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.)
Well, late again. But I haven't stopped working on it and I WILL FINISH!
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed.
Maria Spotted Horse looked around the dining room table with calm interest. Everyone was here except Kayla, the three ZAFT boys, and First Kay. They'd be down later, when she let First Kay know it was time for them to put in an appearance.
Right now, that tiny pin of Ito's had everyone's attention all by it's little self. Howard had brought it down with him and put it on the lazy susan in the middle of the table. He'd forbid anyone to pick it up but they were all more than welcome to stare at it.
The reactions to it were down right fascinating. Only the children had no trace of guilt when they looked at that pin. Everyone else understood what it stood for. Everyone else was to some degree or other ashamed of what it represented. Even Todd and Alys, who were civilians, who had never worn any military uniform, even they felt tainted by the disgrace to their nation and people that pin represented.
Howard himself sat back impassively. Only his mother-in-law had the skill to see the conflict between anger, grief, and shame that was chewing on him. Janet was much easier to read. She openly teetered between her own grief and her understanding of what that pin said about Adrian Ito. The Bronze Spider was looking at it with an air of sadness and sympathy. Jamie and John both appeared caught between denial and comprehension. At the same time, Jamie was trying to comfort his wife. Carol was just crying softly. She saw the losses on both sides and could grieve for both.
The triplets' responses were interesting. Richard wouldn't even look at it. Crystal was almost lying on the table, head on her folded arms, staring at it with her face as close as she could get to it. Doug just sat back; regret the only thing you could see in his eyes. The youngest twins were simply confused and somewhat ashamed of what it stood for.
John finally reached his breaking point. "Why is everyone staring at that thing? It doesn't change anything ZAFT did to us!"
"Nope." The Spider agreed grimly. "But if you think that's why Pop brought it down here you've got a few more problems than I thought you did."
"That wasn't fair Maria!" Jamie snapped. "He's not saying anything that isn't obvious!"
His sister turned her metallic eyes on him. "Never said he was. But you both are shoving your heads in a sandbank here to avoid seeing the rest of the message. And I'll thank you to remember the only thing sticking your head in the sand accomplishes is putting your ass in the air to get it shot off!"
"I do not have my head in any sandbank!" John snarled.
"Yes you do." Doug sighed. "And I'm in no mood to wait for you to admit it either. So I'll just tell you what you don't want to hear; he's lost as many or more to ours than we've lost to his. Message here; quit trying to compare the value of the dead! Ours mean more to us, his mean more to him. End of story! Now get your head back up where it belongs and start using it to think with!"
"I'm not comparing the dead!" John snapped. "I discussing the fact that Ito is a serving ZAFT soldier and he's apparently going to stay one. Kayla is the Tomahawk, damn it! How can you just sit there and agree that the Tomahawk should be marrying some enemy officer?
"Because she wants to!" Douglas shouted suddenly. "It's her life John! Butt out of it!"
"It's our family name." Jamie snapped.
His younger brother just stared at him. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? You living back in the Middle Ages or something here? 'Our family name'? What, you want to go around picking our sister's husbands for them based on how good they'll make you look? What century do you think this is Jamie? And who died and made you head of the family while we're at it, eh? Pop looks real lively to me!"
"I . . . . . ." Jamie started only to be cut off as everything on the table bounced high.
"Jamie! Shut up!" Janet Grayhawk was suddenly standing, one hand on the table where she'd slammed it moments before. "I've already discussed this with Kayla! I have lost four children. The Ito's lost twenty-three out of an extended family of twenty-six. Do not compare the dead! It benefits no one, least of all the one doing the comparisons. And yes, that's exactly what you and John are doing here! You can call it whatever you like but what you are doing, as opposed to saying, is trying to weight the losses so heavily to our family that you can discount Captain Ito's. Hear me boy, I won't have this!"
She looked around the table, eyes bright with unshed tears. "We can not change the past. We can only live in the present and hope for the future. Nothing and no one can alter what has already happened. So stop it! Just, . . . . . just stop it! Deal with today. Deal with Adrian Ito, the human being. And with Kayla, your sister Kayla, the other human being caught up in this mess. And all of you; stop swearing in front of the children!"
There was a very long silence after Janet sat down. Maria let her eyes wander through the family as they each considered her orders. Not everyone wanted to move on though and that was what Janet had just told them to do. She suppressed a sigh. This could get ugly.
"I like them."
Maria stared at her granddaughter. Alys sat defiantly upright at the foot of the table, daring anyone to contradict her.
