I meant to update this earlier. But got lazy when classes started. Organic chemistry, why do you mock me?

"Hey Lacus... Has Athrun been dating recently?"

Her friend lifted her face from the book she was reading curiously, seemingly surprised by the question, and an innocent smile rose to her face. "And why the sudden question?"

Cagalli blushed, realizing how easily her question could be misinterpreted. "I'm not sure, but it's something I've been wondering about ever since that double date he and I went on..." She trailed off.

That was nearly two weeks ago. She had seen Jordan a few times since then, each time growing more and more fond of him. Consequently, she was seeing less of Athrun, and it felt strange. She wanted to think that they were friends by now, at the very least and that their relationship was something more close than just a client and professional, but with the lack of recent contact, it was hard not to wonder.

"Hmm, well it would depend on what you would define as recently I suppose." Lacus responded thoughtfully, a finger to her chin. "Of the past few years, no serious relationship that I know of."

"Maybe he dated casually and just didn't tell you? A few dates isn't necessarily something big... But he's not the type for a one nighters right?" Cagalli wondered aloud.

"Athrun? Oh certainly not... He's the type that would much rather take a good book than a pretty girl to bed." Her friend responded, shaking her head for emphasis.

"I figured that much, but that doesn't stop pretty girls from throwing themselves at him, does it?"

Lacus smiled at the slightly bitter tone laced in those words. Indeed, anyone who had spend a few days with Athrun would eventually notice the stares he got from young women, and frequency of being approached. "No... No I suppose it doesn't stop them. In fact if you believe in reverse psychology, it might even make him seem more attractive."

"What? That he's not interested?" Cagalli frowned, a bit surprised at her own defensive tone. "In any case, I was just wondering. During the date, he seemed to get along well with the girl. So it got me wondering as to why he wasn't dating himself."

"He's simply been busy I think. He's very dedicated, both to his business, and would be to whomever wins his heart. At this point I think he realizes that he couldn't be the perfect boyfriend to someone that he would want to be, so he just isn't trying." The pink haired lady responded, taking as much as she knew about him into account. "But this girl on the double date. She was nice?"

"Ah, yes... Very pleasant. They talked about books a lot... I think." Cagalli responded, still digesting Lacus' last words. "Why does he want to be perfect? It's not like anyone expects that from someone."

Clear blue eyes twinkled with a smile. "That's his own little theory... He'll probably tell you about it someday. Besides, it's always nice, isn't it? Now did Athrun like this girl? Did it seem like it?"

"Ah... He seemed to enjoy her company, but at the same time was perhaps a bit... withdrawn?" The blond responded, trying to bring back the memory. The image of Athrun laughing in the company of Annabelle seemed to bring a twinge in her chest.

"What's her name again?" Lacus inquired curiously, seemingly growing more suspicious by the second.

"Eh? I thought you knew already. Annabelle."

Lacus seemed to go into shock for a moment, and blinked twice before responding. "Annabelle?..."

"Yeah. Annabelle... Shoulder length, dark, auburn hair. Grey eyes." Cagalli examined her friend's face.

"Oh. Oh I see..." An expression of slight relief. "Annabelle. That's a nice name. Sorry, you probably mentioned it briefly, and I just didn't catch it. If I'd heard it I would have remembered it. It's... similar..."

"What was that look, just now?" Amber eyes narrowed inquisitively.

"What look?" Pure Denial.

"THAT look. The shocked one."

"Oh. That... That was just... Well her name might have been why Athrun felt withdrawn. It's nothing serious. Really." Lacus assured her, unfortunately not very effectively. "It's another one of those things, that Athrun will probably end up telling you about. It's, also one of those things that I feel like only he has a right to tell you about." She smiled apologetically.

Cagalli frowned a bit. She thought she knew him pretty well already...Doubt and the slightest hint of disappointment swelled up in her. Come to think of it most of the time they talked, it was about her life.

So how much did she really know about him?

Athrun has never felt so ambivalent about success in his entire life. All things considered, it looked like Cagalli and Jordan would work out. At the same time, he wasn't ready to simply call this case closed.

Firstly, it was all too easy. For many people, it took months before they found someone perfect for them. In the case of Cagalli and Jordan, he could only think that it seemed easy, because both people were the type that were easy to get along with. But this didn't mean that they were perfect for each other. Simply that they happened to get along well.

Secondly, Cagalli was easy to get along with, but in his eyes, fairly complex. She was in no way the simple girl that many might assume her to be at first glance. So the idea of finding someone perfect of her so easily was again, hard to believe.

