Respect between Enemies – The BetanWerecat

Gundam Seed: "Descending Sword" and after. OCs with appearances by canon characters. The actions of Kira, Athrun, and the others have far reaching effects. Ah, interpersonal relationships! What joys they are. Rated T for language and off screen activity. (Reviews are welcomed but not required. This is written only for my own enjoyment. Flaming me will get you ignored.)

There is one small matter the kids have to take care of before going off to deal with their respective cultures for a bit. Just a minor (cough!) item they've managed to overlook.

Next update will take a few days more. I know I won't have much writing time for a bit.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed.


Lance Thoms sat quietly in the small crew lounge near the Kusanagi's infirmary. For the first time since he'd been injured, Yuri Lubbek was up out of bed and sitting beside him. They both wore Aube uniforms without any rank badges. Their own flight suits were ruined and there were no ZAFT uniforms available for them. Adrian was off somewhere in a similar outfit.

Yuri had taken to wearing his hair across his lost right eye, covering the bandages with its burnished hematite length. He was far too thin and he had no strength but he was alive and would recover in time. Because of the generosity of the ships of the Clyne Team, the boy hadn't lost anything more than the eye.

Well, that and a good deal of his political innocence. At fifteen, Yuri now had a better grasp of the intricacies that drove this war than some who sat on the Supreme Council. It was an interesting irony; discovering just how much one could learn sitting on a rouge ship with contacts into both sides.

The Captain wondered what he would do with his knowledge now that he was going to be leaving the ZAFT. Oh, he could stay but with a peace treaty clearly coming, a one-eyed pilot was no longer a necessity for the defense of the Plants and Yuri had no interest in military desk-work. It was too early to ask of course, but not too early to suggest his mother keep an eye on the youngster. Mother was always looking for genuine talent to train up into new Plant leadership. Yuri might well qualify.

"Captain, what happens now to 'Rin and his girl?" Yuri asked suddenly. "They can hardly go back to the Plants; she's an Earth Forces officer! And he's ZAFT; they'd shoot him on sight down on Earth."

"I don't know." Lance replied honestly. "They have agreed to each go back to their own people for right now. How that will work in the long run, I've no idea. They are very much in love and very determined to find a way to be together though. I expect they'll manage something just as soon as the treaty is signed."

"That'll take months yet. I don't think they want to wait months."

Thoms chuckled. "No, I don't think so either. But I don't see where they have any choice in the matter. The Council is not going to allow any Natural to immigrate to the Plants right now and, as you said, Adrian will not be welcome in North America at all."

The younger pilot cocked his head thoughtfully. "Sir, somehow I don't think they care what the Plants or North America thinks. They're mindful of it, but they just don't care about anyone's opinion but their own. And they do mean to have things their way. If I were the Council or the Atlantic Federation, I would be worried if I knew those two as well as I do. They're both much brighter than they usually let on and this time, they'll be quite ruthless if it gets them what they want and need."

Lance sobered instantly. "You have a point there."

Kira Yamato came whipping in the door at that moment to stand with his back against the bulkhead and his face positively crimson. Both ZAFT pilots looked at him enquiringly. He just shook his head and stared at the deck.

Lance stood up and went to have a look up the corridor in the direction the hopelessly embarrassed Yamato had come from. He didn't have to look far to see the cause of the problem. Adrian was kissing Kayla. It wasn't a kiss they should have demonstrated in public spaces. He was rather surprised they weren't melting the ship's plating. He stepped back; watching that was pure voyeurism.

"Sir?" Yuri asked carefully.

"The lovebirds." He replied. "They really shouldn't get that carried away where just anyone can walk up on them."

Poor Yuri's good eye imitated a blue fried egg. Captain Thoms shook his head.

"No, nothing so graphic. But you'd be a bit horrified I think at how, uhm how should I put this, at how much just kissing can convey."

Lubbek studied the still glowing Yamato and simply nodded, eye still very wide. Lance grinned. He grabbed Kira by the arm and towed him over to a chair and pushed him down into it. The boy semi-curled up in it, violet eyes darting around as though he was expecting the two from the hall to come wandering in and begin again right in front of him.

