Disclaimer: No, I do not own GS/GSD and their miscellaneous characters, but damn, sometimes I wish I did. Then ASUCAGA wouldn't be hanging like that in some weird parody of the two and their responsibilities, yes? R&R&R please, last R stands for recommend.

Chapter 13

Lacus could not believe her eyes when she saw the scene or the ruckus they had created before her.

Yes, she knew they were young at heart, and she knew they all wanted a bit of mischief now and then, but she could not believe that Kira was looking as rumpled and dirty as the mischievous children they had left behind with Markio in the orphanage and Cagalli and Athrun were sitting there arguing loudly with each other with bandages neatly wrapped around a few fingers each. She was about to ask them to stop arguing about whatever they were talking about, then she suddenly remembered that they were supposed to be talking, and shrugged almost invisibly and let them argue more. Such children.

When she had been a child, she had wanted to play all day long. When the androids or some servants reminded her to go to sleep on time,she'd distract them by various methods, then sneak off into the garden to mess around with a sand patch and build towers. She coould understand perfectly if they wanted to play or something, or maybe destress. But what they had gotten up to was sheer insanity.

She had finished her report about ten minutes ago, and had rapidly descended down the stairs to find Kira and ask him about what he had done to the blue haro which had been rolling around and repeatedly crying out for help.

And when she had gotten down, she had witnessed a complete fiasco. Athrun and Cagalli were rolling in the grass and wrestling with Kira and tickling him so mercilessly that he was actually crying with mirth. She had rushed over there and had separated them and their entangled limbs and made them sit down at the table inside after they had all calmed down and had stopped neighing with laughter like donkeys.

She had made Athrun and Cagalli go and wash their bloody hands and ask for bandages at the kitchen, and got Kira sit down and try to make him stop chortling even though the other two weren't tickling him anymore. The blue haro was now silent and rolling around aimlessly, although the other haros were trying to get it to play with them.

After they had all assembled back at the table, she paced up at down regally to get some footing first, she knew it always worked, and said quite authoritatively, "Cagalli, tell me what happened."

And Cagalli tried to say something but hiccupped and started laughing helplessly again and that made the other two start roaring with laughter as well, and Lacus, frustrated, actually stamped her foot. She hadn't done that since she was five and the servants hadn't let her eat ice-cream.

They just laughed like imbeciles some more.

Annoyed, she opened her mouth and they quickly fell silent because they were afraid she might go berserk, although seeing Lacus Clyne lose it was a highly rare occasion.Rare or not, it wasn't something one would welcome the way they welcomed the New Year. Exchanging wary glances and falling silent, Athrun, Kira and Cagalli prepared themselves to explain what had happened that had caused such a commotion, but were stunned when she proceeded to squeal in pure indignation, "How could you leave me out when you were all having so much fun together!?"

Kira sprung forward and tired to appease her by explaining how it hadn't been planned and they hadn't expected anything like that to happen at all, and Cagalli started babbling something about a stupid cat and Athrun tried to improve what they were saying by restructuring their completely incomprehensible sentences and then a bell rung and lunch was served and all three were stuffing their faces like the food they were eating was the last meal they would ever eat.

Lacus felt almost breathless by the time they started lunch with the other guests who had taken a break from their work in their rooms the ambassy had provided.

Quite bewildered at everything, Lacus held her knife and fork and stared, confused, at her lover and her best friends as they conversed through mouthfuls of food and grunts and some odd noises she had never heard before in her life. She wondered how they had actually managed to understand what was going on even through the whole mess of everything. So she ate a little and waited for Kirato regain some sanity, knowing that it wouldn't be too long before he did.

When Kira swallowed his mouthful and could speak properly again, he turned and apologised, "Sorry, Lacus. The wrestling made me hungry." And Cagalli was saying, "Me too," but she choked and turned red and Athrun was hurriedly getting her a glass of water patting her back and making her drink it and she was gasping very heavily while Kira was asking what was going on and the others were worriedly trying to make her breathe properly.

