Disclaimer: I don't own GS/GSD, you know the works already.

I want to apologise for being such a lousy fanfic-user, I didn't know how to enable the anonymous reviews until about five minutes ago. So those who have been reading but couldn't submit reviews, I'm really sorry about that. Well you know you can submit reviews now, so go right ahead even if you don't own a persoanl account, yay! So as per usual, R&R&R! Thank you!

Chapter 19

The petite girl proudly marched onto stage, clad in the customary tie and suit attire that bodyguards from ORB wore as uniforms; her long dark hair neatly tied in a pony tail and looped through to keep it from being a hindrance. Athrun looked at her, automatically sizing her up as he did to his opponents and thought for a minute that she would be a pushover.

Rainie, whatever her name was, had a very tiny frame that looked as if a wind could easily blow it over without it being the monsoon type. She had bright eyes and strong features, for sure, but her nose was the button sort that made her look very young, and she was already very young to begin with. He was sure the fight would be over and done with in a few minutes, and he wondered why Cagalli had asked especially for someone when she herself, knew what Athrun was capable of in a fight.

"This is Rainie," Cagalli was saying to the audience which was pointing in disbelief at the young girl who was called to duel with him, "She's to be seventeen this year and a bodyguard I trust with my life."

At least he knew he wasn't being an arrogant prick, even the general populace was gasping when Cagalli said this, obviously in doubt of her fighting abilities, especially since they all could identify her as the bodyguard who had wept on national television as Cagalli was almost assasinated while her bodyguards watched helplessly with all their weapons at their feet.

But they were applauding furiously again, and Athrun had to sportingly smile and stand up, straightening his jacket as he rotated his shoulders a little to warm up.

A few girls screamed in appreciation and he wanted to die of embarrassment when Cagalli grinned at him too. He had tensed up alreayd, he didn't bother returning the smile and only looked at Rainie with blank eyes so she couldn't read what he was thinking about.

The whole audience was watching, rapt with attention as they took centre across the large stage, watched by Cagalli and the host on one side, and thousands of viewers on the other.

Athrun's brain shifted into another mode altogether, and he raked his eyes over Rainie who was standing still but had clenched her fists. Then they stared at each other with intense eyes and Rainie suddenly leapt at him like a leopard, with her fist like lightning towards the area between his eyes, but he moved quickly and even more fluidly than the girl and did a swift duck, swinging his leg forward and attempting to trip her from her knees.

But the girl clearly had a surprising, if not incredible amount of potential, she had predicted his move almost instantaneously and had sprung with much agility into the air and then, she did a perfect back flip before using the wall as a springboard to launch herself at him, her fists clenched as hard as rock. He blocked that too, then spun himself to gain momentum and aimed a deadly kick at her which she couldn't block in time.

She crouched low to recover, then whirled herself round like a human torpedo with kicks so fast he could barely see them. He was glad she didn't' have a knife in her hands, she'd become a demon then.

He actually got hit by a few of the kicks that he tried to block, because she was too fast for him to avoid contact although he blocked most of them quite easily. He countered by leaping sideways and pulling a leg forward so she would trip, and she did, but she used the other free leg to propel herself backwards to stand on one foot with the other in a perfect line above her waist like the ballerinas he had watched at a performance before. She moved insanely, and he had to give her credit for that.

She charged towards him again with a snarl, but he was ready for her too, although he couldn't quite do the acrobatic-stunts she had proven were her best form of attack, and he firmly grasped her arms while she hurtled like a bullet towards him and flipped her backwards, making use of her petite size to fling her away from him like a mere cloth doll after she managed to avoid some punches he threw at her by twisting rapidly.

But she caught hold of his arm and actually shot under him and flipped him cleanly over her shoulder even though his bulk was probably twice of hers. He grunted in surprise but broke his fall by curling up into a ball and rolling over to regain his balance, and then he charged towards her with more speed than she had ever seen and made a feint-punch for her stomach while she leapt to the side he had predicted she would, and then he successfully caught her and slammed her onto the floor, not witholding anything this time. If he did, he would have made the same mistake as he had before of underestimating the girl Cagalli was willing to put her life at stake for.