"I'd better break that up or the arrivals from the Eternal are going to catch them at it. That would spoil the whole game even if she is wearing an Aube outfit right now."

Thoms went out into the hall and up toward the oblivious pair. At least they'd stopped for the moment to breathe! They were staring at each other like starry eyed idiots though.

He just shook his head. He could remember when he and Joni had been just as silly. For a second, old pain washed over him. They had been so happy when Jiro had been born. Who would have expected her to suddenly hemorrhage and die in her sleep only two days later? Things like that didn't happen to Coordinator women, only Naturals died like that.

It was a blessing that Mother had been willing to take on the maternal side of raising Jiro. He could not have managed being both father and mother to the boy and an officer in the ZAFT at the same time. As it was, he harbored a lot of guilt over how often he'd allowed duty to pull him away from his son.

Fortunately, neither of these young fools was a child of his! He would accrue no guilt over what he was going to do here. Lance grabbed the unprepared couple by their respective belts and yanked them apart. He sent Kayla spinning off in the general direction of the bridge and the unwary Adrian down the hall toward the crew lounge. Both of them yelled objections, notably angry ones at that.

"Shut up! Both of you! Check the time you idiots! The whole object of this exercise is to prevent anyone else in ZAFT from finding out about you two, not to advertise it in their faces! They'll be here in less than an hour now. You've said all the good-bye you have time for. Get to your places right now!"

"Yes sir." Adrian sounded like a sulky ten year old but he obeyed the order.

Grayhawk gave him a look that could have peeled paint. He was unmoved. Only when she turned away did he go back to the lounge himself.

He shouldn't have trusted her. He'd no sooner cleared the door than she dived right past him. Yuri looked up in alarm and the hapless Kira rather appeared to want to merge right into the chair and vanish.

"Damn it, Lieutenant!" This wasn't funny and he wasn't amused.

"Oh don't blow a seal! This won't take much time." She snapped back as she landed neatly in the low gravity and stepped over to stand in front of a confused Yuri.

"We haven't had much time to talk and aren't going to get any now, but I want you to know; I'm glad I met you." She carefully offered her right hand, the arm still in its protective splint. "I don't know if Adrian has ever gotten around to telling you, but he's damn glad to have you for his backup. If you've really saved his idiot butt as often as he claims, I'm glad you're his backup too!"

This was completely unexpected. Yuri was plainly both startled and touched. He rose carefully and took her hand.

He suddenly really didn't look a day over fifteen as he smiled shyly back at her. "Thank you. I'm not sorry I met you either. Because of you, and all these people I've met here since you risked your life to save mine, well, I have a better understanding of how really varied Naturals are now. I used to think you were all Blue Cosmos. I'll never make that mistake again."

She grinned wryly at him. "Yeah, well, you guys have helped expand my view of Coordinators too so we're even."

Suddenly, she pulled the younger boy into a careful hug. "You take care of yourself, hear? I'd hate to get word you made it all the way through the war only to walk into a door or something stupid!"

He laughed softly. "I'll try not to!"

Lance watched the boy shake Grayhawk's hand one last time, then carefully sit back down. She'd made a friend here. He could see it in Yuri's warm smile. She'd done it with honesty. The young pilot had a keen sense for what was real and what was fake. Kayla liked him; he knew it and was willing to return the favor.

When the emerald eyed girl turned to him, those eyes held respect. So he wasn't surprised when she stopped a few feet from him and gave him a crisp, Alliance salute. He returned it with the formal ZAFT gesture. He also saw the smile that move set tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"Captain Thoms, you are a pain in the ass."

"Opinion noted, Lieutenant Grayhawk. I won't go into what you've done to my Second but I will note that having you seduce him was not helpful to his recent service performance."

One jet eyebrow rose slightly and she muttered, "Depends on who is evaluating that."

Lance managed not to burst out laughing but it was a very near thing. "Ah, I suppose it would be at that."

He caught another of those paint-peeling looks. "You weren't supposed to hear that. What, all you people come with radar ears or something?"

"Or something." Thoms agreed amiably.

She held out her hand with a wry smile. "Whatever. Despite everything, I'm not sorry I met you either."