The secretaries which had joined them for lunch were staring and giggling and pointing. But Lacus was simply sitting there in a daze and wondering which planet her dream had transplanted her too. She wanted to pinch herself and see if she was sitting on seat of the toilet upstairs and daydreaming like she often did. Maybe today was just one of those days.

It was a wonderful relief when lunch as over and Athrun was saying to her that he had just received a notice from his secretary that the PLANT's Supreme Council needed him to discuss the list ETERNITY's council had drawn up regarding the specific Naturals who would be moving to PLANT soon.

Lacus checked her own computer and confirmed the notice too, so she led him to the white, oval room, as she called it, or simply, the room where she and the ambassadors held their meetings every morning. Cagalli excused herself and went to complete more assignments Goebbels had prepared for her in advance, and he was quite sorry to leave for the meeting room. She said that she would look over their official decisions later in the day just to keep in touch with the latest news, and Kira wandered back into his laboratory and the blue haro followed him happily. Tori tried to peck and chase it away, apparently jealous, but the blue haro simply ignored it.

As he departed to the meeting room with Lacus, Athrun glanced back at Cagalli. She had already set up her QUINd, a laptop without a visible screen where a touchpad controlled the documents that would materialise in front of her eyes, and she was concentrating on editing and putting in some suggestions in some proposal the ORB housing minister had submitted. He knew she would give the go-ahead in the next few hours, she was the sort which did advance work and asked for more. She hadn't been like that before, but she sure was now, she had already made a phone call and was furiously debating with Amagi over some issue.

As he sat down with Lacus, he snapped open his briefcase and took out the relevant documents while she flipped open the same copy of the document, but not before she instructed the pink haro who had followed her in to keep quiet.

"Do you approve of the following list?" she asked.

He was reading the list which comprised of children, a sprinkling of teenagers, young adults, and middle-aged working adults which PLANT had confirmed were able to contribute to the economy. Of course they made sure other people did the confirmation for them, and the 'other people' just happened to include Athrun Zala.

PLANT wasn't about to put its head on the chopping board and introduce Naturals into a Coordinator-majority world ,where unprepared Naturals would feel threatened and cause conflict to rise. The Naturals introduced first had to be mentally-prepaid for the relocation's challenges of different systems of housing, jobs, schooling and social stigmas. They couldn't possibly just pluck a few Naturals and dump them in PLANT, tha6t would be the ultimate recipe for disaster.

His job was to personally go through all one hundred and fifty of the selected candidates for the project and weed out those who appeared unprepared. Lacus would run through half and him, the other half. It was a tedious procedure, no doubt, but if they wanted peace, there wasn't any way out of it. Not unless everyone suddenly became happy little bunnies that rolled around nibbling grass and smelling flowers with absolutely no thoughts or actions of malice and suspicion in their cute little furry heads.

Over a thousand had been selected by PLANT and EA, and they had agreed to relocate upon EA's request, because they were willing to leave behind what they had to have a new start in an unfamiliar place if it could help to contribute to long-term peace, an extremely encouraging movement that had touched the hearts of the whole world. When he had heard of the overwhelming response, he had beamed quite sincerely, quite forgetting that he was in charge of going through the thousands personally. Well, now he remembered.

ETERNITY and other sub-councils of PLANT had selected the number on their hands now, and Lacus would represent PLANT to choose the final candidate along with him, who represented ETERNITY. The rest was up to the highest powers of the councils to decide and issue the declaration of the chosen people as the most instrumental part of the PLANT/EA Relocation Project to be launched in a few months' time.

The QUINd was flashing the list of people that had been short listed, and they looked through their respective 75 candidates for the next few hours wih Athrun making few notes on specific candidates he deemed as not ready to relocate.

The files he looked through were top-secret information about each and every of the candidates which EA had obtained, and the information about some of the chosen were damning. They disturbed Lacus, he could see it when he glanced at her, seated at the far end of the table,and frankly, they made him a little edgy too.