"I like them." She repeated clearly. "They're nice guys. We, Earth Naturals, we scare the pogies out of them but they came here anyway. Because they like Kayla. Because he loves her! Our sister Kayla. They want her to be safe. The big bad ZAFT space monsters want our sister to be safe! They want her kids to be safe. Now, just what the – pardon my French Mom – fucking hell is so terrible about that?"
"We," Richard replied derisively, "we scare the Coordinators? Very funny!"
"No its not!" Alys snapped. "What, you wouldn't be scared going alone to the Plants with only two buddies to try to rescue someone's girlfriend and his kids? What do you think Coordinators are? Superman in disguise? They're us, Dicky! Just us! They made them using regular human beings! All they did was concentrate some things and clean out the trash! We aren't that different from them ourselves! We've been following the Morrison Plan for four generations now counting Jamie's kids! We're Coordinators without the concentrated parts!"
"Alys, don't stomp on a guy's illusions like that." The General warned her. "They don't like it and they tend to get nasty about it when you do things that way."
"Well maybe I'm feeling nasty right back!" She shouted angrily. "I'm sick of all this! They're good people! And they didn't take any of our family from us! I asked! Adrian admitted he was in the ZAFT and he could tell me where his Team had been the whole war! And it wasn't anywhere near where we lost anyone!"
"He still killed our people." Jamie snapped. "Him and Lubbek. Joule may not have, he may not have ever been in combat. But the other two sure were! And they weren't killing weeds!"
"Yes," Crystal suddenly cut in coolly. "And Kayla was a mobile armor pilot who killed ZAFT soldiers for a year! Yet somehow the two of them have managed to get past the war."
She sat up and leaned back. "In a very real way, this whole thing is none of our business. Doug has a point. I don't recall being asked to pass judgment on your getting married to Carol so I fail to see where you can demand any right to judge Kayla's choice. I can agree that her selection is odd and won't fit in well with the rest of the family but that's as far as I really can go. I'm not going to be living with the man after all, she is."
"I fail to see . . ."
"Yeah Jamie," Todd interrupted. "You fail to see. I'm not sure if I like this deal or not myself. But the guy ate four bullets for our sister without even stopping to think about it. He cares about her! And he's a good enough leader to have two of his own follow him down here when he came for her. Despite what they know will happen to them if anybody talks. If he wore another uniform, you'd be falling all over yourself trying to help him. Maybe you need to quit looking at the uniforms and start looking at the people."
"No, not yet." Adrian Ito's voice cut into the discussion abruptly. "First we do need to deal with the uniforms."
Maria snapped around. Ito stood perhaps ten feet behind the Spider. But it was not the Dreyfus guard or the injured guest who was there now. Now they were, willing or not, hosts to a ZAFT Elite in full dress reds. Well, to a pair of them really.
She looked past him to find Kayla standing just inside the door. She was flanked by Yuri Lubbek in ZAFT's gray uniform and Voril Joule, who also wore dress reds. Too pregnant to fit into any of her own uniforms, she'd elected to wear a white dress with gray trim that gave an impression of an Earth Alliance uniform. First Kay stood behind the trio and just shrugged when Maria glared at her. Obviously the kids had taken things into their own hands and had ignored her attempts to guide the inevitable confrontation onto less dangerous ground.
Jamie Grayhawk was on his feet and between his family and the ZAFT soldier so fast he could have been a Coordinator himself. "That's close enough!"
Ito just met his angry stare with weariness. "Do you even know what you're afraid of any more? Or is the clothing just that scary?"
"You bastard!"
"No, I am not. But the records that would prove it are gone now." Adrian just walked past Jamie, shocking him into frozen stillness by the boldness of the move as he reached across the table for his collar pin. "I'm tired of hating people who had nothing to do with starting the war. I've met too many of you now. The old lies just can't blind me anymore."
He held the pin on his open palm. "I'm even more tired of being hated for things I had nothing to do with. No one chooses their own parents, Colonel. You were born to Naturals who decided not to alter what they were getting. I was born to Coordinators who really couldn't imagine a child of theirs who wasn't also a Coordinator. With no 'unnatural' intervention at all, my children will be like me and not their mother. It just happened. We did nothing to influence how they came out. That was decided by my parents and yours when they had me made like them and had Kayla produced so very genetically clean."
The Elite stepped back, fastening the pin to the collar where it belonged. "I'll fight whoever comes against the Plants with intent to destroy them, but I refuse to get caught up in useless hatreds again. All Naturals are no more alike than all Coordinators are."
He smiled wryly. "After all, you pretty much have the full range of Natural reactions encased right here inside your own family. Every response from Larry's attempted murder to Kayla's accepting my proposal, all in one single Natural family. And you know, there was only one of you who intended to kill without any thought to who I might be. The rest of you were willing to at least learn our names before you decided if you wanted to shoot us or not. I can see something hopeful in that."