Lance took it, very mindful of her half-healed arm. "Nor am I sorry to have known you. I think you and that blockhead will be very good for each other. I hope you both are very, very happy for a great many years."

"Thanks, Captain."

"Too bad you don't have a ring to give her." Yuri remarked wistfully, glancing at Adrian. "That would be so appropriate right now."

Thoms was also looking at his Second at that moment so he saw realization suddenly cross Ito's face. Now that was interesting. Especially when mixed with equal parts of chagrin and embarrassment. Just what major item had the boy forgotten now?

He was almost shocked when Adrian opened his collar and fished a necklace out from under his shirt. The boy was fanatically secretive about that necklace. It was either around his neck or locked in a very special box. No one had ever convincingly claimed to know what was on it. Yet he was pulling it out here?

"Ah, Kayla, a moment please?"

Things were getting more interesting by the second. Adrian sounded remarkably unsure of himself. Whatever this was, it was serious, at least to Adrian.

"Sure." She turned questioningly.

To his Captain's amazement, the boy came to a complete halt. He stood there with the mysterious necklace in his hand and a look of near terror on his face. What the hell was going on?

It took him three tries to find his voice again. "Ah, . . . . . . . . you know, we've . . . . . . uhm, talked."

She waited a couple of minutes but he'd run out of words.

"Yes," she said finally, "about a lot of things. But I'd say from the way you're all frozen up the topic is us. Right?"

He nodded stiffly, eyes now studying the deck plates as if his life depended on it. "Ahhhhh . . . . . . . . . . well . . . . . . . . all that talk, you . . . . . . . . I . . . . ."

The girl waited a couple more minutes before noting dryly, "You know this is going nowhere real fast don't you?"

His eyes came up and locked on her. It was the look in them that suddenly told Lance Thoms what was wrong. He couldn't decide if he should laugh, cry or just slap the kid in the head to kick start him again. How could even Adrian Ito have overlooked something that basic? Then he looked again at the girl and knew. They were almost too perfectly in tune with each other. He was willing to bet she'd missed it too.

Suddenly Adrian took one great gulp of air, held it, then let it out in an explosive sigh. It seemed to steady him. His breathing became noticeably more regular and his eyes held much less panic.

He spoke very carefully though. "I just realized that I've been making a lot of assumptions. I think I should check with you before I keep on doing that."

Her eyes rolled impatiently. "Depends on what you're assuming."

He smiled slightly at that. "Yes, it does. Well, it's about all this future planning we've been doing. I forgot a step in there. It's a fairly important one."

"And that is?" She asked with the brittle calm of someone trying not to scream.

"Kayla, will you marry me?"

She stared at him. "What?"

"Will you marry me?"

The look in her eyes turned inward. Several emotions chased each other briefly across her face. The one that stayed was stunned surprise.

"Ye gods! You haven't asked before now!"

"Ah, no. That's what Yuri and his comment about rings just reminded me."

"How did we miss that?"

"Too much future focus?"

"Oh yeah, I'd say we got the cart a couple light years ahead of the horse!"

Yuri was trying very hard not to laugh. Kira Yamato was just about down to chewing on the chair cushions in his efforts to control his laughter. Lance was having almost as much trouble as the boys. Yet they all knew the first giggle was going to get the giggler slapped silly. This wasn't funny to the two involved at all. Kayla was nearly bouncing off the walls, she was so irritated.

"Ah, Kayla?"

"Yeah?"

"Will you?"

She stopped bouncing and hissing about how dumb they'd been and stared hard at him. "Are you nuts? My Coordinator, Ito, you're mine! Mine, mine, mine, all mine! Got it?"

Adrian jumped forward and snatched her up, spinning them both around. "My Natural! Mine and mine alone!"

"Right!"

They really were a striking couple. And no matter what the cause, nature or pheromones or gift of God, they were very much in love. It had been a long time since he'd seen a level of attachment like this. They were floating in a slow spin a few feet off the deck, eyes closed, just holding each other. It was one of those moments it was a crime to end.

