and peered into the deep darkness, enjoying the queer sounds the water below made when it gurgled. There was an odd, misplaced, croak that made both of them cry out, "frogs!" at the same time before bursting into laughter. Cagalli grabbed Lacus' hands and hurried back to Kira who had set up everything already and was lying on his back with his hands cushioning his head, looking like a cat on a rooftop enjoying the breeze.

"There's a well and frogs, Kira! Imagine that!" Lacus cried, expecting Kira to spring up and rush over to see the new discovery too.

Instead, he yawned and stretched himself in a manner reminiscent of a feline, and muttered that the food was getting cold. He'd picked a few coconuts and promised to have them opened for their sweet, tender juice, but the rocks were far too heavy for him to lift and dash against the husks.

So they sat down and ate and talked of happy things and Cagalli wanted the moment to last forever where she wasn't obliged to speak in a key higher according to what was advised, and to smile ad laugh without feeling self-conscious an thousands of cameras clicking and flashing in her direction.

She started braiding Lacus' silky, long hair almost lazily, since the wind was blowing at her hair and swishing it temptingly in front of her nose. Lacus giggled and leaned back to allow her better excess and then when Cagalli had finished with it; she skipped behind her and played with Cagalli's hair in exchange.

"My hair's not long, it's not good to play with," Cagalli began hesitantly, but Lacus just grinned more and skillfully tucked loose strands behind her ears and arranged it with a deft pawing motion, somehow making it tame for once. She caught a flash of molten gold as Lacus moved near her, and she realised that it was Lacus' signature hairpin. It was molten gold in the sun, luxurious and reflective. She saw her eyes in it.

"Where'd you get your pin from, and why are you always wearing it?" she asked curiously.

"It was my mother's, she left it for me even though I never saw what she looked like before since she died giving birth to me," Lacus said simply, her hands still moving across Cagalli's hair.

Nearby, Kira had paused shuffling the food everywhere, and Cagalli blushed furiously and muttered, "Sorry. I didn't mean to ask such-"

But Lacus giggled and said sweetly, "Cagalli and Kira look very much like your mother, and perhaps I look like my mother too, since I don't look much like my father, although he told me that she had very dark hair since she came from the Scandinavian gypsy line or something like that. Obviously though, her favourite colour was pink."

Eager to change the topic and partly because she was surprised at what Lacus had said, Cagalli butted in and said, "What part of our mothers looks like us?"

"Everything," Kira said very quietly.

"Yes," cut in Lacus, "her eyes, her face and the most obvious thing is-,"

"Is?" Cagalli asked inquisitively.

"Her smile," Lacus replied softly, then she looked at them and smiled so radiantly that Cagalli wondered why Kira could have ever seen anyone like Fllay when Lacus Clyne had been around.

One of these days, Cagalli promised herself, she would have to speak to Kira. Of course she had met Fllay Alster herself, that girl had been obviously the golden girl of the pack, long silky red hair, pale, flawless skin with no freckles like Cagalli's on her arms, and very sharp features with sparkling eyes.

Cagalli had actually caught her telling Mirallia Haww what a country bumpkin she thought 'the Cagalli girl' was, but lord, it had been fun to see the look on her face when Cagalli had been brought back to Orb in her regalia.

She hadn't enjoyed the attention very much, walking around the ship like that, her skirt so long it touched her ankles as dozens of gleaming bangles chimed from her arms and her feet, but seeing the look like somebody had punched her on Fllay's fair face had made her feel a little less awkward.

But she had also been a royal pain in the neck in Cagalli's opinion and she had actually been jealous of Cagalli when Cagalli and Kira had first met. Of course nobody had known that they were twins back then, and in that kind of place, nobody could say anything without considering the repercussions and consequences first.

In fact, no place she had been to for the last few years of her life had been a place where she was truly free.

In a place like this where she could speak freely with those who she wanted to be with for the rest of her life, Cagalli was the happiest, Kira realised, and maybe that was the key.

Clearing his throat, he posed a riddle to them.

If a frog were to jump into a well about forty meters deep like the one they had seen, and it was estimated that if it were to climb up two meters everyday but slide down by one due to its weariness from climbing each day, how many days would it take for a frog to get out of the well?