"What changed your mind?" Howard asked in the taut silence that followed Ito's speech.
"One of yours did. 'Why the hell are we trying to kill each other?' I asked him." Ito replied. "His answer was kind of scary. 'Because we're human, Ito. And for some humans, what is different, not of their tribe, is dangerous and must be destroyed so their tribe can flourish. You get someone who thinks like that with serious leadership skills and you have wars.' And I told him that stank as a reason to kill each other. He reminded me it didn't make it any less valid. That all you had to do was listen to the propaganda from either side to hear it. He was right of course. I haven't found much he was wrong ever about. But learning that from an Earth Forces officer is what really, seriously, forced me to recognize there were more good people on his side than just Kayla. Then too, I'd just learned that the pilot of the Strike and the Freedom was a Coordinator. That he'd chosen to defend his Natural friends against his Coordinator friend because he knew the Naturals couldn't fly the mobile suit and probably wouldn't survive without his help. He chose friendship over genetics. And they accepted him as one of them."
Maria watched with fascination as the words wove a story of conflicts of the soul. "I've spoken to Captain Ramius since that day. So I now know that in many ways that Coordinator managed to become something very like the heart of the Archangel. He was considered one of them and they were nearly shattered when they thought he'd died. They didn't really recover until he returned, piloting the Freedom, a gift to him from another Coordinator who wanted the killing to stop, yet who knew he would be taking it back to save an Earth Forces ship."
Amber eyes turned gently to meet the still angry golden brown ones of Jamie Grayhawk. "I spent a couple weeks on the Archangel right after Second Jachin Due. It was a Three Ship mobile suit that found the four of us floating out there, just about out of power, almost dead. They took a chance and brought us aboard. They saved us if you want the flat truth. Yes, Yuri lost the eye but from what all the medics have said it was beyond saving almost from the instant the splinter hit it. None of us could blame anyone on the Archangel for that."
Adrian sighed, "I learned a lot about myself in those weeks. Even more than I learned about Naturals. Not all of it was pleasant to discover either. But I've promised myself to never disappoint the ghost of the man who first taught me to look past genetics with everyone, not just the woman I fell in love with. So, now I can't hate a group any longer. Individuals, yes I most definitely can hate individuals. But not a blanket whole that makes no distinctions, no, not that ever again."
"Must have been someone remarkable to affect you like that." The Spider asked indirectly.
"There was only one Mu La Flaga." Adrian agreed quietly answering her.
"Ah, ha." The General replied, enlightened. "So you met the Hawk of Endymion. Yes, I see what you mean now. I've had the advantage of meeting La Flaga once myself. If you didn't pay attention, you could miss the real man. But once you saw past that warped sense of humor and irreverence for the gods of command, you did meet one of the real rare ones there."
"But I thought the Hawk of Endie-mon was our hero!" Six year old Roy yelled in confusion.
"He was." Adrian agreed wearily. "But someone like that, really, is a hero for all peoples. You won't find many in the ZAFT who didn't respect him and most who say they don't are lying. He was one of those very rare men who transcended the issue of 'sides' in the war and who stood for the best in all of us, Earth Alliance or ZAFT. I think he'd probably smack me silly for saying this, but knowing him even for the single day I did was a genuine privilege."
"The late Lt. Commander La Flaga isn't the subject of this discussion." John Grayhawk snapped angrily. "Nor does he have a da . . . . ., one single thing to do with it!"
"Incorrect." Yuri walked quietly forward and took one of the empty chairs so clearly set aside for the four of them. "Mu's influence on this entire business is very indirect and very real. It isn't easy to describe either. How do you weight a couple of conversations that lasted less than an hour total? And the subject of those wasn't love or marriage or even just being friends. They were about aspects of the war. Yet what we discussed has found its way into a lot of things I do every day. Because they were essentially about dealing with people, friends and enemies alike. And I'm here right now because I listened to that man, paid attention to what he was saying between the lines even more than what he said directly."
He sighed. "Mu La Flaga wanted to see both sides step back from their blind hates and really look at each other. He had a striking talent for making you look into yourself, and for enabling you to face what you found there. Kira was lucky beyond belief to have had him for a teacher and partner on the battlefield. If you were to pin him down, he'd probably tell you he learned more about living than he ever did about fighting from Mu. And so did we. Because he was generous enough to share that with his enemies. So now I, and I know Adrian does as well, think of Mu La Flaga as a friend I never had a chance to know well enough."
He cocked his head at first Jamie, then John. "If we can learn so much from one Natural, why are you afraid to learn less than that from three Coordinators?"
