Chapter 11

Kira was so mad, he thought he was about to go into berserk mode. Cagalli had rushed back to him and Lacus, howling and crying like a child as they tried in vain to get her to calm down and tell them what had happened, but she had refused to reveal anything and had pleaded for them to bring her home.

He had been enraged at himself, because when he had cried alone on the deck of Archangel and howled like a child, she had grabbed him and hugged him and told him it would be alright in the end. But now, he couldn't do the same for her.

She pleaded and pleaded for them to bring her home after she regained some control and it tore his heart into shreds to see her in such a weak, pathetic sate. He exchanged glances with a worried-looking Lacus and looked at her crying for them to bring her home.

So they had done just that after Athrun, his face in obvious distress, had joined them shortly by running after the retreating Cagalli. Kira had quietly signalled to him that he should go first, and he had complied without saying a word and driven off although the pain on his face was more than obvious by then.

They had brought her back to the house and she had flopped down onto Lacus' bed and cried so much that she would have wet the pillowcase and the pillow on the either side by now, he thought sullenly. And the worst thing was that he still didn't know what was going on. Lacus was speaking to her in soothing tones inside now, and he was trying to eavesdrop but Haro was rolling idly outside the door, ready to scream electronic curses if the two girls inside were disturbed by intruders.

He regretted the security function he had put into Haro as a prank, and vowed never to do stupid things like that in the future. He suddenly thought of calling up his best friend who he new had extended his stay here for three days with apparently the same write-in reason as Cagalli's. Not that was hard to arrange, what with the ORB, PLANT and EA's relations coming on so nicely, the EA was more than happy to arrange for their stays here.

So he went to his bedroom, locked the door and arranged for the blue haro he had been tampering with in his room to stand guard outside his door and get ready to scream bloody murder if anyone tried to come in.

He picked up his cell, and then speed-dialled Athrun's personal phone. After a few rings, Athrun answered, and Kira could hear the shakiness in his voice as his friend proceeded to ask who it was calling.

"It's me," he said calmly, "care to share what went on back there?"

And then he thought he could have been a successful poet if he had taken up creative writing instead of Science and Engineering when he was nine, but kicked away the random thoughts as he heard a sigh at the other end of the line as his friend told him everything.

Back in her room, Lacus was trying to make sense of the sobs and hiccups that were Cagalli trying to tell her what had happened. So far, she could gather that Cagalli had won the race, but that was about it. She wasn't a fool though.

She pressed Cagalli's head onto her lap, the way she had once did to Kira when he had cried and was pleased to see that it made Cagalli quieten down and comforted a little. Lacus never knew how she had came to the conclusion that heads on laps stemmed crying, that was always the first thing she did when she was in distress when she saw someone she cared about in tears. She knew she was selfish, the action wasn't so much to comfort them as much as she did it so she wouldn't be hurt by the pain on their faces once they buried their faces in her lap.

Lacus could probably guess what had happened as Cagalli started punching in the air as she tried to tell her about Athrun making her punch him, and Lacus could similarly guess why he had pushed her do that. She stroked her friend's hair gently and forced her to sit up properly and wiped her tear away, even though fresh ones were threatening to blossom again. It killed her to be so pushy with Cagalli who was in distress, but she knew it was now or never.

"Do you still have feelings for him?" she shot at her, willing herself to sound stern and not procrastinate over the issues and the truth.

Cagalli stared at her friend and bit her lower lip, hanging her head and feeling miserable.

"Well?" Lacus prompted.

"I-I think so, but," faltered Cagalli, trying not to hiccup from crying so much in a just two days.

"But what?" Lacus asked gently as she held Cagalli's hands in hers.

"But it'd have been wrong to ask for more than what I have now because ORB is my main priority, and he shouldn't be," explained Cagalli, passing to hiccup and sniffle a little.

Lacus looked carefully at her friend and then suddenly laughed peal after peal of laughter until she was crying almost as hard as Cagalli.

"You two have been more caught up in the past than what we expected initially," she managed to say to a confused Cagalli.

"Day in, day out, both of you tried to forget each other not because you lost any feelings for each other during and after the second war, but because you were forced to work with problems in your own countries that demanded your immediate attention," explained Lacus.

"Now that that's more or less over, why do you still have to work like cows and neglect yourselves and your hearts by believing that what was in the past is the present and the certain future?" she concluded with a smile.

Cagalli stared at her with wide eyes and then shook her head violently, stammering, "N-not only that, he didn't see a need to return me the ring after the war was over, because he probably-"

"Because he was living in the past too," Lacus interrupted, "and then Kira and I knew both of you were still trapped in the past even until yesterday, and I think Meyrin saw that today too. She was probably smarter than I was at that time, because she realised Athrun would eventually wake up one day and then decide and carry out what he needed to do, and that was why she wanted to be the catalyst by returning him the ring almost as soon as the war was over and there was hope everywhere to be seen. She knew the truth too, Meyrin did."