Lacus chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip while Cagalli sighed and said those Mathematical riddles were beyond her, and suddenly, Kira heard the voice he had been waiting for ever since he had came and purposely sprawled himself there in case his best friend arrived suddenly.

"Thirty-nine days, is that correct Kira?"

Her heart jumped to her throat, and she nearly croaked like the frog in the riddle. Her lips flew apart in silent shock and distress.

They all turned around to face Athrun who had his face partially shielded by the sunglasses he had once worn as Alex Dino. He stood, graceful and relaxed, on one foot, and there was a slight carelessness in his body that was irritatingly attractive to her eyes.

And Kira watched his sister's face pale and her eyes that had warmed just a little become dull again. He tried to ignore the sinking feeling of failure as he realised the dullness was not from overworking but from the effort to make her face unreadable as she had been taught to do as a politician and leader.

He knew that his sister would have probably beaten a few card smarts at poker already to be as well-trained as she now was. His mouth pursed a little.

But then, Kira stood up instantly, clapping his friend on the back and bidding him to sit down with them to join them for what remained of their lunch.

Lacus, beaming graciously, brought out a portion that had been wrapped separately almost as if it had been there just in case another person were to join them, and Cagalli's eyes were suddenly suspicious.

"Why is your answer thirty-nine days, Athrun?" Lacus asked cheerfully.

She had stood as well, and was proffering an empty place for Athrun to sit on. He accepted courteously and smiled at her, and his smile was a slightly sly one.

"What would your answer be then, Lacus?" he asked genially in return while slipping off his sunglasses that revealed his green eyes.

But he was looking at Cagalli. Her eyes were insistently drawn to the little rock that sat on the corner of the blanket, the only thing that weighed its corner down. She was beautiful today, a sort of windswept comeliness had entered her face and her lips were ripe with full, rich promise and the inexperience he had relished when he had lost his resolve and kissed her before he'd left for the Plants. The difference now, was that she was no longer his.

"If the frog were to climb two meters but slide down one each day, and the well was forty meters deep, wouldn't that be forty days to climb forty meters with one meter a day?" she asked curiously.

Athrun laughed, enjoying the feeling of the breeze in his hair and secretly thanking the gods that he had checked his phone for mails after leaving the estate after breakfast to return for three solid hours of meetings with the PLANT delegates and representatives. Kira had sent him a message that Cagalli would be with them for lunch, and he apologized that he could not speak to Athrun because Cagalli would notice if he made a call out in the open, and getting away was unlikely since she was clinging on to him quite tightly.

Kira had even tried dropping his fork under the table while actually dropping it into his lap so he could fool Cagalli into searching under the table while he quickly sent the message, but it had gone wrong somehow and Kira had sent him the message in the bathroom instead. And Athrun had thought he was desperate enough. Somehow, Kira was more desperate than him.

"Well?" prompted Lacus. There was a sparkling impatience in her today, and Cagalli was afraid to look at her, afraid to look at anyone for that matter.

She could sense his eyes on her.

"Basically, if the frog were, as you said, to climb a net calculation of one meter per day, then on the first day it started climbing, it would have reached one meter above ground level. At the end of the second day it started climbing, it would have reached two meters above the ground." Athrun said calmly.

"Go on," Lacus prompted eagerly. Her face was inquisitive and pretty with youth, disconcerting for someone wise than her years.

"This would have went on so on and so forth, until it reached the thirty-eighth meter above ground on the thirty-eighth day," he paused, looking back at Kira who was nodding in approval and Lacus who was counting her fingers in an effort to keep up. Cagalli, in spite of herself, was staring, curious to hear his logic and heartened by her interest, he went on.

"And on the thirty-ninth day, the frog would climb his usual two meters, and without a chance to slide down, he would have already reached the top and escaped from the well, leaving one day excess in your calculation of forty days, Lacus," Athrun concluded simply.

Lacus clapped her hands together, her blue eyes like stars and cried, "How clever!" with the innocence of a child that made it obvious why the Coordinators had worshipped her.

Kira was beaming and saying, "You figured that one out very well."