But time was not their ally. There were going to be just over thirty other ZAFT mobile suit pilots and ship crew survivors coming aboard very soon now. Adrian was going to need time to recover and readjust his mindset to cope with them. She needed to get up to the bridge and out of sight.

They separated on their own just before he reached for them. Adrian opened his hand, the one holding the jealously guarded necklace. There were three rings on it. A wedding set, Lance realized at first glance, and not a new one.

"These were my maternal grandparents rings." He said quietly. "I broke several laws and even more regulations when I slipped onto the ruin of Junius Seven to visit my home. I found my Dad had seen and understood what had happened. He had managed to get the whole family into the temporary safety of our emergency shelter, but he knew it didn't have enough resources to last them until rescue could come. Dad was a veterinary surgeon; he had some very powerful drugs around the house. Somehow, he saw to it that they all just went to sleep and never woke up. Then he set up a box with things he wanted Mother to have and left a note on it. Only then did he go himself. I found the box and brought it back to Mom. These were in it, along with a note from Grandfather Chu, asking me to use them when I married."

He looked up, eyes full of ghosts. "He wanted them to go on, to be part of a renewal. I would very much like to honor his wish. Kayla, will you wear Grandmother's ring, make it yours for now and someday, pass it on again?"

"I'd be honored."

Adrian got the ring off the necklace, closed it and dropped it, with the two wedding bands still on it, back over his head. Lance was startled to discover the ring was carefully encased in a protective wrap. It was only when that came off that he realized just what a remarkable item this was.

The ring was a sturdy gold band with five stones set into the central channel. With the wrap on, the stones had looked like fairly decent white diamonds. When it came off and the light caught them, they suddenly refracted fiery color everywhere. Lance Thoms stared. Were those what he thought they were?

"What are these, Adrian? I've never seen them before. They're beautiful!" Kayla was studying them with fascinated eyes.

"We call them Nebula diamonds. They're found in some asteroids. Some people think they're proof that the asteroid belt is the ruins of a former planet since diamond only forms under conditions of great heat and pressure, like fairly deep in a planetary crust. They're not common and the good ones, and these are very good stones, are expensive. But if you don't know what you're looking at, there are a couple of synthetics they are sometimes mistaken for and you'll want to pretend that's what they are."

He caught her left hand and tried the ring for size. There was some difficulty getting it on over the knuckle but once it cleared the joint, it actually fit quite well. Considering the value of the ring, the fact that it was so difficult to get on or off was no bad thing really.

Kira and Yuri promptly offered their congratulations. Yuri accepted his second hug from Kayla calmly. Kira, well Kira blushed to his ears as usual. That boy was really going to have to get over that some day. Lance rather thought the supposedly 'Ultimate Coordinator' probably shouldn't turn quite that red every time a girl did anything more than talk to him. His adoptive Natural parents must have really seen to it he led a sheltered life, especially sheltered from girls his own age!

Proposals and rings did not extend the time limits though. A call from the lounge intercom up to the bridge to Colonel Kisaka however did. He offered his congratulations to the pair as well and arranged about a ten minute delay for the ZAFT arrivals in the landing bay. It was not a lot but it was the most that could reasonably be squeezed out without it being obvious that the holdup was deliberate. This time when he pushed her out the door, Grayhawk really left.

"The bridge crew will do just fine, Captain. Colonel Kisaka will keep her from being seen." Kira told him reassuringly as he checked one more time to be sure she hadn't slipped back again.

Lance turned to him, reminded suddenly that he was still there. "Yamato, what are you even doing here? I thought you were supposed to stay over on the Archangel. None of our people are supposed to know who you are."

"Aside from you three, Dearka, Athrun and Dr. Ito, none of your people do." He pointed out reasonably. "Even Yzak Joule hasn't actually met me yet. He might recognize my voice but he couldn't pick me out of a crowd. The others who know me are staying with the Eternal and Lacus."

"That doesn't answer the question of why you're here."

"Cagalli decided on that. She wants a first hand report of how things go at the transfer since everyone has persuaded her she can't come along. So I'm officially here as her representative. All you know about me is my name and that I'm some kind of relative, all right?"