Amidst the list, there were even a few adults who had been part of Blue Cosmos' Extended Project but had been rescued before they were raised on the drugs that made them slaves to the Blue Cosmos. One girl's features looked so much like the girl Shinn had brought back onto the Minerva, Stellar Louisier, that he felt a little disconcerted. Then he found more of the Extended-affected candidates who sharedso many similar physical traits it was terribly disturbing.

Apparently, Blue Cosmos had done exactly what the first Coordinators had done,asironic as the truth was. They had tampered with genes for a while before resorting to drugs when they realised drugs bound soldiers tighter to the Blue Cosmos.

Their family history, stats and everything, even their former jail records and crimes committed, were recorded and flashing on the QUINd for his perusal.

He worked through all the candidates thoroughly for the next five hours with Lacus, checking their identities and their family backgrounds, but most importantly, what those around them had to say about them. He had to single out those questionable candidates and issue their names back to the committee to do re-evaluations.

By the time four hours had passed, he was down to the last three people to go through, with a current total of six candidates he would issue back to the various committees to re-evaluate. Six of them comprised of four young adults who were known to be wary of Coordinators, a young girl who had a history of weak lungs and was unlikely to take easily to PLANT's ventilation in deep space, and a fifteen year-old.

The fifteen year old boy caught his eye more than the others did. "Finn Amaris", he read. The boy had trouble accepting strangers even in his class and often picked fights with newcomers even though he was a clearly gifted boy who regularly topped the level. His parents on the other hand, were perfectly open-minded people who worked regularly with ORB Coordinator Engineers who had come to EA on ORB's request to help in the refinement of technology in their offices.

He ran a hand through his hair and stared at the sharp-featured, red-haired boy who had a sullen expression on his face, although Athrun knew those features were a sure guarantee that he would break many hearts later on.

If he, as head of ETERNITY were to withhold the boy back in EA's territories but allow his parents to go, what would become of the boy then? He glanced back at the boy's picture and felt a strange sense of incongruity, even though he didn't want to pay too much attention to only one case. The red hair and features were very fine, but something made him a little worried even though he could not quite place his finger on it yet.

He called over to Lacus who was about to finish like him, and she looked up from the other end of the table and stood gracefully, moving over to see the case he was troubled over.

As she approached his end of the long, oval table, he moved aside slightly to show her Finn Amaris, and scrolled down to show his family, and looked up at her, whereby the expression on her face stunned him. Her calm, beautiful face was shockingly pale and wan, although she was visibly trying to regain her composure, her mouth slightly agape in shock. She stumbled into a nearby chair and folded her hands neatly in her skirt even though they were visibly trembling. Her eyes were wide and her features stricken with something so intense, he could barely identify it as sorrow for a minute.

"What is it?" he asked, concerned with her apparent shock.

He wondered why she was so alarmed by a fifteen year old boy, and he scrolled down and found Finn's link to his mother. His mother was Senevia Amaris, maiden Name:Alster.

And then the red hair and fine features clicked in and he knew who Lacus was thinking of.

Fllay. Fllay Alster.

He remembered the time when Kira had gone beserk after a battle and had trembled so violently and screamed that it was his fault that Fllay had died. Of course he wasn't quite so sure he knew who Fllay was, but after the first war had ended, Kira had secretly told him everything that had happened between him and Fllay.

Lacus had also mentioned when Athrun was checking her for injuries that she had been threatened by Fllay Alster when she had accidentally gotten onboard the Archangel, but that was after Kira had appeared in the Strike and given her back to him to bring back on the coordinator ship. It was more of Kira who told him of everything about Fllay.

In fact, Yzak had told him that Fllay Alster had sneaked glances at him when he had been assigned the position of guarding her on Rau Le Creuset's order. Athrun vaguely wondered how Yzak had known the girl was sneaking glances at him when Athrun did it on a regular basis during chess sessions that Yzak was quite ignorant about.

He wanted to know if Lacus knew anything about Kira's relationship with Fllay, and raked his eyes over her face and thus confirmed his suspicions. Her head was in her hands and she looked immensely upset.