"It isn't fear, Yuri, its loyalty." Kayla said gently. "He and Paul did everything together. Paul led and Jamie happily followed when they were kids. It got more equal as they got older. But the fact is, he was tighter with Paul than with his own twin. And Paul died on the moon, cut down by some pilot in a GINN. The relationship between John, Larry and Mitch was similar. And Mitch died at Luna One, again lost to a ZAFT GINN."
She shrugged unhappily. "Steve and Sandy figure into this too, even though they weren't combat personnel. It's a question of how you think of them. To Jamie and John, this is a betrayal of their loss. I see this as a validation of them; that they didn't die in vain, that there will be a peace, the one that they paid so highly for. In the end, its all about how you see things."
"Kayla, let me ask you something." Jamie didn't look at her really, his eyes might be pointed her way but what they saw wasn't even on the planet. "Do you honestly think this will last, this peace you're prattling about?"
She shrugged helplessly. "I don't know Jamie. I know a lot of people of very good will are going to try to make it stick. And, yeah, I know there are a lot of hateful bastards out there who are gonna be trying to pull it apart before it can get established too. But you have to go on living either way until it all shakes out. There are decisions you can't put off a few years while you wait for history to make up it's mind which way its gonna jump. I'm pregnant. The kids will be here in April. I have to decide if I'm gonna marry their father now if I want them to be legally legitimate in both our societies. I can't wait for the politicians or the verdict of time. Since I love and want the man, I've decided to go with him. If I've bet wrong on the peace, I'm gonna get hurt sometime in the future. I know that. But the future never gets here you know. There is only the 'now' that you live in. And you can only make your decisions based on the data you have on hand."
"I see. How about you, Ito. What do you think about this 'peace'?"
Adrian met Jamie's eyes, which were now focused on his. "If I could fully trust it, I'd be going back to school to complete my degree in mechanical engineering. Since I can't, I'll be staying in this uniform. I can only pray I'm making the wrong choice."
He shrugged. "But I can tell you marrying a Natural will not sit well with my senior commanders. So, I am also choosing to put some very real limits on my career in the ZAFT anyway. She is more important to me than some hazy delusion of future rank will ever be."
"We're betting on the peace too, son." Howard suddenly spoke up slowly. "By taking these boys in for these last two weeks, we've made some permanent enemies among the state politicians ourselves. By not forcing Kayla to have an abortion, we've made more with the Blue Cosmos. And you know, I honestly don't give one rat's ass about that any more. They're bad people and I don't want to be their friend. So in a way, I've already committed this family to the hopes the peace process is raising. And I can't find it in me to regret it."
He leaned forward wearily. "I was fifteen years in the service myself. You lose people. It goes with the job. You cry, you go to funerals, and you pick up the pieces of your life and soldier on. It's about time you and John and Richard began to gather your pieces and looked to the future. You've held on to this too long and too hard. Keep it up and you'll be no better than Lawrence is. And while I will always mourn the dead, I'll cry harder for the waste of the living. My fifth son has thrown himself away. Don't make me cry for my second one."
The handsome raven and silver haired man turned grimly to the former enemy who his daughter had chosen. "And while we're at this Ito, understand that if you ever hurt her, I'll hunt you down and butcher you like a rabid dog. I'm not sure I like you. I can respect you for what you were willing to do for Kayla and for having the cold nerve to come here for her in the first place but I still haven't decided if I like you or not. You could tip that the wrong way real easy here. Don't ever forget that."
"I won't sir." Adrian replied solemnly. "I am hoping to have the chance to return from time to time, bringing Kayla and the children with me. I want them to know this place, this world, and their Natural relatives. Peoples who know each other as friends and relatives don't fight so often as those who don't."
"That's true." First Kay suddenly spoke up. "But never forget that the most savage fights in all history are those inside families. When the 'family' encompasses a nation, you get something impossibly bitter and the residue poisons lives for generations. I'm all for getting to know each other. It kills the fear of the unknown when you do. But don't let yourself believe it'll solve all the universe's problems boy."
"No Ma'am." Voril abruptly stepped forward. "Knowing each other is the only path to lasting peace. We have to. Because this genie is out of its bottle and you will never stuff it back in. Even if Blue Cosmos managed to destroy the Plants and most Earth Coordinators, they wouldn't be rid of us. The techniques that make us are routinely used all over the globe to correct medical problems. And when a technique exists that will allow someone to gain an advantage, real or just perceived, it will be used to do so. We exist because someone decided he want to see if he could do it. We expanded because there was a demonstrable benefit to the individual to be what we are. And there was a vast economic gain available to those who could control our work. So we will continue to be made, legally or not. Because there is already too much evidence that there is gain of many kinds to be had by doing so."