Recently, Jordan's agent had notified him that Jordan would be out of town for a while, perhaps a few weeks, due to his mother falling ill. This would mean that there were two options. Cagalli would not date for the month, and her relationship with Jordan would be considered steady, or she could continue to date others during the time.

In his professional opinion, it might be better for Cagalli to keep dating a bit and make sure she really knew what was out there, before settling on a decision. But of course, it was all really up to Cagalli.

Who... He had not seen in quite a while.

Which irked him slightly. Certainly, she didn't have an obligation to go see him if she felt things were fine. And he certainly shouldn't go hunting for her if things were fine. But at the same time, doesn't he have kind of a right to know how it's going? No... it wasn't really a right. It was more of a duty to check in, right? Especially since this was Lacus' friend.

Feeling bad about the lack of communication, he pulled out his cell phone and ran through the address book.

"I don't NEED to talk to her... I just would feel better if I did." he told himself stubbornly, hitting the dial button. Moments later, a familiar voice answered.

"Athrun?"

Slight relief.

"Hey. How's it going?"

"Hey Lacus?" Kira started.

"Hm?..." She looked up from the book that she was reading to gaze at the thoughtful expression of her boyfriend, who has stopped typing on his laptop for a moment, and was gazing in no particular direction pensively.

"How long have we been together now?"

She studied Kira for a moment. "I'm not sure I understand where this conversation is heading." Lacus smiled teasingly.

"Ah! Oh no, it's nothing negative, I swear!" He sat up and shut his laptop, then turned to face her on the sofa. Currently, they were in his townhouse, spending time together. He was working on something and she was reading. Quiet time. "I was just thinking, maybe it's time for us to move forward. It's not like I don't like where we are now, but if we could see more of each other... I'd really like that." Kira smiled sheepishly, a blush starting to faintly appear on his cheeks.

"Are you suggesting that we live together?" His ever-patient girlfriend clarified.

He nodded in response. "If you don't feel comfortable with that yet, I completely understand. No rush... Really."

"It's fine with me." Lacus nodded. "So then..."

"I was thinking that you could move into my place." Kira answered, before she even asked her question. Waving his hand around a bit, he noted the plentiful extra space. "I live in a townhouse, so there'd be more room. Also, I think I have more stuff, so it'd be a lot more of a hassle to move it all."

"That's fine by me. My current apartment lease ends in a month, so I'll move in then. And I don't think Cagalli and Athrun would mind helping with the move." She shifted towards him and leaned into his shoulder contentedly. "That'd be nice."

Kira smiled and brought his arms around her in a loose embrace. "Hearing that coming from you, couldn't possibly make me happier."

Cagalli found herself sitting in the somewhat nostalgic office again, staring at random profiles. Athrun had explained to her, that since she hadn't been dating for very long, while Jordan was gone, it might be a good idea to continue dating others. Hence, she was once more in his office, looking at more eligible men.

She didn't mind, in fact she thought it sounded very reasonable. At the same time, she was afraid that this might hurt Jordan. But he had more dating experience anyways, so it wasn't really unfair.

More importantly at the moment, was the fact that she was finally seeing Athrun again for the first time in two weeks and he had little to nilch to say to her. It all seemed too mechanical. He handed over a folder with some profiles, and they started going over them. There wasn't that old sense of fun.

She felt somewhat pressed to start up a conversation. But the only thing that she could think of was something that didn't seem right. She desperately wanted to grill him about the things Lacus had mentioned, but couldn't figure out an innocent way to present the topic...

Finally, after almost half an hour of silence, she resolved herself to just go for it.

"So Athrun, how are things with Annabelle?"

Athrun looked up, as if in startled for a moment. "Annabelle?"

"Yeah, Annabelle. Jordan's ex. Your half of that double date." Cagalli tried to remind him. Something told her that he had just had a similar reaction as Lacus to the name.

"Oh. Didn't I tell you?"

"Obviously not?..."

"Heh, she was just there for moral support too. She's not looking for a relationship at all." Athrun shrugged nonchalantly.

Caglli's jaw almost dropped. She didn't know that. Jordan never told her either. At the same time, there was slight relief. This meant Annabelle wouldn't be with Athrun...

And... that was weird because... Well, because she was Jordan's ex of course! It was just too coincidental. Besides, after realizing there was much more to Athrun than she had thought, more than ever Cagalli wanted to probe him for answers.

