Disclaimer: I don't own GS/GSD, nothing of it at all. But I own the storyline and various parts of this though. Please R&R&R.

Chapter 22

"Very well then," Cagalli said angrily, "State your cases clearly."

Her cabinet members were flustered and were arguing amongst themselves, and when she called for attention, nobody heard her, so she got up at the head of the long oblong table and slammed her fist on it for silence. Kisaka andAmagi shook their heads at the side, silently praying that she wouldn't erupt like a volcano and scare the heck out of them.

But it was truly ridiculous. They had gathered in the morning to discuss a new treaty PLANT was offering to ORB, in which they wanted ORB's permission to allow the ZAFT troops stationed thereto bring over their families, although PLANT would ultimately provide for them while they were in ORB. It was not so much a win-win situation like the earlier treaty, more of just providing the ZAFT soldiers something to look forward to when they came to ORB. But that was how she looked at the ZAFT troops' families coming over, not so much her cabinet's.

Cagalli didn't see what the problem was in allowing the troops to bring over their families, since the housing minister had submitted a very concise report that showed ORB clearly had enough free space to have thrice the estimated number PLANT wanted to bring over, and as long as PLANT could provided for them while they were in ORB, why, let those in ZAFT have their loved ones with them!

She had argued that it was a win-win situation for ORB, since ORB would gain more human resources to contribute to the conomy even while PLANT was the one paying for their living expenses and education for their children.

But no, some cabinet ministers were against it because they were afraid of too many coordinators to handle and give them all extra work, making ridiculous excuses that the ZAFT Coordinators were brought up differently from ORB Coordinators. Apparently, that would teach make coordinators in ORB to be more obviously different than ORB's naturals. Then the living example that Coordinators and Naturals could get along and live together in the same place would be destroyed. That would ultimately throw the world into chaos and doubt again, if too many coordinators were to invade ORB at one go, one had even suggested.

"Invade?" she repeated coolly, even though she was boiling her intestines right inside, "What do you mean invade?"

The minister immediately realised what eh had said and stuttered, "I-I only meant that too many ZAFT Coordinators here is equivalent to a sort of, you know inbalance and a kind of um…."

"Save it," Cagalli commanded coldly, "Let me make this clear once and for all."

She pushed her chair backwards and stood up, pacing silently while the thirty-eight members of parliament she headed waited for her to speak. She knew an eighteen-year old girl didn't usually press much influence on officials who were about twice her age, but she still had to try. Two years ago, she had proven herself, and they had never doubted her capabilities once she had assumed full control from the Seirans. She would show her capabilities again today.

"First of all, we have agreed that ORB will open its doors willingly to the two hundred or so ZAFT troops for the next ten years or even longer if everything goes smoothly. This is to allow our troops to learn something from the ZAFT army, and likewise, for the ZAFT army to train in our forests which will up their own level of expertise like our ORB troops. Secondly, the military exercise allows for better relations, which is ultimately what the world and all of us see as the key to long-term peace. Comments?"

"Chairman Atha, bringing over ZAFT troops here has already been settled like you have said, but now they want more Coordinators from PLANT to come over here! What happens if the balance of Coordinators and Naturals in ORB is ruined? Wouldn't conflict start?" cried the mayor.

"Give them the poll results, Amagi," Cagalli ordered, and then the black files were handed out to every member of the parliament.

"As you can see on the first page of the file," she continued authoritatively, "98 of our citizens welcome not only ZAFT troops, which fuelled our decision to allow them over, but 99.4 of our citizens are willing for their families to come over too. The remaining 0.6 are willing, but a little concerned that our facilities and resources are not adequate to shelter the ZAFT families, although they are willing to have the families in the suburbs of ORB as long as the ZAFT families do not suffer here. This means to say that ORB is welcoming not only the ZAFT troops, but their families too. Comments?"

She paused, looked keenly at them, and knew she was making headway.