Joule turned to Jamie. "We have fought and too many died. We may again. But unless we make the effort to get to know and to accept each other, 'may' is doomed to become 'will'. I took my student's GINN out with everyone else in my class to defend the Plants at Second Jachin Due. I was lucky, the battle stayed well away from me. Others weren't as lucky. They fought and a lot of them died on those two days. I'm an Elite. I'm one of the best ZAFT can field. But if I never have to fire a shot for real to defend my home, parents, and baby sister, I'll be just as happy. Because I was there, on the edge of that battlefield. I know what the authentic thing is. And I'd rather not participate if we can come to any other means of a just settlement for us both."
The boy sighed. "Can you at least consider this? Can you at least recognize that many of us don't want to fight you if we don't have to? This family of yours has been very generous to us. I get a bit sick thinking about the idea that I might have to face any of you in a real war. You're good people. I don't want to fight you."
"I can second that." Doug agreed quietly. "I rather like you guys too. Going against you in a mobile suit wouldn't be any kind of fun at all."
Voril grinned at him. "Thanks."
Doug grinned back. "No problem. Besides, if we get along I may be able to talk you into coming back for the spring shearing. Wanna take charge of the chutes again?"
"No!" Yuri yelled. "I'm never coming within horn range of one of those monsters you call rams again!"
"Sure!" Voril laughed. "You willing to be my partner since the fearless adjutant to the Thoms Team is chickening out?"
"Well, me and half my squadron maybe. Has Pop told you the pair of you replaced an eight man team all by yourselves? I'll need at least three buddies to keep up with you!"
"Nope, I hadn't." Howard replied for himself. "Didn't want them to have their heads swell so bad the hats wouldn't fit."
Adrian snickered. Kayla laughed. Alys and Todd joined her. Even Richard cracked a smile as just about everyone else joined in the amusement. The conversation became much more general after that. Nothing had been officially solved but it was obvious to everyone there that the opposition to the marriage was effectively gone. Jamie was the lone holdout and he was losing the war as his wife pulled him aside to talk it over.
Maria Spotted Horse was very pleased with the outcome. The ZAFT boys had stood up for themselves and their people without starting any fights. Her grandchildren, having gotten to know some real, Plant raised Coordinators, weren't so inclined to hold onto the grudges grief had raised any more. She had no delusions that this would mean the end of all conflicts over the issue, she was far too old to believe in that fairytale. But it did mean the future battles would be over future issues. The past was finally being allowed to be the past.
Eventually, she joined her daughter, First Kay, and the rest of the household's women in the kitchen to cobble together something to feed the crew. The meal was going to be very informal and would be mostly finger foods. Neither she nor First Kay wanted to break up the conversations going on right now with a sit down dinner.
They got the sideboard loaded with sliced meat, breads, cheeses, the last of the leftover brats, a couple of quickie salads and the disposable plates and silverware. Within minutes, there were small knots of people scattered around the room with food perched precariously on their knees as they continued to talk. She'd just filled her own plate when the phone rang. Maria gave it an evil stare but First Kay just put her dish down and went to get it.
She was about to join the cluster based around young Joule when she noticed First Kay's growing tension. Her eyes narrowed. Now what? She moved back to the sideboard to leave her plate beside her sister-in-law's and went over to listen in.
"Oh I understand you all right Kirby." First Kay said as Maria joined her. "But we still have a problem."
She listened a few moments, then asked. "So how long do you think it'll be before any of them can actually speak to a lawyer?"
She jerked back and stared at the phone, plainly shocked by the answer before jamming it back against her ear. "What do you mean they already have? Do you know just how much danger that puts us in?"
Maria seriously wanted to be listening in on this. She understood the main situation from no more than the little she'd heard so far but the details were going to matter here and she wasn't getting any of them. She made a grabbing motion at the phone only to have First Kay put a hand out and stop her.
"So what your saying is they weren't coherent enough for the lawyer to get the real story yet right?"
She nodded as she listened, driving Maria to the edge of frenzy. "Fine, then. You keep them quiet for another forty-eight hours and we'll see to it that the problem leaves town."
The answer must have been fairly complex because First Kay just listened and nodded for a good three minutes. Maria was about ready to throttle her and just steal the phone. Instead, the elder Kayla gave a very brief, bright smile and one last nod.
"Well sure I'll take three days if you can manage it! Yes, both of us will come. Full blessing for the baby, no charge. Thank you Kirby!" First Kay hung up, turning grim eyes to her Medicine partner.
"We have a problem."