The audience was shouting and cheering, but he couldn't hear anything. The host had told him earlier that there weren't this many people in the audience usually where politicians were concerned, unless the guests were pop stars for that particular interview. Well, Cagalli and him would have been popstars if their status were to be judged by the audience that day, the thought grimly.

Then she actually cart wheeled in the air to regain her balance when he picked her up and flung her again, and then she used the exact move he had done on her, trip him.

He sprung backwards, not quite in the precise back flip she had executed effortlessly, but he executed a flawless crouch and leapt above her head while using her shoulders as a pivot, and before she could recover from the quick assault, he pushed her from the back so she fell forward on her face, butit wouldn't hurt her too much. Besides, the earlier fall she had sustained earlier would be causing her some form of injury by now. It was clear by then when she moaned a little in pain and shook her head, signalling that she had lost.

Then it was over and it was obvious that he had won, although the girl had impressed him and the audience beyond any form of doubt.

He helped her to her feet and they shook hands while the audience and the host were on their feet cheering like crazy and Cagalli, still seated, was smiling at Rainie who was bashfully taking his hands and saying over the din, "Teach me that leap!"

Then the host was getting a signal from and shouted excitedly, "And that's the end of EA Primetime! Goodnight!"

And the cameras stopped winking and Cagalli and him were being bombarded with flowers form the audience. Rainie and the other bodyguards ran to pick them up, maybe to check if they had some poison in them or something for security measures, but he quickly followed Cagalli backstage, eager to escape the explosion of noise and colours since the audience were fixated on them the way they would be if they were pop stars. It was frightening him, so he quickly made himself scarce.

When he got to her dressing room, Rainie brought him in again, but not before requesting for his autograph to give to her mother and auntie and her grandmother. Some for her father's co-workers would be good too, she said.

"Frightening," he thought," Truly frightening.'

Although he knew it could be potentially dangerous if he were to kept being seen with her or if Rainie didn't know how to keep her mouth shut, he still had to see Cagalli.

She was waiting for him in the dressing room where she was struggling to put on a coat because it was getting chilly with the gauzy material she was wearing. He smiled and slipped a hand around her waist and guided Cagalli's arm into the sleeve where he could see it was behaving like some lifeless piece of rubber.

"We did well today, didn't we?" she was saying, not seeming to be uncomfortable about the hand he had around her waist.

He nodded and said seriously, "I'll be leaving in five hours' time for PLANT."

She looked away and said morosely, "I know. I'll be leaving about the same time too to go back to ORB and then we'll..."

And she trailed off and turned away from him because she didn't know how to continue, but he drew in a deep breath and brought his arms steadily around her from the back to lock her in an embrace from behind. He could feel her warmth ebbing into his arms and detected her scent, and she settled into his arms almost in a mandatory way, but then she suddenly recoiled and pushed him away.

Bewildered, he opened his mouth to speak but she hastily called for Rainie, who immediately appeared. He wondered if her presence was a safeguard for Cagalli against him, but a minute later, Cagalli instructed her that she would be leaving with the chairman to go back to the PLANT embassy house Lacus Clyne lived in, and she would meet them at the ORB embassy house in time for the shuttle to bring her back to ORB. Rainie wasn't as clueless as he thought she would be, she actually stared at him for a longer than what was necessary and he could feel the intensity of her gaze, it was like a warning in itself, but then she bowed and disappeared.

As they drove away from the broadcast station into the night, she was very silent even though Athrun did take a few stabs at conversation, so he gave up a while and concentrated on driving.

Then she suddenly came out of her silence and started talking.

"Was Rainie a good fighter?" she abruptly asked.

He nodded as he turned into the intermediate road that would eventually bring them back, then said, "If she continues to train hard, she'll be one of the finest fighters I can ever hope to see."

Cagalli was laughing as she heard him seriously give his breakdown of the girl, and replied, "I knew that when I saw her as a fifteen-year old."

Surprised that she allowed such a young girl to take risks with her own life, he asked, "Why did you take her at such a young age?"