"Furthermore," she added swiftly, "not allowing their families over will make the troops here miserable. Imagine training in a foreign place without your family nearby for two whole years! It's enough to make anybody go mad. Besides, ORB has proven Coordinators from PLANT can live well with Naturals from ORB for the last hundred years and rising, and if PLANT has already officially declared it will provide for the families over here if they are allowed to come, so I don't see the families as an invasion or influx of Coordinators that we can't handle.

"The word invasion is only used for unwelcomed people, and having more coordinators from PLANT over here does not mean our way of life is threatened, since PLANT can vouch for them and provide for them without ORB having to create more jobs for them!

The only thing we have to do in extra is make sure there are enough places in schools for the children, and the ministry of education has already confirmed this. Instead, why not see this as a challenge to prove once again that ORB is a living example that coordinators from anywhere and everywhere can live peacefully with Naturals? Or are you afraid of the prospect of more hard work where itcomes to integrating the families in with our existing citizens for long-term peace? If you are afraid, then stand up and say it loudly."

They were all nodding in agreement of her view now, suddenly everyone could see what she meant, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she realised she had converted the minds of those against the idea and successfully gotten everyone to be united in a stand.

And a minister who had agreed with her stand throughout stood up and said loudly, "Besides, if the peopleORB unanimously agree that the ZAFT troops ought to have their family with them, then who are we to argue?"

Then she sat down and asked, "All in favour of bringing in the families stand up."

There was a bustle of noise and chairs scraping the floor.

She watched them and realised with joy that she was the only one seated and they were looking at her with some form of pride in their eyes, waiting for her to stand too.

So she got up from her seat to join the whole table who had gotten to their feet and smiled at her ministers, and many of them felt a strange warmth and affection in their hearts, and almost all of them wondered why nobody had ever gotten close enough to her to make her his.

But she didn't know what they were thinking, and they didn't know the truth either.

So they all agreed that the families would be welcomed into ORB too, and there were no more silly shouts that too many coordinators were not easy to handle. Orb had been handling 'too many coordinators' for as long as it had been placed on the map as an independent country, and Cagalli Yula Atha had followed her father's ideals and her own as accurately as possible.

So it was decided, one week before ZAFT would arrive, that their families would come along with them too. Housing had already been arranged at the fringes of ORB, but now, the children would go with their mothers to live amongst the ORB citizens and go to the same schools. The mothers were housewives, those who held jobs in PLANT they could not leave would fly over every weekend, and PLANT would arrange for the soldiers in ORB to meet their whole families.

As she marched through the hallways, moving on so she could get to the ORB university on time, Kisaka, marching next to her commented casually, "Job well done today, Chairman."

She ignored him but still smiled, knowing that she had deserved it, then said briskly, "How long does it take to get to the university?"

He checked his watch and said calmly, "Don't worry, we'll get to see your brother before he goes back to EA Berlin. I have to see him about something too."

Kisaka knew her very well indeed, but it wasn't a surprise since he had became her self-proclaimed bodyguard when she had ran off to become a resistance fighter, much to the dismay of her father. So now it was natural that he knew she was rushing off to catch a glimpse of her brother at the university before he flew back to EA, since he had came over here during the weekend o give a few lectures at the university, but she had been to busy to meet up with him.

When they reached the university, Kira was already by the gates, with Torii flapping up and down on his shoulders, waiting and smiling at both of them. She promptly shot out of the car and threw him a punch which he dodged, she new he's doge anyway. Then they laughed and hugged each other. It was a customary greeting for them now.

"When we'll you be leaving?" she asked as she affectionately ruffled his brown hair.

"In three hours' time," he answered, trying to block her itchy hands from getting to his hair but failing entirely. She mussed it up comletely and then laughed at his flat expression when he realised how silly she had made him look.

"Well, you'll see your pink-haired darling in a short while then," she teased mercilessly.

He ignored the jab at him and turned to Kisaka who had been patiently waiting, as steady as a rock like always.