Athrun gazed at Cagalli from the corner of her eye, and Lacus nudged the silent girl who started, lost in her thoughts and heard Kira clear his throat rather expectantly.

Realising she had to say something too, she stammered, "T-that's right!"

As soon as the words had left her lips, she felt herself close to blushing furiously and had to turn away to face the sea and put an emotionless mask to stop herself from looking like a damned fool in front of the others, and then turned back a little more shyly than she would have preferred to do. Cagalli excelled at History and Geography and was terrible and that sort of thing like woodwork, but Mathematics had never really been her strong suit anyway, she had nearly died when she had studied integration and limits and that sort of thing. But she liked Algebra too, if she had a stick, she could have made some equation and used X to represent the number of days the frog would take to climb out with the various conditions brought in too.

Then she decided there and then that she would go home and work it out just to see if he was really correct. Not that she'd proudly march up to him and tell Athrun Zala that his Algebra was a failing subject anyway; she'd probably end up in a rut or something.

Kira sighed and stretched again, thinking that they had a long way to go. Then he sprung to his feet, light and agile, and asked whether anyone was keen for a race along the coast where there were fewer shells and more sand to run on.

Athrun, keen for a break from the exhausting work he had just left completed in his temporary office, readily agreed to race him, and Cagalli, taking them and herself by surprise, offered to race too. Lacus said she would try since Cagalli was wearing a work skirt and still racing, so she had no excuse not to try anyway, although she would probably be last.

So they lined up in semi-kneeling positions, with Athrun next to Kira who crouched next to Cagalli and then Lacus at the other end of the queer line they formed. Lacus pointed at the headland that they could see in the distance as the endpoint, and then on the count of four in honour of them, they shot off onto the sand.

Lacus was soon steadily falling behind although she tried vigilantly to keep up with the other three, but Cagalli embraced the wind rushing at her as she ran as fast as she could, unable to stop laughing as she felt herself freed from everything behind her.

Her brother was now at a leisurely jog rather than his sprint, all to make the distance between them and Lacus less apparent, but he finally gave up and turned behind to face the panting Lacus before catching her in his arms and kissing her on the cheek, laughing at her indignant expression and yelling at the other two retreating figures that they'd have to race fair and square without him and Lacus.

Cagalli heard him and laughed too, sincerely thinking that Lacus and Kira deserved each other more than anyone else, and continued running on the sand. She had been used to it when she trained as a resistance fighter in the desert, although her build was a disadvantage when it came to the sandstorms violent gusts and blinding shifting sands that made her eyes teary and sore for days if she did not wear a cloak or goggles.

If all was clear though, her speed on the sand was nearly unsurpassed. Now there were no desert storms to slow her down, but she was wearing a skirt that reached her knees and there was a strong prevailing coastal wind blowing directly at her. Her speed would take a hit; there was no doubt about it. She hadn't felt too bothered about it though, she had only ran as fast as her legs could carry her, and she was grateful that she had her comfortable loafers on rather than the office high heels she had worn earlier that morning.

She thought of her friends she had left behind at the desert and Ahmed who had died in before her very eyes, and wanted to cry out in anguish even though she knew life there was now peaceful.

Now that her brother was out of the race, it would be easier to win since she was now in the lead. Kira was fast and his slight build made it unfair for her from the start, but he wasn't here now. She sprinted forward, but spotted something zooming from behind her and realised that the blur of dark grey suit that Athrun had been wearing meant that he had overtaken her after conserving his energy for half the race. He was in for the kill, she was sure, but she'd never give up when she had the advantage of being practiced with running on sand.

And so she laughed a little for no reason and raced behind him, marking her eyes on the little cove that was becoming bigger and bigger as they neared it. As they approached it, she pushed herself forward and leapt forward, effectively cutting her competitor short by touching the cove a mere split-second after him, where she bent her upper body down and panted, tiny beads of perspiration dripping down both their foreheads. He had lost, but only by a mere second; still he accepted it and took her hand as was a customary acceptance of defeat and goodwill.

But as their hands came into contact, she lifted her amber eyes towards his, and he was stunned to see they were no longer dull and guarded but sparkling and revitalised with a fire he had dreamt of seeing for nearly the last two years.