She was quiet for a while, and then said thoughtfully, "I wasn't too keen on taking her first when she applied even though I was impressed, but she lives for excitement, you know, and she finished her university education when she was fourteen. Although her parents knew she was a child prodigy, they were aware that she needed to have her way and do something that kept her active. So when she appealed to me as a little more than a child, I took her I, although I kept trying to keep her busy with other things until she finally stormed into my office and demanded that she be allowed to do her job properly. So I accepted her in the end."

"Is she a coordinator?" he asked, interested in the girl's fascinating background.

"No," Cagalli replied quietly, "She's an Extended."

"What?" he said in disbelief "wasn't the last of the final generation of Extendeds Sting Oakley?"

"No," she said, shaking her head, "There were dozens of them hidden from the public's eyes and living in homes which supported the Blue Cosmos.

Rainie was in one of them until they started dying out when Blue Cosmos decided right in the middle of the second war that the existing Extended fighter pilots were adequate and pulled out of the project. So there weren't enough drugs and facilities to keep the children alive and she had to be sent into some Blue Cosmos supporter's house to live under a cover.

She ran way from the home she had been placed in with some others, and became the only one who survived other than two others whose names she cannot remember, only their faces. The people who adopted her from the shelter she was later placed at were just an old couple who were lonely without children they had lost in the war."

He listened in painful silence then asked, "How did she survive without the drugs?"

Cagalli chuckled, although it was bitter, and said with a terrible kind of silence in her voice, "She locked herself in an abandoned hut before anyone found her, and then she went into a coma for God-knows-how-long without the drugs. But when she woke up, she was clean from any influence the drugs would have on her, then she knew she was weaned of from the drugs from since then. Of course she knew when she was seven that if she didn't have any drugs, she would either die or kill someone in her insanity, so she locked herself up somewhere in a forest in North America."

He remembered Stellar, the Extended Shinn had brought back onto the Minerva and the way she had trembled violently and gone half-mad without the drugs. Shinn had thought she was going to die without them if he didn't bring her back, and in all reason, he was quite right. The girl had dark eye-circles and was painfully thin by the time he had brought her back, but if he had kept her there for a longer while and allowed her to go into the coma without the drugs, would she have survived eventually?

He really didn't know. He promised himself he would never tell Shinn that the girl could have survived even if he hadn't brought her back to her EA ship and allowed her to be used as a pilot for the Destroy Gundam where she had eventually died.

Athrun looked carefully at Cagalli and concluded, "The couple who took her in had no children, so they wanted her to keep them company because they were lonely, weren't they? Then how about now, since she's with you all the time?"

She looked away into the lights of the cars around them in the impending night and replied, "When I met them, they smiled and told me that I could be as selfish as I wanted and keep her for myself, because they knew Rainie wanted it that way."

Not quite understanding what she meant he echoed, "Selfish?"

"I was lonely like them too." She said, so softly he wouldn't have been able to hear her if it had been any softer.

Lost in their thoughts, they remained in silence until he pulled up in front of Kira's garage.

They went into the house after an attendant heard them at the doorway, and when they got to the second floor where all their rooms were, he heard some noises issuing out of Kira's room and the lights flooding through the gap the door made with the floor.

So he knocked gently, and when he heard no reply, he pushed it open and stood staring at Lacus and Kira, curled in front of the television and sleeping soundly on separate sofas. They had fallen asleep watching after the interview, with popcorn scattered here and there.

Then he saw a note Kira had scribbled and read it aloud to Cagallin who was peering at it from behind him, "Fixed a wedding date, be our best man and maid-of-honour, ask no questions, tell you in the morning."

He briefly wondered why they had even bothered getting engaged when they were like an old couple. He had never heard Kira openly tell Lacus that he loved her or the other way around, it was understood, and that had been enough for Lacus.

Kira had told him that they would have a real ceremony in a year's time when Lacus and him had more time on their hands and had saved up sufficiently to buy their own home and a 'nice dog'.

According to his best friend, Lacus wanted a golden retriever or a cockier spaniel. Kira didn't mind. He liked animals too, although he wanted either a husky or a Samoyed. Kira had laughed and said the one thing they had in common in preference of dog breed was that they weren't particularly fond of yapping, tiny Chihuahuas.