"How's the mail, Kisaka?" he asked cheerfully.

"Oh, dreadful," the tall man replied, "She's got about fifty proposals to keep in view, so I have no idea how to reject all of them at once, perhaps I'll keep them pending and see what happens after that."

Not understanding what they were talking about, Cagalli stared at them and asked, "What are you both yapping about now?"

Kisaka looked down, yes, looked down since she was still much shorter than him, at her and said stoically, "I've been helping you filter your mail because your brother requested me to do so."

She was nodding, because she had requested that he filter her mail so the important ones would get to her as efficiently as possible too, but since when had her brother made a request like that too?

So she said, puzzled, "What kind of mail did he want you to reject so I wouldn't be able to get to it?"

Then Kira cut in and said, "Oh, those marriage proposals and date requests, you know, that kind."

Cagalli repeated casually, not quite hearing properly, "Ahh, those kind, w-wait, what?"

And then she repeated what he said to her and it clicked in. Kisaka flinched as they watch her hair bristle, but Kira looked as if he had jsut been treated to ice-cream or Christmas had came early, quite fearless, really.

"What kind?" she roared, "And since when were there any of those?"

"Since two years ago," her brother said happily, quite unafraid of her, "because there were gold-diggers and fame-hunters all over wanting your hand in marriage after finding out that Yuna Roma Seiran was killed by a GOUF in the midst of a landing in ORB during the second war when ZAFT invaded ORB."

"I didn't see any of that kind!" she cried in indignation, then she realised that obviously, having Amagi faithfully filtering her letters would mean she would never see those, which Kira had probably ordered him to do.

"Oh, yeah," Kira said cheerfully.

"You know I wouldn't accept any of course, but why'd you do that?" she demanded harshly, feeling a bit short-changed that she hadn't seen any of those for herself.

"I was doing a favour, you know," he said, suddenly looking serious and placing a hand on her shoulder which she immediately shook off so he would be a little more intimidated. It didn't quite work, he just smiled fondly at her and she felt a little lost then.

"I don't need a favour like that!" she exclaimed, smacking him on the shoulder.

"I never said the favour was for you," he said as brightly as before.

She pretended not to hear his last sentence because she was afraid of what it meant and checked her watch, then sighed and said morosely, "Alright, I best be getting back, I've got more work waiting for me."

Her twin knew she had only went there to see him before he left again, and he wisely didn't say anything about the phone conversation they had had the other time. Lacus had made him repeat the whole conversation he had with Cagalli to her, and when he refused to just to tease her, she threatened to call their wedding off. So of course he had dutifully repeated everything and then she had laughed and told him she had called his bluff.

So Cagalli hugged him goodbye and got into the car and drove off. And when he knew she was out of sight and out of earshot, he whipped out his cell, dialled a number he had long memorised and waited a few minutes for the system to make a connection with PLANT. And then his best friend answered and Kira started speaking.

'Hello, Athrun," Kira said calmly, "You wanted to know how many pending proposals she had, didn't you. Well, Amagi told me it was fifty in front of her, but he quietly slipped me a note once she couldn't see, saying it was nearly a hundred and twenty, but he didn't say so, because he didn't want her to get alarmed."

He heard Athrun curse at the other end and quickly went on.

"Oh don't get alarmed either, she probably doesn't know who the Commander of Tibet is, why'd she go and accept some random proposal and get herself hitched to him anyway? You mean the other leaders? Oh, yes, she knows who they are, but they aren't young and handsome like you, so don't worry too much. We all know who these people are, don't we? We see them all the time and nobody looks like you or even hits close, so why are you worrying? Oh yes, some are young, but they aren't handsome, and then some are handsome but they aren't young, so don't worry your head off it like what you're doing right now. Oh, and send my regards to Yzak and Dearka, Miss Hahenfuss too, Miss Hawke as well, if she's there with Shinn."

Then he smiled briefly and cut the line off, not bothering to hear anymore and he thought that his friend was a desperate idiot if there ever had been one.