Meanwhile, Athrun seemed a bit distracted. In all honesty, he had almost completely forgotten about that girl, if not for one thing. But that was simply something that happened to be, nothing important. Deciding to take a short break from the pile of papers and photos in front of him, he turned to his computer for a moment.

"Cagalli? And Athrun?" Kira repeated skeptically. He and Lacus had wandered into his kitchen for a quick snack after discussing minor details of the upcoming move.

"Absolutely! I swear they might have something for each other."

"I don't know.. they seemed just, friendly when they were talking. Except for that weird comment my sister made...

"It's not so much what they say. especially for people like them. It's.. oh I don't know how to explain it. How they look at each other, how they react to each other... how they ARE around each other. It's all there!"

"So you propose to?..."

"Matchmeddling."

Cagalli looked up worriedly for a moment. Athrun seemed a bit more distracted, and had started chuckling randomly. "Something wrong?" She inquired.

"Ah, it's nothing. Just an e-mail from my ex."

"Eh?" Cagalli wandered over to his side of the office, peeking at what he was looking at. They had never talked about his past love life before. "Ex-girlfriend? From a long time ago?"

"Yeah. Want to see?" Athrun asked, shifting over a bit so she could see the picture he had brought up. "We dated in college... So a few years ago."

"It didn't work out?" Cagalli asked, still leaning over his shoulder to study the picture of the girl. She seemed happy and carefree, with relatively long dark black hair. Her arms were wrapped around an equally happy young man, probably the same age as Athrun or herself. Though both were looking at the camera, it was also apparent that they were completely caught up in being with each other. Her eyes, curiously enough, were deep purple, flecked with... grey?

"Well, this picture was attached to an e-mail announcing her engagement to this guy so... yeah. It didn't work out." Another chuckle. Cagalli had the feeling it might have been a bit forced, but she held her tongue.

"She looks very nice, and they look happy." She finally said, after a minute of looking at the picture. She wished she could ask him more, but she didn't want to pry.

Athrun nodded. "We're still friends I guess. We keep in touch. And I'm over it, completely. It's not her that... gives me a hesitant sort of feeling. It's what she represents to me." He explained as best he could. Cagalli tilted her head to the left a bit, a sign for him to continue.

"Back then... Well as silly as this is going to sound, I almost thought that she was perfect for me. And the idea was that, back then I thought if you loved someone enough, they would definitely love you too. Unfortunately, she just didn't love me like I loved her."

He heard an audible sigh from the blond woman beside him, who had already turned away from the screen.

"Look. Unless you're some sort of masochist, the perfect person for you is never going to be someone that doesn't love you back. And even if they partially love you, or love you as a friend like this girl does, if they aren't completely in love with you regardless of whatever little quirks you may have, they still aren't the perfect person for you. Loving you back is part of the package."

"Doesn't that make it incredibly difficult to find someone then?" Athrun smiled a bit, surprised to see this idealist side of her emerge, holding his tongue about his theories until she was finished.

"I know. It does. With this criteria, the standards are high. And you may never find a person that's perfect for you. Heck, that person might not even exist. But right now I'm trying to get as close as I can to 'perfect', and there's nothing wrong with that. If I can find someone that loves all of me, except for just a few silly things, then I'll be happy with that much already. They won't be perfect, but neither am I, so it's not like I deserve perfect anyways."

Cagalli felt a somewhat surprised by her own audacity. Never did she think she would tell anyone her own reasons for not dating, or getting into a relationship. She wasn't even all that clear about them herself... She always thought that people would just say she was too picky, chasing after something perfect. At the same time, she was a realist and knew that there was no such thing. And so she decided, instead of chasing perfect, she'd chase 'close to perfect'.

Athrun was taken aback for a moment, then pondered her words. Even though he knew that she would say something along those lines, he still hadn't expected that. If was as if she wanted to be idealistic, but her rational mind was stopping her. She wanted everything to be perfect, but knew that was impossible and stopped herself.

"I partially agree." He smiled. "There's nothing wrong with trying to get close to perfect. But say I find two people perfect for each other. Like you, they might not think that they deserve it. They'll think that in on order to compensate for their own flaws, they should find someone else that's also flawed.

"I just can't let them settle for less. If both sides settle for an imperfection, then they just see that for the rest of their lives. For me, an ideal couple doesn't need ideal people to make it. Even if two people don't see themselves as perfect, they'll still see each other as perfect. So in that way, the relationship, the two of them together, is still perfect."

"Me, I want to be the best person possible to the person I love. Because then if it still doesn't work it, I know it was never meant to be. If I'm going to love, I want to love completely. I feel like it's the least I can do for that person anyways."