In a daze, he was pulling her towards him in a similar way as the last night, but this time she was pushing him away violently, so violently that she lost her balance on the soft sand and ended up falling backwards in a stumbling manner while he caught her flailing arms to help her regain her balance but overbalanced too and effectively collapsed on her and crushed her beneath his weight, although his arms reached out and propped him just in time so their lips wouldn't touch.

She was staring up at him in shock and she tried to say something but a weird gurgle came out of her mouth and made her feel like digging a grave and never coming out of it.

He was aware that both their faces were flaming red, and he rolled off with as much dignity as he possibly could muster after squashing the ORB Chairman, whereby they sat up, stiffened and brushed the sand off while sitting outside the little cave.

Cagalli couldn't help but stare at him, astonished that he had tried to embrace her again for no sodding reason whatsoever, and then admonished herself silently for losing control too.

"Why did you do that?" she questioned, more calmly than she actually felt.

He looked over at her and thought of the ring he had around his neck and how he had dreamt of her putting it back on her finger and allowing him to put his arms around her her as often as he liked, then said carefully, "Because I wanted to."

She looked away from him to glance at the calm sea and ran her fingers through her hair.

Choosing her words slowly and cautiously, she began very hesitantly knowing that he looked at her with unfaltering eyes, "Meyrin said she gave you the ring back when I met her just now, I suppose you have it?"

He stared at her, cursing fate for being such good friends with irony for the thousandth time that year, and nodded.

"She gave it back to me nearly two years ago after a month when I came to office and back to ZAFT." he said, wishing he could see her expression better since most of her face was directed at the sea.

"I see." was all she said, her hands suddenly in her skirt's pockets.

And then he couldn't bear the awkwardness they had between them when they had once been so open and honest with each other even when it had been in the chaotic times of war, and he was saying sharply to her, "Didn't you wonder why I didn't come back to give the ring to you again after that?"

She tuned jerkily to face him and he saw that she was emotionless, replying, "No, there's no need to explain when it's all quite obvious. I may have been naive then, but I'm not like that anymore. I don't need to hear it."

Her hands were still in her pockets, and he reached forward to yank them out. And then he saw that her hands were clenched in balls and were trembling quite visibly even though her face was calm.

"Yes, you do," he insisted. If she was stubborn like a mule with him, well, he'd show her he wasn't about to be a pansy either.

"I don't want to," she said very coldly, and then she put her trembling hands in her pockets again and looked away, a little frown on her lips.

"Why do you have to be like that around me?" he asked sharply, recalling how happy she had looked with Lacus and Kira until he had arrived.

She glared at some offending rocks at her feet although she wanted to glare at him, wondering where the girl who would speak her mind at any time of the day had gone, feeling lost and tired suddenly.

"Because that's the only way I can see you without feeling pain from recalling the past," she said quietly with no emotion in either her face or her voice.

He was furious at her lack of emotion, even at her lack of anger or any bitter feelings she might have had towards him, and that she wanted to forget everything and him now, and it riled him up so badly his hands actually twitched on their own accord. They hadn't done that for a long time, only when he had first killed a man when some Earth Alliance terrorists had disguised themselves as ZAFT redcoats and infiltrated the grounds with guns.

He had been fourteen at that time and was sleeping soundly, tired from a day's hard training, but he had heard someone enter his room and had seen a redcoat soldier that obviously didn't belong there. If the infiltrator had been dressed in the normal green ZAFT uniform, he might have been fooled for a while, but there were so few redcoats that it was nearly impossible that the man he could not recognise was one of them. Their egos had done them in. The man had instantly put the trigger at his temple, but he had grabbed a fruit knife from his bed and plunged it into the enemy's eye the way he usually did in the simulation centers, and then he felt the warm spray of blood on his own cheek as the screaming began and had thought numbly that the simulation centers didn't have that in the programs the soldiers practiced with.

His hands had twitched for days after that, just like how they were twitching as he stared at her now.

"You shouldn't have to forget everything we had in the past!" he cried, grabbing her and shaking her as if to make her wake up and realise what awful words she had just said to him.