By the time Cagalli had reached her office again, she was thinking of getting into her drawing room for no particular reason at all. She hadn't gone there for a very long time to sit and daydream as she had done a long long time ago when she had been a child and she had idly watched her father write letters. She had never gone in there to write letters after her father had died, except when she needed to write letters to Kira or Lacus to keep in touch with her friends.

She had never written letters to Athrun before, even when she wanted him to know that she was sorry to break the promise and marry Yuna for the sake of ORB, instead, she had told her brother and Lacus. It had been irresponsible of her, but she couldn't bring herself to write him a letter. She didn't know how to tell him that she was going to marry Yuna then.

But when she stepped into the well-maintained drawing room, wearing the dress she wore only in her home because it was too casual for functions and she didn't really like wearing dresses in front of others either, she was lost in her thoughts.

Once when they had been seventeen, Kira had gone and bought the dress for her for no reason at all, and when she had opened the large box he had silently passed to her and seen the beautiful sea-green dress with it's orange sash, and she had to fight back tears very furiously.

She had worn the same sea-green dress with the orange sash two years ago and had miserably finished the letter to Kira and enclosed a ring with it.

Now, she hadn't wanted to remember the events two years ago, but the drawing room and the dress she now wore again evoked so many memories that she couldn't resist coming in again just to rememeber what it had been like once.

She passed by the same desk she had used to write on two years ago and walked to the calendar where she checked the number of days left. Athrun and the families would arrive a day after the ZAFT troops in five days time, and although she knew where her heart lay, she was a little unsure of what it would be like to see him in ORB again.

Then she sighed, although it wasn't an unhappy one, and went back to the work waiting for her.

On Monday, Cagalli signed the treaty that reconfirmed that the ZAFT troops were allowed to bring their families over to ORB. The second referendum the government carried out showed that ORB's citizens were as warm-hearted as she thought everyone ought to be, they were thoroughly in approval that the ZAFT troops' families should be allowed to come to join the soldiers too. Kisaka and Amagi sent her hundreds of letters the ZAFT troops had written in for her in their gratitude. Some had even enclosed their names and pictures of their families which she pinned on a board in her office and liked to look at when she had free time. They weren't just random nameless soldiers, she knew their names now, they were like friends to her now. She could even rememeber their names even though she recognised them only through photographs they had sent.

On Tuesday, she visited schools to accede to their requests and talked to the children who picked flowers especially for her. Her bodyguards had to deal with all the children who were clambering to talk to her, and Rainie was like one of them, giggling and throwing her cards up everywhere when she played their card games with them. There was so much pollen in the flowers they had picked along the fields for her that she couldn't stop sneezing, but she laughed and hugged them and promised she would treasure their little gifts. She did, she really did. The flowers had wilted to brown fragile pieces, but were still arranged beautifully in jars and pots around her room. She still couldn't stop sneezing though.

And then magazines and newspapers everywhere published a picture of Cagalli wearing the dress Kira had given her, holding hundreds of flowers and surrounded by thousands more in a sea of glorious colours, and she was featured smiling like she had never done for the camera before. The same photograph was still featured everywhere, it had suddenly became her most famous photograph akin to Lacus' potrait of the songstress singing with a background of white, pure windmills in PLANT. And people started addressing her as 'Princess' once more. She tried to tell them otherwise, but they just smiled and continued to do so.

On Wednesday, she appeared to be interviewed by the broadcasting station, making a speech why ORB had agreed to sign the extended treaty. She had done this to reconfirm the new decisions in ORB so the people would have complete faith in the government and her to support the coming of the ZAFT troops and their families. The people at the station made such a fuss out of her that she was embarrassed, and Kisaka proudly told her that her father would have approved of her as the rest of ORB did. She couldn't stop smiling like a fool that day. And when she went home, she ran into the drawing room and pulled open a drawer to look a a picture of her father locked securely there.