Silence absorbed them for a moment. Both had just confessed their entire outlook on love. Cagalli was left with a lot more to consider, and both felt pretty awkward.

"Ah... sorry I pried into your past like that." She stammered, desperate to break the strange silence.

"No problem. Like I said, I'm just friends with her now. After I realized that she wasn't perfect for me, our relationship kind of fell apart anyways. We were together for a good year or so, then she told me that her romantic feelings for me were gone. It was hard, but we broke up and she found someone else. No big deal... I don't have any deep scars from it. It was an experience."

Cagalli nodded. Clearly his words were meant to make her feel better about knowing so much, but she still felt like she had invaded his privacy. When Lacus said she'd eventually find out, she had been wondering when. She certainly didn't expect it to be so soon. Two heavy topics in one half hour was pretty hard to swallow. more than anything she felt like going somewhere, lying down, and thinking.

She took a final glance at the picture, when something caught her eye. The file name was... Then this girl's name was...

Athrun seemed to catch her gaze, and took a glance at the picture before smiling a bit again. "Yeah... Her name's Arabella."

Cagalli seemed stunned, like how Lacus looked when she first heard Annabelle's name. The similarity was a bit eerie... "Ah, well I have to go now. Looks like we didn't really get anywhere this time, but I'll just leave it up to you. Give me a call when you find someone..."

Athrun nodded. "Sure will. Don't worry about it."

She was already out of her chair and almost across the room when she stopped and turned around with a smile. "it was nice to see you again Athrun. Really." She smiled. "It had been a while... It felt sort of weird not coming here regularly."

The azure haired professional blinked, a bit taken aback, for the umpteenth time today. He broke into a grin and leaned forward on his desk, resting his head on his hand. "Yeah, it was weird for me, not seeing you in such a long time too. I've kind of, grown accustomed to your presence."

Cagalli rolled her eyes. "Same to you, only not so many fancy words. Later Athrun."

And with that, she was out.

Athrun returned to profile browsing, growing genuinely annoyed now. It was never as bad when Cagalli was around. She was a great break form the monotony. But the issue that was bugging him was that after hours of searching on his own, and then another half hour just now with Cagalli, he couldn't seem to find a single person that he thought was worth Cagalli's time.

He was just about to throw out the current profile that he was looking at, when suddenly he froze and looked at it more closely.

Wait a minute...

This was Jordan's profile.

Suddenly, he wanted to hit himself on the head. Of course Jordan was okay for Cagalli, they were fine now. So firstly, why did he pull out Jordan's profile in the first place, and secondly, why did he almost reject it?

Well, Jordan was nice but perhaps too easy-going. He didn't want Cagalli to be with someone that would just let her do whatever she wanted. She could get hurt that way. At the same time, Cagalli certainly had a serious side to her, and perhaps Jordan was too carefree to really understand that.

Yet Cagalli still thought the world of him. This person, who could probably never fully appreciate her.

Suddenly, he wanted nothing more than to be able to set up Cagalli with a lot of random people, just so she could see the kind of scum that was really out there. So she could really realize that she was a diamond in a field of coal.

What, hypothetically speaking, would be so wrong with that?... He was the matchmaker.

Perhaps a little matchmeddling might be just the thing needed.

So then, Athrun's perhaps up to a bit mischief. Kira and Lacus too?

Ahh so I admit, at first the two girls had exactly the same name: Annabelle. But then I thought that would be a little too much, so I changed the name of his ex to Arabella. This name is from Thomas Hardy's "Jude the Obscure", ironically the name of the main character's ex as well. In any case, I wanted their names to be similar to at least bring back some memories for Athrun, but perhaps identical names is a tad too much.

Thank you to my reviewers,

Air B., ooo, abc, Kathya, Life Is Death, Tetsuni, XxbuffyxX, saPphiRe.'.m0i, cleis, Kitty-Kat90013820, Living Arrow, animemistress419, The Angels' Princess, Kintora, Kkornelia, Garowyn, jackie-88-ac, stuntsheep, ANONYMOUS-gsd, Swt. Harmony, -boos-, Princess Ashes, PINKSISA, The Jackle, 3fi-pina3, frostedteardrops, seiha, gseedlover, Shadow-Naka, ovp, Kazumi Kairi or Kairi-chan, Vigorian-Asakura, Rayar, asucags, Cari-Akira, JhoanneEricka, hotaru no hikari, thousandbirds, ChildO'God, meowmeowtheblackcat

I shall update! I don't know when, or how, but I WILL.