"Are you alright?" he asked very carefully, wondering if he should say anything more. If she had been Cagalli, he wouldn't even have been careful of the words he chose, he would havee already thrown caution to the wind and thrown his arms around her.

She looked up and he knew that she was close to crying and he moved over and she said clearly through her subsequent onslaught of tears, "I knew Fllay would be back one day."

She poured out her fears to him in a nearly steady voice even while her lips trembled violently, that Fllay would not let her have Kira and how Kira would never see anyone properly except for Fllay. For all her pureness, beauty and the rare wisdom beyond her years, Lacus Clyne was inexperienced in the heart's affairs. She had fallen for Kira so deeply she didn't know how else she could go without him.

Athrun had never known how insecure the princess of the Coordinator's heart had been after Kira had told her unwittingly that he had seen Fllay in her. She had known right from the start, that Kira was very attracted to the girl, and that he had loved her, perhaps so much that he had became a demon for her.

And then Lacus had still chosen to lose her heart to him, and she could never turn back and walk away because she knew she would die after that. She was fine when he was with her, but then any mention of Fllay would se her heart pounding and she once had to force herself to look in the mirror and say, over and over again, "I'm not her."

The world never knew that Lacus Clyne was a human, they treated her like a goddess and an angel to the extent that anything other than a smile on her face and a perfect life would seem strange where she was concerned.

Kira never knew anything of that sort although it was obvious he felt uncomfortable without Lacus around, when she had posed the way Mia Campbell had and communication had been cut off from Kira and her, Kira had been unsure of himself.

But Lacus had only been ten when she had been promised to Patrick Zala's son, and then, when she had been about fifteen going on sixteen, she had almost been killed aboard the ship that she was on to pray and sing for the souls that had been lost on Junius Seven.

She had been saved by a boy not much older than her and promptly fell for him even without knowing she had, and she had unconsciously revealed this to Athrun when she was safe again with a single, child-like sentence, "I think I like him very much."

Athrun was pretty sure their engagement was as good as over by then, but he didn't feel he had lost much of anything. It was true that he had feelings for her once, but they had faded over time, and come to think of it, who ever said she had the same feelings for him?

Lacus had only been fifteen when he had kissed her, it was easy for her to say, "oh alright" and get hitched according to what was arranged, because she hardly knew anyone else who she could possibly fall for. Her associates were already involved in the war, she had been the only one left as a civilian with hands unstained by the blood of the Coordinator's enemies. The Coordinators themselves knew that, and that became even more of a reason to love and protect Lacus Clyne.

And she hadn't known that Kira had a relationship with the girl who had tried to kill her, and she hadn't known that Fllay was the first girl he had ever loved, only after her death had shattered him for her and all the world to see. She had been together with him after that until now, but she had never been sure where they stood, and sometimes she was frightened that the memory of Fllay would take him away from her again. Her insecurity was becoming more real over time with nothing said about her fears to Kira, Athrun realised.

Lacus had clearly worn herself out but the tears were still flooding down her cheeks even though she still looked very pretty with red eyes and a runny nose, and as Athrun was about to say something to convince her that her fears were unfounded, the doors were flung open and Kira burst in, panting from the exertion of running, pulling her out of her chair and before she could protest, he cut of what she was about to say and he kissed her fiercely.

Athrun's coordinator brain was telling him to shut his mouth and stop staring and gaping like an idiot, but it wasn't quite successful. So he stood there with his mouth open, staring and gaping like an idiot.

Author's notes: It's weird how this seems almost like a KxL thing, but I couldn't resist putting them into the picture for a bit. It's unreal how perfect they seem to be as a couple all the time in GSD (which I kinda hated by itself),especially since we all know that Kira saw Fllay when he looked at Lacus once. In my opinion, no girl,even if she's Lacus, can stay sane like that, no?

But no issue, the KxL thing isn't the main picture, we all know ASUCAGA IS.