Lacus paused and looked at Cagalli who was staring in wonder at her, not really seeing but still seeing everything.

"If that's true, then it'd be too late," she whispered painfully, "because I've had to change so much I can probably never go back to who I was when I was with him."

She thought of the way she had found out a young clerk stealing a few dollars after Goebbels had hauled him to her and how he had instructed her to fire him immediately. She had wanted to ask why he did that and give him another chance, the terror on his face and the pleading look in his eyes had made her want to hug and comfort him like a child more than take away his job,but she had done the deed straight away. She had become a cold-blooded person and she knew it even while she lost a little of the life she had in her, ironically, through every day she lived her life.

She hung her head morosely and wondered why she had even agreed to become who she was today when her father had remained so true to himself even when ORB's fate rested on his shoulders. At that time during the war, she had been desperate to save ORB, and she had changed which had probably been the best decision at that time, but she was so far lost that it was scarcely a wonder if she could return to herself ever again. Cagalli let out a cry sob and pushed her face into her hands, ready to say she wanted to surrender.

But warm arms were enclosing her into a tight embrace and Lacus was whispering that she hadn't changed, she was still Cagalli, she had proven that today, and then Cagalli was returning the embrace until they nearly choked in their joy and the realisation that everything was gong to work out eventually.

And that night when she slept, tucked into bed in snug warm covers that Lacus had shared with her, Cagalli dreamt of a million frogs jumping and leaping out of deep wells like chips of jade being scattered around the world.

But at Cagalli's office the next morning, Athrun had not foreseen the problems that would erupt upon his arrival as he walked into the office that admitted him since he called in for official business as the head of ETERNITY to see ORB's leader.

He had strode into the building, as free as you pleased, with few people to disturb him and ask his what his business was even though her office was a beehive of activity. He knew that even though the embassy house she had been placed at by the EA had travellators like an official building, (technically it was though), and she would have her private quarters somewhere around her office. That was what had been arranged for him in his won temporary residence, and he couldn't think of a logical explanation why hers would be any different.

He paused at a handsome door with a gold plague that had the ORB symbol printed on a fine card that was slipped onto the plague, superbly sure that it was her office. He looked around for similar doors and found none, and then knocked once or twice, sure that she would be inside. He heard a scuffling sound and a male voice asking him to come in, and he froze for a few seconds wondering why it wasn't her voice that he heard. And then he put his hand on the door handle and made his way in, but he stopped in his tracks as he saw her secretary staring at him form the side of the desk where he was arranging papers that seemed to be in a mess.

Staring at Cagalli's secretary, he was taken aback to meet eyes almost similar to his own, quite green and a bit almond-shaped like a cat's. Then he felt an intense wave of jealously when he thought that she had found a replacement for him.But maybe that was just him and his stupid self. Cagalli probably hadn't even noticed her secretary's eyes that were almost like his own. Or maybe he was fooling himself there too.

Clearing his throat a bit self-consciously, he spoke, silently sizing up the man as he had been trained to do ages ago as a soldier, let alone an elite one at that. The more disconcerting thing other than realising that the man was in Cagalli's office while there was no trace of her was the fact that the secretary, Benjamin Goebbels, his name card read, was sizing him up too.

"Where is Chairman Atha?" he enquired, trying hard not to flinch as the secretary stared back unblinkingly at him.

"Until proper identification is presented, no further official information on the whereabouts of the President Atha will be freely given," the secretary recited like a robot. Well, at least he could see where, or rather, who, Cagalli was learning it from.

Athrun fixed his eyes on the man obstinately, with distaste he didn't bother hiding, and they glared at each other for a few more seconds before he trusted himself to speak properly.

"I'm the Chairman of PLANT's ETERNITY council, Athrun Zala, and I'm here on official business to see your chairman regarding the integration of Naturals in a sector yet to be finalised in PLANT itself."

He flipped open an identification card and smirked inwardly while watching the secretary ogle at him behind his glasses before straightening up and saying stiffly, "The chairman isn't here."

Now was his turn to ogle, and it hit him suddenly that she might have arranged to be with Kira and Lacus during her stay here, that is if she was able to wrangle her way out of it for a while. Looking at her secretary, he imagined that it had been an uphill task if she had managed it at all.

He cursed silently while maintaining a poker straight face, wondering why the heck Kira hadn't mentioned anything of that sort even at the beach.

And then, as if to interrupt his thoughts, a cell rang somewhere and he secretary was bounding over to answer it. Athrun idly listened to the one-sided conversation, waiting for the secretary to return his attention back to him so he could inform the secretary to tell Cagalli that he had been here.