Either breed in any way, Athrun was quite sure he'd have to end up toilet-training their dog for them when he came to visit, since both of them were the type who spoiled their pets, and would be sure to spoil their children in the future, and it wouldn't just be a bit of indulgence,they'd be spoiling them rotten alright.

He sighed at their antics and collected his briefcase where he had left it for the past few days, hearing Cagalli laugh at the doorway and saying Kira and Lacus were cute, then he nimbly crept in front of the television and switched it off before leaving and closing the door.

She could have chosen to arrange for a car to cart her to and fro, but she had chosen to go with him, because she knew they didn't have much time before they left their separate ways. She didn't say so, but they both knew it very well.

Athrun was desperate for a miracle for her to suddenly turn around and tell him what he was equally desperate to hear, but someone up there wasn't his biggest fan. She hadn't said or done anything that would have given him a slightest clue of what she was thinking, and he wasn't quite sure she wasn't going to. So he didn't say much either, but prayed fervently.

They drove past the sea by the road in the late night with minimum traffic, and they saw the moon fading with the rest of the darkness, slowly but steadily. The night air was becoming less dense, and there was a freshness he could only identify as the morning breeze, and more light began flooding in from beyond the sea into the horizon.

And he felt a numbness in him again when he thought that two hours from then, they wouldn't be seeing each other for a long time. Of course, two months wasn't the same as two years, but the difference was that back then, he thought that they had no hope of ever reconciling the way he hoped for them to do now. Two months would be an agony to go through without her confirmation, and from the situation he had at hand now, he had to be prepared to go through it.

When she stepped out from the car and tonelessly said goodbye before thanking him for the lift and instructing him he not to drive her in all the way, he could only nod silently as she turned on her heel, carrying her suitcase with one good hand.

The sun was starting to deepen in its red, resembling the haumea stone she had given him four years ago in his PLANT office, locked in a drawer where nobody could get to it but him. He wanted to shout something after her, but thought better of it and clamped his jaw shut.

He had never expected to go through such a whirlwind of emotions when he had stepped down from his shuttle when he came here a week ago. He had meant to stay for three days only, but it had been extended to a week, then another day more.

When he had gotten the message from PLANT, he had been frightened and insecure, more than he would have liked to admit, even to himself.

He understood what it would mean to go back to ORB, where he still had a citizenship there, but ORB was nothing to him if she wasn't there and belonged to him like he already did to her. She may not have known it, but she had captured him so firmly that he knew the truth. He would never be free from her, but he didn't want to be free either.

He had tried to guarantee that she would be with him even though he had chosen to go back to ZAFT two years ago, and the ring had been a token of the promise. But it had been broken when she married Yuna because she thought it would save ORB. So what would happen now if he came for her two months later?

He was afraid that when he went to ORB two months later, he would have lost everything they had gotten back in a week, although he wasn't quite sure that he had what he hoped he had. she had admitted that she still had feelings for him, but that may have only been to make the situation less tense then. She may have only said that because they both knew that he wouldn't let her go unless she said something to that extent.

In any case, he wasn't quite sure that what they had now, if they did have anything at all, was enough to make her want to be with him when he arrived at ORB in two months' time. He was quite afraid that he would have to live out his days in ORB without seeing her the way he wanted to, and afraid that he would be waiting in vain for her to go back to him. He knew he could have asked her if she still would wait for him, but he couldn't gain enough courage and cheek to ask her to promise him that two months later, she would be there waiting to hold him in her arms, simply because he was afraid she would shake her head and say no.

Athrun Zala was nothing but a coward, he thought angrily. Although he had initially been pleased that Cagalli had signed the agreement to bring the exercise forward, he realised much later that signing the agreement to bring the military exercise forward had nothing to do with her personal life. If it was beneficial for ORB, she would do it, if it wasn't, well, then she'd refuse! It wasn't about her, or him, it was about ORB.

Even if she wanted to delay seeing him again, Athrun knew that she had enough sense and hadn't enough selfishness in her being to use her own personal reasons to delay or postpone something like that. At the end of a week, they were still left hanging in a queer balance, and he wanted to kick something and shout and yell his vocal chords bloody.

But he stared at her retreating back in painful silence, and drove off when she did not turn behind to see him again.