"And why not?" she said calmly as she tried to free herself and try not to punch him in his gut just for the heck of it all.

He let her free herself and drew in a shuddering breath, and then surprised her when he said determinedly, "Punch me."

"What?" she said in absolute confusion. He gazed at her with unreadable eyes and prepared himself to get injured, but he would memorize the way she looked at him now with large, innocent amber eyes and her lips parted in slight irritation and confusion.

"I said punch me, punch me Cagalli!" he insisted, reaching forward and pushing up her hands in a boxing stance.

She looked at him, bewildered, wondering if he had lost his mind from all the work he had been doing, and then saw that he had already helped arrange her hands in the stance she had taken when she was about to go bonkers and punch someone as hard as she could.

Amagi had told her not to go around beating anyone up, and she had tried to listen, but she failed sometimes, since she had been born with a fiery temper and a passionate rage in her. Perhaps Via Hibiki had given that to her, but perhaps she hadn't.She never knew where it came from. Then Goebbels had ordered her not to make a fool of herself and she hadn't. But now, the person she thought she had never wanted to see again wanted her to make a fool out of him.

She heard the sound of a string grow taut, and then snap in her ears. With a growl of rage, she threw her fists forward and felt them connect with his palm which he had expertly sued to block to assault. She threw her other fist forward quickly, using the jabbing steps that she had learnt from her bodyguards with a lethal precision that surprised her because she hadn't done any boxing after beating up Yuna almost two years ago. "He deserved it anyway", she thought fiercely.

She was jabbing faster and harder than any time she had done before, and he finally could not block the final punch she threw that connected with his stomach, and he made an 'oof' sound and doubled up in pain.

Cagalli saw that she had hurt him and her hands flew up to her mouth and she stammered, " I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you like tha.." and then he was looking up and her and grinning and grimacing at the same time, managing to say confidently through his evident pain, "I knew you still had it in you."

He had seen it again, the flashes of passionate fury and fire in her eyes as she had attacked him, and he knew he was making progress. He wanted to whoop and cheer and maybe make her laugh and hold him in her arms, but he was still cringing from the pain. Boy, she could punch.

"Why did you want me to punch you?" she yelled in a rage, not quite understanding the strange twist of events, and then she was stunned that she had even yelled at all, and she was puzzled why it had felt so correct to yell and speak with as much self-assuredness as she did now.

"Because that was a sure-fire way to see you like what you were in the past again," he said simply, placing a hand near his abdomen where it was still throbbing sullenly like a sulky child that had his sweets taken away and thrown out of the window.

And then it dawned on her that he had tricked her out of her cave and she was simply furious that she had lost it so easily with him when her brother and Lacus were still trying hard to obtain what Athrun had managed to obtain out of her. She wanted to shove him so hard he flew into next Wednesday, but she was wary now, she suspected that she knew what he was after. Well, she wouldn't give it then.

But her emotions were all pouring out now, she tried to gather them up and lock it up deep somewhere but now he had opened Pandora's Box. She was afraid there and then that she'd never find the key to lock it up again. And she was standing there, her profile framed by the coast and her hair taken by the wind and freely howling like she had never done before with tears streaming down her face, crying and feeling ashamed that she was being so emotional and for even admitting that she was tired from the obligations she had wanted to fulfill for ORB with all her heart.

It had occurred to her once that she was overdoing things, but she had done it anyway. That was the only way she could live her life without pining away like some dog that had been abandoned or something stupid like that.

Then he had closed the distance between them and was trying to hug her and comfort her again, but she was pushing him away and running back from where she had come from and shouting incoherently for him not to come. She stumbled a little, blinded by her tears, cursing her lack of control ever since she had arrived and seen him again, then she fell down and scarcely felt anything, because she was realising the logic of the frog trapped in the forty-meter well.

Lacus' answer had been proven wrong by Athrun by simple calculations, but Athrun's answer was also wrong by mere logic and the cold, hard facts too.

Time or energy to climb one meter a day again and again wasn't quite the issue as it had been with the frog riddle, because a frog that fell into a forty-meter deep well just did not look up and see the sky beyond the looming walls and get up to climb again.

She was sure she was the frog.

Nobody spoke for a long time to come.