The words were coming fast and furious, probably something urgent that could not wait. He listened more carefully as he heard muffled sounds, "Get her into a dress for that one, if she has a chance she'll jump into a pantsuit and it'll be field day for the reporte..", and phrases that caught almost all of his attention at once.

The secretary he was starting to dislike intensely was frowning and telling the person on the other line, perhaps another minder of Cagalli's that she was going to take a break for three days and he wanted an entire rescheduling of her work even if her personal time was going to have to be replaced by working hours. The conversation was over in less than a minute but it was enough to make Athrun on the brink of a rage.

How dare they treat her like a doll and tell her what to do just for what they thought was the best? It was bad enough that she had to be cooped in all day working, but surely this was going overboard now.

He glared at the secretary with narrowed eyes and said sharply, "Don't you think that she'd hate that?"

The secretary was staring at him directly with eyes that mirrored his own as he replied quite emotionlessly although his jaw had tightened, "the chairman's business really isn't for you to decided, sir.

Athrun felt a slow simmering rage boil up which was a welcome change from his usual taciturn ways, and he said authoritatively, "That's Chairman Zala to you."

He continued, taking full advantage over the secretary's momentary loss of comebacks, and said coolly, more coolly than he really felt, "It's not your business to make her personal life take second priority over her work, is it? If it's work, that's just your job to aid her ad assist her, but this isn't. Why should she be forced to clock in hours of work that moves into her personal life when she's already being worked to the bone? In either case, the work is being done in her own personal time even as we speak, but you force her more because she doesn't advertise her efforts on her own behalf."

The hateful secretary snapped back, "Personal time or not, Chairman Zala, if she isn't forced like the other politicians out there who need their own secretaries and minders to keep them in check, she'd be at a loss without m.."

He was promptly cut off by a single punch from Athrun that sent his glasses flying askew as he gasped in shock more than pain.

Athrun stood stolidly and hissed even as the secretary winced, "You don't know what you're saying. She doesn't need anyone like you to force her to working herself long after the rest of her is dead for ORB. Her father did the same, and she's doing that, but you merely stifle her. You think all that you do is for her sake and you think that's your job, but I don't see how interfering with the chairman as a person and taking the best out of her makes any sense. Use the stuff you might have in between your ears, that is if you have a brain at all."

He left the man wincing there and strode out of the office with his coat swishing behind him, taking care not to slam the door even if he felt like it. The absurdity of the whole situation was beginning to kick in, and as he made his way out of the building with slight whispers here and there with people wondering what the important Chairman of PLANT's ETERNITY was doing there, he flipped off his cloak into the backseat and drove off.

He knew what had made her change so much other than the need for immediate attention to ORB two years ago.

He knew it had been the Seiran who had been a catalyst even as she came of age and struggled to find herself in the midst of war, and the way she had floundered with the Seiran family controlling ORB and using her and her need to be loyal to ORB and her father's ideals as a figure head, and he knew he hadn't been able to find the courage to be Athrun Zala and not Alex Dino when he had been there with her, and he hadn't found the need to step up and say something in her defence, and how there hadn't made a single move on his part to stop her from losing herself after the war and was hit by a wave of regret so painful it made him hit the wheel in an instantaneous movement of fury.

He remembered how she had already started losing some of the wildness and fire when they left for Messiah two years ago. She had come on board in the ORB uniform and he had watched her with a dull throbbing somewhere he couldn't quite place after he had to sortie and defeat the mislead Shinn.

He remembered the way she had looked on at everyone with a dull, muted longing in her eyes as she moved down the line towards him. His chest had ached so badly then, and he was certain it wasn't caused by the wounds he sustained in the battles. He had wanted to put her arms around him in a different way from those she had mere seconds ago, and feel her warmth and fire and detect her scent.

She had hesitated and not quite looked at him in the face, although she hugged Lacus and Kira fiercely, but when she had gotten to him, she simply titled her head up and looked at him, and the longing had, for a second, became a raging fire before it died into a dull look of recognition.

He had embraced her and broken the moment of awkwardness, and felt her settling into his arms and hugging him back, but he hadn't noticed her wearing his ring and he hadn't bothered with anything. But he felt her pressing into him as he did into her and had to let her break the embrace and remove herself from him, although he wanted to scream and cry and made her stay with him. He recognised her scent, the way she fitted so perfectly into his arms as they hugged and it had been agony to feel her rip herself away and watch as she marched off the deck where he knew she would stand and salute as the Archangel took them away.

Kira had asked him if it was alright and he had smiled a little and said that it was for now, but 'now' had already been two years ago and he had one chance and only one now. If he lost it, he would lose Cagalli and Cagalli would then lose herself.

He was making his way to Kira's residence now, and not even ten idiotic Goebbels would stop him from doing what he had to do.