He never had her to himself. There were always things fighting for her with him, first war,then Yuna Roma Seiran, then ORB.

He knew she still carried the shell around her neck, although her progress in becoming ORB's leader had left her cold and cunning in some aspects, and the shell she had mentioned in the earlier interview could have been merely around her neck to detract attention away from some facts that could have caused a scandal. She had used the shell to her advantage earlier on in the interview, hadn't she?

She had learnt to be sly and suitably untruthful to make the situation seem more favourable to her and ORB, although he wasn't quite sure whether it was a good or bad thing. He knew that when he kissed her, she would push him away because of a fear that someone would see them and put all of them into a pinch. But he was always second-guessing himself, he never knew whether it was because of that, or it was whether she really didn't want to see him anymore and didn't know how to tell him that.

But he didn't care.As long as she remained who she really was with him, he couldn't care less what she did to help herself and ORB.

He still loved ORB too, it had been peaceful the last time he had seen it a year ago, recovering so well after the second war that it had looked virtually unscathed. As Alex Dino, he had been close to Cagalli; although he couldn't say anything or do anything when Yuna Roma Seiran had came close to her and dared put his arms around her in front of him.

But he didn't care then, because he was sure of her affections and remained with him. As long as she wanted to remain with him, he would be with her even if forty Yuna Roma Seirans were trying to drive him away. That was what he was-desperate. The problem was not with the situation anymore, it was with her. And maybe that was the cause of his desperation.

He received a call from his frantic secretary asking where he was now, because in an hour's time, the shuttle would leave for PLANT, to which he tonelessly replied, "I'm on my way" and remembered that Cagalli was on her way back to ORB too.

When he passed by the road that would lead him to the tunnel connected to the departure grounds PLANT had arranged the shuttle to take him back to, he saw the orange and pinks of the new sun and wanted to turn back time. He knew that the shuttles assigned by all ORB, PLANT and EA were merged into one service plant, and was sure that he would catch a glimpse of her. They left at the same time, and that made him suddenly more desperate than ever.

As he got out of the car that would be sent back to PLANT by a separate shuttle, his secretary popped out of the shuttle and waved frantically at him. Athrun spotted her and made his way there as slowly as humanely possible, so he could look around and see if the ORB shuttle was anywhere near the PLANT one.

He heard what she had to say by the time he got over into the shuttle, and then mouthed, "What?" in speechless apprehension and horror when she squealed to him that he had thousands of letters and mail wanting to know if he was attached or he was together with the ORB chairman.

Dearka's cheerful, mischievous face immediately materialised in his mind, and Athrun was forcefully reminded there and then of the way his friend who was of Jamaican descent had shouted to him once in jest, "Shut yer mouth and say it aint' so!"

Of course, that was when Athrun had received some mail and rushed to tell Dearka that Shiho's parents had been itching for a grandchild, so Shiho Hahenfuss had marched up to Yzak in front of all his troops, saluted, then promptly knelt on one elegant knee, and proceeded to propose to her fiancée on bended knee. She had even gotten the ring ready for him, but she had proceeded to tell him that she had bought it in his name since his pay was higher than hers.

When he had heard that Yzak had stood like a monument, frozen in terror, staring at his beautiful fiancée currently on one knee offering him a ring like a mere chocolate bonbon while all the elite troops he commanded were laughing like donkeys at him, Athrun's response had been to curse colourfully, but Dearka had screeched, 'Shut yer mouth and say it ain't so!"

Athrun was of European descent, and Europeans just did not speak like that.

But when the secretary nodded eagerly to confirm his fears and informed him that they either wanted to learn self-defence form him, enlist in ZAFT, or wanted to see him get together with the ORB chairman ASAP, he found himself shouting like Dearka into her stunned face, "Shut yer mouth and say it aint' so!"

Then he collapsed into his seat and laughed like a jackass for an hour at the sheer absurdity of it all.

And his secretary quietly requested for a change of seats to the flight attendants, to which they agreed, and then they agreed that double seatbelts were necessary for the ETERNITY chairman who probably had one too many drinks already.

Author's notes: I created a little alternate reality to the background of the Extendeds, I hope nobody minds. Thanks for reading even up to this stage, continue to R&R&R and make my day!