"Ah, so that's why you're wearing an Aube Captain's uniform." Yuri said, enlightenment in his voice. "I was going to ask about that but other things kind of drove it out of my head here."

"That's it." Kira agreed.

"So do we know anything else?" Adrian enquired.

"Colonel Kisaka has decided I will be from Mobile Suit Command. Its about all I do know and, well, at least I can talk intelligently about flying mobile suits if I have to. Mostly, I just want to stand around smiling politely with my mouth shut though."

He could talk about flying mobile suits. Pilot for Strike and Freedom, defender of the Archangel, ah, yeah, he certainly could do that! Although it would be very unwise to mention anything about those suits or that ship to the people due here soon. Still, he had flown an Astray so he could talk convincingly about one of them too.

"What kind of relative of Cagalli's are you supposed to be?" Adrian asked.

"You aren't supposed to be sure, you just know we're related."

"No, that's not the question. Kira, you aren't obviously a Coordinator like Yuri, the Captain and I are. So do we know you're one of us or not?"

"Good question. I hadn't thought about that one." He turned to Lance. "Captain, what do you think is better?"

"Don't mention it at all." He replied promptly. "If we're asked, we don't know. If someone asks you, don't answer. The Athha family is known to be Natural but with Aube's acceptance of Coordinators and your actual relationship to Cagalli undefined, leave this in limbo too."

"All right." Kira agreed readily.

Colonel Kisaka abruptly stuck his head in the door. "Captain, will you three come with me? Andy Waltfeld just sent over proper uniforms for you that should fit."

"Where did he get those?" Yuri asked in surprise. "He told us he didn't have any just yesterday."

"He reports he had visitors very early this morning." Kisaka told them. "He seems to suddenly have a number of things he didn't have yesterday."

Ah, so that was the way of it was it? Practical contacts into the Plants were something he'd suspected all along. How else had Lacus managed to take the Eternal in the first place? Waltfeld and his team were very, very good but there just weren't enough of them to have pulled it off alone.

There was a medical orderly waiting with the uniforms to help them deal with both the clothing and the splints and slings they all still needed. Andy had judged the sizes perfectly. His and Adrian's fit exactly while Yuri's was slightly oversized, giving even greater visual impact to his too-thin body and missing eye.

Lance studied the effects carefully. Yuri's hematite-dark hair and lightly tanned skin now had a very slight greenish cast as the standard ZAFT uniform threw a bit of its color up onto his face. Combined with the 'wasted body' effect of the oversize uniform, he really did look like he'd been snatched back from the jaws of death. Anyone looking at him would question why he was out of bed at all.

Back in Elite red, Adrian was a striking contrast. Here was the frustrated warrior, the young man held back by bones that refused to knit fast enough. The arm was now not only splinted but held in a crisp white sling under the coat, which was worn open to accommodate it. The open coat also allowed one to see the bulk of another splint that ran from knee to hip on the thigh bone of left leg under the uniform pants. And while the uniform was a perfect fit, the fact that it was brand new suggested some significant weight loss on the Elite's part too. It gave a subtle hint that all was not as well as the warrior would have everyone believe.

A study in a mirror showed him safely in the middle ground. He was clearly better off than Yuri and obviously in worse shape than Adrian. The effect of the three of them together was everything he'd hoped it would be. No one seeing them would doubt the two less injured of the Team had refused to leave the third, too badly wounded to move, alone in the hands of the Naturals.

Yuri was getting shaky by the time they got back to the lounge. It was only his first day out of bed after all. The crew had done a make-over on the space in the brief time they'd been gone. There were now couches and stuffed chairs enough to accommodate almost forty people. A buffet had been laid out on tables set against one bulkhead. And someone had kicked the special gravity compensators up in here to about one quarter Earth normal. Food would stay on plates now and you could actually sit in the chairs.

Captain Thoms claimed three chairs set close together and put Yuri in the center one. He and Ito took the outer two. Now the frail boy was protected whether he wanted to be or not. He did not appear grateful for the kind gesture. The sound of a number of people in the corridor focused them all on the doorway. It seemed their company was about to arrive. Suddenly he was quite glad Adrian had remembered to actually propose. Because it would have been too late if he'd thought of it now.