And then she remembered everything about him and wept, but it wasn't the way she had done when she had been sixteen and left ORB knowing he would stay behind to die for all of them. It wasn't the kind of wailing and misery she had felt then. That day, she just wept.

On Thursday, she received a call from Yzak Joule's fiancée, Shiho Hahenfuss, who she had only met once or twice. She liked Shiho though; the lady was obviously very intelligent and had some rare kind of openness about herself and her own surroundings that made Cagalli like her even more. She hadn't said anything much, just called up and said that Yzak wanted Cagalli to know that he approved of her too but was too afraid to say anything himself, and then Cagalli heard some angry screeching in the background that sounded like Yzak Joule before Shiho calmly said goodbye and put down the phone, effectively cutting off the background disturbance.

On Friday, The ZAFT troops arrived, and she personally stood at the grounds in a salute as they all marched and stood in formation and saluted too. ORB had celebrated their coming by throwing a holiday that night, and Cagalli had accepted the invitation to visit the ZAFT troops in their quarters where she had literally been picked up and tossed into the air as the coordinators cheered. She had made friends with a few of them who had talked to her; one of them was Lunamaria's friend from training school who had eventually become the bridge officer who replaced Meyrin when Meyrin had defected from ZAFT two years ago. That night, Cagalli woke up and tried to recall the blonde girl's name but simply couldn't' because she had one too many drinks, so she gave up and went back to sleep.

Then on Saturday, she woke up earl and had the usual Cabinet Meeting, and then it was over in three hours and Kisaka was taking her by her elbow and asking her to get ready to go to the grounds to receive the ZAFT troop's families and ETERNITY's Chairman.

He heart was pounding like a drum and she was sure everyone could hear it as she rushed into her room and threw off her Emir suit and replaced it with her military suit, tying the braids and adjusting the badge and pins impatiently before she rushed down to meet Kisaka. Amagi stared in mock-horror at the white pants she was wearing and told her to change into the white skirt and dark-grey stockings with black heels that had been made as an alternative for females that she was supposed to wear originally, and she thought she'd humour him and went to do it.

He told her she looked strangely lovely in military jacket and skirt, but she couldn't care less about what anyone would think of her when she was wearing the kind of garb similar to Murrue Ramius' uniform when the lady had been the captain of the Archangel.

The bodyguards drove Kisaka and her to the extensive port where the shuttles would arrive, and as they drove, she couldn't sit still and kept fidgeting about until she irritated even herself. The ZAFTies had already assembled in full uniform and in proper formation as they waited to receive the newcomers who would join them in ORB, and she could sense the air of excitement palpitating around and saturating the air. Then the shuttle arrived above them to make a landing, and the winds it created were so strong it swept away a few berets and hats of the ZAFT troops and made their hair windswept in the breeze.

Then the doors of the shuttle were thrown open, and children and men and women were rushing out by the hundreds and shouting in joy when they saw members of their family standing at attention in formation.

Cagalli, now at ease, watched them breaking out of formation, even the stern-looking Section Leaders, to run and hug heir families which had followed them all the way from PLANT.

Then she saw him step out with the last few people on board in the midst of the madness and joy and noise going all round her.

Nobody saw what happened next; they were far too busy with their own families and shouting in jubilation as they hugged each other in joy. Had they seen it, they would have just stopped to stare.

She had been standing still, but continued to look everywhere in the crushing crowds for him, and then she spotted him standing some distance in front of her, holding his briefcase in one hand staring right at her, right in all the chaotic mess of people running and shouting around them.

She stared at him too, standing as if she were frozen and as still as a statue, not making a single movement at all, and then suddenly, she was crying out his name and he heard her very clearly even if the world around them was a mess of colours and sounds.

And she was racing towards him as fast as she could in her heels, and then he carelessly tossed his briefcase onto the ground and caught her tightly when she ran and threw her arms around him.

Author's notes:

This has to be one of my favourite chapters. I hope you liked it as much as I did.